Encounters on the Opposite Coast European Expansion and Indigenous Response

Home , Joan Maetsuycker, Palakollu, Rijckloff van Goens, Thomas van Rhee, Umaru Pulavar

Editor-in-Chief

George Bryan Souza (University of Texas, San Antonio)

Editorial Board

Catia Antunes (Leiden University) Joao Paulo Oliveira e Costa (Cham, Universidade Nova de Lisboa) Frank Dutra (University of California, Santa Barbara) Kris Lane (Tulane University) Pedro Machado (Indiana University, Bloomington) Malyn Newitt (King’s College, London) Michael Pearson (University of New South Wales)

VOLUME 17

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/euro Encounters on the Opposite Coast

The Dutch East India Company and the Nayaka State of Madurai in the Seventeenth Century

Markus P.M. Vink

LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Skirmishes between the Dutch and Nayaka troops at Tiruchendur during the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649. Mural painting by Sri Ganesan Kalaikkoodam. Photo provided by Patrick Harrigan. Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam, Tiruchendur.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Vink, Markus P. M. Encounters on the opposite coast : the Dutch East India Company and the Nayaka State of Madurai in the seventeenth century / by Markus P.M. Vink. pages cm. -- (European expansion and indigenous response, ISSN 1873-8974 ; volume 17) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-27263-7 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-27262-0 (e-book) 1. Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Compagnie--History--17th century. 2. Netherlands--Commerce--India--Madurai (District)-- History--17th century. 3. Madurai (India : District)--Commerce--Netherlands--History--17th century. 4. Netherlands--Relations--India--Madurai (District) 5. Madurai (India : District)--Relations--Netherlands. 6. Acculturation--India--Madurai (District)--History--17th century. 7. Culture conflict--India--Madurai (District)--History--17th century. 8. Madurai (India : District)--History--17th century. I. Title. HF483.E6V615 2015 954’.82--dc23 2015021699

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1873-8974 isbn 978-90-04-27263-7 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-27262-0 (e-book)

Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

To my Mother, Amanda, and Adriana

∵

…

‘As in all matters concerning worldly affairs, here also the proverb holds good, Quod capita tot sensus, “many heads, many minds”…’. Memoir left by Governor Gustaaf Willem Baron van Imhoff of Ceylon to his successor Willem Maurits Bruynink, 1740

∵

Contents

General Editor’s Foreword ix Preface xii List of Plates, Maps and Tables xiii Acknowledgements xvi Maps xix Abbreviations xxix

Introduction 1

1 Images and Ideologies 26

2 Treasure for Textiles: The Import Trade 148

3 Treasure for Textiles: The Export Trade 211

Figures following 301

4 First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 314

5 From Sideshow to Main Theatre of War, 1658–1669 356

6 The Bitter Fruits of War, 1670–1679 411

7 Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 502

Personalia 631 Currency, Weights, and Measures 633 Glossary 635 Bibliography 652 Index 707

General Editor’s Foreword

Over the past half millennium, from ca. 1450 until the last third or so of the twentieth century, much of the world’s history has been influenced in great part by one general dynamic and complex historical process known as European expansion. Defined as the opening up, unfolding, or increasing the extent, number, volumes or scope of the space, size, or participants belonging to a defined people or group, location or geographical region, Europe’s expansion initially emerged and emanated physically, intellectually, and politically in general in southern Europe and specifically on the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth century and developed rapidly to include all of Europe’s maritime and, subsequently, most of its continental states and peoples. Most commonly associated with events described as the discovery of America and of a passage to the East Indies (Asia) by rounding the Cape of Good Hope (Africa), during the early modern and modern periods, European expansion and encounters with the rest of the world multiplied and morphed into several ancillary historical processes including colonization, imperialism, capitalism, and globalization and dealt with themes, amongst others, that relate to contacts,… “connections and exchanges of peoples, ideas and products, especially through the medium of trading companies; the exchange of religions and traditions; the transfer of technologies; and the development of new forms of political, social and economic policy, as well as identity formation.” (from the series’ original objectives and mission statement) In consequence of its intrinsic importance, extensive research has been performed and much has been written about this field and the diverse topics that embody this subject over this entire period. With the first volume published in 2009, Brill launched the European Expansion and Indigenous Response book series at the initiative of a well- known scholar and respected historian, Glenn J. Ames, who prior to his untimely passing was the founding editor and guided the first seven volumes of the series to publication. George Bryan Souza, who was one of the early members of the series’ editorial board, was appointed the series’ second General Editor. The series’ founding objectives were and are to focus on publications “that understand and deal with the process of European expansion, interchange and connectivity in a global context in the early modern and modern period” and to “provide a forum for a variety of types of scholarly work with a wider disciplinary approach that moves beyond the traditional isolated and nation bound historiographical emphases of this field, encouraging whenever possible non-European perspectives”…“that seek to understand this indigenous

x General Editor’s Foreword transformative process and period in autonomous as well as inter-related cultural, economic, social, and ideological terms.” (from the series’ original objectives and mission statement) The history of European expansion is a field that is challenging and interest in it, which is high, is likely to continue, if not grow, in spite or perhaps, because of it being so polemical. The heightened dispute about the field has centered primarily on tropes conceived and written in the past by Europeans, primarily, concerning their early reflections, claims, and contestation about the tran- scendental historical nature of this process and its emergence and importance in the creation of an early modern global economy and society. One of the most persistent complaints about the field is that it is “Eurocentric”, which is a complaint about the perennial difficulty in introducing and balancing different historical perspectives, when one of the actors to some degree is neither European nor Europeanized—a conundrum that is alluded to in an African proverb, which states: “Until the lion tells his tale the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Another and, perhaps, an even more important and growing historiographical issue is that with the re-emergence of historical millennial societies (China and India, for example) and the emergence of other non-Western European societies successfully competing competitively politically, economically and intellectually on the global scene vis-à-vis Europe, the seminal nature of European expansion is being subjected to greater scrutiny, debate, and comparison with other historical alternatives. Despite and, perhaps, because of these new directions and stimulating sources of existing and emerging debating points or lines of dispute about the field of history of European expansion, Souza and the editorial board of the series will continue with the original objectives and mission statement of the series and vigorously “…seek out studies that employ diverse forms of analysis from all scholarly disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, history (including the history of science), linguistics, literature, music, philosophy, and religious studies.” In addition, we shall seek to stimulate, locate, incorporate, and publish the most important and exciting scholarship in the field. Towards that purpose, I am pleased to introduce volume 17 of Brill’s EURO series, entitled: “Encounters on the Opposite Coast: The Dutch East India Company and the Nayaka State of Madurai in the Seventeenth Century.” Markus Vink has written a remarkable and potentially polemical book that densely and intensely examines the history of the political economic and social and cultural dynamics and the interactions between the peoples and rulers of the Madurai Nayaka and the Dutch East India Company during the

General Editor’s Foreword xi seventeenth century—the formative, initial period of Dutch-Indian encounters. The author also provides some contextual references as to how things developed later over the long eighteenth century. Benefitting and drawing upon years of research in the voluminous Dutch East India Company’s archives, he has ambitiously attempted to organize and synthesize a tremendous amount of research that most South Asian and European expansion historians will appreciate since relatively less attention has been paid to the Dutch than the Portuguese and British experiences in that region. Furthermore, Vink refresh- ingly examines in remarkable, although some may say excessive, detail the Dutch and Dutch-Madurai encounters and economies from a wide range of different actors and their perspectives. He should be commended upon acknowledging and delving into the heterogeneous nature of both South Indian and Dutch communities and their contested relationships. In the end, while the reader may not be able to sit down and read this exciting and important book from cover to cover in one or even several long reading sessions, this work is or should be a thought-provoking challenge to historians of South India and European expansion, since it juxtaposes and balances the complexity and diversity of both societies with multiple and different participants.

George Bryan Souza

Preface

Translation straddles the permeable divide between the art of free interpretation and the science of exact reproduction, representing a delicate balancing act between observing the spirit and following the letter of both published and unpublished ‘foreign’ texts and historic documents distant both linguistically and chronologically. Both language and culture are intimately related, translation being compounded by the historical development of languages. Apart from the general difficulty of transposing the meaning of texts across space and time, translation also has to deal more specifically with the issue of ‘double falsification’,1 the personal phonetic rendering of individual names, geographic terms, and other words from one language into another. When necessary, both the Tamil or Dutch rendition and the modern English equivalent are given in the text, and, in case of doubt, possible alternative spellings and interpretations suggested. For the sake of readability, run-on sentences in longer quotes have been broken up and left-out words provided in brackets when appropriate. Regarding transcription contents, if and when possible a conscious effort has been made to recreate the original Urtext by corroborating the various transcriptions in order to fill in missing sections or fragments lost in transcription (for example, the incomplete James Ford Bell Library version of Adolff Bassingh’s ‘Description’) and to recognise the heavy or light editorial hand at work, such as the tendency of François Valentijn to ‘masculinise’ the possessive pronouns in ‘his’ documents, or the propensity of the ‘lazy’ Colombo version of Nicolaes Welter’s ‘Report’ to abbreviate words. Regarding transcription format, a deliberate choice has been made aimed at imposing a sense of consistency and clarity, including the capitalisation of individual names and titles (e.g. ‘the Pillai’, ‘His Highness’), improving the legibility of tables, and so forth. English spelling of geographical locations is used, though present Indian spelling has been added the first time they appear in text: for example, Tuticorin (Thoothukudi), Trichinopoly (Trichy, Tiruchirappalli), except when the name clearly refers to the modern geographical term or administrative division.

1 R. Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Discovery of India and the East, 1680–1880 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p. 140. Schwab applied the term in his analysis of ‘De Open-Deure tot het Verborgen Heydendom’ (1651) by the Dutch Calvinist minister at Pulicat Abraham Rogerius (d. 1649), pointing to the ‘double falsification of Tamil and Flemish’ involved.

List of Plates, Maps and Tables

Plates

1 Portrait of Joan Maetsuycker (1606–1678) 301 2 Portrait of Rijckloff van Goens Senior (1619–1682) 302 3 Portrait of Joan Nieuhoff (1618–1672) 303 4 Portrait of Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede (1636–1691) 304 5 Portrait of Johann von der Behr (c. 1620–1680) 305 6 Portrait of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai (d. 1675) 305 7 ‘Bird’s-eye view of Tuticorin from the sea’, 1672 306 8 The pearl fishery off the Madurai Coast, 1676 307 9 VOC officials, pearl fishermen, and traders at Tuticorin (detail), 1676 308 10 ‘Hindu temple [Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam] at Tiruchendur’, 1805 309 11 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: skirmishes between the Dutch and Nayaka troops at Tiruchendur 309 12 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: The Dutch carry away images of Murugan 310 13 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: The Dutch throw the images in the sea 310 14 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: Vadamalaiyappa Pillai retrieves the images 311 15 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: Vadamalaiyappa Pillai has the images reconsecrated 311 16 View of the Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameswaram, 1804 312 17 View of Madurai with the Sri Minaksi-Sundaresvarar Temple and Tirumalai Nayaka Palace, c. 1783 312 18 View of the rock of Trichinopoly, 1772–1773 313

Maps

1 The Dutch Indian Ocean World in the seventeenth century xix 2 Major political centres of South India in the seventeenth century xx 3 ‘The Malabar and Coromandel Coasts’, c. 1660 xxi 4 ‘Map of the Coasts of Madurai and Inchiado [Ramnad]’, 1699 xxii 5 Political, commercial, and religious centres of Tirunelveli district xxiii 6 Trade routes of South India, 1699 xxiv

xiv List of Plates, Maps and Tables

7 Physical geography of South India xxvi 8 Distribution of soils in South India xxvii 9 Mean annual rainfall in South India xxviii

Tables

1 Inhabitants and number of vessels of some of the villages along the Ramnad and Fishery Coasts in the 1660s 163 2 Value of Dutch imports of precious metals (bullion and coins) on the Madurai Coast (in guilders) and their share in total Dutch imports, 1659/60-1690/91 179 3 Sources of Dutch gold and silver imports on the Madurai Coast, 1677/78-1680/81 and 1687/88-1689/90 (in guilders) 181 4 Quantity and value of Dutch imports of non-precious metals (copper, tin, lead, and zinc) on the Madurai Coast, 1670/71-1689/90 (in pounds and guilders) 188 5 Quantity and value of Dutch imports of fine spices (cloves, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon) on the Madurai Coast, 1670/71-1689/90 (in pounds and guilders) 192 6 Dutch sales of Ceylon arecanuts on the Madurai Coast, 1659/60-1689/90 (in pounds and guilders) 205 7 Value of Dutch exports of textiles from the Madurai Coast (in guilders) and their share in total Dutch exports, 1677/78-1689/90 215 8 Dutch exports of staple cotton piece goods from the Madurai Coast, 1670/71- 1689/90 (in pieces) 222 9 Dutch sales of staple textiles on the island of Ceylon, 1688/89 (in guilders) 226 10 Dutch revenues derived from the pearl fisheries of Tuticorin and Arippu/Mannaar, 1658–1690 (in guilders) 235 11 Religious background of the divers in the pearl fisheries of Tuticorin and Arippu/ Mannaar of 1667, 1668, 1669, and 1690 (in diving stones) 236 12 Place of origins and religious background of boats and men in the Tuticorin pearl fisheries of 1668 and 1669 (in diving stones) 238 13 Quantity and invoice value of chanks purchased by the Company on the Madurai Coast, 1667/68-1689/90 (in cours and guilders) 247 14 Quantity and value of Dutch sales of chanks from the Madurai Coast to Bengali Muslims at the port of Galle, Ceylon, 1670/71-1685/86 (in cours and guilders) 249 15 Quantity and value of Dutch purchases of food grains (rice, nel, and other food grains) on the Madurai Coast, 1658/59-1689/90 (in pounds and guilders) 259 16 Quantity and value of Dutch exports of salt from the Madurai Coast, 1669/70- 1689/90 (in pounds and guilders) 266 17 Quantity and value of rayskins exported by the Dutch from the Madurai Coast, 1674/75-1689/90 (in pieces and guilders) 270

List of Plates, Maps and Tables xv

18 Quantity and value of chaya roots received and purchased by the Dutch on the Madurai Coast, 1676/77-1693/94 (in pounds and guilders) 277 19 Quantity of livestock (cows, oxen, horses, pigs, and sheep) exported by the Dutch from the Madurai Coast, 1670/71-1689/90 283 20 Total population and slave population of various central places in the Dutch Indian Ocean World in the late seventeenth century 287 21 Number of slaves and regular and extraordinary levies exported by the Dutch from the Madurai Coast, 1670/71-1689/90 292 22 Quantity and value of Dutch exports of lime from the Madurai Coast, 1670/71- 1689/90 (in pounds and guilders) 298 23 Capital imports, value of return cargoes, and financial results of the Dutch government of Coromandel, 1640/41-1649/50 (in guilders) 320 24 Dutch imports and exports from the Madurai Coast, plus gross revenues, expenditures, and net results, 1658/59-1669/70 (in guilders) 365 25 The Jesuit presence along the Madurai Coast according to the Company Book keeper Philippus de Hase, 1663 387 26 Dutch imports and exports from the Madurai Coast, plus gross revenues, expenditures, and net results, 1669/70-1679/80 (in guilders) 418 27 Security provided by the aranmanai against the Company loan of 12,000 pardaus or rixdollars (36,000 guilders), 1676 469 28 Projected revenues of Ceylon by the Van Goenses (1672, 1674, and 1679) compared with actual figures of Batavia (1681) based on information provided by Governor Pijl of Ceylon (in guilders) 480 29 Dutch imports and exports from the Madurai Coast, plus gross revenues, expenditures, and net results, 1680/81-1690/91 (in guilders) 515 30 Number of boats, men, diving stones, and diving stone revenues in the pearl fisheries along the Madurai Coast and in the Gulf of Mannaar, 1667, 1668, 1690, 1694, and 1698 (in guilders) 560 31 The farming out of the annual revenues of the Tuticorin district by the aranmanai to the Company according to the ‘contract of alliance’, 1690 624

Acknowledgements

This book would have been unthinkable without the spark provided by two energetic and reform-minded leading Dutch East India Company officials, Jacob Mossel and Gustaaf Willem Baron van Imhoff. Jacob Mossel (1704–1761), before acting as governor general of the Dutch East Indies from 1750 to 1761, first served as governor of Coromandel, whose previous administrators a century earlier had directed the first tentative contacts with the Madurai region after 1645. In 1738, Mossel, freshly appointed as governor of Coromandel, ordered the transcription of a motley collection of miscellaneous papers related to the Dutch trade in India, one of several copies ending up in the magnificent repositories of the James Ford Bell Library in Minneapolis tucked away snugly on the fourth floor of the Wilson Library. In 1991, while a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, and working in the Bell Library, I happened to come across one of these copies, including a description of the political administration, finances, militia, justice of the Nayakas of Madurai, and the civil and domestic intercourse of its people by one Adolff Bassingh—listed as resident at Trichinopoly (Tiruchirappalli) in 1677. I had just received a friendly suggestion from one of the advisors and members of my Ph.D. exam committee, Carla Rahn Phillips, to explore a fresh topic for my dissertation. Heeding her advice and the historian’s prime directive to follow the sources, the Bassingh text started an extremely rich and gratifying journey of ever-expanding horizons and ever-mounting stacks of documents, resulting in a starred paper for my m.a. degree, a doctoral dissertation on cross-cultural interaction between representatives of the Dutch East India and the Nayaka state of Madurai in the seventeenth century, numerous articles on various aspects of the Dutch Indian Ocean World, an invitation to contribute a volume in the series ‘Dutch Sources on South Asia, c. 1600–1825’ published by Manohar as Mission to Madurai: Dutch Embassies to the Nayaka Court of Madurai in the Seventeenth Century (2012), and the current monograph in the series ‘European Expansion and Indigenous Response’ (EURO). To redeem my personal debt of honour, the book itself and each individual chapter opens with an appropriate quote from Mossel’s predecessor as governor general of the Dutch East Indies, Gustaaf Willem Baron Van Imhoff (1705–1750). Prior to ascending to the highest Company office in Asia in 1743, Van Imhoff served as governor of Ceylon, whose heads, taking over charge from their Coromandel counterparts, administered among others the Company settlements along the ‘Opposite Coast’ of southeast India littoral after 1658. In addition, I would like to thank Brill Academic Publishers for providing me with this opportunity to produce a volume in the ‘European Expansion and

Acknowledgements xvii

Indigenous Response (EURO)’ series and especially the Series Editor George Souza, Assistant Editor Rosanna Woensdregt, and Editorial Assistant Jennifer Obdam, along with the anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful editorial comments and their meticulous preparation of the manuscript. All remaining mistakes are of course solely my responsibility. I am grateful to the State University of New York at Fredonia for its continuous support over all these years and my colleagues at the Department of History, most notably Thomas Morrissey and John Arnold, for their useful suggestions to earlier drafts. I am also deeply indebted to the University of Minnesota for providing generous financial assistance during my graduate days in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. I would especially thank my advisor, mentor, and magister, James D. Tracy, and the members of my graduate committee, Carla Rahn Phillips, Stuart B. Schwartz, and Joseph E. Schwartzberg. Their professional expertise and keen insights have proven invaluable throughout the years. Special thanks also to Carol Urness, the former curator of the James Ford Bell Library, staff members Brad Oftelie and Brian Frykenberg, and the current curator Marguerite Ragnow and assistant curator Margaret Borg. I will forever cherish my time spent in the library. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Donald Clay Johnson, the always upbeat and caring curator of the Ames Library of South Asia, Minneapolis. The staff of the Nationaal Archief/National Archives in The Hague deserves special mention and thanks for tirelessly and expeditiously handling the oft-weighty voc bound documents from the vaults to the reading room in the Pre-Digital Age. This book would have been impossible without the marvellous collections of these repositories and the people who work in them. Moreover, I would also express my appreciation for Karin Tiemann, Inspektorin of the Stadtarchiv Volkach, and Hermann Josef Bausch of the Stadtarchiv Dortmund, for taking the time to respond to my inquiries. A special word of thanks also for Ann Deakin from the Department of Geosciences and Interdisciplinary Studies in gis at the State University of New York at Fredonia, who spent numerous hours dexterously and magnanimously producing the maps informing and enriching this volume. The volume’s illustrations would have been impossible without the cooperation of the following individuals and institutions: Jackie Brown, Permissions Manager, and Chris Rawlings, Picture Library-Images Online, of the British Library, London; Ahnna Mahoney, Senior Digital Photographer of Digital Library Services of the University of Minnesota Libraries; Willemien van Dijk, Conser vator Department of Special Collections/hdc of the Universiteitsbibliotheek/ University Library of the Vrije University (ubvu) Amsterdam; Marina Moolhuijzen, Account Manager Image Department of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Anton Oortwijn, Library Employee, and Hoi-Lam Li, Employee Financial Administration,

xviii Acknowledgements of the Scheepvaartmuseum/The National Maritime Museum, Amsterdam; René Janssen, Service Department of the Nationaal Achief/National Archives in The Hague; Martijn van Wensveen, Employee Online Services Division, and Casper Cammeraat, Employee Photography and Digitisation, Collection Care, of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek/National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague; and: Patrick Harrigan, Editor of Kataragama Research Publications, and the Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam in Tiruchendur. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, and particularly my wonderful mother, my amazing wife Amanda, and my beautiful daughter Adriana. This book is dedicated to each and all of you.

Markus Vink Fredonia, NY May 2015

Maps

Map 1 The Dutch Indian Ocean World in the seventeenth century AKDeakin / 12.05.2014 / Source: Esri

xx maps

Map 2 Major political centres of South India in the seventeenth century AKDeakin / 22.05.2014 / Source: Esri Digital Chart of the World

Maps xxi

Map 3 ‘The Malabar and Coromandel Coasts’, c. 1660. Copper engraving after Guillaume de l’Isle and Bruzen la Martinière, 18th century Nationaal Archief/National Archives, The Hague

xxii maps

Map 4 ‘Map of the Coasts of Madurai and Inchiado [Ramnad]’, 1699 Colour drawing by the Company Engineer Jan Christiaansz. Toorzee. Nationaal Archief/National Archives, The Hague

Maps xxiii

Map 5 Political, commercial, and religious centres of Tirunelveli district AKDeakin / 28.05.2014 / Sources: Esri Digital chart of the World, Global Administrative Areas (gadam.org)

xxiv Maps Trade routes of routes South India, 1699 Trade AKDeakin / 26.06.2014 / Sources: Landkaarte der Kusten madure en Inchiado, 1699, Jan madure en Inchiado, der Kusten Landkaarte AKDeakin / 26.06.2014 Sources: of the World Chart Toorzee; USGS GMTED 2010; Esri Digital Christiaansz

Map 6

Maps xxv

Key to Map 6

1 Thuckanaickenpalaiyam 49 Pamban 99 Ottapidaram 2 Perundurai 50 Vedalai 100 Panchalankurichi 3 Kollankoil 51 Periyapatnam 101 Ettayapuram 4 Kodumudi 52 Pogalur 102 Sayamalai 5 Krishnarajapuram 53 Emaneswaram 103 Maruthankinaru 6 Kokarasan 54 Paramakudi 104 Balabadraramapuram 7 Valavanthankottai 55 Parthibanur 105 Uttumalai 8 Kandiyur 56 Manamadurai 106 Poolangulam 9 Kumbakonam 57 Tiruppuvanam 107 Sivalarkulam 10 Thiruvarur 58 Thoppur 108 Pillaiyarkulam 11 Poravacheri 59 Kudiseri 109 Kayatar 12 Puthur 60 Mouare? 110 Sivalaperi 13 Nagapatnam 61 Mallapuram 111 Mela Sekkarakudi 14 Kunniyur 62 Kambam 112 Kalamadons? 15 Mannargudi 63 Uttamapalaiyam 113 Thattaparai 16 Mandalakkottai 64 Varusanadu 114 Thiruthu 17 Manapparai 65 Koomapatti 115 Palaiyamkottai 18 Sikkamanaickenpatty? 66 Watrap 116 Uppathu 19 Apenijck? 67 Mattur 117 Pattamadai 20 Kassagondo? 68 Manthoppu 118 Chembaruthimedu 21 Veeralapatty 69 Sooranur 119 Viravanallur 22 Kannivadi 70 Pallimadam 120 Alvar Kurichi 23 Tirumayam 71 Aruppukottai 121 Kalakkad 24 Pudukkottai 72 Sattur 122 Eruvadi 25 Pattukkottai 73 Sivakasi 123 Tirukkurungudi 26 Adirampatnam 74 Sankarappanaikanpatti 124 Valliyur 27 Panja Nathikulam 75 Srivilliputtur 125 Panagudi 28 Kadan Theti 76 Madavarvalagam 126 Aramboli 29 Kollukkadu– 77 Rajapalaiyam 127 Thovala Anthionarpuram 78 Sankarankovil 128 Kovalam 30 Pudupatnam 79 Adegondun? 129 Nagercoil 31 Sambai 80 Nenmeni 130 Kadiyapatnam 32 Senthalai 81 Madalapuram 131 Colachel 33 Mumpalai 82 Appanar 132 Tengapatnam 34* Manamelkudi 83 Keerandai 133 Perumanal 34* Aydayarpatnam 84 Tiruppullani 134 Panjal 35 Kottaippatnam 85 Kilakkarai 135 Idindikarai 36 R. Pudupattinam 86 Valinokkam 136 Kuttankuli 37 Arasanagaripatnam 87 Mariyur 137 Uvari 38 Sundaranpandianpatnam 88 Mukkaiyur 138 Talai 39 Tittandadanam 89 Vembar 139 Manappad 40 Vattanam 90 Melmandai 140 Tiruchendur 41 Tondi 91 Mavilodai 141 Virapandiyapatnam 42 Mullimunai 92 Boothalapuram 142 Kayalpatnam 43 Karankadu 93 Kelakkallurani 143 Punnaikayal 44 Tiruppalaikudi 94 Nagalapuram 144 Palaiyakkayal 45 Kannankudi 95 Athangarai 145 Sivagalai 46 Devipatnam 96 Vaippar 146 Alvar Tirunagari 47 Azhagankulam 97 Pattanamaradur 147 Srivaikuntam 48 Attangarai 98 Mappilaiurani

* Both locations are so close together that, given the scale of the map, they are indistinguish- able from each other.

xxvi maps

Map 7 Physical geography of South India AKDeakin / 12.06.2014 / Sources: USGS GMTED 2010, Esri Digital Chart of the World, O.H.K. Spate and A.T.A Learmonth, 1967 India and pakistan: A General and Regional Geography London: Methuen. PP. 86-87.

Maps xxvii

Map 8 Distribution of soils in South India sources: FAO-UNESCO Digital Soil Map, K.R. Krishna. 2010. Agroecosystems of South India: Nutrient Dynamics, Ecology and Productivity. Brown Walker Press, Esri Digital Chart of the World

xxviii maps

Map 9 Mean annual rainfall in South India AKDeakin / 18.06.2014 / Sources: National Atlas of India (Calcutta 1977, plate 68), Esri Digital Chart of the World

Abbreviations adml. admiraal, admiral asst. assistent, assistant betr. betreffende, concerning boekhr. boekhouder, bookkeeper bub Batavia’s Uitgaande Brievenboek, series of letters and papers sent from Batavia to subaltern establishments, in the voc archives commr. commandeur, commander comms. commissaris, commissioner dagreg. dagregister, diary dgl. dagelijkse, daily dir. directeur, director E., Ed., Ede. Edele, Honourable f. folio, folio gecomm. gecommitteerd, commissioned genl. generaal, general gg en R Gouverneur Generaal en Raad, Governor General and Council of the Indies gouvr. gouverneur, governor hr. heer, sir, mister H. XVII Heeren XVII (Gentlemen XVII), central board of directors of the voc instr. instructie, instruction kapt., kaptn. kapitein, captain koopl. kooplieden, merchants ltnt. luitenant, lieutenant miss. missive, missive mitsgs. mitsgaders, moreover na Nationaal Archief (National Archives of the Netherlands), The Hague obp Overgekomen Brieven en Papieren, series of letters and papers received from Asia, in the voc archives onderk. onderkoopman, junior merchant opperh. opperhoofd, chief opperk. opperkoopman, senior merchant ordin. ordinaris, ordinary prest. president, president provl. provisioneel, provisional r recto, recto, front side raad-ords. raad-ordinaris, ordinary councillor

xxx Abbreviations raad-extr. raad-extraordinaris, councillor-extraordinary rapp. rapport, report resol. resolutie, resolution secrets. secretaris, secretary sergt. sergeant, sergeant stadhr. stadhouder, stadholder superint. superintendent, superintendent transl. translaat, translation v verso, verso, back side voc Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company); voc archives in the na

Introduction

The founding of a Dutch trading factory at Kayalpatnam in southeast India in 1645 initiated a period of almost a century of cross-cultural contacts between representatives of the Nayaka state of Madurai (c. 1520–1736), one of the ‘great Southern Nayakas’ and successor-states of the Vijayanagara ‘Empire’, and the Dutch East India Company (1602–1799), one of the great northern European chartered companies of the ‘age of mercantilism’. The Nayakas of Madurai were descendants of Telugu-speaking warrior chiefs, starting out as mere ‘agents’ (karttakals) of the Vijayanagara Empire in the 1520s, but gradually asserting themselves as ‘independent’ rulers in their own right. By the early seventeenth century, the militarily and economically most powerful of the three Nayakas, the state of Madurai was of far greater extent than its two northern neighbours Gingee (Senji) and Tanjore (Thanjavur), stretching from Tirunelveli into Kongunad and included much of modern-day Tiruchirappalli district as well, roughly covering the area east of the Western Ghats (Sahyadri Mountains) and south of the Coleroon (Kollidam) River. Madurai stretched for some 250 miles in north–south direction, from the Salem lowland to Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari), and over 200 miles in east–west direction in the north, narrowing to less than 60 miles in the south. In 1677, even with the recent loss of two entire provinces, Madurai reportedly still extended some 140 miles east to west and 420 miles south to north, or an area of about 58,800 square miles, more than four times the size of the land area of the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands or a little over 5 percent the size of the modern Republic of India.1 This region also encompassed the ‘little kingdom’ held by the Tevar of Ramnad (Ramanathapuram), the most powerful palaiyakkarar (holder of a palaiyam or fortified centre) and independent-minded tributary and ‘adopted son’ (kumara varkkam) of the Nayakas of Madurai. By 1650, the total population of Madurai (including Ramnad) may have been about 2–3 million, and Tirunelveli District, where most of the Dutch activities

1 See: M. Arokiaswami, The Kongu Country: Being the History of the Modern Districts of Coimbatore and Salem From the Earliest Times to the Coming of the British (Madras: Madras University Press, 1956), pp. 334–350; V.N. Rao, D. Shulman, and S. Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka Period Tamilnadu (Delhi, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 43; F. Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, 5 vols. (Dordrecht: J. van Braam, 1724–1726), V, p. 291; M.P.M. Vink, Mission to Madurai: Dutch Embassies to the Nayaka Court of Madurai in the Seventeenth Century, Dutch Sources on South Asia, c. 1600–1825 4 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2012), pp. 14, 303–304, and 352.

2 Introduction were concentrated, slightly over 400,000. In comparison, the population of India in 1650 may have amounted to 150 million (including 15 million in South India) and that of the Northern Netherlands or Dutch Republic 1.85–1.9 million (including 0.75 million in the province of Holland).2 The Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or voc after its Dutch initials) was the product of the forced merger of a number of ‘pre-companies’ in 1602 in order to reduce internal competition and create a powerful politico-commercial tool carrying the Dutch war of independence against the Spanish Habsburg state overseas. Its founding charter granted the Company the monopoly of trade from the Dutch Republic east of the Cape of Good Hope and via the Strait of Magellan. The charter also included delegated government rights, such as the right to construct forts and factories, appoint governors, recruit soldiers, administer justice, and conclude treaties and maintain relations with indigenous rulers on behalf of the States General.3

2 For the Indian estimates, see the discussion on regional demographics in the beginning of Chapter 2. For the Dutch figures: J.A. Faber, H.K. Roessingh, B.H. Slicher von Bath, A.M. van der Woude, and H.J. van Xanten, ‘Population Changes and Economic Development in the Netherlands: A Historical Survey’, A.A.G. (Afdeling Agrarische Geschiedenis) Bijdragen 12 (1965), pp. 47–133, esp. p. 110. See: J. de Vries and A. van der Woude, The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 49–50, and 52; A.M. van der Woude, ‘Demografische Ontwikkelingen van de Noordelijke Nederlanden 1500–1800’, in: D.P. Blok, W. Prevenier, D.J. Roorda, J.A. van Houtte, H.F.J.M. van den Eerenbeemt, Th. Van Tijn, and H. Balthazar (eds), Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden (Haarlem: Fibula-Van Dishoeck, 1980), V, pp. 102–168: W. Frijhoff and M. Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity, Dutch Culture in a European Perspective 1 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). pp. 156–157; A. Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. Volume II: Historical Statistics (Paris: OECD Development Centre, 2003), Table B-10, pp. 241. 3 For the founding of the Dutch East India Company: M. Witteveen, Een Onderneming van Landsbelang: De Oprichting van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in 1602 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press Salomé, 2002). The best general introduction on the history of the voc is: F.S. Gaastra, The Dutch East India Company: Expansion and Decline (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2003). See also: J.J.P. de Jong, De Waaier van Fortuin: van Handelscompagnie tot Koloniaal Imperium: De Nederlanders in Azië en de Indonesische Archipel 1595–1950 (The Hague: Sdu Uitgevers, 1998); De Vries and Van der Woude, The First Modern Economy; J. van Goor, De Nederlandse Koloniën: Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Expansie 1600–1975 (The Hague: Sdu Uitgevers, 1994); J.I. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); E. van den Boogaart and M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz (eds), Overzee: Nederlandse Koloniale Geschiedenis 1590–1975 (Haarlem: Fibula-Van Dishoeck, 1982); C.R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire (London: Hutchinson, 1965).

Introduction 3

In the 1630s the Company’s attention shifted from the spice producing areas east of Malacca (Melaka), the so-called ‘Eastern Districts’ (Oosterkwartieren), to the core region of Portuguese Asia on the west coast of India and Ceylon. While dispatching annual blockade fleets to Goa, seat of the Portuguese viceroys and council of the Indies, and fighting its way into Ceylon, the voc government of Coromandel was expanding its commercial operations to the south into the territories of the Nayakas of Gingee, Tanjore, and Madurai. The needs of the Ceylon garrisons and the Coromandel ‘push to the south’ combined led to the establishment of the first tentative contacts with Madurai and a ‘false start’ at Kayalpatnam between 1645 and 1649 (see Chapter 4). Tuticorin (Thoothukudi), following its conquest from the Portuguese in 1658, became the seat of the Dutch chief and council of the Madurai Coast falling under the authority of the governor and council of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) (see Figure 7). In the mid-1680s, the total number of Company servants on the Madurai Coast numbered around 250, including 60 European and 190 indigenous servants, out of some 3,200 European and 900 indigenous servants in the government of Ceylon as a whole.4 The greater part of the cross-cultural encounter occurred on or near the Madurai Coast, where the Dutch factories or trading settlements were located. To both the Nayaka state of Madurai and the Dutch East India Company, the Madurai lowlands constituted, by and large, an ‘outer frontier’ of relatively peripheral concern. From the perspective of the voc government of Ceylon at Colombo, the Dutch, as usual borrowing freely from pre-existing Portuguese terms and concepts, similar to their Lusitanian predecessors’ outra costa referred to this region as the ‘Opposite Coast’ (overwalsche custe or overcust). In turn, the priorities of the Nayaka central authorities (aranmanai, ‘palace, central authorities’) were in general to the more exposed and increasingly volatile land frontier to the north rather than the more distant maritime frontier to the south, nowhere better illustrated than in the strategic decision to move the capital from the city of Madurai to Trichinopoly and its highly defensible rock fort in 1665 (see Figure 18). The marginal position of the region, however, was

4 In February 1685, for instance, 61 European servants and 198 indigenous servants were listed as serving on the Madurai Coast out of 3,177 and 933 in the government of Ceylon as a whole, respectively. In February 1686, 66 European servants and 190 indigenous servants were listed as serving on the Madurai Coast out of 3,179 and 906 in the government of Ceylon as a whole, respectively. voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 492, Sommarium der Europese en inlandse Comp. dienaren onder ‘t gouvernment Ceijlon bescheijden, 30.2.1685; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 616, Sommarium der Europese en inl. Comps. dienaren onder ‘t gouvernment van Ceijlon bescheijden, 30.2.1686.

4 Introduction always relative, being one of the most lucrative provinces, and, as we will see, events on the coast at times could and occasionally did take centre stage. A shared interest in trade and at times converging political objectives formed the unstable foundations for a complex relationship fraught with tensions between two ill-suited partners. The outcome was a mixture of conflict and coexistence typical of the ‘Age of Contained Conflict’ (Sanjay Subrahmanyam), ‘Balance of Blackmail’ (Ashin Das Gupta), ‘Perceived Mutual Advantage’ (Om Prakash), ‘Conflict-Ridden Symbiosis’ (Chris Bayly), ‘Co-operation or Acquies cence’ and ‘Accommodations’ (Peter Marshall), and ‘Two-Way Dependency’ (David Ludden), focusing on political economy (combining the military and the commercial).5 The skirmishes between local Nayaka troops and a small voc amphibious force during the short-term ‘punitive expedition’ against the shore temple of Tiruchendur of February–March 1649 (described in Chapter 4), beau- tifully illustrated by a series of mural paintings (see the front cover), may serve as a case in point. During this period, the balance of power only gradually and imperceptibly shifted in favour of the northern Europeans. Thus, there was nothing like a Saidian ‘hegemonic discourse’ as both sides operated on a level playing field until the final decade of the period under discussion and even then the practical implications were limited (see Chapter 7). This study covers roughly the first half of the Dutch-Madurai cross-cultural encounter (1645–1690), arguably the most interesting half since both Madurai and the Company gradually lost the initiative in the period thereafter to their

5 A. Das Gupta, ‘Europeans in India Before the Empire’, in U. Dasgupta (ed.), The World of the Indian Ocean Merchant 1500–1800: Collected Essays of Ashin Das Gupta (New Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 229–230; S. Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500–1650 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 254; O. Prakash, ‘European Corporate Enterprises and the Politics of Trade in India, 1600–1800’, in: R. Mukherjee and L. Subramanian (eds), Politics and Trade in the Indian Ocean: Essays in Honour of Ashin Das Gupta (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 173–174. See also: Idem, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India, The New Cambridge History of India II.5 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 337–343; C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Malden: Blackwell, 2004), p. 476; Idem, ‘Indigenous Social Formations and the “World-System”: North India Since c. 1700’, in: S. Bose (ed.), South Asia and World Capitalism (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 119–120; P.J. Marshall, ‘A Free Though Conquering People’: Eighteenth-Century Britain and Its Empire (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2003), XIII, p. 16; XV, p. 6; D.E. Ludden, ‘World Economy and Village India, 1600–1900: Exploring the Agrarian History of Capitalism’, in Bose (ed.), South Asia and World Capitalism, pp. 166–167.

Introduction 5

Asian and European rivals. Neither 1645 nor 1690 were ‘years of no significance’.6 Apart from the opening of the Dutch factory at Kayalpatnam, the Southern Nayakas of Madurai, Tanjore, and Gingee in 1645 were in open revolt against their nominal overlord, the Vijayanagara emperor, Sri Ranga Raya III (r. 1642– 1652), in one of the final episodes in the disintegration of the once-powerful pan-Indian state. In 1690, separate agreements with Muttu Virappa Nayaka III of Madurai (r. 1682–1691) and his independent-minded tributary, Raghunatha Tevar or Kilavan Setupati of Ramnad (r. 1674–1710), though both subsequently disregarded, and the final accommodation of the Reformed Dutch with the Roman Christian Parava fishermen seemed to firmly establish Dutch hegemony or Pax Neerlandica in the region—even more so as the voc had finally managed to fortify the Tuticorin factory in 1681–1682 during the so-called ‘time of troubles’ in the context of rapidly expanding investments in the region’s textile production. Both Madurai and the Company, however, were already in relative decline as the historical momentum, for a variety of reasons, shifted to the Mughals and Marathas, and the British and French to the north. The process of contraction was characterised by a policy of ‘splendid’ isolation in the South. Madurai under Rani Mangammal (r. 1691–1706) spent its remaining energies in the nearly annual invasion of neighbouring Travancore to the west, whereas the Dutch by and large left northern and central Coromandel to their European rivals, moving the seat of the Coromandel government in 1690 from Pulicat (Pazhaverkadu) to Nagapatnam (nagapattinam) (see the beginning of Chapter 7 for a more detailed discussion). Traditionally, Dutch–Madurai relations have received little attention in both Asian and European historiography of the early modern period.7 Indeed,

6 A play on Ray Huang’s now classic work 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981), which has inspired an entire genre of historical writing taking a specific year as an entry point for analysis. For instance: J.E. Wills Jr, 1688: A Global History (New York and London: Norton, 2001). 7 For two extensive historiographical essays, see my ‘Indian Ocean Studies and the “New Thalassology”’, Journal of Global History 2, 1 (2007), pp. 41–62; and: ‘From Port-City to World- System: Spatial Constructs in Dutch Indian Ocean Studies, 1500–1800’, Itinerario 28, 2 (2004), pp. 45–116. For useful surveys of Dutch colonial historiography: H.L. Wesseling, ‘Overseas History in the Netherlands After the Second World War: Historical Backgrounds, Modern Developments, Present-Day Situation’, Itinerario 28, 2 (1994), pp. 97–115 (an updated version of his ‘Dutch Historiography on European Expansion since 1945’, in: C.A. Bayly, P.C. Emmer, and H.L. Wesseling (eds), Reappraisals in Overseas History: Essays on Post-War Historiography About European Expansion, Comparative Studies in Overseas History 2 (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1979), pp. 122–139); J. Vogel, De Opkomst van het Indocentrische Geschiedbeeld: Leven en Werken van B.J.O. Schrieke en J.C. van Leur (Hilversum: Verloren, 1992), pp. 11–27;

6 Introduction a pivotal study on Nayaka period Tamil Nadu observed that most general histories of India did not even mention the Nayakas, treating the period from 1565 (the defeat of Vijayanagara at the hands of the Deccan sultanates) to 1761 (the rise of Haidar Ali in Mysore) as ‘something akin to a black hole in South Indian history’ even if Nayaka South India arguably witnessed a ‘profound shift in the conceptual and institutional bases of south Indian civilization’. The ‘fundamental tensions’ and the social, economic, political, and cultural flux of the period resulted from the resurgence of certain social groups, which had either intruded into the area as Vadugas (‘northerners’) from the Telugu and Kannada country in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (most notably Telugu-speaking Balija merchant-warrior castes including the Nayakas),8 entered the mainstream of South Indian society from a marginal position on the ‘inner frontier’ (especially the Kallars, Maravas, and others), or were perched—like the Europeans along the ‘Opposite Coast’—on the ‘outer frontier’ at the very edges of the Nayaka world.9 Only recently, this neglect has begun to give way to ‘revisionist views’, a new interest in the Nayakas and their time, thanks to the works of, among others, Sinnappah Arasaratnam, Chris Bayly, Susan Bayly, Lennart Bes, Carol Appadurai Breckenridge, Nicholas Dirks, Noboru Karashima, David Ludden, George Michell, Pamela Price, Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, Burton Stein, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Philip Wagoner, and Paul Younger.10

G.J. Schutte, ‘Introduction’, in: M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, M.E. van Opstall, and G.J. Schutte (eds), Dutch Authors on Asian History: A Selection of Dutch Historiography on the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dordrecht and Providence: Foris Publications, 1988), pp. 1–28; Idem, ‘De Koloniale Geschiedschrijving’, in: W.W. Mijnhardt (ed.), Kantelend Geschiedbeeld: Nederlandse Historiografie Sinds 1945 (Utrecht and Antwerp: Spectrum, 1983), pp. 289– 310; E. Henssen, Gerretson en Indië (Groningen: Noordhoff-Bouwma, 1983). 8 Migrants associated with Vijayanagara expansion into the Tamil country included Telugu and Kannada warrior lineages, Telugu Brahmins, Velamas, and Reddis. This expansion appears to have followed certain clear patterns, Telugu migrants settling in the highest proportions in Coimbatore, followed by Madurai, Salem, Tirunelveli, Chengalpet (Chingleput, Chengalpattu) and Trichinopoly, concentrating on black soils and the most thinly settled areas. D.E. Ludden, ‘Agrarian Organization in Tinnevelly District, 800–1900 ad’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1978, p. 66; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 33. 9 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. x, xi–xii, 10, 25, and 313–314. 10 On British and U.S. historiography: R.B. Inden, Text and Practice: Essays on South Asian History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006); D. Ali (ed.), Invoking the Past: The Uses of History in South Asia (New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); R.W. Winks (ed.), Historiography, The Oxford History of the British Empire V (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); S. Arasaratnam, ‘Ceylon and the Dutch 1630–1800: An Essay in Historiography’, in: Idem, Ceylon and the Dutch, 1600–1800: External Influences

Introduction 7

The reasons for this relative neglect are both ideological and pragmatic. On the one hand, Dutch colonial historiography in general and Company historians (at least until 1960) have tended to focus their attention on either the so-called ‘Eastern Districts’ of the Indonesian Archipelago, the nucleus of the subsequent Dutch East Indies, on the teleological, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century celebratory nationalist pretext that ‘something great was being done there’.11 Or, they have concentrated on Bengal, Ceylon, Coromandel, Malabar, and Surat, the main centres of voc activity in South Asia in the region

and Internal Change in Early Modern Sri Lanka (Brookfield: Ashgate Variorum, 1996), pp. 1–18; B.D. Metcalf, ‘Too Little and Too Much: Reflections on Muslims in the History of India’, Journal of Asian Studies 54, 4 (1995), pp. 951–967; G. Prakash, ‘AHR Forum: Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism’, American Historical Review 99, 5 (1994), pp. 1475–1490; J.D. Rogers, ‘Post-Orientalism and the Interpretation of Premodern and Modern Political Identities: The Case of Sri Lanka’, Journal of Asian Studies 53, 1 (1994), pp. 10–23; A. Disney (ed.), ‘Introductory Essay’, in: Idem (ed.), Historiography of Europeans in Africa and Asia, 1450–1800, An Expanding World 4 (Brookfield: Ashgate, 1995), pp. xiii–xxix; C.A. Breckenridge and P. van der Veer (eds), Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives on South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994); N.B. Dirks (ed.), Colonialism and Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); R. O’Hanlon and D. Washbrook, ‘After Orientalism: Culture, Criticism, and Politics in the Third World’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, 1 (1992), pp. 141–167 (plus reply by G. Prakash, pp. 167–184); R.B. Inden, Imagining India (Oxford and Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1990); S. Arasaratnam, ‘Recent Trends in the Historiography of the Indian Ocean, 1500 to 1800’, Journal of World History 1, 2 (1990), pp. 225–248; R. van Niel, ‘Colonialism Revisited: Recent Historiography’, Journal of World History 1, 1 (1990), pp. 109–124; G. Prakash, ‘Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, 2 (1990), pp. 383–408; R.B. Inden, ‘Orientalist Constructions of India’, Modern Asian Studies 20, 3 (1986), pp. 401–446 (the ‘trailer’ of Inden’s book, see: Inden, ‘Orientalist Constructions of India’, in: Idem, Text and Practice, p. 42). On Indian historiography: I. Habib, ‘Economics and the Historians’, Social Scientist 37, 5/6 (2009), pp. 3–20; P. Chatterjee, ‘The Modern Social Sciences in India’, in: T.M. Porter and D. Ross (eds), The Modern Social Sciences, Cambridge History of Science 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 482–497; Ali (ed.), Invoking the Past; C. Markovits, ‘L’Inde Coloniale: Nationalisme et l’Histoire’, Annales ESC (Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations) 4 (1982), pp. 648–668; C.H. Phillips (ed.), Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). 11 J. Breman, ‘Controversial Views on Writing Colonial History’, Itinerario 16, 2 (1992), pp. 39–40, and 53. It also became the proud title of a commemorative volume produced for a home audience to underline how the Natives had profited during the twentieth century from the course towards modernity under Dutch leadership. See: W.H. van Helsdingen and H. Hoogenberk, Daar Wèrd Wat Groots Verricht: Nederlandsch-Indië in de XXste Eeuw (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1941).

8 Introduction west of Malacca.12 Their Indian counterparts, on the other hand, from their respective mainstream secular or communalist Hindu or Muslim nationalist (including the Mughal-centric, nationalist-Marxist ‘Aligarh school’)13 perspectives, have focused on the histories of the larger states of Vijayanagara and the Mughal Empire, respectively. Secular and Hindu nationalist historians respectively either eulogised the Nayakas for their policy of religious toleration or vilified them for their alleged lack of a Hindu consciousness to form a united front against the ‘Muslim onslaught’.14

12 Sinnappah Arasaratnam, for instance, styles Gujarat, Bengal, Coromandel, and Malabar the four ‘central trading regions in the oceanic system’. See: Arasaratnam, ‘Recent Trends in the Historiography of the Indian Ocean’, p. 238. The standard works on the Company’s history in South Asia for this period in general are: Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India; M.P.M. Vink and G.D. Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified: The voc (Dutch East India Company) and Its Changing Political Economy in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991). For the various regions in South Asia, including Bengal: O. Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal 1630–1720 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). For Ceylon: S. Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, 1658–1687 (Amsterdam: Djambatan, 1958). For Coromandel: S. Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast, 1650–1740 (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); T. Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel 1605– 1690: A Study in the Interrelations of European Commerce and Traditional Economies, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 38 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1962). For Malabar: H.K. s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, 1663– 1701: De Memories en Instructies Betreffende het Commandement Malabar van de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie. Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Kleine Serie 43 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1976); M.A.P. Roelofsz, De Vestiging der Nederlanders ter Kuste Malabar, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 4 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1943). For Surat: H.W. van Santen, De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, 1620–1660 (Meppel: Krips Repro, 1982); Idem, voc Dienaar in India: Geleynssen de Jongh in het Land van de Groot-Mogol (Franeker: Van Wijnen, 2001). 13 The most prominent members of the ‘Mughal-centric’, nationalist-Marxist, Delhi-based ‘Aligarh school’ are Irfan Habib, Satish Chandra, Muhammad Athar Ali, Noman A. Siddiqi, Saiyid Nurul Hasan, Iqtidar Alam Khan, Zahiruddin U. Malik, and Shireen Moosvi. 14 The first generation of Tamil Hindu scholars, the ‘modern pioneers of Nayaka period history’, are V. Rangachari and R. Sathyanatha Aiyar (Sathianather), and their post-independence successors K. Rajayyan and K. Rajaram. See: V. Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 43–46 (1914–1917), passim; S. Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura (Madras: University of Madras, 1924); Idem, Tamilaham in the 17th Century (Madras: University of Madras, 1956); K. Rajayyan, History of Tamilnadu, 1565–1982 (Madurai: Raj Publishers, 1982); K. Rajaram, History of Thirumalai Nayaka (Madurai: Ennes Publications, 1982). See also: P.C. Reddy (ed.), Rajavijayam: A Spectrum of Historical Studies: Festschrift to Prof. K. Rajayyan (New Delhi: Research India Press, 2011).

Introduction 9

Apart from the fact that Indian historians of South Asia and the Company have considered Madurai of peripheral interest for ideological reasons, there is also the practical problem of the relative inaccessibility of the source materials. First, there is the question of linguistic skills since a researcher is confronted with a complex linguistic and literary landscape, a veritable tower of Babel, consisting of a combination of cosmopolitan ‘languages of the gods’ (Persian, Sanskrit, and Latin) and regional languages in the ‘vernacular millen nium’.15 Madurai was a multilingual region where a plethora of tongues from various linguistic families (most notably of Dravidian and Indo-European origins) were spoken, including regional languages, such as Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and Kannada, along with Dutch, Portuguese, English, French, Italian, and German to name only the most important.16 Second, though useful for recreating the worldview of the representatives of the Nayaka state of Madurai, Indian sources are virtually silent on the presence of the ‘Franks’ (Parangi) or ‘Hat-Wearers’ (Toppikkarar) on their ‘outer frontier’. The relative historical and historiographical value and ‘modernity’ of the rich courtly literature of the Nayakas in Telugu, Tamil, and Sanskrit, moreover, has also been a bone of contention and great controversy vide the recent forum in History and Theory (2007) organised in response to Velcheru Narayana Narayan, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s provocative study Textures of Time (2001) in favour of ‘regimes of historicity’.17

15 S. Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Idem, ‘India in the Vernacular Millennium: Literary Culture and Polity 1000–1500’, Daedalus 127, 3 (1998), pp. 41–74. 16 For a discussion of the nature and limits of multilingualism, see: S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Recovering Babel: Polyglot Histories from the Eighteenth-Century Tamil Country’, in: Ali (ed.), Invoking the Past, pp. 280–321; S. Guha, ‘Transitions and Translations: Regional Power and Vernacular Identity in the Dakhan, 1500-1800’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, 2 (2004), pp. 23–31; S. Pollock, ‘Introduction’, in: Idem (ed.), Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions From South Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 1–36; M. Alam, ‘The Culture and Politics of Persian in Precolonial Hindustan’, in: Pollock (ed.), Literary Cultures in History, pp. 131–198. See: P. O’Hanlon, ‘Ideas in Circulation’, Oxford Early Modern South Asia Workshop Faculty of Oriental Studies and St. Anthony’s College, 25–26 May 2007, www.orinst.ac.uk/sites/conferences/files/files/ ideas_in_circulation_programme_statement.pdf (accessed: 31 May 2015). 17 V.N. Rao, D. Shulman, and S. Subrahmanyam, Textures of Time: Writing History in South India, 1600–1800 (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001). For the individual contributions of the ‘Forum: Textures of Time’: S. Pollock, ‘Pretextures of Time’, History and Theory 46, 3 (2007), pp. 366–383; C. Chekuri, ‘Writing Politics Back Into History’, History and Theory 46, 3 (2007), pp. 384–395; R. Mantena, ‘The Question of History in Precolonial India’, History

10 Introduction

Third, ‘Dutch’ archival materials18 with their potential as historical sources for understanding the political-economic narrative of South India suffer from oversupply. The repositories of the former Dutch East India Company (some twenty-five million pages overall, including ‘four shelf kilometres’ in the National Archives at the Hague), placed on unesco’s Memory of the World list in 2003, consist for this period alone of hundreds of bound volumes containing tens of thousands of hand-written folios of various quality and legibility. The situation is compounded by ill-defined, overlapping, and changing jurisdictions among the Company’s various administrative regions—in particular the voc gouvernementen of Ceylon and Coromandel and the commandement of Malabar—and the occasional dispatch of special officials, such as Superinten dent, Admiral, and General Rijckloff van Goens Senior (1672–1675) and Com missioner General Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede (1684–1691), with wide-ranging powers and authority (see Chapter 1).19 Whereas the University of Amsterdam has provided a platform for more critical voices focused on the modern Dutch East Indies and Indonesia, the University of Leiden has been and, especially since the 1980s, remains the centre of more ‘traditionally’ oriented Company and maritime history focused on the early modern period, though certainly less Eurocentric than before and deeply influenced by the post-World War II explosion of the social sciences and the concomitant breakthrough of the Annales. The founding of the Centre (later Institute) for the History of European Expansion and the Reactions to It (igeer after its Dutch abbreviation) in 1974 reflected the rise of an ‘internationally orientated and thematically arranged European expansion history’.20 The Leiden ‘voc-school’, headed by Jaap R. Bruijn, Femme S. Gaastra, J. Leonard Blussé along with Utrecht-based Jurrien van Goor, emphasises political economy and cross-cultural encounters, using the extensive records of the Dutch

and Theory 46, 3 (2007), pp. 396–408; and: V.N. Rao, D. Shulman, and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Textures of Time: A Pragmatic Response’, History and Theory 46, 3 (2007), pp. 409–427. 18 The strict distinction between ‘Indian’ and ‘Dutch’ sources is of course to some extent artificial in view of the interactive, ‘dialogic’ nature of the texts (see Chapter 1). 19 Apart from the bitter conflict between the imperialist or ‘Ceylon-centric’ and the mercantile or ‘Batavia-centric’ factions, illustrative of internal divisions among voc authorities are the bitter turf wars between the voc governments of Ceylon and Coromandel from 1674 until 1683 when the right to trade with the southernmost part of the peninsula was assigned to the authority of Colombo even after the restitution of Nagapatnam to Pulicat in 1680. Similar jurisdictional tussles were fought between Ceylon and the commandement of Malabar over Tengapatnam and Kottar (Kottaram). 20 P.B.M Blaas, ‘Nederlandse Geschiedschrijving Na 1945’, in: Mijnhardt (ed.), Kantelend Geschiedbeeld, p. 37. Cited in: Wesseling, ‘Overseas History in the Netherlands’, p. 106.

Introduction 11

East India Company stored inside and outside the Netherlands.21 The study of Dutch source materials and Dutch overseas history has certainly not been the sole prerogative of Dutch historians. From the late 1950s onwards, Indian historians, such as Tapan Raychaudhuri, Sinnappah Arasaratnam, and Om Prakash, together with their Western counterparts, most notably Charles Ralph Boxer, Kristof Glamann, and Niels Steensgaard,22 have made critical contributions to the study of Company history in Asia in general and India in particular. A graduate of the University of Oxford and reader at the Delhi School of Economics, Raychaudhuri set out to demonstrate the ‘interrelationship of European commerce and traditional economies’ in his Jan Company in Coromandel, 1605–1690 (1962). Centred around the ‘problem of stagnation’ and steeped in Rostowian modernisation theory fashionable in the 1950s and 1960s until the dual shock of the Vietnam War and the ‘oil crisis’, Raychaudhuri looked at the growth-oriented impact of the activities of the Dutch on the commercialised non-subsistence sector of India’s east coast in the seventeenth century to explain the relative stagnation of Asian economies. Although his attempt was part of the contemporary focus on economic development in the Third World, his was still a rather traditional study, and, because of the rather eclectic use of archival sources, a somewhat unsatisfactory exercise in Com pany history with an Indian angle.23

21 On Bruijn: A. van Veelen, ‘Interview With Prof. Dr J.R. Bruijn’, Forum: Nieuwsbrief Faculteit der Letteren 3, Extra Issue (March 2003); http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/forum/03_1b/ personalia/3.htm (accessed: 18 May 2011). For Gaastra: L. Noordegraaf, ‘In Gesprek met Femme Gaastra’, in: Idem (ed.), Economische Geschiedbeoefening in Nederland Omstreeks het Jaar 2000 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Aksant, 2006), pp. 111–120. For Van Goor: E. Locher Scholten, ‘“Ik Wil Boeken Schrijven”: Jurrien van Goor, Een Bio- en Historiografische Schets’, in: E. Locher Scholten and P. Rietbergen (eds), Hof en Handel: Aziatische Vorsten en de voc 1620–1720. Opgedragen Aan Jurrien van Goor (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004), pp. 305–320; M. Postma, ‘Vier Parasols Voor Een Brief: Interview Met Jurrien van Goor, Scheidend Docent Koloniale Geschiedenis’, Spiegel Historiael 40, 1 (2005), pp. 27–31. 22 For example, Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire; K. Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, 1620– 1740 (The Hague and Copenhagen: Danish Science Press, 1958); and N. Steensgaard, Carracks, Caravans and Companies: The Structural Crisis in the European-Asian Trade in the Early 17th Century (Copenhagen: Lund, 1973). 23 Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel. See also his contributions on ‘The Mughal Empire’, ‘Non-Agricultural Production in the Mughal Empire’, and ‘Inland Trade’ in: I. Habib and T. Raychaudhuri (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of India. Volume I: c. 1200–c. 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 172–193, 261–308, and 325–360. The structural-functional theory of modernisation also profoundly shaped the work of Indian sociologists and anthropologists, such as M.N. Srinivas, McKim Marriot,

12 Introduction

From the late 1950s to the early 1980s, one prominent Sri Lankan Tamil historian, Sinnappah Arasaratnam, in the true spirit of the great chartered companies, held a virtual monopoly in the field for more than two decades. In his own words, scholars of the Indian subcontinent in the past ‘have carved out for themselves reasonably self-contained trading regions and, basing themselves on that region, have spread out into the ocean to reveal its role in the oceanic trading system’.24 A graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies (soas), University of London, and a former pupil of Daniel George Edward Hall, Arasaratnam was interested in the pre-colonial Tamil history of southeast India and the Jaffnapatnam Peninsula. Working through, as he called it, a ‘foliage of distortion’, he set out to deconstruct Dutch sources in order to go ‘beyond the political history of the period and…to examine economic and social development’. Starting out as a maritime, Company historian, Arasaratnam and others like him gradually expanded their boundaries, both geographically and intellectually, moving inland to investigate agrarian structures, administration, land revenue systems, and the interrelationships of ports and coastal areas with the interior’.25 Following the cultural turn in the social sciences in the 1980s, ‘areas of complementary frustration’ resulted in the coupling of language and literary writing with history and an ‘ongoing, three-way discussion’ in the form of a series of collaborative studies by literary scholars of Telugu, Tamil, and Sanskrit, Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Dean Shulman, and a historian of South

and others. See: Chatterjee, ‘The Modern Social Sciences in India’; D.A. Washbrook, ‘South India 1770–1840: The Colonial Transition’, Modern Asian Studies 28, 3 (2004), p. 496. 24 Arasaratnam, ‘Recent Trends in the Historiography of the Indian Ocean’, p. 238. On Arasaratnam: M.N. Pearson, ‘Obituary: Sinnappah Arasaratnam’, Asian Studies Review 23, 2 (1999), pp. 139–140; H.V. Brasted, ‘In Memoriam: Sinnappah Arasaratnam’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 21, 2 (1998), pp. 4–6; Idem, ‘A Conversation About South Asian Studies with Sinnappah Arasaratnam’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 19, Special Issue (1996), pp. 245–259; S. Gunaratne, Ph. Fernando, and T. Deen, ‘A Tribute to Three “Golden Age” Dons with Great Respect’, The Island Online, http://www.island. lk/2009/05/10/features7.html; D. Beer, ‘Obituary: Emeritus Professor Sinnappah Arasarat- nam’, University of New England Publicity Office, http://www.une.edu.au/publicity/news- releases/october98/132-98.html (accessed: 9 January 2013). 25 Arasaratnam, ‘Ceylon and the Dutch 1630–1800’, pp. 9–10; Idem, ‘Recent Trends in the Historiography of the Indian Ocean’, pp. 235–236. His monographs include: Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon; Idem, Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast; Idem, Maritime India in the Seventeenth Century (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). A number of his numerous articles have been conveniently published in: Arasaratnam, Ceylon and the Dutch; Idem, Maritime Trade, Society and European Influence in Southern Asia, 1600–1800 (Brookfield: Ashgate, 1995).

Introduction 13

India’s political economy working with Dutch, English, and Portuguese records, Sanjay Subrahmanyam.26 The ‘great convergence’ of internal and external perspectives produced, among others, the now classic study on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Nayaka period Tamilnadu, Symbols of Substance (1992), and the provocative Textures of Time (2002).27 Arguably the most accomplished, versatile, and expansive Indian historian of the past three decades has been Sanjay Subrahmanyam. A product of the University of Delhi and a former pupil of economic and Company historian Om Prakash, Subrahmanyam unquestionably forms a class für sich, consciously and deliberately carving out a series of personal fiefdoms. A self-proclaimed practitioner of Oppositionsgeschichte conceived to challenge and go against the grain,28 his prolific and distinctive writings and breadth of scholarship on early modern South Asia include numerous monographs, including his Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500–1650 (1990), and multi-disciplinary volumes and articles in collaboration, as we have seen, with literary scholars,

26 For a brief discussion of the reasons prompting the interdisciplinary collaboration: Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. ix. 27 Collaborative interdisciplinary studies include: V.N. Rao and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Ideologies of State Building in Vijayanagara and Post-Vijayanagara South India’, in: P.F. Bang and D. Kolodziejczyk (eds), Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 210–232; V.N. Rao and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India’, Modern Asian Studies, 43, 1 (2009), pp. 175–210; V.N. Rao and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘History and Politics in the Vernacular: Reflections on Medieval and Early Modern South India’, in: R. Aquil and P. Chatterjee (eds), History in the Vernacular (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008), pp. 25–66; V.N. Rao and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘An Elegy for Nîti: Politics as Discursive Field in the Indian Old Régime’, Common Knowledge 14, 3 (2008), pp. 396–423; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, ‘Textures of Time: A Pragmatic Response’; V.N. Rao and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Circulation, Piety and Innovation: Recounting Travels in Early Nineteenth-Century South India’, in: C. Markovits, J. Pouchepadass, and S. Subrahmanyam (eds), Society and Circulation: Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003), pp. 306–355; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyan, Textures of Time; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance; D. Shulman and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘The Men Who Would Be King? The Politics of Expansion in Early Seventeenth-Century Northern Tamilnadu’, Modern Asian Studies 24, 2 (1990), pp. 225–248. 28 Th. Grillot and A.-J. Etter, ‘History Speaks Many Languages: An Interview with Sanjay Subrahmanyam’, http://www.booksandideas.net/History-Speaks-Many-Languages.html? lang=fr#nh15 (accessed: 24 December 2012); Idem, ‘Le Goût de l’Archive est Polyglotte: Entretien avec Sanjay Subrahmanyam’, http://www.laviedesidees.fr/Le-gout-de-l-archive- est.html?lang=fr (accessed: 24 December 2012).

14 Introduction such as Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman, and fellow-historians, such as Muzaffar Alam, Chris Bayly, and Burton Stein. These collaborative studies focus, among others, on the role of regional political merchants or ‘portfolio capitalists’, such as the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars in Ramnad, and the reconstruction of the historical and cultural universe (‘a vasana—a breath of fragrance, a buried memory’) of Nayaka period Tamilnadu, modestly portrayed as ‘forays in to a still emerging field’, redressing ‘the study of sources hitherto either unread, or utilized only in surprisingly restricted ways’.29 The present study is divided into two parts. The first three chapters (Chapters 1–3) discuss the larger cultural and material parameters or structures, which together defined—in Braudelian terms—the ‘limits of the possible’ of the actual encounter. The following four chapters (Chapters 4–7) deal with the (not so) pétit histoire of the actual contacts or événements themselves. Each chapter covers a particular phase with its own distinct characteristics and is further subdivided into smaller time frames. As Dutch–Madurai relations were far from mutually exclusive, each chapter opens with a brief exposé placing the encounter in the larger politico-economic framework of the time. As such, it heeds a recent call for ‘better integrated, multidisciplinary historical research in early modern South Asia (not Mughal India), in which scholars move seamlessly between the particulars of local and regional histories to broader South Asian and world description and analysis’.30 Chapter 1, ‘Images and Imaginations’, sets out to make implicit ethnographies explicit, that is, to describe the underlying images and ideologies or repertoire of mentalités of the respective ‘ideal type’ actors and caste of characters

29 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. x, and xiii. For examples of the most relevant monographs: S. Subrahmanyam, Courtly Encounters: Translating Courtliness and Violence in Early Modern Eurasia (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2012); Idem, Explorations in Connected History: Mughals and Franks (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004); Idem, Penumbral Visions: The Making of Polities in Early Modern South India (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001); Idem, The Political Economy of Commerce. For collaborative studies: Markovits, Pouchepadass, and Subrahmanyam (eds), Society and Circulation; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Textures of Time, M. Alam and S. Subrahmanyam (eds), The Mughal State, 1526–1750 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998); B. Stein and S. Subrahmanyam (eds), Institutions and Economic Change in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance; C.A. Bayly and S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Portfolio Capitalists and the Political Economy of Early Modern India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 25, 4 (1988), pp. 401–424. 30 J.F. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’, Journal of World History 8, 2 (1997), p. 209.

Introduction 15 that impacted the encounter between the ‘Dutch’ and the ‘Indians’ in this region during the first half century of contacts (1645–1690). The meeting was between two specific cultures each exhibiting some general traits, but simultaneously each with important secondary characteristics. While adhering to a series of shared ideas, each side was anything but a value monolith and consisted of several political, socio-economic, religious, and ethnic subgroups with distinct worldviews. The ‘Indian’ perception of the ‘Dutch’ and the ‘Dutch’ perception of the ‘Indian’ were part of a binary, interactive discourse on the other and the self, the image and imagination of the other (re)defining the image and imagination of the self. The Indian perception of the Europeans or ‘Franks’ (Parangi) or ‘Hat- Wearers’ (Toppikkarar) was fraught with ambiguity and characterised by several distinct, seemingly contradictory concurrent Frankophobic and Frankophiliac sentiments. To some extent, the voc could be made to fit pre- existing regional templates available and accommodated within the inclusive composite culture and syncretic vocabulary of Nayaka period Tamilnadu. Europeans were valued and feared as powerful merchants and bandit-kings on the ‘outer frontier’, while at the same time assigned low-status positions in the caste hierarchy. Within this set of common beliefs among the inhabitants of Madurai, one can discern at least five different subgroups, each with a corresponding worldview or, if one will, taricanam: the ‘temple-centric’ vision of the Brahmin Pattars or temple priests, the view of the aranmanai or ‘palace’, the vision of the palaiyakkarar or ‘little king’ (most notably the Tevars of Ramnad, the independent-minded tributary of the Nayakas of Madurai), the view of the ‘portfolio capitalist’ or political merchant (especially the Tamil Shaf’i Muslim Periya Tambi Maraikkayars), and the vision of the Paravas or Roman Catholic fishermen. Similar to the ‘Indian’ perception of the ‘Dutch’, the ‘Dutch’ self-image was reinforced by othering the ‘Indian’. Though the ‘Dutch’ picture of the ‘Indian’ was fractured, it consisted of a number of common images: a ‘Christo-centric’ (most notably Dutch Reformed) worldview, climatic determinism and proto- Orientalism, a self-perception as champions of freedom (haec libertatis ergo) combined with a paranoid ‘siege mentality’, and a ‘racial-biblical’ white somatic norm image or physical ideal of human appearance. Despite these common themes, the voc was anything but a value monolith. Thus, one can distinguish at least five different subgroups each with a corresponding worldview or Weltanschauung: the imperialist or ‘Ceylon-centric’ vision (represented by Rijckloff van Goens Senior and Junior), the mercantile or ‘Batavia-centric’ view, the Calvinist predikant or theocratic vision (both ‘pulpit theologians’ at home and voc predikanten overseas), the ‘bottom up’ view of the common

16 Introduction soldier (including numerous Germans or Hollandgänger), and the external vision of the ‘outsider’ (either ‘vicarious tourists’ or ‘armchair travelers’). Chapters 2, ‘Treasure for Textiles: The Import Trade’, and 3, ‘Treasure for Texiles: The Export Trade’, present a regional ‘econoscopic’ study, discussing the material structures of the Madurai or more specifically Tirunelveli landscape shaping the encounter, the open-ended stage of most of the encounter, defined by the long-term interaction of geography, culture, technology, and social power, impacting and impacted by the mutual economic exchange. For various reasons, Dutch commerce in Madurai conformed to the ‘bullion for goods’ or rather ‘treasure for textiles’ model typical of long-distance Euro- Asian trade in the ‘age of mercantilism’. The result was a massive ‘drain’ of precious metals from Europe to the Asian ‘sinks’ of India and China. In Madurai, the value of Dutch exports, the bulk of which consisted of coarse cotton textiles, far exceeded that of imports, requiring significant amounts of precious metals to make up the difference. A vital role was played by indigenous go- betweens, initially individual merchants and official brokers (tupasis, talals), but subsequently (after 1680) grouped in joint-stock ‘associations’. The remaining bulk of Chapters 2 and 3 consists of the actual discussion of the import and export trades involved in the encounter and the relative role of Dutch activities in the regional economy of Madurai organised by commodity. This ‘commodity history’-centric approach allows for an integrated analysis of the production, distribution, marketing, and consumption network chains involved in each individual product at various stages. After a false start, total Dutch imports in Madurai rose rapidly from slightly less than 70,000 guilders in 1659–1660 to almost 550,000 guilders in 1690–1691. The bulk (60–70 per cent on average) consisted of precious metals drawn from various Asian sources and Dutch imports from Europe, which were supplemented by limited quantities of base metals (especially copper), fine spices (cloves, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon), and pepper and arecanuts. Other miscellaneous commodities included aromatic woods, dye woods and other dyes; West Asian imports, such as silks, carpets, brocade, dried fruit, ‘rose water’, Shiraz wines, and some dye root; European manufactures, such as linen, hats, and other daily ‘necessities’ mainly for the local Company servants; and Bengal produce, including silks, muslins, gold embroidery, powdered sugar, and edible oils. In return, Dutch exports from Madurai increased from 44,000 guilders in 1659–1660 to over 390,000 guilders in 1681–1682 and 1687–1688. Textiles or woven piece goods (making up 60–90 per cent of all exports) were the raison d’être of the Company trade on the Madurai Coast or, playing on a popular phrase in contemporary Company correspondence, represented ‘the bride

Introduction 17 around whom everyone else danced’. Dutch cotton export varieties consisted of coarse staples, especially kachchais (kaccais), salampuris, muris, and Guinea cloth (lungis), which were purchased each year in large quantities; a second category of local coarse varieties, such as textiles from Srivilliputtur and Palaiyamkottai (Palaiyam), gingangs (ginghams), dungaris, and tupetis, which were in constant, albeit limited, demand; and a third category of failed experiments in new finer assortments, such as scarves, handkerchiefs, beatilhas, chintzes, and girdles, which the Company attempted to introduce to the Madurai weavers. The bulk of the overseas exports of Madurai textiles was sold at Ceylon, where it was exchanged for arecanuts. Indeed, textiles were considered the ‘wheel to keep the areca trade going’. As part of the attempt of the Company’s imperialist party-faction to control the Indo-Ceylon trade (1670– 1697) and make Ceylon independent from Coromandel textiles (the so-called concept der lijwaten), the Dutch tried to monopolise the sale of cloth on the island though this trade was subsequently opened up for Asian merchants. Compared to textiles all other exports were merely of secondary importance: pearls and chanks or conch shells, fisheries organised along similar lines; rice, millets, and other staple provisions; the ‘political barometer’ commodities of rockfish skins and chaya roots monopolised by the Tevars of Ramnad; livestock (cows, horses, oxen, pigs, and sheep); people (slaves, and regular and extraordinary levies of free wage labourers and mercenaries); and high-volume, low-value ‘gruff’ goods, such as salt, lime, and coral stone, used as ballast. The remaining miscellaneous export commodities, usually referred to as ‘trifles’, played no significant role in the actual exchange. Chapter 4, ‘A False Start, 1645–1657’, deals with the period of the first encounter, starting and ending with the issue of a written qaul (Arabic, ‘promise, agreement’) granted by the Nayaka authorities to the voc. In spite of later misgivings, first contact on the ‘Opposite Coast’ began auspiciously enough as both sides, guided by the principles of pragmatic politics, realised that to cultivate good relations was, at least for the moment, in one’s best self-interest. While both Madurai and the Dutch were distracted by more general commitments elsewhere, each side had some particular reasons to establish and maintain contact with the ‘other’. On the one hand, Madurai’s gaze was focused on the north where the death throes and disintegration of the moribund Vijayanagara ‘empire’ defined the political history of southern India in this period, creating challenges to and opportunities for both ‘insiders’, such as the Southern Nayakas of Gingee, Tanjore, and Madurai, and ‘outsiders’, such as the Deccan sultanates of Golconda and Bijapur. And yet, the admission of the Dutch would be in conformity with the aranmanai’s traditional ‘open door’ policy in order to retain influence over

18 Introduction the coastal area and generate revenue and income to the state and its inhabitants. On the other hand, the Company or ‘merchant-warrior’, typical of a politico- commercial enterprise in the ‘age of mercantilism’, used war and trade indiscriminately. Adhering to prevailing mercantilist thought (the so-called ‘Coen doctrine’), the voc was drawn into numerous conflicts with European and Asian rivals elsewhere in Asia. And yet, the protracted struggle with the Portuguese for the control of Ceylon (1638–1656/1658), the chief source of cinnamon production, and the commercial expansion of its settlements on the Coromandel Coast in the 1640s, clearly argued for a presence on the Madurai Coast. For the moment at least, these special interests predominated over more general considerations. Following the implementation of the Ten Years’ Truce between the Dutch Republic and Portugal in Asia (1645–1652), a qaul issued in June 1645 by Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623–1659) led to the establishment of a trading factory at Kayalpatnam six months later in December 1645. Seemingly successful in its policy of checking the power of Raghunatha Tevar a.k.a. Tirumalai Setupati (r. 1645–1673) of Ramnad, the aranmanai in turn attempted to forge a powerful alliance between the Dutch and the local Tamil Muslim Maraikkayars, eager to protect their commercial freedom and their share in the pearl fishery, as a counterweight against the influence of the Portuguese–Parava combination on the Fishery Coast. A crucial turn in the events to the north, however, leading to the siege of Gingee by Golconda and, subsequently, by Bijapuri troops, combined with dis- appointment in the commercial and political usefulness of their new-found allies, forced the Nayaka authorities for reasons of state to acknowledge the enduring strength of the Portuguese and their Parava allies on the coast. This realisation led to the so-called ‘forced departure’ of the Dutch from Kayalpatnam in June 1648. An inconclusive ‘punitive expedition’ or ‘exploit of revenge’ of February– March 1649 left behind several loose ends with the Portuguese, Paravas, and Hindus on the Madurai Coast. Following the breakdown of negotiations with the Nayaka authorities and the impending renewal of hostilities with the Portuguese at the end of the Ten Years’ Truce in Asia, the Company, facing the problem of imperial ‘overstretch’, decided, at least for the time being, not to re- establish a foothold on the Madurai Coast. Nevertheless, the voc after 1652 gradually strengthened its commercial and political ties with the Tevar of Ramnad, whose alliance with the Dutch was in line with his policy of consolidating his grip over the Ramnad lands. Partly as a result of the cooperation between the Dutch and the Tevar, the net around the Portuguese was closing rapidly.

Introduction 19

By 1657, events seemed to have gone full circle with the grant of another qaul by the Nayaka authorities and the subsequent re-establishment of a trading factory cum listening post at Kayalpatnam. Although promises again proved to be ‘written on water’, the situation was fundamentally different from that of the beginning of the period: the distraction from the north was temporarily receding with the final disappearance of Vijayanagara and the diminishing threat from the Deccan sultanates. Moreover, by this time the balance of power on the Madurai Coast had changed dramatically in favour of the Tevar and the Dutch. A new period in cross-cultural encounters was about to begin. Chapter 5, ‘From Sideshow to Main Theatre of War, 1658–1669’, covers the eleven year period between the Dutch conquest of Tuticorin and the other Portuguese ports on the Fishery Coast in January 1658 and the conclusion of the Peace of Kayatar between the Company and Madurai in December 1669 following the outbreak of the Tuticorin War (April–November 1669) when mutual contacts in general once again took second stage in the eyes of both sides of the encounter. On the one hand, Madurai was subjected to the last convulsions of Bijapur’s ‘push to the east’ (1659–1663), a situation confounded by a brief succession dispute and usurpation of the Madurai throne by a triumvirate of the aranmanai’s leading officials (1659–1662). The aftermath of this volatile phase consisted of two punitive expeditions: a lightning war against Tanjore for allegedly having given support to Bijapur (1663), and a drawn out guerrilla campaign against the Tevar of Ramnad, the so-called Madurai-Tevar War of 1663–1665, for failing to provide assistance against the Bijapuri invasions. Finally, a new episode in Mysorean-Madurai hostilities (1667–1668/69) erupted with disastrous results for Madurai. On the other hand, the Company was fighting on two major fronts elsewhere in Asia. In Eastern Indonesia, the voc took another step towards completion of the monopoly in fine spices via the withdrawal of the Spanish from Ternate and Tidore in 1663 and the formal acceptance of voc overlordship by Tidore in 1667. Moreover, the Company finally succeeded in subduing the sultanate of Makassar (Gowa) in South Sulawesi, the last Asian-controlled emporium east of Java (1667, 1668–1669). In addition to the so-called ‘Eastern Districts’, the Company was also active in the region west of Malacca on the west coast of India and the island of Ceylon. Following the expulsion of the Portuguese from the Malabar Coast (1658–1663), the Company, resorting to gunboat diplomacy, subsequently imposed exclusive agreements on the local rulers (1663–1667). At the same time, a palace revolt against Raja Sinha II of Kandy (r. 1629–1687) in December 1664 incited the imperialist Van Goens

20 Introduction

Senior to pursue a policy of vigorous territorial expansion on the island of Ceylon (1665–1670). Within this broader context, in the first two years (1658–1660) following the expulsion of the Portuguese from the Madurai Coast the Company unfurled a flurry of diplomatic activities, leading to an ‘imperfect agreement’ with the aranmanai in March 1659 and two treaties with the Tevar in February 1658 and April 1660. This period of initial courtship and active diplomacy proved to be temporary only and was followed by a lull (1660–1664) during which the map of relations on the Madurai Coast was redrawn dramatically. By the mid-1660s, the process of estrangement between the Dutch and their erstwhile allies, the Muslim Maraikkayars of Kayalpatnam and the other coastal settlements, had been completed as the Company put more and more restrictions on the Indo- Ceylon trade. In contrast, the rapprochement between the Dutch and their erstwhile enemies, the Roman Christian Paravas, led to a modus vivendi by 1664 under which the Paravas, via an impromptu agreement, fell under the dual worldly government of the Company and the aranmanai along the coast, while the Paravas’ spiritual administration was left to the Jesuits of the Madurai Mission in the interior. In contrast to this renversement des alliances, relations between the Company and the Tevar in general remained cordial, with the Ramnad ruler becoming increasingly less responsive to the aranmanai’s directives. In fact, the war between the aranmanai and Tevar of 1663–1665 led to a sudden, if short-lived, revival of intensive contacts during which period the Company was wooed by both sides. The result was the so-called ‘Nagapatnam qaul’ issued by Chokkanatha Nayaka (r. 1659–1682) in ca. March 1665 and various significant concessions by Raghunatha Tevar or Tirumalai Setupati in May 1665. The new Dutch-Parava combination and the continuation of the Company alliance with the Tevar, together with a series of intentional and unintentional Company provocations, led to growing resentment on the side of Madurai’s central authorities after 1665. The aranmanai rightly perceived these developments and actions as a serious threat to its authority over the Madurai Coast and an undermining of its traditional ‘open door’ policy. However, it was not until the failure of a high-profile Company mission under the less than diplomatic Captain Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede (1668) and the conclusion of Madurai’s war with Mysore in late 1668–early 1669 that a series of unfortunate events culminated into open hostilities. During the Tuticorin War (April– November 1669) the Madurai Coast, from being a mere secondary stage temporarily became the main theatre of war when the Company factory at Tuticorin was attacked and subsequently besieged. Following seven months of inconclusive trench warfare, cannonades, and occasional sorties, relations were finally

Introduction 21 patched up in December 1669. The Peace of Kayatar would free the hands of both the aranmanai and the Company’s imperialist party-faction for what each side deemed more vital areas of expansion, and hence initiated another phase in the cross-cultural encounter. Chapter 6, ‘The Bitter Fruits of War, 1670–1679’, discusses a decade of debili- tating conflicts and the costly consequences for both parties. While the Dutch Republic was engaged in a desperate struggle for survival against France, England, the prince-bishopric of Münster and the Electorate of Cologne in Europe (1672–1678), Company affairs in Asia during the 1670s were dominated by an interventionist policy on the islands of Java and Ceylon. At the same time, southern Indian politics centred around the struggle over Tanjore, initiated by the successive ill-starred incursions of the Tevar and the aranmanai into the lands of their northern neighbour. In the process both sides in the cross-cultural encounter came to realise that the fruits of war were very bitter indeed. The powerful backlash against overextension and personal adventurism of the Company and Madurai in the 1670s ruined the fortunes of their respective leadership. The 1670s also marked the dawn of a more competitive phase in the intra- Asiatic trade and the long-distance trade between Europe and Asia, characterised by the decreasing importance of monopolistic commodities and monopoly positions and increased European (and Asian) competition in ‘non-traditional products’ on relatively open markets. These profound changes, combined with Dutch military adventurism in Java and Ceylon, led to a changing balance of power among leading Company circles. Both the Company Directors and the ‘Batavia-centric’ party-faction grew increasingly alarmed by the poor financial results in Europe and the emerging budget deficits in Asia in general and the ‘costly step-children’ Ceylon and Malabar in particular, resulting from the aggressive policies of the Gentlemen Van Goens. In the late 1670s the ‘Batavia- centric’ party-faction gained the ears of the ‘paymasters’ in the Dutch Republic and subsequently managed to impose its vision on the Company affairs under the Ceylon administration. The replacement of Governor Van Goens the Younger of Ceylon in October 1679 by Laurens Pijl ended a 21-year-period during which Company policy in Ceylon had been largely determined by the imperialist party-faction led by the Gentlemen Van Goens. Military overextension also led to serious problems for both the Tevar of Ramnad and the aranmanai. However, whereas the new Marava ruler Raghu natha Tevar or Kilavan Setupati (r. 1674–1710) managed by the end of this period to put the house of Ramnad back in order, the affairs of the aranmanai under Chokkanatha Nayaka (r. 1659–1682) went from bad to worse, reaching virtual anarchy in the late 1670s. In fact, the (temporary) abdication of Chokkanatha

22 Introduction

Nayaka in favour of his brother Muttu Linga Nayaka (r. 1677–1680) in early 1677 was to be followed by the usurpation of the Muslim commander and adventurer Rustam Khan (1680–1682). The expansion of the Tevar into the lowlands of Tanjore in May 1670 strained the old Dutch-Ramnad alliance and initiated a series of talks between Company officials and representatives of the aranmanai between 1670 and 1672, both eager to restore the balance of power on the Madurai Coast in the form of a temporary marriage of convenience. This flurry of diplomatic activities proved to be abortive and was followed by an interlude between 1672 and 1674. For one thing, the initial successes of Madurai’s central authorities against the Tevar and their subsequent conquest of Tanjore (1673) made Company assistance seem superfluous and even counterproductive. For another, with investments in the region still relatively limited, the Company continued to concentrate on events elsewhere in Asia in what it considered more vital areas. In central Java the rapid disintegration of Mataram led to a growing involvement in internal politics, whereas on Ceylon the outbreak of war with the interior kingdom of Kandy was followed by the incursion and subsequent expulsion of the French from Trincomalee and São Tomé. The period between 1674 and 1676 was arguably the time when the Company, under the leadership of the imperialist, ‘Ceylon-centric’ party-faction at Colombo and tempted by the volatile conditions in Madurai (and Ramnad), was more deeply involved than ever in the internal politics of the region. No sooner had the Company forces expelled the French from São Tomé (September 1674) and returned it to the Qutb Shah of Golconda, than ‘advantageous contracts’ were concluded with the aranmanai and the Tevar, respectively. These agreements, along with another substantial loan given to the aranmanai in July 1676, accorded the Company, at least on paper, extensive political influence in the region. In the imperialist vision, these agreements were the beginnings of the establishment of a Pax Neerlandica in Southern India and Ceylon littoral and dominium maris over the surrounding waters. Imperialist hopes in this respect were fed by the rapprochement with the lower-class Paravas or kamarakkarar, impoverished by the continuing absence of a pearl fishery, the Company’s attempt to control the Indo-Ceylon trade, and the alleged oppression of the Madurai population by the increasingly cash-strapped aranmanai. The Company-kamarakkarar alliance was cemented by the granting of religious freedom to the Paravas in April 1679. While similar attempts were made by the imperialists to incorporate the Maraikkayars of Kayalpatnam into the Company’s patronage network, it was ultimately recognised that they were subjects of the aranmanai and harmful competitors in the Indo-Ceylon trade. This period of cross-cultural contacts ended with the fall from power of the imperialist, ‘Ceylon-centric’ party-faction, the consolidation of the Ramnad

Introduction 23 state, and the seemingly imminent collapse of Madurai proper. Ironically, the loosening grip of the aranmanai would allow for the realisation of the long- standing imperialist goal of a fortified settlement at Tuticorin in the next period, while the politico-commercial conflict with the Tevar and his ‘portfolio capitalist’, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, would usher in two Dutch punitive expeditions seemingly tilting the balance of power in favour of the Company. Following a disastrous decade of war, the period covered in Chapter 7, ‘Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690’, was, at first glance, a time of recovery for both the Company and Madurai. In late 1681, the mercantile party-faction at Batavia formulated a comprehensive, full-fledged policy for Ceylon, radically different from the principles laid down by the Van Goenses in the previous era. At the same time, the Company Directors initiated a series of reforms aimed at returning to the founding principle of the Company by reducing its overhead costs in order to increase profits. The subsequent policy of retrenchment concentrated on three strategic areas, South India and Ceylon, Java and surroundings, and Eastern Indonesia. On the Madurai Coast, the immediate result of this more conservative policy and the rapidly expanding long-distance textile trade with Europe (the so-called ‘Indian’ or ‘calicoe craze’) was a ‘more reasonable and improved trade’. Similar to the apparent improvement in Company affairs, Madurai’s fortunes seemingly rebounded in the wake of an acute crisis of survival (the ‘time of troubles’) in the early 1680s, as it managed to recover most of its lost territories, albeit largely because of external causes. Thereupon, the aranmanai renewed its traditional expansionist policy vis-à-vis its neighbours and long- standing rivals, Tanjore, Travancore, and Mysore. Ramnad, on the other hand, at the outset seemed to profit from the difficulties of the aranmanai, but its initial territorial gains were lost due to a series of internal rebellions and external attacks after 1685. However, there was to be no more business as usual. Beyond the horizon larger forces were at work, which in the long run would undermine the very foundations of both the Company and the state of Madurai, ushering in a period of ‘an initially deteriorating and subsequently fraudulent and unprofitable trade’. Structural political and commercial changes forced both Madurai and the Company to turn inward into ‘splendid’ isolation in the south, effectively leaving the larger political and economic arena to their more powerful Asian and European rivals to the north. The traditional regional rivalries of India’s southernmost rulers became inexorably intertwined with the escalating pan-Indian Mughal-Maratha struggle. Following the conquest of the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687), the Mughals invested the fort of Gingee (1690), the ‘Troy of the East’, and began to extract tribute from Madurai and the neighbouring

24 Introduction princes. At the same time, these powers could not ignore the revenue demands of the rapidly expanding Marathas. In addition, as part of the process of ‘first’ or ‘early modern globalisation’ in general and the ‘long eighteenth century’ (1680–1820) in particular, intra-Asian and long-distance trade with Asia entered a new competitive phase of ‘profitless growth’, characterised by the diminishing importance of monopolistic commodities and monopsonistic positions and a dramatic expansion in the volume of Euro-Asian trade in the wake of a worldwide ‘consumer revolution’ without a concomitant increase in profitability. Japanese minerals (gold, silver, and copper), and the fine spices from Ceylon and Eastern Indonesia were gradually supplanted by ‘non-traditional products’, such as textiles, coffee, and tea, available on the relatively open markets of India, Arabia, and China. At the same time, European and Asian competition gained momentum ushering in a new ‘age of commerce’ in which the voc was forced to work harder in order to earn the same absolute amount of profit. The basic instability of the period between 1680 and 1682, the ‘time of troubles’, was illustrated by the repeated incursions of Ramnad bands into the Madurai lowlands (April and November 1680) and their actual occupation by the Mysorean army (July 1681–April 1682). Ironically, the political instability allowed the Company’s mercantile party-faction to fish in troubled waters and to realise one of the elusive long-standing goals of the Van Goenses, that is, the fortification of the Tuticorin factory. Meanwhile, relations with Ramnad continued to coalesce around the restrictive commercial clauses of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674. The period between 1682 and 1685 was dominated by the occupation of the Madurai Coast by the Tevar. Dutch–Ramnad relations were still defined by the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674, but were now compounded by the fact that the Tevar decided to farm out the occupied lowlands to his ‘portfolio capitalist’, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. The resulting communal violence between the Christian Paravas and Muslim Maraikkayars was inextricably bound to the politico-commercial conflict of the Company with the Periya Tambi, leading to armed Company intervention in the First Dutch-Ramnad War (January–March 1685). Though peace was quickly restored, the aranmanai, which had previously requested Dutch assistance in vain, profited by regaining control of the Madurai Coast ca. May 1685. In accordance with its proclaimed mercantile stance, the Company turned down requests for military assistance from both sides during the subsequent hostilities between the aranmanai and the Tevar (until November 1685). Between 1686 and 1690, Dutch–Madurai relations were determined by the conflict between the mare clausum or ‘closed seas’ policy of the Company and the traditional ‘open door’ policy of the aranmanai. The conflict was spurred

Introduction 25 by the direct intrusion of English and French into Madurai in collusion with disaffected Asian merchants and rulers. In contrast, Dutch–Ramnad relations seemingly improved with the abolition of the restrictive commercial clauses of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 and the settlement of some of the remaining issues. Between late 1687 and 1690, however, the Company pursued a dual policy, attempting to pacify and co-opt the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives, while secretly preparing for a possible rupture. Through a surprise attack on Rameswaram during the Second Dutch-Ramnad War of August 1690, the Tevar was forced into signing a ‘reputable peace’. Almost at the same time, a surprise visit of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III (r. 1682–1691) to Tuticorin in July 1690 led to the conclusion of a ‘contract of alliance’ with the aranmanai. The enforcement of both agreements, however, proved to be as elusive as the attempts to consolidate Dutch politico-commercial hegemony in the region despite the construction of a costly massive fort, the ‘castle with the golden walls’, at Nagapatnam, the new seat of the Dutch governor and council of Coromandel the same year. In hindsight, it seems rather ironic that it was the mercantile party-faction with its policy of retrenchment, which realised two of the main ever-elusive goals of the imperialists: the fortification of Tuticorin and the final incorporation of the Parava leadership into the Dutch patronage network. In addition to the rapprochement with the kamarakkarar or common Paravas in the 1670s, relaxation of the Company’s religious and economic policies, along with the growing political instability along the coast, the ‘final solution’ of the Parava problem consisted in the incorporation of the Parava trading elite or mejaikarar into the Dutch patronage network. The so-called ‘first persecution’ of 1690–1691 was merely a temporary aberration from this process of gradual accommodation, completed by a policy of freedom of conscience and the liberalisation of the Indo-Ceylon trade (1697). Like the recovery of the aranmanai from the ‘time of troubles’, the construction of a small fort at Tuticorin and the final solution of the ‘Parava problem’ proved to be hollow victories. Both Madurai’s central authorities and the Company were forced to gradually withdraw into ‘splendid’ isolation and focus on affairs in the south, leaving the scene to their more powerful Asian and European rivals to the north. Despite the aranmanai’s reconquest of the majority of its lost territories and the rapid expansion of Company operations along the coast, changing external circumstances would no longer allow for business as usual. Increasingly marginalised in the larger Indian and global theatre, the erstwhile leading actors of the seventeenth century were condemned to play mere supporting roles in the eighteenth century. The final acts, however, in the unfolding drama of Dutch–Madurai relations are the topic for another study.

chapter 1 Images and Ideologies1

It is essential to know the chief points of interest to the Company in this valuable island [of Ceylon], and these cannot be learned from such poor sources [as books], but require a clear insight and personal experience, as well as setting aside of private interests… But in the treatment of their subjects the writers [of the political testimonies, the so-called ‘memoirs of succession’] wrote down just what came to their mind, and each reasoned according to his own ideas. Some of these were of great pre- eminence in the State. As in all matters concerning worldly affairs, here also the proverb holds good, ‘Quod capita tot sensus’, ‘many heads, many minds’….2 Memoir left by Governor gustaaf willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon to his successor Willem Maurits Bruynink, 1740.3

The founding of a coastal trading factory at Kayalpatnam in southeastern India in 1645 initiated a period of nearly a century of cross-cultural contacts between representatives of the Dutch East India Company (voc) and the Nayaka state of Madurai. This chapter sets out to make implicit ethnographies explicit, that is, to describe the underlying images and ideologies or mentalités that impacted the encounter between the ‘Dutch’4 and the

1 This introduction is a significantly revised and greatly expanded version of my article ‘Images and Ideologies of Dutch-South Asian Contact: Cross-Cultural Encounters between the Nayaka State of Madurai and the Dutch East India Company in the Seventeenth Century’, Itinerario 21, 2 (1997), pp. 82–123. Courtesy of the editors of Itinerario. 2 This famous adage is taken from the comic play Phormio (Act II, Scene 4, line 14), first performed at the ‘Roman Games’ (Ludi Romani) in 161 bc, by the ancient Roman playwright Publius Terentius Afer (195/185–159 bc), better known in English as Terence. See: R.H. Martin (ed.), Terence, Phormio (London: Methuen&Co., 1959); P. Terentius Afer (Terence), Phormio, or the Scheming Parasite, H.T. Riley (ed.) (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1874). 3 Memoir Left by Gustaaf-Willem Baron van Imhoff, Governor and Director of Ceylon, to his Successor, Willem Maurits Bruynink, 1740, Sophia Pieters transl. (Colombo 1911: H.C. Cottle Govt. Printer, 1911), pp. 3–4. 4 The term ‘Dutch’ is used loosely, realising that, apart from prevailing provincial and local particularist sentiments in the Dutch Republic itself, the Dutch East India Company personnel, especially the lower ranks, consisted of large numbers of foreigners, most notably German-speakers or Hollandgänger. According to the voc ship’s surgeon Nicolaus de Graaff

Images And Ideologies 27

‘Indians’5 in this region during the first half century of contacts (1645– 1690). The meeting was between two specific cultures each exhibiting some general traits, but simultaneously each with important secondary characteristics. While adhering to a series of shared ideas, each side was anything but a value monolith and consisted of several political, socio-economic, religious, and ethnic subgroups with distinct perspectives. As Ashin Das Gupta warned several decades ago, it is important to ‘avoid thinking in large aggregates’, such as ‘the Mughal’ and ‘the Company’, and to break these monoliths up in order ‘to see the different elements’ in their cooperation and conflict.6 The ‘Indian’ perception of the ‘Dutch’ and the ‘Dutch’ perception of the ‘Indian’ were part of a binary, interactive discourse on the other and the self, the image and imagination of the other (re)defining the image and imagination of the self.7

(1617–1688), the East Indies became a refuge of ‘all sorts of foreigners and displaced persons, such as Polaks, Swedes, Danes, Nores, Jutlanders, Hamburgers, people from Bremen, Lübeck, Danzig, Königsberg, High Germans, Easterners, Westphalians, from Bergen, Jülich, Cleves, and further all sorts of Moffen [Krauts], Poepen [from German Bube, ‘boy, knave’], Knuts, Hannekemowers [Hanneke, diminutive of first name Johann, mostly seasonal workers from Münster], and other Kassoepers [Kassuben, region in West Prussia] with the gras still stuck between their teeth’. J.C.M. Warnsinck (ed.), Reisen van Nicolaus de Graaff, Werken van de Linschoten-Vereeniging 33 (The Hague: Linschoten-Vereeniging, 1930), p. 47. About half of the almost 1 million (973,000) people leaving the Dutch Republic for the East Indies in the service of the voc between 1602 and 1795 were foreigners. Faced with discrimination and an invisible but real glass ceiling barrier, in general the lower the rank, the higher the percentage of foreigners. 5 The term ‘Indian’ is another label of convenience, by and large applying to the numerous and diverse peoples living within the boundaries of the Nayaka state of Madurai, comprising several world religions (Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity) and regional ethnic groups (Tamil-, Telugu-, and Kannada-speaking communities among others). 6 A. Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, c. 1700–1750 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979), pp. 15–16. 7 Though informed by different methodologies, a number of recent studies have pointed to the difficulty of containing culture, both intellectual and material, within national parameters and the significance of the global networks and the circulation of people and things since pre-modern times. Informative here is Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the ‘contact zone’ where the encounter between cultures takes place, and where the ‘constant dialectical tension with adherence to national (or regional) traditions’ is most visible. Another influential concept is Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmerman’s notion of histoire croisée, focusing on the dynamism of historical processes through the study of intersections between nations, objects, and peoples, and where stereotypes and presumptions lose their preemi- nence and new tastes and cultural configurations emerge. See: M.L. Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, second edn. (New York: Routledge, 2008); M. Werner and B. Zimmermann, De la Comparaison à l’Histoire Croisée (Paris: Seuil, 2004). For some recent

28 chapter 1

Based on the dual structure of unity in diversity/diversity in unity, on the Indian side one can distinguish the ‘temple-centric’ vision of the Brahmin Pattars or temple priests, the view of the aranmanai or ‘palace’, the vision of the palaiyakkarar or ‘little king’, the view of the ‘portfolio capitalist’ or political merchant, and the vision of the Paravas or Roman Catholic fishermen. On the Dutch side, one can distinguish the imperialist or ‘Ceylon-centric’ vision, the mercantile or ‘Batavia-centric’ view, the Calvinist predikant or theocratic vision, the ‘bottom up’ view of the common soldier, and the external vision of the ‘outsider’.8 This modern schematic classification based on a repertoire of ‘ideal types’ and their respective worldview—Weltanschauung or, if one will, its counterpart taricanam (darsana, ‘vision of divine grace; auspicious perception; understanding’)—aims to avoid the stereotypical taxonomy of contemporary observer-participants. According to Dutch sources, for instance, the Indian landscape was one- dimensional and mostly filled with ascribed flat characters, either great men or less than great men—the ‘valiant’ general, Tuppaki (honourific title meaning ‘gun, musket, matchlock’) Krishnappa Nayaka (d. 1659), the ‘effeminate’ or ‘avaricious’ ruler, Chokkanatha Nayaka of Madurai (r. 1659–1682), the ‘drunk and debauched’ ‘little king’, Raghunatha Tevar of Ramnad (r. 1674–1710), and so forth— or communities with single collective personality traits, such as the ‘cunning Moors’ or Tamil Shafi’i Muslim Maraikkayar traders, the ‘superstitious’ Roman Catholic Paravas, or the ‘blind Gentiles’ or local Tamil Hindus. This form of archetypal portrayal comes at a certain price. Blending individual portraits into collective studies brings a certain loss of detail together with the deficiencies of a still life painting, a rather static representation of a constantly changing scene at one given moment in time. Nevertheless, although simplifying a more complex and ever-changing reality, this ‘ideal type’, ‘Kodak

works influenced by these diverse approaches: E. Tagliacozzo and W.-Chin Chang (eds), Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011); M. North (ed.), Artistic and Cultural Exchanges Between Europe and Asia, 1400–1900: Rethinking Markets, Workshops and Collections (Burlington and Surrey: Ashgate, 2010); M.D. Sheriff (ed.), Cultural Contact and the Making of European Art Since the Age of Exploration (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). 8 For recent attempts to paint ‘collective portraits’ of the regent, merchant, sailor, minister, soldier, and so forth in seventeenth-century Holland: H.M. Beliën, A.Th. van Deursen, and G.J. van Setten (eds), Gestalten van de Gouden Eeuw: Een Hollands Groepsportret (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1995). This volume in turn was inspired by: J. Romein and A. Romein-Verschoor, Erflaters van Onze Beschaving: Nederlandse Gestalten Uit Zes Eeuwen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: Querido, 1938–1939). For examples of the ‘life and times’ approach regarding the early modern Deccan: R.M. Eaton, A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761: Eight Indian Lives (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); G. Kruijtzer, Xenophobia in Seventeenth- Century India (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2009).

Images And Ideologies 29 moment’ or snapshot approach allows one to define some of the intellectual frameworks and cultural parameters or ‘fundamental drives’,9 which influenced and in turn were influenced by the logistics of the actual encounters between representatives of Dutch and Madurai society in the pre-colonial era in general and the second half of the seventeenth century in particular. As such, we take issue with Edward Said and others, who have argued that cross-cultural contacts were predetermined by political programs and attitudes of cultural superiority on the part of Europeans. Cross-cultural encounters and evaluations were only partly governed by a perspective of power and hegemony. Many contacts between Europeans and other peoples occurred on a level plain—in this case, the level coastal plain of the ‘Opposite Coast’—and were not forged in a context of unequal power and subordination.10 According to the General Instruction of the Company Directors to the High Government at Batavia in April 1650, the voc itself divided its trading operations into three categories, with their relative significance indicated by their respective designations. The ‘Dutch Indian Ocean World’ consisted of twenty or more establishments of different character and function. The core consisted of those areas where the Company enjoyed trade as an outcome of its ‘own conquest’, exercising its own jurisdiction. The majority of Dutch conquests was formed by either spice-producing or trade emporia, such as the ‘governments’ of Ambon, Banda, Cape of Good Hope, Coromandel, Makassar, the northeast coast of Java, Taiwan, and Ternate. A second category contained those regions where the Company conducted trade ‘by virtue of exclusive contracts’ with indigenous rulers, giving it monopolistic or monopsonic rights on local exports or imports, such as the ‘commandments’ of Malabar, the west coast of Sumatra, and the ‘tin districts’ of the Malaysian Peninsula. The third category consisted of those regions where trade was conducted ‘by virtue of treaties’. There the Company did not occupy any special position and found itself merely one among many merchant communities. This category included economically important establishments under a director, including Bengal, Surat, and Persia, part of powerful indigenous empires, such as Mughal India or Safavid Persia; and peripheral establishments under a resident, head, or chief, such as Banjarmasin, Ligor, or Tonkin. The Madurai Coast had elements of all three categories, though, as we will see, perceptions and assessments of the actual

9 S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Forcing the Doors of Heathendom: Ethnography, Violence, and the Dutch East India Company’, in: C.H. Parker and J.H. Bentley (eds), Between the Middle Ages and Modernity: Individual and Community in the Early Modern World (Lanham: Rowland & Littlefield, 2007), p. 142. 10 See Chapter 7.

30 chapter 1 position of the Company differed on each side and within each side of the encounter reflecting the dual structure of unity in diversity/diversity in unity. Moreover, non-Europeans were not passively produced by hegemonic proj ects, but were active agents themselves whose choices and discourses were of fundamental importance in shaping the encounter acting as intermediaries and tutors. Finally, the process of cultural contact and reporting was interactive as perceptions and actions influenced each other on both sides of the encounter. In other words, implicit ethnographies were the product of a complex interaction between past experiences and the newly experienced.11 In a recent interview, Sanjay Subrahmanyam emphasised the historian’s continuous need to move back and forth (toujours joué entre ces niveaux) between large contextual questions and individual trajectories and more or less biographical vignettes: ‘At a basic level, it is the classic question of how determin- istic you make your history, how much people are prisoners of context or active agents. What you need to do is constantly move between these levels of analysis’.12 In a way, we are addressing one of the ‘big questions’ in the analysis and interpretation of history: the degree of determinism and contingency in the human condition.

The Indian Perception of the Dutch

The Indian perception of the Europeans, ‘Franks’ (Parangi) or ‘Hat-Wearers’ (Toppikkarar), was fraught with ambiguity and characterised by several distinct, seemingly contradictory concurrent Frankophobic and Frankophiliac sentiments. Until the eighteenth century, when we have the first eyewitness accounts or travelogues written by Indian travellers to other, mainly Western countries, it was dominated by ‘Europeans without Europe’, that is, largely based on impressions as obtained from contact on Indian soil. Europeans were recognised as powerful merchants and purveyors of wondrous objects and curiosities, while at the same time assigned low-status positions in the caste hierarchy and looked upon as deceitful and religious bigots, simultaneously drawing on empiricist matter-of-fact and mythical mirabilia and monsters’ reg-

11 For summaries of these issues: S.B. Schwartz (ed.), Implicit Understandings: Observing, Reporting, and Reflecting on the Encounters Between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Breck enridge and Van der Veer (eds), Orientalism and the Post-Colonial Predicament. 12 Grillot and Etter, ‘History Speaks Many Languages’. See also: Idem, ‘Le Goût de l’Archive est Polyglotte’.

Images And Ideologies 31 isters. Thus, Indian views of Europeans run the gamut of emotions, fear and love, suspicion and disgust, wonder and reticence.13 The arrival of the ‘Franks’ or ‘Hat-Wearers’ was neither shocking nor dis- ruptive to the world vision of Asian peoples, who, while noting important markers of difference, absorbed or ‘indigenised’ the newcomers within the existing ethnoscape and civilisational grammar.14 In much of Asia interaction between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds, religions, and languages was relatively commonplace. South India’s patterns of social and cultural plu- ralism in particular were established long before Europeans arrived. Trade, migration, and warfare had connected peoples and cultures from across India and the surrounding Indian Ocean for many centuries. K.N. Chaudhuri has surmised three ‘networks of trade and civilisation’ embracing parts of India and linking it, variously, with Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and Levant, and Southeast Asia from at least the seventh century onwards. All three inter- sected in South India.15 Contrary to the teleological communal image or ‘two nation’ theory of early modern India presented by British colonial and Indian nationalist historiogra- phies, seventeenth-century Madurai was a cosmopolitan, inclusive society,

13 S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Taking Stock of the Franks: South Asian Views of Europeans and Europe, 1500–1800’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 42, 1 (2005), pp. 72, 80, 86–88, and 96–97; Idem, ‘On the Hat-Wearers, Their Toilet Practices, and Other Curious Usages’, in: K. Chatterjee and C. Hawes (eds), Europe Observed: Multiple Gazes in Early Modern Encounters (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2008), pp. 48, 66, and 77–78; J. Flores, ‘Floating Franks: The Portuguese and Their Empire As Seen From Early Modern Asia’, in: R. Aldrich and K. McKenzie (eds), The Routledge History of Western Empires (Routledge: Oxon and New York, 2014), esp. pp. 33–42; E. Vanina, Medieval Indian Mind scapes: Space, Time, Society, Man (Delhi: Primus Books, 2012), esp. pp. 64–67; Washbrook, ‘South India 1770–1840’, pp. 492–495, 506, and 510. For an early seventeenth-century example from northern Tamilnad of these ambiguous feelings towards the Hunas or svetavadanah (‘white faces’) at Madras, see the Sanskrit work Visvagunadarsacampu (‘Mirror Of All Qualities’) by the orthodox Srivashnava Tamil Brahmin Venkatadhvarin (lines 502–506). See: Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 5–6; Subrahmanyam, ‘On the Hat-Wearers’, p. 67. For an introduction to this work and its author: M.-C. Porcher (ed.), Un Poème Satirique Sanskrit: La Visvagunadarsacampu de Venkatadhvarin (Pondichéry: Institut Français d’Indologie, 1972). For a late seventeenth-century example, see the epic poem Sivabharata (‘Shiva the Cherished’) by the Varanasi Brahman Kavindra Paramananda. See: J.W. Laine, The Epic of Shivaji: Kavindra Parmananda’s Sivabharata (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001), p. 364. 14 Flores, ‘Floating Franks’, pp. 41–42. 15 K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

32 chapter 1 comprising several world religions (Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity) and regional ethnic groups (Tamil-, Telugu-, and Kannada-speaking communities among others) with a high degree of interaction and mutual acceptance. The Nayakas themselves, for instance, originated as ‘outsider’ Telugu warrior-chiefs (Vadugas or ‘northerners’), employing Nayaka and Tamil Marava and Kallar chiefs in their administration. Though Hindu rulers, they sponsored Muslim and Christian religious endowments and freely allied themselves with Muslim rulers against ‘fellow’ Hindu states, routinely using Muslim cavalry and Christian artillerymen. In fact, not only did this redistributive ‘gifting’ activity (tarmatanam) help to render Telugu kingship culturally appropriate, but the emergence of a mobile and eclectic warrior culture also proved to be particularly favourable to these syncretic tendencies. Cross-cultural borrowings—indicative of a willingness to absorb, blend, and experiment—included the spread of ‘Telugu’ ideas of kingship and agriculture into the Tamil country, the use of Arabic letters to write Tamil texts, and the absorption of Sanskrit into elite Tamil, to the diffusion of common myths and legends across regional and linguistic boundaries.16 Nevertheless, medieval and late pre-colonial Indian society was certainly violent, but, as one noted historian of South India has observed recently, conflicts were still fragmentary and limited to the local level.17 Ethno-religious (and socio-political) tensions between the Telugu Nayaka dynasty and Tamil, locally dominant, Ambalakkarar Kallar groups during the reign of Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623–1659), for instance, manifested itself in the defective unity of the Cittirai Festival of Madurai, celebrating the marriage of the goddess Minaksi to Shiva (see Figure 17). The repeated conflicts between the Telugu Nayakas and the Tamil Marava rulers of Ramnad during this period are another case in point, while the opposition of a Telugu-speaking faction at the Madurai court against the ‘upstart’ Tamil-speaking talavay or commander-in-chief/prime minister Narasappa Ayya (d. 1702) in 1693 was also rooted in socio-political and

16 For views, that Europeans were not seen as foreigners, but could be absorbed and made to serve Indian purposes: Marshall, A Free Though Conquering People, XV, pp. 7–11; S. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History (London and New York: Longman, 1993), pp. 249–261. For the argument, that there were no easy dichotomies, such as Muslims versus Hindus or Indians versus foreigners: C. Talbot, ‘Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre- Colonial India’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, 4 (1995), pp. 692–723; D.E. Ludden, ‘History Outside Civilisation and the Mobility of South Asia’, South Asia 17, 1 (1994), pp. 1–23. 17 S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Before the Leviathan: Sectarian Violence and the State in Pre-Colonial India’, in: K. Basu and S. Subrahmanyam (eds), Unravelling the Nation: Sectarian Conflict and India’s Secular Identity (New Delhi and New York: Penguin Books, 1996), pp. 57–58.

Images And Ideologies 33 ethnic sentiments. The communal riots of 1684 and 1697–1698 between the Roman Christian Paravas and the Muslim Maraikkayars along the Fishery Coast and the execution of the Jesuit João de Britto (1647–1693) in 1693 by order of Raghunatha Tevar of Ramnad (r. 1674–1710) were the result of complex political, socioeconomic, and religious rivalries.18 Multi-causal conflicts also erupted between ‘left-hand’ (itankai) and ‘right-hand’ (valankai) groups in English Madras (Chennai) in 1652–1654, 1680, 1707, and 1716–1717, and in Dutch Pulicat with both sides seeking support of the European establishment. In the Deccan, it has recently been argued, the roots of modern communalism (the antago- nism between ‘communities’ of Hindus and Muslims) can be found in an ‘axial decade’ (1677–1687) demarcated by the visit of the Maratha king Shivaji Bhonsle (r. 1674–1680) to the sultan of Golkonda, Abul Hasan Qutb Shah (r. 1672–1687), in 1677 and the fall of the Qutb Shahi state to Mughal forces in 1687.19 On the issue of identity and identity formation, we assume a middling position between primordialists, emphasising rigidity and autonomy, and historicists and constructionists (including Bernard Cohn and the ‘Chicago school’ of ethnohistory focusing on the role of Orientalism and the ‘colonial project’), emphasising fluidity and contingency of identities.20 While identity cannot be

18 For the tensions between the Telugu Nayakas and the Tamil Ambalakkarar Kallar: D. Hudson, ‘Siva, Minaksi, Visnu—Reflections on a Popular Myth in Madurai’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 14, 1 (1977), pp. 107–118. For a reference to the opposition of the Telugu-speaking faction against Narasappa Ayya: voc 1525, obp 1694, f. 1183v, Kort relaas der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter kuste Madura, 30.11.1693. For a discussion of the 1684 riots between the Paravas and Maraikkayars: M.P.M. Vink, ‘Communalism or Coexistence? Muslim-Christian Relations on the Madurai Coast in the 17th Century’, Midwestern Conference on Asian Affairs, 46th Annual Meeting, DeKalb, Ill., September 26–28, 1997 [unpublished paper]. For the 1697–1698 riots: D. Shulman and S. Subrah manyam, ‘Prince of Poets and Ports: Citakatti, the Maraikkayars and Ramnad, ca. 1690– 1710’, in: A.L. Dallapiccola and S. Zingel-Avé Lallemant (eds), Islam and Indian Regions I (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1993), pp. 509–512. For the background of De Britto’s execution: S. Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900, Cambridge South Asian Studies 43 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 399–404. 19 Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 308–309; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 253–257; Kruijtzer, Xenophobia, pp. 157–172. 20 N.B. Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Inden, Imagining India. Other members include McKim Marriott and Milton Singer. For important critiques: R.M. Eaton, ‘(Re)imag(in)ing Otherness: A Postmortem for the Postmodern in India’, Journal of World History 11, 1 (2000), pp. 57–78; M. Roberts, ‘Submerging the People? Post-Orientalism and the Construction of Commu nalism’, in: G. Berkemer, T. Frasch, H. Kulke, and J. Lütt (eds), Explorations in the History of

34 chapter 1 created ex nihilo and emerging, fluid patriotisms were in existence, in precolonial India it was also political, contingent, and constructed. Communal conflict and coexistence or cohabitation across the subcontinent was contingent upon the intersection of a set of particular dynamics differing from locality to locality, the spark often times being provided by the political component. Identification with the own group and the likelihood for conflict increased when the hierarchy of two groups became unstable and perceived as illegitimate, and crossing between the groups difficult.21 Yet, boundaries remained porous. Europeans overseas (largely single males), for instance, could and did ‘go native’, just as ‘whitening’ was an option for indigenous peoples in the pre-modern era by adopting ‘major codes’ of primordiality (gender, generation, kinship, territoriality, language, and race), civility (rules of conduct, traditions, and social routines), and sacredness (god, reason, progress, or rationality). In an era when political and religious loyalties were deemed overlapping, epitomised in the principle of cuius regio, eius religio or jus reformandi in the post-Augsburg period (1555) and confirmed at the Peace of Westphalia (1648), religion was considered the ultimate marker of identity in the eyes of the Europeans.22 While no simple ‘melting pot’, South Indian society was also not marked either by the maintenance of impermeable cultural boundaries. It was a socially and culturally pluralist society used to various forms of ‘otherness’, which it accommodated with varying degrees of synchretism and separation. When Europeans first started joining Nayaka period Tamilnadu with its ‘inclusive rather than exclusive’ composite culture and its ‘syncretic vocabulary’ from the sixteenth century, they were drawn into its composite matrix as one (or, in fact, several) group(s) among many and, for a very long time, were similarly accommodated: ‘part-distanced, part-imitated, part-absorbed’.23 As a result, to a certain degree the Dutch were (like their Portuguese predecessors) accepted in the same manner as the Arab or Persian Muslim merchants

South Asia: Essays in Honour of Dietmar Rothermund, Variation: South Asian Studies 36 (Delhi: Manohar, 2001), pp. 311–323. 21 Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, pp. 66–71, and 112–114; Idem, The Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 63–97; Idem, ‘The Pre-History of “Communalism”? Religious Conflict in India, 1700–1860’, Modern Asian Studies 19, 2 (1985), pp. 177–203. 22 S.N. Eisenstadt and W. Schluchter, ‘Introduction: Paths to Early Modernity—A Com parative View’, Daedalus 127, 3 (1998), pp. 14–15; Vink, ‘Indian Ocean Studies and the “New Thalassology” ’, pp. 60–61. 23 Washbrook, ‘South India 1770–1840’, p. 495; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 303–304; Flores, ‘Floating Frankness’.

Images And Ideologies 35 before them had been. Indeed, although far from a perfect match, the voc could be fit to some extent into several pre-existing regional templates available, including ‘portfolio capitalist’ or political merchant, bandit-king or low- status ‘outsiders’ on the ‘outer frontier’ developing positions of dominance, ‘little king’ or palaiyakkarar (holder of a palaiyam or fortified centre), and merchant guild (sreni). In some ways, the voc as a ‘militarised trade diaspora’ resembled a medieval South Indian merchant guild operating internationally (nanateci) with its own settlements and (since 1682) fortified centre at Tuticorin and became an important power factor in the political economy of the region, enjoying numerous immunities granted by local rulers in the form of qauls and other agreements, employing troops and lending money to kings. As we will see, the Company as ‘merchant-warrior’ on various occasions received requests for loans and military assistance from the Nayakas of Madurai and the Tevars of Ramnad.24 Indian merchants had participated in international trade since ancient times. The great guilds operating in ‘many countries’ emerged as an important power factor in South Indian politics in the days of the Pallavas (550–910). Among the most powerful merchant guilds were the Ainnurruvar or ‘Five Hundred Lords (cuvamis) of Ayyavolu’ and the Manigramam. Between the ninth and fourteenth century, the Ayyavole whose name was derived from a former capital of the Chalukyas of Vatapi/Badami (544–707), Aihole, in modern-day northern Karnataka, dominated the trade of the Deccan and Western Asia, whereas the Manigramam (‘gem-like town’), based on a port village near

24 Though recognising the existence of the ‘portfolio capitalist’ in southeastern India, Sanjay Subrahmanyam argues that the relationship between external commerce and political participation within South India is complex and that no single model is sufficient to explain the events and processes occurring in the period 1500 to 1650. He denies the resemblance between the South Indian ‘merchant guild’ and the ‘corporately organised group of mercantile capitalists, prosecuting commodity exchange and overseeing urban manufacture’ in Europe. Though ‘merchant guilds’ are mentioned in writings on South India before 1500, he questions whether these were organisations with continuity in activities and membership or that their activities were fundamentally of a commercial nature. Moreover, given the dispersed and essentially rural based nature of commodity production, it is questionable whether these bodies effectively supervised production in the same manner as their European ‘counterparts’. The identification of the European guild with the closed burg and concomitant political and juridical status renders comparison with corporate bodies in South India even more questionable. Lastly, the absence of mention in the records of the period 1550 to 1650 suggests that, certainly at this time, these bodies had little role in the exchange economy, its links with the producing economy, or in the interface between merchants and state in the period under consideration. Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce, pp. 340–341.

36 chapter 1

Nagapatnam, in modern-day southern Tamil Nadu, concentrated on trade with Southeast Asia. The ‘500’ set up protected mercantile towns (patnams, pattinams) under special charters from the Chola kings based on the fertile Cauvery (Kaveri) river valley, financed local development projects (irrigation works) and the construction of temples along with feeding Brahmins, and lent money to kings. Rulers did their best to accommodate the guilds (including granting tax exemptions) because of the various benefits, which they derived from their trade. Due to their international connections, the troops they employed and the immunities they enjoyed, such guilds almost constituted a state within the state.25 In fact, if not for their willingness and ability to resort to violence, the Dutch could therefore be simply considered another group of foreign traders generating wealth and employment to the region in general and bringing profit and prestige for local rulers in particular. In the financial year 1690–1691, for example, total Company investments (cash and commodities combined) in the region peaked at 549,271 guilders. At the same time, 320 indigenous servants (earning 3,526 fanams or 1,190 guilders a month) were employed at the local voc factories. According to contemporary estimates, the Dutch textile trade, the mainstay of Company activities in Madurai, generated jobs for thousands of cotton plant- ers, spinners, weavers, painters, traders, and washermen. In 1690, for instance, 1,667 looms (makkams) were producing textiles to satisfy Company demand around Manappad and Alvar Tirunagari alone, while around the same time 400–500 looms were operating near Sivakasi and 4,200 looms around Kottar, officially in the lands of Travancore but within the jurisdiction of the Dutch chief of the Madurai Coast.26 The aranmanai or central authorities also received

25 K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), pp. 299–300; H. Kulke and D. Rothermund, A History of India, fourth edn. (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 126–127; B. Stein, A History of India (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), p. 126; R. Seshan, Trade and Politics on the Coromandel Coast: Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries (New Delhi: Primus Books, 2012); A. Appadorai, Economic Conditions in Southern India (1000 to 1500 a.d.) (Madras: University of Madras, 1936), I, pp. 378–402; B. Stein, ‘Coromandel Trade in Medieval India’, in: J. Parker (ed.), Merchants and Scholars: Essays in the History of Exploration and Trade (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965), pp. 47–62; K.R. Hall, Trade and Statecraft in the Age of the Colas (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1980), esp. pp. 147–155. 26 voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 205v, Rapp. opperk. Van Rhee van de presente toestant ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 249r–249v, Rapp. Nicolaes Welter aan opperk. en opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 9.9.1689; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 413r, Memorie Comps. dienaren te Tuticorin, 31.12.1690; voc 1543, obp 1696, ff. 616v and 628v–629r, Rapp.

Images And Ideologies 37 two-thirds of a variety of import and export duties collected by the voc at Tuticorin, Punnaikayal, Kayalpatnam, Virapandiyapatnam, and Manappad, including anchorage dues (nankura-vatakai), bazaar duties, weighing money, broker fees (taraku, talali), and so forth.27 Besides port customs and road duties, tax revenues also swelled government coffers due to enhanced collections on lands devoted to cotton and other products for the export sector and minting fees levied on the vast sums of imported precious metals. In 1677, for instance, the Company Assistant Adolff Bassingh estimated the profit of the copper mint at Trichinopoly alone at 1,200 pardaus a month.28 The Madurai currency and the region’s monetary and fiscal systems became dependent on rising European imports of precious metals based on the ‘treasure for textiles’ pattern. Apart from the so-called negotiepenningen or ‘commercial coins’ specially intended for export from Europe, gold kobans were imported from Japan (Deshima), silver abasis from Persia (Bandar Abbas or Gombroon), together with various Indian currencies, such as silver rupees and mahmudis from Surat, gold pagodas from Pulicat, plus Nagapatnam and Marava fanams. These ‘commodities’ were supplemented by limited quantities of base metals (copper from Japan, tin from Malaysia, and so forth), pepper and arecanuts from Malabar and Ceylon, fine spices from Eastern Indonesia and Ceylon, aromatic woods, dye woods and other dyes from Southeast Asia, silk textiles, muslins, gold embroidery, powdered sugar, and edible oils from Bengal, and silks, carpets, brocade, dried fruit, ‘rose water,’ and wines from Persia. Apart from cotton textiles destined for Europe and West Africa, Company exports from Madurai consisted of pearls and chanks, food grains and other provisions, rockfish skins and chaya roots, livestock, people, ballast (salt, lime, and coral stone), and manufactured goods (gunny bags, packing twine, coir rope, mats, baskets, and other ‘trifles’), mainly to the ports of Ceylon, the Bay of Bengal, Malabar, and Batavia. In addition, high-profile Dutch embassies carried valuable presents (elephants, Persian horses, Bengal and Persian silks and textiles, sandalwood, ‘rose water,’ various types of fine spices, etc.) and curiosities (exotic birds and animals,

onderk. Welter aan Bergaigne, opperk. en opperh. van Madura, 2.10.1694; voc 1544, obp 1695, f. 934v, Kort vertoog opperh. Bergaigne en raad te Tuticurin der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter kuste Madure, 30.11.1694; voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratiën [van gouvr. Van Imhoff] over de handel op de Madurese kust, 1738; Miss. commr. Van Dielen en raad van Malabar aan Batavia, 10.10.1692, in: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 254. 27 For a comprehensive list of these duties compiled by the Company Merchant Rutgert de Heijde in 1672: voc 1544, obp 1695, ff. 817r–819v, Notitie der geregtigheden op de custe Madure coopm. De Heijde anno 1672 op Tutucorijn, 2.12.1694. 28 Bassingh, ‘Description’, p. 293.

38 chapter 1

European manufactures, including a metal piece, various types of pistols and matchlocks, glasses and glass mirrors, compasses, featherbeds, and so forth) to leading members of the Nayaka court. The 1668 mission under Captain Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede (see Figure 4), for instance, carried presents with a total value of 13,110 guilders whereas a scheduled 1674 mission under the Jaffnapatnam Brahmin Timmarasa Ayya was to bring gifts worth 40,000 guilders.29 The Van Rheede mission is quite informative in this regard. On February 1, 1668, while at Srivilliputtur en route from Tuticorin to Trichinopoly, Van Rheede was told by some servants of Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai, the then gover- nor of Tirunelveli, that ‘in case we did not bring any elephants, we could better turn back for without such considerable gifts…we would encounter little respect’. On March 18, 1668, one of the confidantes of Tuppaki Anandappa (Antappa) Nayaka, son of Tuppaki Lingama (or Lingappa) Nayaka and later commander-in-chief of the Madurai army, announced the arrival of the Van Rheede mission at Trichinopoly as follows:

Lord Antappa, you have found a diamond, the value of which you do not realise. It is the reason why the Holland nation is so caressed and honoured by the kings of Persia, Surat, Coromandel, and Bengal. Be sure to hand it over heart-felt and eloquently from the deficiencies of your father’s house to the ruler of Madurai [Chokkanatha Nayaka]. If this nation were your sincere friend, the Nayaka would be able to obtain all the rare and costly goods in the entire world because these people have ships from where the sun comes up to where the moon goes down.

Along the same lines, one month later, on April 25, 1668, the Madurai pradhani or finance minister Vadamalaiyappa Pillai (see Figure 6) reminded Van Rheede: ‘Wise men do not plant a tree in order to immediately eat its fruits, but only after the passing of time when it has reached full maturity having been watered and allowed to grow. So it was with the Hon. Company, which had started to cultivate the friendship with the Lord Nayaka, which through presents and friendly treatment would be made to grow and, in due time, would promise [to produce] pleasant fruits’.30 When in February 1690 the then Madurai pradhani

29 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1187r–1189r, Rapport kapt. Van Rheede aan Van Goens, 2.7.1668; voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 314v, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1670; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 41, 199–203, and 254–257; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 31r–32v, and 67v, Miss. Superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674. 30 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1160r, 1170v, 1184r–1184v, 1187r–1189r, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 5, 42, 132, 164–165, 192–193, 199–203, 208–209, 226, 248, and 254–257. Admiration for the mastery of navigation is part of the persistent themes in the ethnographic assessment of the ‘Franks’: Subrahmanyam, ‘On the Hat-Wearers’, pp. 65–66.

Images And Ideologies 39

Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya (fl. 1674–1690) learned that the Dutch embassy had brought neither elephants nor horses from Aceh to his master, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III (r. 1682–1691), the Madurai finance minister indignantly commented ‘that his lord was not a beggar, nor had he come to receive alms from the Honourable Company, which was conducting such an important trade in the lands of the ruler’. The irritable Brahmin pradhani observed that it would be better for the voc mission to turn around and take the presents with them.31 While considerable gifts were esteemed merely because of their monetary value, curiosities (nutanam) were held in high regard as status symbols and additional sources of legitimacy. In December 1678, for instance, Chokkanatha Pillai, the governor of Tirunelveli, intimated that his lord, Muttu Linga Nayaka. Nayaka, was dissatisfied with the watch presented to him at Trichinopoly by the Company ambassador Mukkapa Nayaka. The Tirunelveli governor bluntly informed the head peon of Tuticorin that ‘the watch was not such as the Lord Nayaka wanted’. On behalf of the Madurai ruler, Chokkanatha Pillai and other leading courtiers, therefore, requested instead for another watch, ‘similar to the one owned by Ekoji [Bhonsle, the ruler of Tanjore r. 1675–1684], hanging on a small chain around his neck, which the Nayaka covets greatly’.32 Muttu Virappa Nayaka III in particular seems to have had a virtually insatiable appetite for curiosities. The public cultural display of exotica was part and parcel of a larger politico-cultural program seeking to prop up his (and initially that of his uncle and regent Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka’s) precarious position, facing numerous internal and external challenges, with these powerful symbols of substance. As Tim Blanning has convincingly argued in The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture (2002), ‘the greater the doubts about the stability of a throne, the greater the need for display’.33 Thus, in August 1685, several envoys dispatched by Muttu Virappa Nayaka III handed over a veritable ‘shopping list’ of curiosities to the Dutch chief of Tuticorin, consisting of ‘several watches, compasses, binoculars, and strange mirrors showing many faces at the same time, pistols, double-barreled shot

31 voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 942r–942v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.2.1690. 32 voc 1133, obp 1679, ff. 245v–246r, Transl. ola Moekapanaijck uit Trichinopoli aan koopman Fauconnier te Tuticorin, 3.12.1678. 33 T.C.W. Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660– 1789 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 32. In shrill contrast, ‘the homage of foreigners to the Son of Heaven in China, though considered natural and expected, was scarcely a central prop of imperial legitimacy’. See: J.E. Wills Jr., Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K’ang-hsi, 1666–1687 (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984), p. 32.

40 chapter 1 guns, birds of paradise, 3 to 4 pounds of good, pure opium, preserved nutmeg, ginger, lemons, myrobalans [certain dried fruits and kernels of astringent flavour], mangos, and the like’.34 In similar fashion, the Company Ambassador Nicolaes Welter was relieved of his own small silver rapier and accompanying portepee during his first audience with Muttu Virappa Nayaka III on 7 July 1689, while on his second impromptu visit on 18 July 1689 Welter was ‘persuaded’ to hand over his beautiful small cabinet made in Jaffnapatnam along with a set of small pocket pistols. In between the unfortunate emissary had already been talked into handing over his official ‘audience hat’, described as ‘a fine black hat with a gold and silver turning’, leaving the exasperated Toppikkarar or ‘Hat- Wearer’ with only a ‘half worn-out hat’. Still not satisfied, the prying Nayaka ruler then asked the now stripped-bare voc emissary ‘whether I did not have any other oddity fit to honour a ruler like himself’, adding that ‘he would like to have something curious, inquiring whether something could be had at Tuticorin or Colombo?’ In November 1689, Governor Laurens Pijl and the Council of Ceylon requested Batavia, most likely conveying a wish list from Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, for ‘6 lories and 3 cockatoos, along with some Japanese lacquerware and other curiosities for the Nayaka of Madurai and other notables to be sent to Tuticorin as presents’.35 Apart from being sources of wealth and curiosities, European embassies by themselves were also a source of prestige for Asian rulers. In October 1685, for instance, Mukkapa Nayaka, head of the Company lascorins at Tuticorin, was sent once more to Trichinopoly to Muttu Virappa Nayaka III in order to congratulate the young Madurai ruler. The indigenous Company servant, however, was reprimanded by Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, questioning ‘why he and not a white person had been sent?’ In December 1688, therefore, the Dutch Chief Joan van Vliet of Tuticorin (1685–1690) observed that it would be necessary to dispatch some Dutch Company servants along with a subsequent mission planned to the Madurai capital: ‘It seems as if the rulers derive status from showing strangers arriving at their courts to the rest of the world, especially when they come from such remote areas as Europe’.36 These considerations, among others, would lead to the dispatch of the Welter embassy of 1689,

34 voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 98r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.9.1685. 35 See the report of Welter under dates 7, 17, and 18 July 1689 (ff. 263r–264r, 277r–277v, 278v–279r); voc 1484 obp 1690, f. 162v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 42–43, 452–453, 465, 466, 539, and 550. 36 voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 251r, Transl. rapp. Moecapanaijck aan commt. De Heijde, 20.11.1685; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 397r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl, 11.12.1688.

Images And Ideologies 41 consisting of 2 Europeans—including the Assistant Nicolaes Welter—accompanied by 50 Asian Company servants.37 Nonetheless, their readiness to use force and control trade in an area where commercial rivalry had traditionally been relatively peaceful, combined with their ability to establish command over the high seas, earned the Dutch the hostility of some segments of Indian society. In July 1671, for instance, when Dutch-Madurai relations were at a historical politico-economic low, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar, the governor of Tirunelveli, bluntly replied to Dutch claims that Company trade benefited the inhabitants and country of Madurai: ‘What advantages have the Nayaka and his subjects enjoyed so far? Both the Hon. Company and its trade are of small importance. Indeed, Madurai does not lack any merchants in the interior. Moreover, during the Portuguese period, when ships were coming from everywhere, the Nayaka had profited more than nowadays…’.38 The perception that Western nations reaped disproportionately great financial advantages from overseas trade combined with their uncompromising attitudes would occasionally contribute to armed confrontation, such as the ‘punitive expedition’ or ‘exploit of revenge’ in 1649 and the Tuticorin War in 1669 with the Nayaka of Madurai, and the First and Second Dutch- Ramnad War in 1685 and 1690, respectively, with the Tevar of Ramnad. It is telling, however, that each of these armed conflicts was of relative short duration and limited size. The arrival of the Europeans—Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, Danish, and others—in the Indian Ocean World from the late fifteenth century onwards, therefore, heralded neither the bloody dawn of the so-called ‘Vasco da Gama- epoch’ (most notably K.M. Panikkar, O.K. Nambiar, Bernard Vlekke, and, in qualified versions, Geoffrey Parker and Carlo Cipolla),39 with its emphasis on

37 Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 16. 38 voc 1282, obp 1672, ff. 1070r–1070v, Secrete Miss. Pijl aan gouvr. Van Goens, 14.7.1671; C.R. de Silva, ‘Beyond the Cape: The Portuguese Encounter With the Peoples of South Asia’, in: Schwartz (ed.), Implicit Understandings, pp. 295–296, and 321–322. For a comparision with the reception of Europeans in Southeast Asia: A. Reid, ‘Early Southeast Asian Catego rizations of Europeans’, in: Idem, esp. pp. 268–270. 39 K.M. Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance: A Survey of the Vasco da Gama Epoch of Asian History, 1498–1945, second edn. (London: Allen&Unwin, 1959), pp. 13–15; O.K. Nambiar, The Kunjalis, Admirals of Calicut (New York: Asia Pub. House, 1963); B. Vlekke, Nusantara: A History of Indonesia, sixth edn. (The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1965); C. Rogers (ed.), The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Inno vation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800, second edn. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); C. Cipolla, Guns, Sails, and Empires: Technological Innovation

42 chapter 1 the military-nautical context and asymmetry and conflict, nor the tentative beginnings of a golden ‘Age of Partnership’ (Holden Furber), ‘Age of Commerce’ (Anthony Reid, Kenneth McPherson), ‘Reciprocity’ (Michael Pearson), or ‘Convivência’ (A.J.R. Russell-Wood),40 emphasizing the commercial (and cultural) along with equality and respect. Rather, it was an ‘Age of Contained Conflict’ (Sanjay Subrahmanyam), ‘Balance of Blackmail’ (Ashin Das Gupta), ‘Perceived Mutual Advantage’ (Om Prakash), ‘Conflict-Ridden Symbiosis’ (Chris Bayly), ‘Co-operation or Acquiescence’ and ‘Accommodations’ (Peter Marshall), and ‘Two-Way Dependency’ (David Ludden), focusing on political economy (combining the military and the commercial) and some mixture of conflict and cooperation with greater sensitivity for temporal and spatial variations (see introduction). The European presence over its first 250 years during the period of ‘first’ or ‘early modern globalisation’ certainly varied from place to place and time to time, but overall effects on the Indian Ocean World, its people, even its politics and economy, were limited. By and large the Europeans were forced to accommodate themselves to pre-existing structures.41

and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400–1700 (New York: Minerva Press, 1965), pp. 138–146; P.J. Marshall, ‘Western Arms in Maritime Asia in the Early Phases of Expansion’, Modern Asian Studies 14, 1 (1980), pp. 13–28. 40 H. Furber, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600–1800 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976), p. 324; Idem, John Company at Work: A Study of European Expansion in India in the Late Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948); Idem, ‘Asia and the West as Partners Before “Empire” and After’, Journal of Asian Studies 28, 4 (1969), pp. 711–721. It also forms the overarching theme of the Festschrift edited by Blaire B. Kling and Michael N. Pearson, The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia Before Dominion (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1979); A. Reid, ‘An “Age of Commerce” in Southeast Asian History’, Modern Asian Studies 24, 1 (1990), pp. 1–30; Idem, ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 11, 2 (1980), pp. 235–250; Idem, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 2 vols. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988–1993); Idem, Charting the Shape of Early Modern Southeast Asia (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1999); Idem (ed.), Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era: Trade, Power and Belief (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 17–18; K. McPherson, The Indian Ocean: A History of People and the Sea (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 138–143; M.N. Pearson, The Portuguese in India, The New Cambridge History of India I.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 2, 61, 81, 103–106, and 115; A.J.R. Russell- Wood, The Portuguese Empire, 1415–1808: A World on the Move (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. xxi, 21, and 220. 41 This period did see the beginnings of the integration of the (maritime) Indian Ocean World into a wider world, but these links were tenuous and relatively benign. Signs of

Images And Ideologies 43

While valued and respected as powerful merchants, in the caste-conscious view of ‘the Indian’ the Dutch (again like the Portuguese before them) were considered low-caste Parangis. There is some ambiguity regarding the exact meaning of the term. According to the Jesuit Father Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), founder of the Madurai Mission (1606), Christianity was viewed as the way of living of the Parangis, and to become Christian was to become a member of the ‘family’ of the Parangis (Parangi kulam). In fact, the Tamil kulam carries multiple, if not overlapping, related meanings: family, lineage; caste, tribe, nation; and community.42 De Nobili’s fellow-Jesuit Fernão de Queyroz (1617–1688), however, argued that ‘it is enough to be a white man, and not to wear a turban and cabaya [from Arab kaba, ‘vestment’ or muslin surcoat] to be given this name…’. The seeming differences may be attributed simply to various sides of a multi- faceted image of Parangi ‘Hat-Wearers’ as being white-skinned Christians with distinct outfits, hats truly dominating the iconography of the Europeans.43 The killattu (‘dress’) or sar-u pa (Persian, ‘from head to foot’) ceremony found in much of South Asia in the pre-colonial and colonial periods may serve as a case in point. In the ceremony’s barest essentials, a ruler or one holding authority from a ruler presented luxurious garments (often silk) to a recipient. Sometimes a return gift (nacar) was expected of the recipient. The outfit always included a robe—the most visible outer courtly garment—but might also include items ‘from head to foot’, such as a turban, mid-section wrap, belt, pants, and shoes. The ceremony took place in a public setting (e.g., court,

impending changes included the uneven spread of Christianity, the use of lingua franca such as Portuguese and Portuguese Creole (including ‘nautical Portuguese’), the emergence of mixed Eurasian (most notably Indo-Portuguese) communities, the rise of new port-cities or ‘brides of the sea’ ruled by Europeans, such as Portuguese Goa, Spanish Manilla, Dutch Batavia, French Pondichéry, and English Calcutta, the increasing volume of European trade around the Cape of Good Hope, and, even more important, as part of the ‘Columbian’ and ‘Magellan exchanges’ across the Atlantic and Pacific, the ‘bringing in of the Americas’ and creation of ‘neo-Europes’ in the form of, among others, New World plants and a growing quantity of bullion (the ‘first truly global commodity of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’). See: Vink, ‘Indian Ocean Studies and the “New Thalassology” ’, pp. 56–57. 42 Tamil Lexicon, 6 vols. ([Madras]: University of Madras, 1924–1936), p. 1024 http://dsal .uchicago.edu/dictionaries/tamil-lex/ (accessed: 24 October 2009). 43 J. Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré d’Après des Documents Inédits, 4 vols. (Paris: Librairie de Poussielgue-Rusand, 1847–1854), II, pp. 155–157; F. de Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon, S.G. Perera transl. (Colombo: A.C. Richards, 1930), I, p. 67; Flores, ‘Floating Franks’, p. 39.

44 chapter 1 battlefield) before an audience often attired in similar luxurious robes and was used as an effective socio-political tool to cement loyalty to the superior.44 Each of the Company ambassadors visiting the Nayaka court were gifted with honour cloths by the Madurai rulers. On taking his leave from an audience with Muttu Virappa Nayaka III on 7 July 1689, Nicolaes Welter, whose status as Toppikkarar or ‘Hat-Wearer’(i.e., European) had already been com- promised by having to hand over his fancy ‘audience hat’ at the request of the Madurai ruler, was regifted with ‘a silver linen coat in the Moorish fashion and a gold-wrought turban’, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III insisting that the envoy wear said coat and put the turban on his head on his way to the ambassador’s residence in Trichinopoly. Having paid his reverence, Welter, clearly uncomfort- able during this entire episode, departed ‘rigged out in Moorish fashion’ to his lodging ‘escorted by a large crowd of court servants’. Vestments were indeed viewed as powerful symbols of substance and the killattu was a highly ritualis- tic and transformative act, clearly understood as such by both parties.45 Similar to their Dutch counterparts (see below), a white somatic norm image or physical ideal of human appearance based on skin colour (varnam, vannam) developed early during India’s Vedic culture period (1800–500 bc). Colour consciousness remained a significant conduit in reinforcing hierarchical attitudes that were eventually codified and reified during the colonial period. Parangis, nevertheless, were accorded a low status in the Indian caste hierarchy because of their consumption of beef and liquor (pey-tannir, or ‘demon’s water’) associated with decadence and immorality, their alleged lack of sani- tary customs (including bathing and washing their bottoms), and their interaction with the local ritually polluting ‘excluded’ castes, such as the Paravas and the Pariahs or Paraiyars, many of whom filled the rank and file of the Company’s Asian personnel on the Madurai Coast. The lack of bathing and sanitation among Westerners was a constant source of disgust to many Asian peoples throughout the Indian Ocean World.46 In his

44 For a discussion of the historical depth, geographic spread, and general importance of the custom in South Asia: S. Gordon (ed.), Robes of Honour: Khil’at in Pre-Colonial and Colonial India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 45 Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 27, 137, 137 n. 49, 148, 167, 191, 211, 217, 228, 247, 429, 430, 433, 445, 452, 454, 466, 467, 505, 525, 528, 533–534, 538, 540, and 576. 46 A Japanese senryu (‘river willow’), a short poem similar to haiku in construction, observing with ill-disguised disgust: ‘When the Dutch go, To the castle of the shogun, They are followed by swarms of flies’. Playing on a similar repulsive theme, the Javanese Kitab Usulbiyah (‘Book About the Origins of the Prophet’), ‘written’ (ingkang ayasa) in 1729– 1730 by Ratu Pakubuwana (1656–1732), the formidable wife of Pakubuwana I (r. 1704–1719), mother of Amangkurat IV (r. 1719–1726), and grandmother of Pakubuwana II of Mataram

Images And Ideologies 45

Rauzat al-Tahirin (‘The Garden of the Immaculate’), Tahir Muhammad, the Mughal ambassador at Goa in 1579–1580, observed: ‘They [the Franks] don’t like to use water. They bathe very rarely. Amongst them, washing after relieving oneself is considered improper’. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628– 1658) himself allegedly stated that the Franks would be a ‘great people’ but for ‘three very bad aspects’: ‘first, they are Kaffirs (that is, an infidel people), sec- ondly, they eat pork, and thirdly, they do not wash those parts from which replete Nature expels the superfluous from the belly of the body’.47 Similar references to uncleanliness and the concomitant concept of ritual pollution associated with Westerners can also be found in the travelogues of the Company Surgeons Johann Jakob Merklein (1620–1700) and Wouter Schouten (1638–1704), detailing their experiences while at Pulicat in May 1649 and near Sadraspatnam in October 1661, respectively.48 During the ‘punitive expedition’ and resulting occupation of the shore temple of Subrahmanya at Tiruchendur by Dutch troops in early 1649, for example, the local inhabitants reportedly refused to eat and drink as long as the shrine, especially its inner sanctum (karppakkirukam, ‘womb chamber’), was defiled by the presence of Company forces. Upon the miraculous retrieval of the images stolen from the temple by the Dutch, the governor of Tirunelveli, Vadamalai yappa Pillai, had to initiate the ceremony of samprokshanam (‘renewal consecration’) in order to ‘revivify’ the main, immovable image (mula murtti, ‘root image’) deserted by the deity, Murugan or Murukan (Subrahmanya), and have the devotees return to the pagoda.49

(r. 1726–1749), provides the following description of Europeans or Christians: ‘They use a constant fragrance to conceal their stink. The rotting stink might spread of the bodies of the devils and the Christians (so it is), concealed with fragrance’. See: M.C. Ricklefs, The Seen and Unseen Worlds in Java, 1726–1749: History, Literature and Islam in the Court of Pakubuwana II, Asian Studies Association of Australia: Southeast Asia Publications Series (St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1998), p. 68. 47 Subrahmanyam, ‘On the Hat-Wearers’, pp. 45, and 63–65; Flores, ‘Floating Franks’, pp. 40–41. 48 S.P. l’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen von Deutschen Beambten und Kriegsleuten im Dienst der Niederländischen West- und Ost-Indischen Kompagnien 1602–1797 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1930), III, p. 54; W. Schouten, Oostindische Voyagie (Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs and Johannes van Someren, 1676), Derde Boek, pp. 64–65. 49 For a popular local tradition and a wonderful set of paintings ‘narrating’ these series of events, see the website of the Sri Subrahmanya Swami Devasthanam at Tiruchendur: http://tiruchendur.org/dutch.htm (accessed: 6 January 2013). See also the images from the set in this volume (see Figures 11–15).

46 chapter 1

In July 1671, the governor of Tirunelveli, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar, refused to accept a Company proposal to form an alliance against the Tevar of Ramnad, giving the Company the possession of the island-shrine of Rameswaram (see Figure 16). Although the Dutch promised to preserve the privileges of the local Sri Ramanatha temple, the Tirunelveli governor declined the offer on the ground that Rameswaram ‘was a holy place in which only his own nation was allowed to live. Indeed, it was a great sin merely having to listen to such a proposal’. In February 1685, during the First Dutch-Ramnad War, the Company decided not to violate the island-shrine of Rameswaram, the Tevar’s ‘most valuable property’, since there could be no greater disgrace to the neighbouring rulers, who held it as sacrosanct. In September 1688, the Company decided to dispatch the Jaffnapatnam Brahmin Timmarasa Ayya to the Ramnad Coast in order to accept several hundred oxen and cows from Raghunatha Tevar ‘because otherwise he will be highly averse and superstitious to hand these animals over to us’. Apparently, the Marava ruler feared that the animals were meant for consumption by the Parangis rather than used for agricultural purposes. Finally, in August 1690, during the Second Dutch-Ramnad War, the ruler of Madurai, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III (r. 1682–1691), warned the Dutch not to attack the island-shrine of Rameswaram, ‘the second most holy place in Hindustan next to Kasi [Benares]’. In case of an attack, the Madurai ruler threatened, he would raze all the Company settlements on the Madurai Coast, including the fort at Tuticorin, ‘in order to extinguish the very name of Hollander in my lands’.50 These threats, and those of Baboji (Varaboji) Pandidar, governor of the region around Nagapatnam on behalf of Shahaji Bhonsle of Tanjore (r. 1684–1712), were one of the reasons why the Dutch decided not to permanently occupy the island, but an agreement concluded with Raghunatha Tevar (r. 1674–1710) in September 1690 called for the stationing of a small presence in the form of a Dutch resident, 3–4 Dutch soldiers, and 5–6 indigenous soldiers near the fort of Pamban. This article proved to be a bone of contention and was not implemented until almost two decades later, in 1709, when the Company finally

50 voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 524r–524v, Extract dagregister De Vogel gedurende de expeditie van Tuticurin, 31.1–1.3.1649; voc 1282, obp 1672, f. 1071r, Secrete miss. Pijl aan gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon, 14.7.1671; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 184r–184v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.2.1685; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 79v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 9.9.1686; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 395v–396r, Transl. ola Naik van Madure aan koopman Babba Porboe, Aug. 1690; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 544–545, Miss. comms. Van Rheede te Jaffna aan Batavia, 23.9.1690. According to the Company, the ‘haughty and arrogant letters’ of the Madurai Nayaka and his general were proof that ‘the young Lord was a ruler governed by Brahmins in matters of superstition’.

Images And Ideologies 47 agreed only to station 5 indigenous lascorins under a mestizo, ‘since the purity of the island, the temple or pagoda and the holy river would have been defiled and maculated if a permanent guard of Europeans had been placed there, who are polluted and impure by the consumption of cow meat…’.51 In late 1689, the Dutch Commissioner General Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede decided to send 1,400 indigenous soldiers from the ‘Opposite Coast’ (overcust- crijgers) recruited from Tanjore and Madurai to Ceylon in order to reinforce the depleted Company garrisons on the island and deter the Kandyan court from attacking the Dutch possessions. The enterprise, however, was easier said than done. Having overcome initial objections to be transported overseas (which conveys pollution!), the new recruits refused to serve under Dutch sergeants (though these were reportedly ‘the most open-minded and level-headed’). When this obstacle had been overcome by replacing them with Mukkapa Nayaka, ‘one of their own nation’ and head of the Company peons at Tuticorin, the ‘Marava or Opposite Coast lascorins’ again became unruly. Fearing pollution by sharing food with their European counterparts, they reportedly ‘desired to receive new rice separate from that handed out to our people’. In July 1690, Van Rheede was forced to call an end to the ill-fated experiment.52 These views would even incite De Nobili to deny being a Parangi and divide the European priests and their indigenous assistants of the Madurai Mission into ‘sannyasin-Brahmins’ and Vellala ‘kovilpillais’ on the one hand and ‘panda- ram-swamis’ and Pallar (Pallan) caste catechists on the other hand, serving high- caste and low-caste Indians, respectively.53 Part of the larger ‘Rites Controversy’,

51 Generale missive, 15.1.1710, in: W.Ph. Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs- Generaal en Raden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, Deel VI: 1698– 1713, Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Grote Serie nr. 159 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976), pp. 651–652; J.E. Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, 5 vols. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1907–1938), IV, pp. 146–150; Idem, pp. 328–330. 52 voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 113v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 10.9.1689; Idem, ff. 165r–165v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 24.1.1690; voc 1459, obp 1690, f. 936r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 6.2.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 85v–86r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 27.6.1690; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 687–688, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.7.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 90r–90v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 11.7.1690. 53 Bertrand, Mission du Maduré, II, pp. 2, and 298; De Queyroz, Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon, I, p. 81. For two modern accounts of the Madurai Mission: I.G. Zupanov, Missionary Tropics: The Catholic Frontier in India (16th–17th Centuries) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002); Idem, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahminical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).

48 chapter 1

De Nobili’s accommodationist, aristocratic-Brahminical approach would lead to a sharp conflict with his fellow-Jesuit Gonçalo Fernandes (1541–1619), ‘Nobili’s nemesis in the Madurai Mission’, a semi-literate Portuguese ex-soldier, servicing the low-caste fishermen communities along the Madurai Coast.54 In similar fashion, the Company would normally employ in its high-profile diplomatic contacts with local rulers indigenous high-caste mediators along with its European servants based on their ability to converse with members of other high castes, not only because of their superior linguistic skills, but their elevated status as well. The Company’s preference for indigenous go-betweens such as Chinappa (Sinappa) Mudaliyar, Mukkapa Nayaka, or the Jaffnapatnam Brahmin Timmarasa Ayya was self-evident, ‘since this [Chinappa] Mudaliyar has great opportunities to speak with everyone because of his caste and skills with these Malabar [Tamil] courts. As they do not know him, he can enter their homes at any time, which these Gentiles would never allow to our nation, being strangers and from a different caste and complexion’.55 Timmarasa Ayya, moreover, apart from being (or pretending to be as his detractors claimed) a Brahmin, also had extensive commercial dealings with the courts of South India as an elephant trader. In March 1684, for instance, the Company decided to use him on a delicate mission to Ramnad rather than one of its European servants, ‘which fits one of these nations better than using our own people as they are more aware of the customs and usages of these lands and more experienced in dealing with these indigenous rulers and their favourites and to dispose them favourably toward them and accomplish their mission, having free access to them’. These considerations were deemed especially true for Timmarasa Ayya ‘as it is an established fact that he has very close correspondence with the Tevar and many of his courtiers’.56 In fact, the ambiguous position of the Dutch bears close resemblance to the ambivalent status of Maravas (and Kallars) in mainstream Hindu Tamil society

54 As Ines Zupanov has argued convincingly, the differences between De Nobili and Fer nandes were representative of ‘the divisions and episemological rifts that tore the European social and cultural fabric from within. While Nobili drew upon an aristocratic and humanist theological universalism as a catalyst for cultural incorporation, Fernandes’ demotic impulses stood with a different technique based on the belief that radical others could and should be approached by direct sensory perception’. I.G. Zupanov, ‘Aristocratic Analogies and Demotic Descriptions in the Seventeenth-Century Madurai Mission’, Representations 41 (1993), pp. 123–124. 55 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1167r–1167v, Rapp. Van Rheede aan Van Goens, 2.7.1668. For a similar argument relating to Timmarasa Aya: voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 162r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.3.1684. 56 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 162r–162v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.3.1684.

Images And Ideologies 49 as ‘bandits’ and ‘kings’. On the one hand, literally and figuratively, they were known from the early centuries of the Christian era as low-status ‘outsiders’, living in the wilderness (palai) or dry and hilly landscapes on the periphery of the settled centres of Tamil civilisation, preying on respectable Tamils, and not observing the strict dietary rules of other Hindus. On the other hand, within their own areas of settlement, the Maravas (and Kallars), similar to the Dutch on the Madurai Coast, did in fact develop positions of dominance and traditions of kingship, exercising control over land and wielding political authority by providing protection (kaval) as local chiefs and being capable of wreaking vengeance. In the case of the Maravas (and Kallars) the close symbolic affinity of bandit and king has been correctly identified as complementary opposition. Arguably, a similar term could also be applied to define the dualistic position of the Dutch on the ‘outer frontier’ of Tamil society.57 The voc’s position on the Madurai Coast came to resemble the ‘twilight zone’ kingship of a palaiyakkarar (holder of a palaiyam or fortified centre) or ‘little king’ (see below) and his contentious relationship with his overlord, the Nayaka of Madurai, with several ‘redefining moments’ coinciding with the declining fortunes of the rulers of Madurai, such as the fortification of the Company trading factory at Tuticorin in 1682 during the unsettled state of affairs in the lowlands following the expulsion of the Mysorean troops from the Madurai Coast.58 In fact, in the journal of his 1668 embassy to the Nayaka court at Trichinopoly, Van Rheede states that the Madurai pradhani Vadamalaiyappa Pillai reportedly informed the ruler, Chokkanatha Nayaka, ‘that a captain had been sent by the governor

57 D. Shulman, ‘On South Indian Bandits and Kings’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 17, 3 (1980), pp. 289, and 300–306; N.B. Dirks, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of An Indian Kingdom, second edn. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 72–74, and passim; L. Bes, ‘The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits in Eighteenth-Century Ramnad (South India)’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 44, 4 (2001), pp. 540–574. The ambiguous attitudes of the peoples of Tamil Nadu wet zone cultivation were readily shared by the local Europeans. The letters of the Jesuit members of the Madurai Mission are interspersed with references to the Kallars, who are consistently called voleurs or ‘thieves’. For similar Dutch assessments of the Maravas, see for instance: voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 322v, Rapp. opperk. Vorwer wegens de toestand van ‘s Comps. zaken tot Nagapatnam, 20.12.1675. 58 For the completion of the Tuticorin fort: voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 27v, and 44r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 1379, obp 1683, f. 2247r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en Van Vliet aan Batavia, 8.7.1682; voc 908, bub 1682, f. 1423r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.12.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 92v–93r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 202r–202v, Resolutie gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 15.4.1683.

50 chapter 1 of Colombo, being among the Hollanders the equivalent of a palaiyakkarar under the Nayaka…’.59 This ambiguity reflected the contentious-complementary relationship between the settled world of the village (kiramam, grama), the centre of political and religious authority, and the uncultivated, non-regulated world of the wilderness (araniyam, aranya) with its itinerant, mobile population of warriors, robbers, and traders. As Jan Heestermann has argued forcibly, the wasteland and the mobile coastal zone were viewed as ‘lands of dissension’ and potential subversion and rebellion, but also as a source of liquid funds for the cash-starved, well-developed agricultural areas in the hinterland. Though not a pleasantly harmonious world of law and order, as part of the so-called ‘inner frontier’, the overall effect of the wilderness was that of ‘an organic pumping system for the circulation of wealth’.60 It is in this conceptual framework that Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka confidant’s use of the metaphor of the diamond upon the arrival of the Dutch ambassador Van Rheede at Trichinopoly in 1668 should be placed. Within this set of common beliefs among the inhabitants of Madurai, one can discern, as has been noted, at least five different subgroups, each with a corresponding worldview: the ‘temple-centric’ vision of the Brahmin Pattars or temple priests, the view of the aranmanai or palace, the vision of the palaiyakkarar or ‘little king’, the view of the ‘portfolio capitalist’ or political merchant, and the vision of the Paravas or Roman Catholic fishermen.

The ‘Temple-Centric’ Vision of the Brahmin Pattar

Hindu temples can be roughly divided into three categories, dedicated to the great gods (teva-kovil), goddesses or female deities (amman-kovil), and ‘inferior’ demon-gods (pey-kovil). However, the discussion of the ‘temple-centric’ vision will be limited to the views of the Brahmin priests or Pattars of the great Saivite and Vaisnavite temples of Sri Minaksi-Sundaresvara at Madurai (see Figure 17) and Sri Ranganatha near Trichinopoly, capitals of the Nayaka state of

59 See Van Rheede’s report under March 20, 1668 (f. 1171v); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 47, 166, and 227. 60 J.C. Heestermann, ‘Warriors and Merchants’, Itinerario 15, 1 (1991), pp. 37–49; Idem, ‘The “Hindu Frontier”’, Itinerario 13, 1 (1989), pp. 1–16. Heestermann’s ideas have been developed further more recently by one of his former pupils, Jos Gommans. See: J. Gommans, ‘The Silent Frontier of South Asia, c. a.d. 1100–1800’, Journal of World History 9, 1 (1998), pp. 1–23.

Images And Ideologies 51

Madurai before and after 1665, respectively.61 The focus on these kovil (koyil, ‘temple, palace’) located in the religio-political centre of the Nayaka state of Madurai is in line with recent criticisms of the classical constructions of ‘traditional’ India as a theocratic, Brahmin-dominated, and changeless society based on a comprehensive caste system in all its rigidity. Instead, revisionist scholarship has challenged these Orientalist and Indian nationalist constructions and emphasised the need to politicise, historicise and problematise the history of religion (and subsequently caste and identity) in pre-colonial India.62 Religious developments in South India during this period were characterised by the synthesis between the philosophical systems (taricanams, darsanas, ‘visions’) and monist philosophy of Brahmin Sanskritic orthodoxy—represented by the Vedanta (‘appendix to the Vedas’) tradition—and the Saiva and Vaisnava wings of the popular devotional bhakti cults aimed at salvation by means of pure devotion to a personal god. In the 14th century, the ‘qualified monism’ of ‘Sri’ Vaisnavism established by Udayavar or Ramanuja (1050–1137) became sharply divided into the two sects of the Tenkalai (Southern Tamil) and Vadakalai (Northern Sanskritic) schools. The most important contemporary developments in South Indian Saivism were represented by the radical anti-caste

61 Apart from being dedicated to different types of deities, each category of temples is also distinguished by its temple priests, its size and architecture, and the spatial organisation of the temple enclosure. Cf. M.L. Reiniche, Les Dieux et les Hommes: Étude des Cultes d’Un Village du Tirunelveli, Inde du Sud (Paris and New York: Mouton, 1979), pp. 19–21. Other prominent Saivite temples in Madurai are the Sri Jambukesvaram Temple at Trichinopoly, the Sri Nellaiyappa Temple at Tirunelveli, and the Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple at Rameswaram. Important Vaisnavite temples are those of Sri Kallagar at Alagarkoil, Sri Andal at Srivilliputtur, and Sri Adinatar at Alvar Tirunagari. 62 For some of the most sustained criticism of the Orientalist and Indian nationalist con- tructions, perpetuated by anthropologists and Indologists such as Louis Dumont and Madeleine Biardeau: Dirks, Castes of Mind; D.A. Washbrook, ‘From Comparative Sociology to Global History: Britain and India in the Pre-History of Modernity’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40, 4 (1997), pp. 410–443; D. Quigley, The Interpretation of Caste (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Breckenridge and Van der Veer (eds), Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament; O’Hanlon and Washbrook, ‘After Orientalism’; D.A. Washbrook, ‘Progress and Problems: South Asian Economic and Social History, c. 1720–1860’, Modern Asian Studies 22, 1 (1988), pp. 57–96; Inden, Imagining India; R. Thapar, ‘Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity’, Modern Asian Studies 23, 2 (1989), pp. 209–231; Dirks (ed.), Colonialism and Culture; Idem, The Hollow Crown, pp. xxii-xxviii; Idem, ‘Castes of Mind’, Representations 37 (1992), pp. 56–78; C.J. Fuller, ‘Hinduism and Hierarchy (Review Article)’, Man (n.s.) 26 (1991), pp. 549–555.

52 chapter 1 movement of Lingayatism founded by Basava or Basavanna (c. 1106–1168) and the agamic philosophy of Saiva Siddhanta, along with the dramatic expansion of the worship of goddesses (ammans), warrior-gods, and lesser ‘demonic’ beings and destructive spirits known as pey-picacus.63 These developments were closely interrelated with India’s ‘paper revolution’, an expansive manuscript culture (‘paper without print’) creating new media and new arenas within which the discursive contests of Brahmin elites were at the same time opened up for ever more penetrating critiques of Brahmin priestly elites and of Hindu caste itself.64 Whereas the majority of the temple priests in Madurai are Saivites and members of the Tamil Brahmin subcaste known as Adisaivas, Sivacaryas, or Gurukkals, their Vaisnava counterparts are usually known as Arcakas, Pancartras, Vaikhanasas or Bhattacaryas.65 Apart from doctrinal differences, temple priests were also sharply divided along ethnic and occupational lines. The temple priests’ hereditary rights (miracu, mirasi) of worship, minutely divided according to complicated rotas (murai), formed a constant source of conflict among the leading temple servants in the form of so-called honour disputes. The ‘servants of the goddess’ of the Minaksi-Sundaresvara Tirukkoyil (‘Holy Temple’) at Madurai, the Vikkira Pantiya and Kulacekarar Pattars, for instance, belonged to the same subcaste of Adisaiva Brahmins, but fiercely challenged each other’s rights in the daily worship (pucai) and processional festivals (urcavams, utsavams) of the local temple, especially during the reigns of Muttu Virappa Nayaka I (r. 1609–1623) and Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623–1659).

63 A. Appadurai, Worship and Conflict Under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 63–104; K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, Devel opment of Religion in South India (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1963), passim; Bayly, Saints, Goddesses, and Kings, pp. 19–70. 64 R. O’Hanlon, ‘Performance in a World of Paper: Puranic Histories and Social Commu nication in Early Modern India’, Past And Present 219 (2013), pp. 89–93, and 124–126; C. Minkowski, ‘Advaita Vedanta in Early Modern History’, in: R. O’Hanlon and D. Washbrook (eds), Religious Cultures in Early Modern India: New Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 205–231; S. Pollock, ‘New Intellectuals in Seventeenth-Century India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 38, 1 (2001), pp. 3–31. 65 Not all temple priests in Madurai were Tamils. After 1680, for instance, the descendants of the Maratha priestly family of Sri Sankara Gurukkal were made ‘first gurukkal’ and given specified ‘first honours’ at the Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple on the island-shrine of Rameswaram by Raghunatha Setupati, the ruler of Ramnad. During the reign of Marthanda Varma of Travancore (r. 1729–1758) potris (title of an Ambalavasi or temple servant) of the Madhva Advaita sect drafted from Nambuthiri Brahmins from southern Kanara replaced the Tamil Sivacaryas or Gurukkals in the performance of pucai at the main shrine of the Sri Murugan Temple at Tiruchendur.

Images And Ideologies 53

During the same period, the chief temple officers (stalattar, talattar) of the Sri Ranganatha Temple, the manager (srikariyam, srikaryam, ‘holy preceptor’) Pranadartihava Vaduladesikar and the chief priest Tirumalacaryar Bhattar, although both followers of Tenkalai or Prabandhic (Southern Tamil) Vaisnavism, were engaged in a bitter and protracted conflict. At Madurai, the ‘priestly politics’ and rivalry between the Vikkira Pantiya group, comprising six separate patrilineal clans, that of the chief priest (stanikar) and five others, and the Kulacekaras, consisting of one large clan divided into two branches, have continued for at least 400 years. During the Minaksi Temple’s renovation or purification ritual (kumpapisekam) in 1995, for instance, the ancient division between the ‘servants of the goddess’, compounded by educational-generational conflict and individual dissension, was once more played out sharply and publicly.66 The most important sources to recreate the worldview of these Pattars are temple inscriptions, chronicles, hagiographies, and temple legends or texts (stalapuranams), such as the ‘Koyil Olugu’ of the Sri Ranganatha Temple and the ‘Tiruvilaiyatarpuranam’ of the Minaksi-Sundaresvara Temple.67 In many respects, the ‘Koyil Olugu’ (‘Record of the Temple’), compiled between the late 14th and early 19th century by successive generations of temple accountants (the so-called Purvacaryas or ‘priests of the past’), is a highly partisan tract and has been styled ‘one of the few documents of sectarian history found in the Indian tradition’.68 First, rather than a defense of the duties of the

66 The best secondary sources on the Sri Minaksi-Sundaresvara Temple are, among others: C.J. Fuller, Servants of the Goddess: The Priests of a South Indian Temple (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Idem, The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Hudson, ‘Siva, Minaksi, Visnu’, pp. 107–118; C.A. Breckenridge, ‘The Sri Minaksi Sundaresvarar Temple: Worship and Endowments in South India, 1833 to 1925’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1976; A.V. Jeyechandrun, Matturait Tirukkoyil: The Madurai Temple Complex (Madurai: Arulmiki Minatci Cuntarecuvarar Tirukkoyil, 1974). The best surveys on the Sri Ranganatha Temple are: V.N. Hari Rao, History of the Srirangam Temple (Tirupati: Sri Venkatewara University, 1976); Idem (ed.), Koil Olugu: The Chronicle of the Srirangam Temple With Historical Notes (Madras: Rochouse, 1961). 67 See: R. Dessigane, J. Filliozat, and P.Z. Pattabiramin (eds), La Légende des Jeux de Çiva d’Après les Textes et les Peintures (Pondichéry: Institut Français d’Indologie, 1960); S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, ‘Madurai-Talavaralu (An Account of the Temple of Madura)’, Proceedings of the Indian Historical Records Commission 6 (1924), pp. 104–116; D. Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in the South Indian Saiva Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Hari Rao (ed.), Koil Olugu. 68 P. Younger, ‘Singing the Tamil Hymnbook in the Tradition of Ramanuja: The Adyayanotsava Festival in Srirankam’, in: G.W. Spencer (ed.), Temples, Kings and Peasants: Perceptions of South India’s Past (Madras: New Era Publications, 1987), pp. 179–180.

54 chapter 1

various groups of society at large (sva-tarmam) based on the varna hierachy, its ramifications hardly extend beyond the ‘territory’ or kettiram (Sanskrit, ksetra) of the Sri Ranganatha Temple. In fact, the ‘Koyil Olugu’ can be considered as a vindication of the alleged division of temple groups and duties (kotu mariyatai) according to the elaborate code of Udayavar or Ramanuja (Udayavar tittam) and the resulting rights of the Kandadais, the family of Mudaliyandan Srinivasa Desikar and his successors, to the office of srikariyam or senapati turantaran (‘commander and conqueror’). In addition, it is also clearly written in the tradition of Tenkalai (Southern Tamil) Vaisnavism. Thus, its multiple authorship condemns not only any ‘usurpation’ of the traditional rights of the Kandadais by other temple servants, but also denounces the doctrinal ‘errors’ of the Vadakalai Vaisnavite and Saivite ‘heretics’. Moreover, while approvingly citing the endowment of the temple (kattalai) by the Vijayanagara rulers and Nayakas of Madurai, by pointing to the danger of state support for the Vadakalai tradition it sharply criticises their attempts to meddle with temple affairs.69 Despite the often contentious relationship between temple and palace in precolonial India, throughout the 17th century the fortunes of the Kandadai family, the Sri Ranganatha Temple, and Tenkalai Vaisnavism in Madurai were inexorably linked with that of the local Nayaka dynasty. Thus, the rivalry between the two stalattar Bhattar Tirumalacaryar and Uttamanambi during the reign of Muttu Virappa Nayaka I of Madurai was closely connected with the events surrounding the ‘civil war’ of Toppur (1614–1617) over the remnants of the Vijayanagara state. Similarly, the conflict between the Vadakalai Kumara Tatacarya and the Tenkalai Pranadartihara Vaduladesikar in ca. 1630–1631 and the dismissal of the latter as the preceptor (acariyan) of Tirumalai Nayaka of Madurai one decade later reflected the Nayaka ruler’s tense relations and subsequent (temporary) appeasement with his nominal overlord, Venkata Deva Raja III of Vijayanagara (r. 1630–1642). The alleged ‘re-conversion’ of Chokkanatha Nayaka from Saivism to Vaisnavism and the adoption of Srinivasa Desikar of Srirangam, grandson of Pranadartihara Desikar, as his spiritual preceptor may be the direct result of the transfer of the Nayaka capital from the city of Madurai to Trichinopoly in 1665. Reportedly ‘misguided’ by his talavay or commander-in-chief, the Brahmin Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III of Madurai resorted to a violent persecution of the family of his acariyan, Srinivasa Desikar, in the late

69 Hari Rao (ed.), Koil Olugu, passim; Idem, History of the Srirangam Temple, pp. 6–7; Younger, ‘Singing the Tamil Hymnbook in the Tradition of Ramanuja’, p. 181.

Images And Ideologies 55

1680s, and died shortly thereafter supposedly having been cursed by his former acariyan.70 Temple service centres around the worship of images, either permanent immovable stone images (mula murtti) or mobile festival images made of metal (urcavam murtti), which are held to be repositories of divine power with the deity thought to be in the image. The permanent immovable images in the temple sanctum sanctorum (karppakkirukam) are only to be touched by the officiating temple priests. Upon installation the stone figure of a particular deity is vivified in a ceremony known as piranapiratistai in which the breath (piranan) of life is infused into the figure to give it sustenance and nurturance as the permanent immovable centre of the temple. This state of vivification is permanent unless the deity is dishonoured (i.e., an inappropriate person touches it, the ritual process is halted, and so forth), in which cases the deity is thought to leave the figure. If so, worship in the temple is liable to become ineffectual and special renewal ceremonies (samprokshanam) have to be performed to re-invite the deity to reside in the stone figure.71 Thus, in the wake of the Dutch ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649, the Brahmin priests of the shore temple of Tiruchendur sent two of their trusted servants to Galle in order to retrieve the stone images of ‘Lord Subrahmanya’ (Subrahmanya Cuvami) and several other copper images of his divine entourage taken by the Dutch. Upon arrival, the servants of Sri Murugan (Subrahmanya) immediately inquired about the condition of the stone image, ‘whether it was still alive or dead and how it was being treated and whether it suffered from any depriva- tion or not’. The apprehension of the temple priests was quite understandable. In late 1650 the Tiruchendur temple was reportedly standing empty and no longer being visited by worshippers. Only after the alleged miraculous retrieval of the image, Murugan himself appearing in a dream of his Madurai Brahmin pradhani devotee Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, and the subsequent renewal ceremonies in 1653 could regular worship be recommenced.72

70 Hari Rao (ed.), Koil Olugu, pp. 175–192; Idem, History of the Srirangam Temple, pp. 178–199. The Nayaka rulers were all Saivites, the religion of the majority of the people of Madurai during this period, but at times did not fail to sponsor other religious groups as well. 71 C.J. Fuller, ‘Gods, Priests, and Purity: On the Relationship Between Hinduism and the Caste System’, Man (n.s.) 14 (1979), pp. 464, and 469; A. Appadurai and C.A. Breckenridge, ‘The South Indian Temple: Authority, Honour, and Redistribution’, Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 10, 2 (1976), pp. 190, and 193. 72 voc 1177, obp 1651, f. 424r, Dagreg. koopman Isebrant Groes gedurende de Tuticorinse voyage, 13.1–24.1.1650; voc 1179, obp 1651, ff. 47r–48r, Generale missive, 10.12.1650; J.M. Somasundaram Pillai, Tiruchendur: The Sea-Shore Temple of Subrahmanyam (Madras: Addison Press, 1948), pp. 19–20, and 47; S.P. Padmanabhan, Tiruchendur (Nagercoil: Kumaran

56 chapter 1

In August 1690, during the Second Dutch-Ramnad War, the entire armed forces of Raghunatha Tevar retreated to the compound of the Sri Ramana thaswamy Temple (described as ‘a strong building of adequate blue stones and high walls’) on the island of Rameswaram. The Company Merchant and Konkani Brahmin Babba Prabhu (d. 1696) issued an olai to the ‘tanatars or overseers’ of the pagoda, notifying them that Raghunatha Tevar had been the cause of the hostilities. Attempting to strike a dharmic chord, he reminded his fellow- Brahmins that the Ramnad ruler had acted unjustly, something the Hon. Company was never wont to do. ‘Your Honours know’, Babba Prabhu continued, ‘that the pagodas of Rameswaram and Kasi [Benares] are highly esteemed by all Heathen rulers and belong to all peoples of the 56 countries73 rather than one. Therefore, the Hon. Company will take care of it’. He urged the tanatars to convince the ‘people of the Tevar’ not to mount any more resistance. Not only was the pagoda a setting unbefitting for violence and death, but any opposition would inevitable inaugurate its destruction as well. Tellingly, this blatant attempt to play off palace against temple failed and the Company decided not to press the attack and to settle for a ‘reputable peace’ instead (see Chapter 7).74

The View of the Aranmanai or ‘Palace’

In Symbols of Substance (1992), Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam hypothesise that the rich corpus of courtly literature of the Nayakas in Telugu, Tamil, and Sanskrit represents an ‘exotic departure from earlier political forms’ and a newly emergent, alternate model of kingship with ‘structural and conceptual innovations’ in self-perception, posturing, and values of the Nayaka elite. Though unable or unwilling to violate the traditional puranic dharmic order in toto, several distinct Nayaka topoi (and related Nayaka social types) can be recognised: a fascination with food as a strategic semantic vehicle of mobile and aggressive, yet hesitant and self-doubting Balija nouveaux riches expressed in

Pathippigam, 1978), p. 6; M.P. Gurusamy, Lord Muruga of Tiruchendur (Tiruchendur: Guru- Themozhi, 1980), pp. 21, and 27. 73 Traditional Hindu geography and classicial literature envisions Bharata varsam (‘the land of Bharata’) or Jambudvipa (‘the island or continent of Jambu trees’) to have consisted of fifty-six countries. For a list in the ‘Pandion Chronicle’: W.C. Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, in the Tamil Language: Translated, With Annotations, 2 vols. (Madras: J.C. Taylor, 1835), I, pp. 9–11. 74 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 393r–393v, Transl. ola Comps. koopman Babba Praboe aan alle tannataars of opzienders der pagood Ramanacoijl, 25.8.1690; voc 1478, obp 1690, ff. 539–545, Miss. comms. Van Reede te Jaffnapatnam an Batavia, 23.9.1690.

Images And Ideologies 57 the non-committal annatanam or royal gift of food—including ghee, jaggery, payacam, cakes, curds, curries and rice—by the ‘spendthrift Sudra king’ to Brahmins at the expense of other dharmic forms, such as land endowment (brahmateyam) to Brahmins, temples, and mutts, public works, and charity of various kinds; a keen sense of alien identity as outsider Vadugas (generally ‘northerners’, but especially used for the militarised bands of Telugu migrants— including ‘left-hand’ Sudra Balija merchant-warriors, Brahmin priests, Velama and Reddi warrior-cultivators—into the Tamil country in the fifteenth and sixteenth century) in the process of being assimilated into the southern universe; a shifting, evolving ideology of political dominance using ‘rhetorical hyperinflation’ or ‘megalomania’ (matched by a compensating tendency to puncture and deflate lyrical hyperbole), proud Sudra self-consciousness based on a teleology of sensual enjoyment (pokam), an extravagance in consumption and display, replacing and inverting, at least partially, the classical varna- scheme and puranic tarmam (dharma) ideology expressed in the conflation of the previously autonomous symbolic spheres of palace and temple and primacy of the semi-divine Sudra king (portrayed, using the Ramayana model, as no less than an avataram or the god’s son, intimate confidant, and benefactor worthy of pucai) served by the Vaidika Brahmin in a palace turned temple; the diversification and extension of the social landscape with realistic portrayals of predatory bandit-castes (Kallars, Maravas, and others), polluting yet powerful ‘white-faced’ Mleccha merchants with their singular ways (independent jurisdictions, unusual devices and products), dynamic, threatening, yet heroic Deccani Muslim yavana soldiers, and unpedigreed, local ‘little kings’ of an altogether new type; and the empirical presentation of the Balija Telugu-speaking merchant-warrior elite with its non-ascriptive (eroticised), heroic ethos.75 Moreover, the volume’s ‘triple authorship’, Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, point to the reliance of the Nayaka states, and Madurai in particular, on newly institutionalised Baljia tax farming for perhaps the bulk of their income. They also recall the persistent traditions internal to this community identifying the Madurai Nayaka kings themselves as Balija in origins. This tradition is clearly reflected in Bassingh’s ‘Description of the Origins of the Nayakas of Madurai, their Political Administration, Finances, Militia, Justice, Religion, Civil and Domestic Relations’. ‘Informed by some old Brahmins and from their Chronicles’, the Dutch resident at Trichinopoly in 1677 traces ‘the beginnings and origins of the Government and the Power, which these Nayakas have acquired over the Lands of Madurai and subsequently several Territories’ back to a few Balija

75 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, passim.

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Chitti tax-farming individuals.76 Bassingh’s damning portrayal of the Madurai ruler Chokkanatha Nayaka (r. 1659–1682) the ‘Avaricious’ may also have been partially influenced by the newly emergent, alternate ideal of the ‘spendthrift Sudra king’, spending either in dharmic works (endowments, public works, charity) or in the multifarious modes of pokam or sensual enjoyment as described by Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam.77 According to the version of the foundation of the Madurai kingdom offered by the anonymous Telugu chronicle, Tanjavuri Andhra Rajula Citra (‘The Story of Tanjore’s Andhra Kings’), probably from early eighteenth-century Tanjore, the five minimal components of statehood constituted: money or portable, apparently liquid, wealth; mobility in the form of a mobile, adventurous elite armed and equipped with horses; territory or a horizontal base peopled by a sedentarizing migratory elite tax farmers and investors, and peasant cultivators; vertical linkages articulated in terms of personal loyalty with a higher centre of authority—here embodied in the Vijayanagara overlord; and a deity (or deities) in the form of Minaksi and Durganahalaksmi, the protective goddess of Vijayanagara. There is no immediate need for Brahmins, whether as ministers, advisers, or worthy recipients of royal gifts; no need to have a ‘proper’ history or genealogy; no need for ascriptive qualifications of any kind or Kshatriya background.78 While still ascribing, at least to some degree, to the Brahmin ideal of puranic or dharmic kingship (tarumaracakkal, rajadharma), the overriding principle of the Nayaka merchant-warrior elite and the aranmanai or palace was raison d’état, aimed at self-preservation and aggrandisement, in accordance with the pragmatic precepts of the ‘Artha Shastra’. As noted, the ‘spendhrift Sudra kings’

76 Bassingh, ‘Description’, pp. 285–286; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 285–287 and 344–345; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 74. 77 Bassingh, ‘Description’, p. 288; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 36, 56, 63, 89, 297, and 349; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, esp. pp. 72–80. 78 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, esp. pp. 44–56. A Tamil variant of this story, possibly derived from the Telugu text, can be found in: Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 96–106, citing the ‘History of the Carnataca Governors Who Ruled Over the Pandiya Mandalam’. See: Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 3–49. In contrast, the Rayavacakamu, a Telugu text produced in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, proclaimed a full treasury one of the seven limbs of the state, along with the king, minister, ally, country, fort, and army. See: Ph. Wagoner (ed.), Tidings of the King: A Translation and Ethnohistorical Analysis (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993), pp. 89, and 151–152. See also the Amuktamalyada, a Telugu text attributed to the Vijayanagar Emperor Krishndeva Raya (r. 1509–1529): A. Rangasvami Sarasvati, ‘Political Maxims of the Emperor-Poet, Krishnadeva Raya’, Journal of Indian History 4, 3 (1926), pp. 72–73.

Images And Ideologies 59 of Madurai believed in gifting with a flourish, either in the form of traditional dharmic works (land endowments, public works, charity of various kind) or the novel multifarious modes of pokam (most notably food), but when necessary were not above taking what was necessary to survive and more as well. In 1681, for example, the ruler of Madurai, Chokkanatha Nayaka, while engaged in a brutal war for survival with neighbouring Mysore, sent the then governor of Tirunelveli, Tambi Periya Pillai, with a body of troops to despoil the pagodas in the lowlands. Being informed of their intention, two of the Brahmin Pattars of the Alvar Tirunagari Temple, one of the nine Hindu temples (Nava Tirupathi) dedicated to Lord Vishnu on the banks of the Tambraparni River, sacrificed themselves by leaping from the building exclaiming that their blood would come upon the pillagers. Reportedly this act ‘did startle the governor somewhat, but not to the extent that the despoiling of the pagoda was halted and all its contents had been removed’.79 In 1689, with hostilities against Mysore at a low level of intensity, Chokkanatha’s successor, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, reportedly gifted 100,000 pardaus in the form of alms (‘money, robes, textiles, animals, etc.’) to Brahmins and various pagodas. He also built a street with residences on both sides to house poor, impoverished Brahmins at Trichinopoly.80 Indeed, this alternative hedonistic ideology of Sudra kingship emerging at the seventeenth-century Nayaka courts of Tamilnadu partially replaced an allegedly ‘significantly atrophied’ classical tarmam ideology.81 The ensuing

79 voc 1187, obp 1652, f. 511v, Extract dagreg. De Vogel gedurende de expeditie van Tuticurin, 31.1.–1.3.1649; voc 1329, obp 1678, f. 1270v, Rapp. boekhr. Caperman aan commt. Huijsman, commt. der Madurese kust, 13.5.1677; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1569v–1570r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1681; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 289v–291r, and 297r, Rapport asst. Welter aan Van Vliet en raad van Tutucorijn, 9.9.1689. For a similar pragmatic stance of the Tevar of Ramnad, Raghunatha Tevar, vis-à-vis the island shrine of Rameswaram, see: voc 1282, obp 1672, f. 1008r, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.4.1671. Sanjay Subrahmanyam even speaks of the ‘insistent theme’ of the temple as milch-cow in Company sources regarding what the Dutch considered as the exploitative relationship between the state and the temple. See: S. Subrahmanyam, ‘An Eastern El Dorado: The Tirumala-Tirupati Complex in Early European Views and Ambitions, 1540–1660’, in: D. Shulman (ed.), Syllables of Sky: Studies in South Indian Civilization in Honour of Velcheru Narayana Rao (Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 373. 80 See Welter’s ‘Report’ under 24 July 1689 (ff. 289v–291v); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 477–482 and 557–558. Welter, typically for Dutch anti-Brahmin sentiments, blames the Hindu priests for manipulating the Madurai ruler. 81 The argument for the emergence of an alternative hedonistic ideology of Sudra kingship at the seventeenth-century Nayaka courts of Tamilnadu is not entirely convincing not only because its very proponents seem to limit the ramifications of their own statements,

60 chapter 1 symbiotic relationship between statecraft (imârat) and trade (tijârat) was a precursor of the ‘military-fiscal states’ or ‘sultanist regimes’ of the eighteenth century, in South India most notably epitomised by the reigns of Marthanda Varma (r. 1729–1758) in Travancore and of Haidar Ali (r. 1761–1782) and Tipu Sultan (r. 1782–1799) in Mysore, in which power and profit developed a closer and more institutionalised relationship. These ‘new model’ or ‘military-fiscal’ states, eagerly employing large numbers of fast moving Central Asian cavalry- men drifting into the South Asian plains (along with tapping into the newly available sources of European infantrymen along the coast), generally auctioned off their revenue and monopoly privileges to political merchants or ‘portfolio capitalists’ (see below), enhancing their control over producers and peasants, in particular taking liens on revenue demands to coerce compliance and contracts.82 In return, producers, peasants, merchants, and others (including, as we will see, palaiyakkarars) did not just yield passively to the revenue demands of the state, but had to be forced to concede by regular revenue-gathering operations—viewed as ‘proof’ of the oppressive nature of Oriental despotic

but also because there is ample evidence that the Nayaka rulers continued to emulate the cultural model of puranic kingship. See: Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 57–58, 67, and 79. On rajadharma, see: D.M. Derrett, ‘Rajadharma’, Journal of Asian Studies 35, 4 (1976), pp. 597–609; N.B. Dirks, ‘Political Authority and Structural Change in Early South India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 13, 2 (1976), pp. 125–157; P.G. Price, ‘Raja-Dharma in 19th Century South India: Litigation and Largess in Ramnad Zamindari’, Contribution to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 13, 2 (1979), pp. 207–239; Idem, Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 82 The literature on these important topics is vast, including seminal contributions by Chris Bayly, David Ludden, Burton Stein, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, David Washbrook, and André Wink. See: C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Idem, ‘Beating the Boundaries: South Asian History, c. 1700–1850’, in: Bose (ed.), South Asia and World Capitalism, pp. 37–38; Ludden, ‘World Economy, and Village India’, p. 166; Stein, A History of India, pp. 26–27, and 209–210; S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Of Imârat and Timârat: Asian Merchants and State Power in the Western Indian Ocean, 1400–1750’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, 4 (1995), pp. 750–780, esp. 750, 773, and 775; Idem, ‘Iranians Abroad: Intra-Asian Elite Formation and Early Modern State Formation’, Journal of Asian Studies 51, 2 (1992), pp. 340–363; Bayly and Subrahmanyam, ‘Portfolio Capitalists and the Political Economy of Early Modern India’; Washbrook, ‘From Comparative Sociology to Global History’, pp. 427–429, and 430–431; Idem, ‘Progress and Problems’, pp. 72–74, and 92; Idem, ‘South Asia, the World System and World Capitalism’, in: Bose (ed.), South Asia and World Capitalism, pp. 58–60, and 72–73; A. Wink, ‘World Trade, Merchant Empires, and the Economy of the Indian Ocean’, International History Review 15, 1 (1993), pp. 109–110.

Images And Ideologies 61 regimes by local Dutch Company officials. The so-called ‘inner logic’ of Indian politics resulted in a constant ‘cold war between the revenue demands of the state and armed groups, which occasionally heated up into a hot, open war’.83 The ‘commercialisation of royal power’ and ‘royalisation of mercantile wealth’ were two sides of the same coin, inextricably bound up with manifestations of what has been called alternately the ‘first pulse of globalisation’, ‘first globalisation’, and ‘archaic’ or ‘early modern globalisation’84 lubricated by precious metals from the Americas and (to a lesser extent) Japan, including the spread of consumerism, commercialisation, and monetarisation.85 The central authorities were represented in the persons of the Nayaka and his unofficial council of ministers, formed by a core triad of officials called the talavay/mantri or commander-in-chief/premier, the pradhani or finance minister, and the rayasam or private secretary of the king. These officials were recruited from a limited number of high-ranking families with close ties to the court. The talavays Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka and his son Tuppaki Anan dappa (or Antapa) Nayaka, for instance, were dominant in the early reigns of Chokkanatha Nayaka (r. 1659–1682) and Muttu Virappa Nayaka III (r. 1682– 1691), respectively. Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka and his remaining troops switched allegiance to the Nayakas of Madurai on the defeat of his younger brother, Tuppaki Krishnappa Nayaka (d. 1659), the former talavay of Gingee, at the hands of the Golconda army in October 1658. Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka’s daughter, Mangammal, who married Chokkanatha Nayaka in 1665, served as queen-regent of Madurai from 1690 to 1705. In April 1668, however, Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka himself was forced to flee the Trichinopoly court after having been accused of treason. The career of his son showed marked similarities to

83 R.E. Frykenberg, ‘Company Sirkars in the Karnatak: The Inner Logic of Political Systems in India’, in: R. Fox (ed.), Realm and Region in Traditional India (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), pp. 117–164; R.J. Barendse, Arabian Seas 1700–1763. Volume I: The Western Indian Ocean in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden and Boston; Brill, 2009), pp. 348– 349, and 360. 84 J.R. McNeill and W.H. McNeill, The Human Web: A Bird’s-Eye View of World History (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003), pp. 258–259; G. Gunn, First Globalization: The Eurasian Exchange, 1500–1800 (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World; Idem, ‘ “Archaic” and “Modern” Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena’, in: A. Hopkins (ed.), Globalization in World History (New York: Norton, 2002), pp. 47–73; Idem, ‘From Archaic Globalization to International Networks, circa 1600–2000’, in: J. Bentley, R. Bridenthal, and A. Yang (eds), Interactions: Transregional Perspectives on World History (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005), pp. 14–29. 85 ‘Bullionist historians’ Dennis Flynn and Arturio Giraldéz represent the culmination of a long tradition of venerable scholarship in this regard.

62 chapter 1 that of the father. Between 1682 and 1686, Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka dominated the affairs of the aranmanai as talavay and guardian of his nephew, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, but was then forced to take refuge with Haraji Mahadik (d. 1689), the Maratha governor of Gingee, after having been accused of conspiring with the brothers of Chokkanatha Nayaka to reinstate Muttu Linga Nayaka.86 This pattern was not inconsistent with the careers of other leading aranmanai officials, pointing not only to a deliberate Nayaka policy of rewards and punishments, but also to the level of integration of the regional high-end labour market and the ‘portability’ of identity across the subcontinent

86 For information on Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka: voc 1221, obp 1658, f. 665v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H XVII, 19.11.1657; voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 276v–277r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan adml. Van Goens, 9.11.1658; Idem, f. 434v, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan superintendent Van Goens, 3.4.1659; Idem, f. 661r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 30.6.1659; voc 1233, obp 1661, ff. 43r–43v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 14.7.1660; voc 1234, obp 1662, ff. 132v–133r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 15.9.1661; voc 1236, obp 1662, f. 913, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 7.10.1661; Idem, f. 915, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 25.10.1661; voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 186, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 31.1.1663; voc 1246, obp 1665, f. 498, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 21.2.1664; voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 746, Rapp. Van Rheede aan superintendent Van Goens, 7.10.1665; voc 1256, obp 1667, f. 434v, Rapp. koopman Van der Dussen wegens het verrichten op de Madurese kust, 12.5.1666; Idem, f. 97v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.5.1666; voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1168r et seq., Rapp. Capn. Van Rheede gevallen op de reijse en onderhandelingh geduurende het gesantsch. aan den Neijk van Madure, 2.7.1668; J.A. van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register Gehouden int Casteel Batavia Vant Passerende Daer Ter Plaetse Als Over Geheel Nederlandts India 1661, 31 vols. (Batavia and The Hague: Landsdrukkerij: M. Nijhoff, 1887–1928), pp. 405–406; Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, p. 199; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 150 n. 100. On Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka: voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1168r, 1172v, 1175r, and 1189v, Rapp. Capn. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 17r–17v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1677; James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India [f. 70], Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 23.11.1677; voc 1387, obp 1684, f. 1745r, Relaas van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust door opperk. en commt. der gem. kust De Heijde aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 31.3.1683; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 450v, Extract miss. opperk. en opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1686; voc 1438, obp 1688, f. 1193v, Transl. ola bramine Kistna Ajen uit Tiroenamble aan koopman Clement, opperh. van Tegenepatnam en Portonovo, ontvangen 27.5.1687; Idem, f. 1231v, Transl. rapp. pions Ibrahim Moor en Pangelaan Sjentief opgezonden naar Oellapoer en ‘t Mogols leger, 17.7.1687; voc 1468, obp 1690, ff. 276r–276v, 284r–285r, and 287v–289v, Rapp. asst. Welter aan Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 157 n. 111.

Images And Ideologies 63 enabling skilled scribes, artisans, military people, and priestly specialists to compete for patronage and employment rights across the cities and courts of the subcontinent.87 Scribal specialists may be described as ‘the “paradigmatic” class of the early modern centuries’. Unlike northern India where Brahmin communities faced competition from multi-lingual Kayastha literati, in the Nayaka successor-states of South India, the mundane administrative needs of contemporary states with their expanding paper-based bureaucracies and growing dependence on cash revenues was met by Brahmins.88 From the late 1640s to the early 1670s, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai (d. 1675), a native of the village of Kavannur near Tirupparamkunram, belonging to the Karkattar sect of Vellalas, served on and off as pradhani and governor of Tirunelveli. In fact, Ambassador Van Rheede was informed in 1668 that Vadamalaiyappa had been serving the Madurai ruler Chokkanatha Nayaka and his ancestors for fourty years.89 Other members of this powerful Madurai family, such as Vadamalaiyappa’s son Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai (d. 1668), his brother Ariyanatha Pillai, and his nephew Tambi Periya Pillai a.k.a. Chinna Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, also held this prestigious post at various points in their lives. In March 1670, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai was described by a Dutch observer as ‘a person of high distinction with a noble face, being apparently in his fifties, having grey hair and beard, simply dressed with a white cloth around his head according to the fashion of their priests, highly respected and esteemed by his people, carrying his discourses modestly, calmly, and succinctly’.90

87 O’Hanlon, ‘Performance in a World of Paper’, pp. 92, and 98. 88 Idem, ‘Contested Conjunctures: Brahman Communities and “Early Modernity” in India’, American Historical Review 118, 3 (2013), pp. 767, 774–775, and 777; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Textures of Time. For other studies of scribal communities in early modern India: S. Guha, ‘Speaking Historically: The Changing Voices of Historical Narration in Western India, 1400–1900’, American Historical Review 109, 4 (2004), pp. 1084–1103; P. Deshpande, Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India, 1700–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), pp. 19–39; R. O’Hanlon and D. Washbrook (eds), Munshis, Pandits and Record-Keepers: Scribal Communities and Historical Change in India, Special Issue, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 47, 4 (2010). 89 See Van Rheede’s report under April 17, 1668 (ff. 1182r–1182v); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 132 n. 34, 179 n. 66, 188, and 244. 90 voc 1274, obp 1671, f. 189r, Extract Ceijlons dagreg. behelzende de samenspraeck tusschen gouvr. Van Goens en Barmiliappe Pulle tot Tuticurin gehouden, 1.3.1670; P.S.S. Desikar, ‘Viceroys of the Nayaks of Madurai’, Journal of Indian History 17 (1938), pp. 175–180. In February 1649, then Governor Vadamalaiyappa Pillai asserted to have been ‘groot schrij ver’ (kanakkapillai-mór?) under the previous adhikari (the Brahmin Deva Chathira Ayya (d. 1668) during the plunder of the Company factory at Kayalpatnam. voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 513r–413v, Extract dagreg. secretaris De Vogel gedurende de expeditie van Tuticurin,

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While they continued as an influential family at the Madurai court, the position of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and his relatives from the mid-1670s was assumed by that of Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya (fl. 1674–1690), a Saivite Brahmin from the village of Mattur, situated on the banks of the Cauvery River near Tirukkadavar in Tanjore. Upon the death and defeat of Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Tanjore (r. 1634– 1673), Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya switched allegiance to Madurai. Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya and his sons, Swarna Krishna Ayya, Venkatesa Ayya, and Rajagopala, subsequently acted on and off as pradhani and governor of Tirunelveli during the second half of the reign of Chokkanatha Nayaka and through that of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III (r. 1682–1691).91 The pivotal roles of the kinship-based networks of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, and the upstart Tamil Brahmin Narasappa Ayya (d. 1702) in Madurai and similar roles of ‘specialist cadres’ of ‘families of professional administrators’92 elsewhere are not mere fluke ‘incidents’ or the arbitrary product of supposedly ‘Orientalist’ or ‘patrimonial-sultanist’ regimes, but the personal embodiment of the changing structure of the state in late pre- colonial South India. The exponential increase in the scale and costs of warfare (including the use of firearms along with new cavalry forms and the incorporation of large numbers of North Indian horsemen in the South)93 and a progres- sive technological transformation in its nature carried profound fiscal-economic and socio-political implications. Though dating back to the sixteenth-century

31.1.1649–1.3.1649. Desikar erroneously claims that Vadamalaiyappa Pillai died in 1663. Company sources make clear that he passed away in early 1675. See: voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 146r, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 20.10.1675. 91 P.S.S. Desikar, ‘Tiruvenkatanatha of Matai’, Journal of Indian History 16, 2 (1937), pp. 133– 136; Idem, ‘Venkatesa, Viceroy of Rangakrishna Muttuvirappa III’, Journal of Indian History 16, 3 (1937), pp. 304–309. According to the ‘Koyil Olugu’, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, misguided by Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, persecuted the family of his own acarya, Kumara Srinivasa Desikar, and died shortly thereafter having been cursed by Srinivasa Desikar (in fact, Muttu Virappa III died of smallpox in early 1691). Hari Rao (ed.), Koil Olugu, p. 191; Idem, History of the Srirangam Temple, p. 198. 92 F. Perlin, ‘State Formation Reconsidered’, Modern Asian Studies 19, 3 (1985), pp. 465–466, and 475. Perlin mentions the role of the powerful Dabhade family in eighteenth-century central Maharashtra, serving as tax collectors (kamavisdars) for half a century or more. Describing the system as a ‘sort of bifocality’, Perlin typifies it as a ‘Mandavillian character of an intrusion of private business interests into the service of a government fiscal system’ and ‘the functional generation of part-autonomies’, while ‘at the same time they also remained func- tionaries, required to submit accounts, explanations and collections to the authorities’. 93 D.H.A. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Images And Ideologies 65 late Vijayanagara period under Krishnadeva Raja (r. 1509–1529), military-fiscal pressures in South India escalated dramatically as a result of the region’s growing instability from the 1640s onwards galvanised by pressure of the northern sultanates. Expanding tax demands began to place a premium on fiscal— specifically accountancy and scribal—skills, which very much favoured those social groups hereditarily trained to provide them. The outcome of this process, culminating in the late pre-colonial and early colonial period (1750–1850), was, among others, the ‘Brahminisation of Hindu culture [and politics]’ or the making of a ‘Brahmin raj’, the rising cultural influence and political power of Hindu upper caste, especially Brahmin, groups in South India.94 The governors (called ‘regedores’ or ‘landregenten’ in Portuguese and Dutch correspondence) of the provinces or simais (cimais, other terms used are tecams, rajyams, mantalams, or rastirams) under direct control of the Nayaka around Madurai, Trichinopoly, and further south (the ‘carkkar lands’) were the representatives of the central state at the regional level, while on the local level officials called maniyakkarars (holders of maniyam rights or lands) were entrusted with the collection of taxes. Apart from the two provinces of Satya mangalam and Dharapuram recently lost to Mysore, the six provinces of Madurai in 1677 were Tirunelveli, Madurai, Dindigul, Trichinopoly, Vijayapuram,

94 Washbrook,’ South India 1770–1840’, pp. 500–503; S. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age, The New Cambridge History of India 4.3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 64–96. For similar pressures elsewhere in South Indian in Bijapur, Maharashtra, Mysore, Tanjore, and Travancore: S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Warfare and State Finance in Wodeyar Mysore, 1724–1725: A Missionary Perspective’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 26, 2 (1989), pp. 203–233 (reprinted in: Idem, Penumbral Visions, pp. 61–93); Idem, ‘The Politics of Fiscal Decline: A Recon sideration of Maratha Tanjavur, 1676–1799’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 32, 2 (1995), pp. 177–217 (reprinted in: Idem, Penumbral Visions, pp. 143–185); G. Kruijtzer, ‘Madanna, Akanna and the Brahmin Revolution’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 45, 2 (2002), pp. 231–266; M. de Lannoy, The Kulasekhara Perumals of Travancore: History and State Formation in Travancore from 1671 to 1758, cnws publications 58 (Leiden: University of Leiden, 1997); I. Habib (ed.), Confronting Colonialism: Resistance and Modernization under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (Delhi: Tulika, 1999); B. Stein, ‘State Formation and Economy Reconsidered’, Modern Asian Studies 19, 3 (1985), p. 409; Perlin, ‘State Formation Reconsidered’, pp. 465–466, and 475; A. Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Svarajya, University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 36 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 66–85; O’Hanlon, ‘Performance in a World of Paper’, p. 90. For parallel developments in North India: R.E. Frykenberg, Guntur District, 1788–1848: A History of Local Influence and Central Authority in South India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965); Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars.

66 chapter 1 and Tiripattur. The Dutch factories were situated in Tirunelveli tecam or simply referred to as the ‘lowlands’.95 Both the provincial governors and local maniyakkarars were revenue farmers, annually bidding for their position on a competitive basis. As we have seen, this fact did not preclude certain individuals or groups of individuals from holding ‘office’ for a long period of time and wielding great power and influence over the affairs of the aranmanai. While at the Madurai court in 1689, the Company Assistant Nicolaes Welter acutely observed that through their financial leverage or power of the purse ‘the tax farmers of His Higness’ lands have, as it were, their hands on the throat of the ruler, and he will not say anything, no matter how trivial, without their permission for they will immediately remonstrate with the ruler they are unable to bring up their tax money, knowing how to put forward numerous reasons depending on the subject matter’.96 In 1677 the six provinces of Madurai were reportedly farmed out for a total of 1,200,000 pardaus or 3,600,000 guilders: Tirunelveli was rented for 420,000 pardaus, Madurai for 120,000 pardaus, Dindigul for 190,000 pardaus, Trichinopoly for 230,000 pardaus, Vijayapuram for 160,000 pardaus, and Tiripattur for 80,000 pardaus. The annual revenues of the two lost provinces of Satyamangalam and Dharapuram were estimated to have been 800,000 pardaus. The sums paid for a position fluctuated sharply according to circumstances and expected returns on the investment. In 1671, for instance, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar became the revenue farmer of Tirunelveli against the payment of 55,000 pardaus per month. In 1674, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya paid 360,000 pardaus per year (reportedly 120,000 more than usual) for the same position, while Ariyanatha Pillai purchased the same governorship for 420,000 pardaus per year in 1677. On the local level, we have somewhat less compatible data. In March 1659, the annual rent of the seaports from Vembar to Manappad was estimated to be between 15,000–20,000 pardaus or 45,000–60,000 guilders. In July 1676, the governor of Tirunelveli, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar, borrowed 12,000 rixdollars or 36,000 guilders from the Company, mortgaging the revenues of the four villages of Tuticorin (2,700 rixdollars), Kayalpatnam (3,900 rixdollars), Kulasekharapat nam (3,600 rixdollars), and Attur (1,800 rixdollars). In July 1690, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III agreed to lease the revenues of Tuticorin and its dependencies to

95 James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, [ff. 53–54, and 67], Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 23.11.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 303–304, 311, 352, and 354–355. 96 voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 317r, Rapp. asst. Welter aan opperk. en opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 509, and 579.

Images And Ideologies 67 the Company for an annual payment of 3,120 pardaus, remitting the payment of another 3,000 pardaus.97 The aranmanai was anything but a homogenous institution. On the contrary, it was the scene of heavy factional infighting and several attempted coups d’état by powerful individuals, often high officials and/or close relatives of the Nayaka himself, supported by rebellious ambitious ‘little kings’ such as the Tevars of Ramnad. The following list is far from exhaustive, but gives an indication of the various roots of rebellion and dissatisfaction: the succession of Muttu Virappa Nayaka II (r. 1659), son of Tirumalai Nayaka, briefly disputed by his general (brother’s son?) Kumara Muttu Nayaka in 1659; the usurpation of Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, talavay and father-in-law of Chokkanatha Nayaka, along with the pradhani and rayasam 1659–1662; the forced abdication of Chokkanatha Nayaka in favour of his younger brother Muttu Linga or Muttu Alakadri Nayaka in 1677 and the subsequent usurpation of Rustam Khan, the Muslim commander (talakartan of the fort) of Trichinopoly 1680–1682; the regency of Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka, talavay and uncle of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III from 1682 to 1686; the ‘great conspiracy’ of 1686, including Shahaji Bhonsle of Tanjore, the Maratha Governor Haraji Raja Mahadik of Gingee, Raghunatha Tevar a.k.a. Kilavan Setupati of Ramnad, Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka, the erstwhile talavay of Madurai, and Chengamala Das, son of Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Tanjore, against Muttu Virappa Nayaka III; and the ‘conspiracy of the uncles’, including Achyutappa Nayaka, Muttu Linga Nayaka a.k.a. Muttu Alakadri Nayaka, and Tuppaki Anan dappa Nayaka, in 1689 against their nephew Muttu Virappa Nayaka III.98 Chokkanatha Nayaka abdicated ca. January or February 1677 in favour of his younger brother (sinna turai, ‘junior master, small gentleman’) or heir apparent (irandavatu pattam), Muttu Linga Nayaka a.k.a. Muttu Alakadri Nayaka

97 voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 408v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en koopman Ooms van Tuticurin aan superint. Van Goens, 5.3.1659; voc 1282, obp 1672, f. 1133r, Rapp. opperk. Pijl der presente gestalte van Madure, 27.9.1671; voc 1304, obp 1675, f. 324v, Rapp. opperh. Huijsman van Madure betr. de Madurese kust, 29.3.1674; voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 346r–346v, Contract van de landregent Commare Suami Modeljaar, 2.7.1676; James Ford Bell Library, B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, [f. 68], Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 23.11.1677; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 405v–406r, Contract van alliantie met de neik van Madure, 29.7–6.8.1690; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 31, and 529. For the actual revenues: voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 371r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 393v–394r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688. 98 Reconstructed on the basis of voc records and the traditional accounts on the history of Madurai.

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(r. 1677–1680). According to Company sources, the apparent reason for the abdication was the defection of the three sons of Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka and Tuppaki Krishnappa Nayaka—very close relatives of Chokkanatha due to his marriage to Mangammal, daughter of Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka—with 4,000 men to the side of Ekoji (Venkoji) Bhonsle in early 1677. Chokkanatha apparently had first contemplated suicide, then had second thoughts and decided to resign and handed over the administration to his brother—a decision he subsequently regretted. To some extent, the ‘Description’ by the Company Assistant and Resident Adolff Bassingh, compiled at Trichinopoly in late 1677 with the help of ‘several old Brahmins’, can be considered as a legitimation of the reign of the new ruler Muttu Linga Nayaka, with its lengthy description of the coronation ceremonies (pattapisekam) and the attempt to discredit Chokkanatha ‘the Avaricious’ as being unqualified and illegitimate, being ‘not of the right female lineage since his mother was a secondary wife of Muttu Virappa Nayaka I [r. 1659] and a member of the Vellala caste’.99 The journals of Company officials visiting the Madurai court, such as Hendrik van Rheede (1668), Adolff Bassingh (1677), and Nicolaes Welter (1689), provide one of those rare occasions to catch a glimpse of the day-to-day functioning and political infighting among the central authorities. Similar to the situation in the Dutch Republic and the Company (see below), party-factions were formed by informal groupings with competing political and theological ideologies and rival patronage and clientage networks concerned with control and distribution of political offices and local power. In 1668, for example, Van Rheede was confronted with the struggle between a ‘war faction’ headed by the pradhani Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and a ‘peace faction’ under the leadership of the former talavay Chinnatambi Mudaliyar (d. 1673) and the Senior Chamberlain Kumara Rangappa Nayaka.100

99 See: Bassingh, ‘Description’, p. 288; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 297 and 349. Descriptions of noble festivities and pompous ceremonies at European courts were one of the favourite topoi in early modern European media. For this reason, the Indian court and its ceremonies were a recurrent feature in travel accounts, though the rather small coastal kingdoms could not satisfy the European audience’s curiosity in the long term. See: A. Flüchter, ‘“Aus dem Fürnembsten Indianischen Reisbeschreibungen Zusammengezo gen”: Knowledge About India in Early Modern Germany’, in: S. Huigen, J.L. de Jong, and E. Kolfin (eds), The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks, Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture 14 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), pp. 347–348. 100 See: Van Rheede, ‘Report’, under March 20, 1668 (ff. 1172v et seq.); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 168, 228–229, and passim.

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In 1677, Bassingh commented:

the courtiers are extremely jealous of each other, sprouting from the imagined envy, hatred, or friendship the one enjoys over the other. They are never simply friend or foe, but both at the same time, on which the ruler speculates and relies even more on his courtiers, being of the— gravely mistaken—opinion that since they are extremely jealous of one another, they dare not undertake anything to the detriment or damage of the lands out of fear of being spied on.

In fact, Bassingh had arrived at Trichinopoly at a time of violent ‘indigenous disputes and revolutions at the court and throughout the entire city’, including bloody pitched street battles between supporters of Chokkanatha Nayaka, regretting his recent abdication, and his younger brother and new ruler Muttu Linga Nayaka. ‘These disorders’, Bassingh observed, ‘apparently will continue until either the raging Chokkanatha has been killed or restored to power’.101 In 1689, Welter commented that ‘these courtiers are very envious of one another and try to frustrate each other to gain the most influence with the ruler’. During his stay at the Madurai court, the voc emissary in turn witnessed the factional infighting between the party-factions of the present pradhani Raghava Ayya and his predecessor Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, the latter managing to regain his previous office in a ‘palace revolution’ in August 1689.102 In 1691, the departure of the former talavay Talakartan Tirumalai Nayaka to the territory of Ariyalur Malavaraya was part of a mini-exodus of leading Telugu Nayaka officials during the early regency of Mangammal, mother of the deceased Muttu Virappa Nayaka III (r. 1682–1691) and grandmother of Vijayaranga Chokkanatha Nayaka (r. 1706–1732), protesting her favourit- ism of his successor, the upstart Tamil Brahmin Narasappa Ayya (d. 1702). Reportedly, the Brahmin pradhani ‘knew how to carress her in all manners’ (sic).103 Similar incongruities and mutual rivalries among Tamil-, Telugu-, and

101 See: Bassingh, ‘Description’, p. 292; voc 1330, obp 1678, ff. 923r–923v, Extract miss. resident Adolph Bassingh uijt Tritchenapalij near Tutucorijn ges., 25.11.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 64, 367, and 374. 102 See: Welter, ‘Report’, under July 24, 1689 (ff. 285r–287r), August 10, 1689 (f. 305v), and August 13, 1689 (ff. 307v–308r); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 472–473, 497–498, 499–500, 554, 570, and 571–572. 103 voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 417v–418r, Relaas 3 bosschieters… ‘tgeene haer van de Armanese saken bewust is, 14.5.1692; voc 1525, obp 1694, ff. 1183v–1184r, Kort relaas opperk. Bergaigne nevens de raad te Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 30.11.1693. See also: voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 1133r–1133v, Kort relaas opperk. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticurin, 30.11.1692.

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Kannada-speaking officials also existed in neighbouring Tanjore as evinced by the yakshagana dance drama called Raghunathabhyudayamu (‘A Day in the Life of Raghunatha’) composed by the last Tanjore Nayaka ruler Vijayaraghava Nayaka (r. 1634–1673), describing the cantankerous and antagonistic atmosphere at the court of his father Raghunatha Nayaka (r. 1612–1634), or the competition over food and sex between Telugu- and Tamil-speaking Brahmins portrayed in the satirical Nayaka (Tanjore) court comedy (kurvanaci) Annadanamahanatakamu (‘Great Drama of the Gift of Food’) by the Telugu Brahmin poet Purushottama Dikshitudu (fl. 17th century).104 Madurai was one of the three ‘Great Southern Nayakas’ in the Tamil country along with Gingee and Tanjore. These Nayaka states were founded in the late 1520s or early 1530s by powerful Telugu warrior chiefs carving out new territories in the South in the name of their Vijayanagara overlord. While historians in the past have looked for ‘definite moments’ marking the independence of these ‘successor states’, the Nayakas in fact coexisted with Vijayanagara and never severed the ties with their overlord altogether in an ambiguous relationship characterised by symbolic subordination and practical autonomy.105 Nevertheless, along the continuum between dependence and independence some stages can be recognised in the development of this ‘twilight zone’ kingship, each following a ‘(re-)defining moment’ in the declining fortunes of the Vijayanagara state. The founders of the Madurai state, Nagama Nayaka, manager of the Vijayanagara treasury, and his son Visvanatha Nayaka (r. ca. 1530–1564), claimed to be mere karttakals or agents of their overlord. Following the great defeat of Vijayanagara at the battle of Talikota (1565), a new mode of relations emerged. For the first time, grants were made by the Vijayanagara rulers at the request of the Madurai Nayakas, marking the karttakals’ acquisition of their own agency. In this period, the royal court of Madurai also produced the Telugu poem ‘Rayavacakamu’ or ‘Tidings of the King’ (ca. 1600), which, instead of the power- less Aravidu line residing at Chandragiri, takes Vijayanagara, the ‘City of Victory’ itself, as a source of authority and legitimacy for the Madurai dynasty.106

104 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 58–61, and 202–216. 105 Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 42–52; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Sub stance, pp. 23–56. It should be noted here that the Nayakas of Madurai never based their sovereignty solely on their relationship with Vijayanagara, but also on their capacity to set themselves up as successors of the Pandyas of Madurai (r. 590–938, and 1058–1310). 106 Wagoner (ed.), Tidings of the King, p. 22. See also: Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 42–52, and 96–106; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, passim. Visiting Madurai, Trichinopoly, and Srirangam in 1611, Jacques de Coutre (b. ca. 1575), a jewel trader from Bruges in modern-day Belgium, observed that ‘el naique [de Maduré], señor de la tierra, era riquo y poderoso. Avía sido señor de la pescaria de perlas que solía aver en la costa de

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In the aftermath of the ‘civil war’ of Toppur (1614–1617), during the reign of Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623–1659), references to Vijayanagara in Madurai inscriptions recede to the position of regnal dating without making any explicit connection. However, even after the revolt of the Southern Nayakas (1645), the de facto death blow to the rump Vijayanagara state, the ‘logical’ de jure step, that is, proclamation of independence was never made.107 The declining military strength of Vijayanagara, the concomitant rise of Muslim power in the Deccan, and the growing penetration of European commercial interests in the seventeenth century led to a gradual shift of focus from a peripheral ‘viceroy’ looking up at his central overlord to a regional ‘king’ looking sideways and downward at the ambitious rulers of the surrounding states, his (in)subordinate chieftains, and the increasing presence of the Portuguese and subsequently the Dutch in the coastal regions.108 These changing circumstances required the existence of an expensive military apparatus in order to support the claims of ritual kingship. Thus, legitimacy was simultaneously based on cosmology (via tanam or ‘gift-giving’) and command (tantam, use of legitimate ‘force’), deriving authority through the combination of significant displays of ritual kingship and the maintenance of a powerful military.109 Thus, in 1677, the armed forces of Madurai consisted reportedly of 2,000 horse and 12,000 foot. Twelve years later, in 1689, it was observed that the soldiery ‘at

Tuticorín e Manar. Tenía en sus tierras minas de ojos de gatos, y eran mejores piedras que las que solía aver en la isla de Ceilán. Y tenía muchos elefantes, y mucha gente de guerra, y grandes señores vassallos suyos…’. Nevertheless, despite all these signs of ostentatious wealth and power, De Coutre still called him ‘sugeto al imperio de Bisnagar’. See: E. Stols, B. Teensma, and J. Verberckmoes (eds), Jacques de Coutre, Andanzas Asiáticas (Madrid: Historia 16, 1991), pp. 239, and 242–243. 107 Dirks, The Hollow Crown, p. 49. For the vision of the Nayaka of Madurai at this juncture see the 1646 relation by Balthasar da Costa. In: A. Sauliére, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, Journal of Indian History 42 (1964), pp. 97, and 104; voc 1161, obp 1647, ff. 948r and 963v, Journaal Kasteel Geldria, 23.9.1645–19.9.1646. 108 Primary sources for the Nayaka vision are the Telugu court chronicles Rayavacakamu (‘Tidings of the Great King’) written c. 1600, and the early eighteenth-century Tanjavuri Andhra Rajula Caritra (a later Tamil version called ‘History of the Carnataca governors who ruled over the Pandiya mandalam’ is probably derived from the Telugu original). See: Wagoner, Tidings of the King; Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 3–49. The Telugu original is discussed in Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, passim; the Tamil version is discussed in Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 96–106. 109 Cf. Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 42–43. Apart from tanam and tantam, the four-fold policies or expedients for administering a kingdom (catur-vitopayam) mentioned in treatises on the ancient Hindu polity also include camam (‘fairness, impartiality; war, battle; rec- onciliation’) and petam (‘love; abundance; greatness’).

72 chapter 1 present do not amount to more than 2,000 horse and 10,000 foot, while the ordinary number reportedly should be 6,000 horsemen and 30,000 footmen’.110 The promotion of commerce and the prosperity of the state were closely linked. The Amuktamalyada (‘Giver of the Worn Garland’), a Telugu text attributed to the Vijayanagar Emperor Krishnadeva Raya (r. 1509–1529), enjoined the king to ‘improve the harbours of his country and so encourage its commerce’, ‘arrange that foreign sailors who land in his country…are looked after’, and ‘Make the merchants of distant countries…attached to yourself’. The Rayavacakamu, a Telugu text produced in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, held that a king should ‘increase his wealth by means of…merchant traffic on land and sea’.111 The Nayakas themselves were acutely aware of the revenue potential of trade and hence at least implicitly followed a sort of trade policy—which even if never explicitly articulated was revealed through their actions.112 The aranmanai was far from thalassaphobic and took a keen interest in coastal maritime affairs and furthered its own form of mercantilism through a classical divide-and-rule cum ‘open door’ policy for politico-economic and fiscal reasons and their consumption-centred ideology of sensual enjoyment (pokam). Commercial capitulations and an equal opportunity littoral environment not only allowed for maintaining control over one of the most valuable parts of its possessions against ambitious Asians and Europeans,113 but also for boosting government revenues, as the Company realised, ‘in order to maintain the presence of all Indian, but especially European nations, who bring them their largest profits and which will only increase by their internal divisions’. Or as Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623–1659) and Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, the governor of Tirunelveli, put it in March 1659: ‘in case the seaports are frequented by everyone, [Madurai will prosper]. However, if this were obstructed…, our inhabitants would become impoverished, which would cause great damage to the Nayaka. Therefore, we agree that everyone shall be allowed to trade here’.114

110 See Bassingh, ‘Description’, p. 293, and Welter’s report under July 24, 1689 (f. 287v); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 66, 312, 355, 476, and 556. 111 Rangasvami Sarasvati, ‘Political Maxims of the Emperor-Poet, Krishnadeva Raya’, p. 64; Wagoner (ed.), Tidings of the King, p. 90. 112 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 108. 113 Compare with the Chinese theory of ‘using foreigners to control foreigners’. Wills Jr., Embassies and Illusions, p. 168; Lo-shu fu, Documentary Chronicle, pp. 469–470, n. 229. 114 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 424r–426r, Transl. articulen neik van Madura, 11.3.1658; voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 85, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 13.5.1659. See also: voc 1233, obp 1661, f. 160v, Miss. adml. Van Goens en gouvr. Van der Meijden aan Batavia, 2.4.1660.

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Thus, even before the implementation of the Ten Year’s Truce between Portugal and the Dutch Republic in Asia (1645–1652), Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623– 1659) had already sent an ambassador to Governor Arnold Heussen of Cor omandel (1643–1650) at Pulicat inviting the Company to trade in the lands of Madurai. In violation of a promise made to the Company, the English East India Company in turn was allowed to establish a trading factory at Palaiyakkayal in 1659. When the local English factor Walter Travers at ‘Old Kayal’ died in April 1665, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, the governor of Tirunelveli, immediately wrote to the English at Madras in order to have a replacement sent. At the onset of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667), however, the new factor, John Harrington, was arrested by the Company Merchant Laurens Pijl (c. 1634–1705) along with all his belongings. When the Company protested against the intrusion of the English factors Caleb Travers and Thomas Pattle with a party of ‘Moors’ or Muslim Maraikkayars from Calicut (Kozhikode) at Kulasekharapatnam and Manappad in October 1688, in violation of the agreement made with the aranmanai, the local muppan or regent Chidambaranatha Chitti protested (without convincing the Company) that they had loaded their cargo of tobacco against his explicit orders. There were also ongoing negotiations with the French at several times to establish a trading presence on the Madurai Coast. In 1689, for example, the jewel merchant Deva Raja Chitti requested permission on behalf of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales to build a factory at Kayalpatnam. Though Muttu Virappa Nayaka III and numerous court officials were tempted by inflated visions of financial gain, the request was ultimately turned down only out of fear of likely Dutch reprisals during the Nine Years’ War (1668–1697).115 In fact, it was these intrusions by European rivals accommodated by aranmanai officials in what the Company deemed its sphere of influence and other incidents that prompted the Welter mission of 1689.116

115 voc 1158, obp 1646, ff. 219r–220v, Transl. caul neik van Madura, June 1645. Published in: Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, I, pp. 455–457; voc 1252, obp 1666, f. 828, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1665; voc 1254, obp 1666, ff. 1111–1114, Resolutie gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Colombo, 6.7.1665; Idem, f. 1192, Memorie der Engelse goederen bekomen op Outkaijl, 20.10.1665; voc 1253, obp 1666, ff. 1635–1636, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.20.1665; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 452r–452v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet, 28.10.1688; voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 315v, Rapp. Welter aan Van Vliet, 9.9.1689; W. Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1661–1664 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923), pp. 360–361; Idem (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1665–1667, pp. 90–91 and 129; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 67, 492, and 507. 116 See: Vink, Mission to Madurai, esp. pp. 381–590.

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An important tool in the ‘open door’ policy of the Nayakas of Madurai was also the incorporation of the Muslim population of Kayalpatnam into their local patronage network, effectively counterbalancing the efforts of the Portuguese and the Marava rulers of Ramnad to incorporate the Catholic Paravas of the Fishery Coast and the Muslim Maraikkayars of Kilakkarai (Keezhakarai), respectively, as their client communities (see further in this chapter). Both communities were well-known for their specialist diving skills. One of Kay alpatnam’s élite trading magnates, a notable who became known as the Mudaliyar Pillai Maraikkayar, was endowed with ‘kingly’ honours and authority over the local pearling population by Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623–1659). As part of a complex patronage system, the aranmanai guaranteed a set share of the pearl fishery’s revenues to the Mudaliyar Pillai Maraikkayar, who supervised its collection and remitted the remaining share to shrines such as the great shore temple of Tiruchendur.117 An ‘open door’ policy made sense to the central authorities for various reasons. First, as we have seen, as a vital part of the ‘outer frontier’, the coastal zone functioned as a source of cash and other movables for the well-developed agricultural areas in the interior, increasing, both directly and indirectly, government revenues in the form of tax farms, customs and toll revenues, taxable wealth, minting fees, valuable presents, and so forth. Thus, in the ‘age of mercantilism’, the ‘bullionist’ Nayakas wished to promote the import of precious metals and precious and semi-precious stones, while certain well-placed court notables and local warrior-chiefs owned ships trading with Burma, the Malay Peninsula, and Ceylon. In June 1645, for instance, Tirumalai Nayaka issued a qaul granting the Company remission of one fourth of the export dues, half of the inland tolls, and half of the import duties, while gold, silver, precious stones, silk textiles, and gifts were altogether exempt from import levies.118 Second, the Nayakas were interested in the trade in war animals, horses from West Asia and Aceh, and elephants from Arakan, Lower Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, and Sumatra. As we have seen, the Madurai army comprised of 2,000–6,000 horses, though the animals were usually provided by the riders themselves. The cavalry consisted mostly of Muslim horsemen, receiving their monthly pay each new moon according to their equipment and the quality of the animal. The personal stable of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III himself

117 Bayly, Saints, Goddesses, and Kings, pp. 80, and 323–324; J. Hornell, The Indian Pearl Fisheries of the Gulf of Manar and Palk Bay (Madras: Madras Fisheries Bureau, Bulletin No. 16, 1922), p. 25. 118 voc 1158, obp 1646, ff. 219r–220v, Transl. caul neik van Madura, June 1645; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, I, pp. 455–457.

Images And Ideologies 75 included some 60 saddle horses, which were well provided for and received special care. These were imported from abroad, from Arabia, Persia, and Aceh, while locally bred horses were considered to be of inferior quality. Tirumalai Nayaka reportedly had more than three hundred elephants on which no expenses were spared.119 Apart from war animals, Asian rulers were eager, both through official and unofficial channels, to use the services of Europeans and other foreigners, employing them for their military know-how, their international contacts, or their language skills. Frequently, such people would be deserters from the trading companies—especially in tense times of conflict or war. In March 1668, for instance, Van Rheede encountered the Company soldier Christoffel Heintze and two other runaways, who had deserted from Quilon (Kollam) and were welcomed as artillerymen by the aranmanai. These turncoats had numerous anonymous counterparts. Parasika (meaning: Westerner)120 mercenaries populate South Indian texts, and stone and wood carvings depicting them are often found in Hindu temples, such as at Srirangam in Trichinopoly.121 The voc routinely concluded treaties with indigenous rulers and other European powers in Asia, which included cartel clauses dealing with the mutual exchange of deserters and prisoners. In fact, Van Rheede’s proposals to Chokkanatha Nayaka contained the mutual exchange of ‘runaways’.122 In April 1668, Chinnatambi Mudaliyar (d. 1673), a

119 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 110; Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, p. 91. In January 1647, the Junior Merchant Pieter van Bart at Kayalpatnam informed Governor Maetsuycker of Ceylon that he had decided not to provide him with the horses Maetsuycker had asked for ‘since the breed is too small and too weak to be of service’. voc 1165, obp 1648, f. 88r, Miss. gouvr. Maetsuijcker van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.4.1647. Bassingh observed that the cavalry consisted mostly of ‘Moors’. See his ‘Description’, p. 294. See the report of Welter under July 7, 1689 (f. 267v) for the number of saddle horses owned by Muttu Virappa Nayaka III: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 315, 356, 456, and 542. 120 Both the Puranas and the Mahabharata use the term Parasikas to refer to the peoples west of the Indus River. 121 Flores, ‘Floating Franks’, p. 38; P.S.S. Pissurlençar, ‘Os Portugueses nas Literaturas Indianas dos Séculos XVI, XVII e XVII’, Boletim da Sociedade Geografia de Lisboa, Series 73, 7–9 (1955), pp. 367–383; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, esp. Chapter 6. 122 For references to Heintze (‘Heijntze’) and his two fellow-deserters, see Van Rheede’s report under March 9, 1668 (f. 1164r) and March 28, 1668 (f. 1173r); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 69, 146, 169, 215–216, and 230. For his proposals, see his report under March 13, 1668 (f. 1166v); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 18, 152–155, and 219–220. The most famous Dutch military deserter in India was arguably Captain Eustace Benoit de Lannoy (1715–1777), who entered the service of Raja Marthanda Varma (r. 1729–1758) in 1741 and retrained the

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member of Chokkanatha’s informal council of ministers, had already suggested a variation on the ‘subsidiary alliance’ system of the late eighteenth century, proposing his master should employ the service of 1–2,000 fully armed Dutchmen, to be paid for from the proceeds of the territory of Tiripattur.123 Though the ambitious plan did not come to fruition, on occasion embattled Madurai rulers, such as Muttu Linga Nayaka and Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, would request the Company for a small Dutch bodyguard. In November 1677, in the aftermath of the Bassingh mission, for instance, the voc received an official request from Muttu Linga Nayaka for a personal entourage of 20 Company soldiers. In August 1690, Commissioner General Van Rheede provided Muttu Virappa Nayaka III with a small company of 10 Dutch soldiers along with several guns.124 Third, trade was also encouraged because it went hand in hand with diplomacy and dynastic politics, and the Nayakas were eager to link themselves not only with the European newcomers, but to rulers across the Bay of Bengal and on the island of Ceylon, with whom they maintained intermittent diplomatic contacts, and quite regularly exchanged gifts, curiosities, and royal brides. The Mahanuwara dynasty of Kandy (1469–1739), for instance, habitually married brides from the royal families of the Nayakas of Madurai and Tanjore in an effort to curb the power of the Sinhalese nobility and find allies against the Portuguese and (after 1656) subsequently Dutch, in their search for suitable marriage candi- dates with the disappearance of all other Sinhalese kingdoms. Indo-Ceylon relations only further intensified in the early eighteenth century. In 1708, the last Mahanuwara ruler Vira Narendra Nayaka (r. 1707–1739) married the daughter of one Pitti Nayaka, a descendant of Kumara Muttu Nayaka, the younger brother of Tirumalai Nayaka. Leaving no rightful heir, Vira Narendra Nayaka was succeeded by his brother-in-law Vijaya Rajasinha (r. 1739–1747), the first of the Nayaka dynasty of Kandy (1739–1815) related to the royal house of Madurai.125

forces of Travancore. This Flemish Catholic mercenary officer taught steel forging, swords manship, and gunnery at the kalari of the Mavelikkara malittas until his death in 1777. De Lannoy, The Kulasekhara Perumals of Travancore. 123 See Van Rheede’s report under April 11, 1668 (ff. 1180r–1180v); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 69, 184–185, and 241. 124 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 111v, and 130v–131r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677. See also: Idem, ff. 40v–41r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.6.1677; Idem, ff. 212r–212v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 417v–418r, Relaas 3 bosschieters…‘tgeene haer van de Armanese saken bewust is, 14.5.1692. 125 L.S. Dewaraja, ‘Matrimonial Alliances between Tamilnad and the Sinhalese Royal Family in the 18th Century and the Establishment of a Madurai Dynasty in Kandy’, Fourth

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Finally, the Nayakas had a particular interest in the pearl fishery, not only for reasons of status and prestige, but also out of material considerations. The Nayakas received one day’s catch in the fishery, delegated agents to participate in the fishery on their behalf, controlled and taxed the retail trade in pearls (the tax ranged between 7.5 and 8 per cent), which was restricted to three or four marketing towns (pettai) in the Tirunelveli area, while the increased wealth of the inhabitants could subsequently be siphoned off as well.126 Governor Rijckloff van Goens Senior of Ceylon and Captain Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede calculated the total value of the 1668 pearl fishery near Tuticorin at 50 tons of gold or 5 million guilders, while one year later, in 1669, Commander Rijckloff van Goens the Younger of Ceylon informed the Company Directors that the value of the pearls harvested ranged between 60, 80, and 100 tons of gold or 10 million guilders. Although both estimates seem to have been deliberately on the high side as part of the imperialist party-faction scheme to convince the paymasters in the Dutch Republic of the importance of the ‘mighty island’ of Ceylon, the taxes levied by the Dutch (the surcharge on diving stones called steengelden) on the 1668 pearl fishery at Tuticorin amounted to 41,680 reals or 125,040 guilders. This fishery involved 483 thonis or vessels (5 thonis or 97 diving stones directly operated on behalf of the Nayaka by the Kayalpatnam Maraikkayars), manned by 16,539 persons.127 Not surprisingly, when the

International Tamil Conference Seminar, January 1974, Jaffna, http://www.tamilcanadian .com/page.php?cat=28&id=55 (accessed: 9 October 2009); The Mahavamasa or Great Chronicle of Ceylon, W. Geiger transl., Pali Text Society, Translation Series 3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), Ch. VII, verses 49–50, and 53. 126 The fullest expression of the various interests of the aranmanai in the pearl fishery can be found in an interview the Company Senior Merchants Rutgert de Heijde, Thomas van Rhee, and Junior Merchant Joan van Vliet had in March 1679 at Tuticorin with the representatives of the new governor of Tirunelveli Kalitiappa Pillai. voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 228r–232r, Rapp. De Heijde, Van Rhee en Van Vliet aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 19.4.1679. Reportedly, the aranmanai (and the Tevar, for that matter) always used the largest vessels possible in the pearl fishery carrying the greatest number of divers in order to maximise revenues. Despite repeated Company efforts, both the aranmanai and the Tevar were unwilling to fix the number of free stones or divers. voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 5v–6r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1682. 127 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1157r–1157v, Memorie der vrijgelaten stenen en vaartuigen, 27.6.1668; Idem, f. 1158v, Monture der thonijs, stenen en personen in de parelvisserij van Tuticorijn, 27.6.1668; voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1196, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.7.1668; voc 1266, obp 1669, f. 867v, Rapp. commr. Van Goens de Jonge over de staat van Ceijlon aan bewindhebbers, 15.8.1669. Rao, Shulman, and Subrah manyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 109–111; Subrahmanyam, Political Economy of Commerce, p. 85; and: Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 153–154. For criticism regarding the

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Company Assistant Nicolaes Welter gained an audience with Muttu Virappa Nayaka III at Trichinopoly in July 1689, the Madurai ruler eagerly inquired ‘since there had not been a pearl fishery in twenty years, how the prospects were and whether there would be a pearl fishery soon or not?’128 When informed that the Company was indeed planning to hold a fishery under its own jurisdiction at Mannaar instead of Tuticorin in 1667, the aranmanai in response arrested all the heads of the Paravas, complaining ‘that the foreign fisheries would diminish and decrease its tolls and revenues, and especially its own pearl market called pettai, by the departure of its inhabitants from the country. The said advantages deriving from the great and unusual confluence of people and merchants from circumvening states and a variety of nations would now accrue to others’.129 Not surprisingly, the aranmanai in general and the governors of the ‘lowlands’ or Tirunelveli in particular, vigorously tried to maintain their sovereignty over the pearl fishery and the pearl-fishing community of the Paravas, encourage other Europeans to establish trade factories at the Madurai Coast, and oppose Dutch plans to erect a fort at Tuticorin. The Honourable Company was accordingly told that it ‘ought to behave properly like a merchant’.130 In similar fashion, during talks with the pradhani Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya and his secretary in August 1689, Welter, countering their arguments, was greatly irritating his hosts and was rhetorically asked ‘whether we had come here to make new laws?’131 The fact that the Dutch, most notably the more imperialist-oriented party-faction centred around Rijckloff van Goens Senior, often turned a deaf ear to these warnings was a constant source of tension and would trouble relations between the Madurai central authorities and the voc. In fact, due to

estimations of the value of the pearl fishery by the Van Goenses: voc 906, bub 1681, f. 927, Miss. raden van India aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.10.1681. 128 voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 264r, Rapp. Welter aan opperk. en opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 71, 453–454, and 540. 129 voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 518r, Rapp. commr. Vosch van Jaffna, opperk. De Vogel, opperh. van Mannaar en secunde van Jaffnapatnam, koopman Pijl, opperh. van Tuticurin, in de Mannaarse parelvisserij, 27.5.1667. 130 voc 1304, obp 1675, f. 325r, Rapp. Huijsman wegens de presente stand der zaken van Madure, 29.3.1674. See also: voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 85, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 13.5.1659; voc 1233, obp 1661, f. 160v, Miss. adml. Van Goens en gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 2.4.1660. It was only during the Madurai- Mysore war in 1682 that the voc was able to erect stone walls around its factory at Tuticurin. 131 See Welter’s report under August 18, 1689 (f. 312v); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 71, 504, and 575.

Images And Ideologies 79 their paranoid ‘siege mentality’ (see below), these structural tensions were either attributed to the machinations of the Company’s ubiquitous ‘feigned friends and public enemies’ (the Portuguese, ‘Moors’, Paravas, etc.) or reduced to the personal level and blamed on the animosity of specific individuals, such as the perceived archnemesis Vadamalaiyappa Pillai.132

The Vision of the Palaiyakkarar or ‘Little King’

While the governors of Tirunelveli and other areas under direct control of the Nayakas (the so-called ‘carkkar lands’) were short-term revenue farmers, the palaiyakkarars (holders of a palaiyam or fortified centre) outside the Madurai heartland were hereditary chiefs who were to pay their overlord an annual tribute (‘poligar peshkash’ or pakuti) fixed at one-third of their total revenues.133 Burton Stein and others have made the case for the existence of ‘systemic, internal stresses’ or ‘structural contradiction’ inherent in pre-colonial South India, the cohabitation side by side of two different, even conflicting, principles of political association—communally organised, localised societies under their ruling strata alongside sovereign claims of would-be centralising rulers— in a single political formation with both differing principles being understood as appropriate or ‘legitimate’. Though state interventionism in local society driven by escalating costs of warfare (most notably firearms, often with mercenaries-soldiers proficient in their proper use, and war horses) started to increase in mid-Vijayanagara times with Krishnadeva Raja (r. 1509–1529), no military regime in the South until the time of Tipu Sultan of Mysore (r. 1783– 1799) was able to shift most of its income from tribute to the direct collections of state officials. State income—apart from the core of the kingdom where, as inside the Tungabhadra heartland during Vijayangara times, taxes were collected by the king’s agents—was hence irregular and often realised only by threats or the actual use of force. Thus, facilitated by the cumulative impact of money and markets, ‘military fiscalism’ or ‘patrimonial sultanism’ did not occur in South India until introduced by Tipu Sultan.134

132 See, for instance, Van Rheede’s apologia at the end of his report (ff. 1189v–1191r); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 203–206, and 258–260. 133 For a description of the dual fiscal system of Madurai: Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 97–104; voc 1321, obp 1677, ff. 827r–828r, Relaas commr. Huijsman van Madure aen gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 11.4.1676. 134 Stein, ‘State Formation and Economy Reconsidered’, esp. pp. 388, 392–393, 400–401, 407– 408, 409–410, and 411–412. For a similar argument regarding universalism and localism

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The first ruler of Madurai, Visvanatha Nayaka (r. ca. 1530–1564), is credited with creating seventy-two chiefdoms, each symbolically responsible for the defense of one of the seventy-two bastions of the Madurai fort. In time, some of the most powerful among the palaiyakkarars were further elevated and given symbolical status as ‘adopted sons’ (kumara varkkam). The relationship between the ‘would be rulers’ of these ‘little kingdoms’ and their Nayaka overlord was anything but filial and clearly mimicked the contentious relationship between the Madurai ruler and Vijayanagara. In 1677, for instance, ten rebellious palaiyakkarars alone were reportedly more than 1,300,000 pardaus in arrears in the payment of their tribute to the Nayaka of Madurai, the Tevar of Ramnad alone accounting for 900,000 pardaus.135 For eighteenth-century India, the underlying process has been described as a ‘hollowing out from within’ with imperial regimes being undermined by growing wealth and the uneven distribution of new resources, generating landed and commercial wealth at levels which the imperial centre could not tap effectively, a situation compounded by ‘breakouts’ of ‘tribal’ movements within the empires. The net result was a subdivision and commercialisation of political power, that is, the replacement of the empire by a series of relatively stable regional states able to attract new sources of local wealth and to harness the religious and ethnic aspirations of ‘tribal’ rebels.136 The cultural couterpart

and the ‘two-sided character of the old-order state’ represented in the contrasting ideologies of kingship and vatan in eighteenth-century Maharashtra under the Marathas and elsewhere: Perlin, ‘State Formation Reconsidered’, esp. pp. 424, 441, 443–444, 451–452, 460, and 475–476. For Weber’s typology of the terms ‘patrimonial state’ and ‘sultanism’: M. Weber, Economy and Society, G. Roth and C. Wittich (eds), 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), I, pp. 231–232; and; II, pp. 1055–1056. 135 James Ford Bell Library, B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, [f. 39], Beschrijvinge van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 23.11.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 299, and 350. Two lists of the kumara varkkam and the 72 Nayaka, Kallar, and Marava chieftains can be found in: Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 160–167. The best entries into the worldview of the palaiyakkarars are their vamcavalis or family histories, such as the Maravar Cati Vilakkam (‘Light on the Marava Caste’). In Indian Muslim theory, the not uncontroversial term fitna or ‘sedition’ has been used to describe a state of perpetual conflict in which supposed tributaries are constantly rising up against their overlords. See: Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India, pp. 9–50; Idem, ‘Sovereignty and Universal Dominion in South Asia’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 21, 3 (1984), pp. 265–292. For the clearest example of the opposing views of the Nayaka and the Tevar in Company sources: voc 1251, obp 1666, ff. 743–746, and 753–754, Rapp. Van Rheede aan superintendent Van Goens, 7.10.1665. 136 C.A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830, Studies in Modern History (London and New York: Longman, 1989), pp. 1–74; Idem, Rulers, Towns men, and Bazaars, pp. 35–73.

Images And Ideologies 81 of the shifts in the politico-economic landscape was reflected in the so-called ritual ‘symbols of substance’, including emblems and titles. The most prominent among the palaiyakkarars and the one with the most intensive dealings with the Dutch was the ‘Lord Tevar’ of Ramnad, the Marava ruler of the so-called Costa d’Inchiado (enseada, ‘inlet, creek, cove’) north of the Fishery Coast or Costa da Pescaria. Like the Kallar ‘little kingdom’ of Pudukkottai, the Ramnad state occupied a delicate position between two more substantial polities, namely Madurai and Tanjore.137 Similar to the Nayakas of Madurai, the rule of the Tevar was founded on the twin pillars of ritual kingship (tanam) and effective military strength (tantam). The Tevar’s ritual kingship was closely associated with his role as protector of the Setu, the sacred route to the great island-shrine of Rameswaram (hence his title Setupati, ‘Lord of the Bridge’), while his military power was highly dependent on revenues from trade.138 It was no coincidence that the Company decided to go for the jugular and strike against the Rameswaram pagoda, the Ramanatha Swami Thirukkovil, ‘his artery’ and ‘most valuable possession’, during the First Dutch-Ramnad War in 1685.139 In fact, the control of the strategic Pamban Channel, laying between the island of Rameswaram and the mainland was the Tevar’s trump card in the ‘great game’ with the Dutch, who wished to prevent other Europeans—whether English, Portuguese, Danes, or French—from gaining access to it and even wanted to exclude Asian shipping from this route as far as possible.140 At no time did the palaiyakkarars form a united front, and even within each little kingdom there were individuals and party-factions coalescing along family, political, socioeconomic, and ethnic lines, supported at times by disaffected and/or ambitious subject-‘insiders’—members of the royal family,

137 Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 96–106; J. Filiozat, ‘Écologie Historique en Inde du Sud: Le Pays des Kallar’, Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême Orient 67 (1980), pp. 103–124; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 264–267, 275–292, and 303–304. 138 S. Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, 1700–1802 (Madurai: Madurai Pub. House, 1977), esp. pp. 15–37; Shulman, ‘On South Indian Bandits and Kings’; N. Vanamalai Pillai, The Setu and Rameswaram (Rameswaram: V. Narayanan & Bror., 1929); S. Arasaratnam, ‘Commercial Policies of the Sethupathis of Ramanathapuram 1660–1690’, Proceedings of the Second International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies. Madras-India January 1968 (Madras: International Association of Tamil Research, 1971), II, pp. 251–256. 139 voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 9v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.1.1685; voc 1414, obp 1686, f. 184r, Miss. sergt. majoor Marten Scholten, commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan Isaacq van Dielen, koopman en provl. gezaghr. en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 4.2.1685. 140 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 284.

82 chapter 1 military commanders, and other courtiers—and ‘outsiders’, such as the Nayakas of Madurai and Tanjore. The political culture of Ramnad, located on the dual frontier between three socio-ecological zones—the sedentary centre embraced on either side by the worlds of the jungle and the sea—was particularly open- ended, with non-fixed borders and marked by overlapping claims from an endless array of co-sharers of the realm. The following list of political crises for the Marava kingdom is long, but far from exhaustive: the assassination of Sadaikka Tevar II or Talavay Setupati (r. 1635–1645) by Bhatta Nayaka or Tambi (‘younger brother’), the illegitimate son of Kuttan Setupati (r. 1621–1635), followed by the tripartite division of the Marava lands around 1646; the defection of Adi Narayana Tevar, brother of Raghunatha Tevar or Tirumalai Setupati (r. 1645–1673), in 1659; the imprisonment and murder of Tirumalai Setupati’s successor Raja Surya Tevar (r. 1673) by his suzerain Chokkanatha Nayaka; the succession of Raghunatha alias Kilavan Setupati (r. 1674–1710) disputed by Tadiya Tevar, Sangra Tevar, and Setu Ranga Raja renamed Chokkanata Setupati, all relatives of the old Tirumala Setupati, in 1673–1674; the usurpation of power by the talavay Chandra Cervaikarar with the councillors Sivasankara Pillai and Kariappa Pillai between 1674 and 1676; and the ‘great conspiracy’ of the Appanar Nattu Marava chiefs Raja Surya Tevar and his brother Raghuvanna Tevar, aided by the talavay Kumara Pillai, the Madurai Nayaka, and Tondaiman raja of Pudukkottai, in 1686.141 As with the history of their overlords, scholars in the past have looked for ‘defining moments’ marking the independence of these ‘little kings’. However, the palaiyakkarars in fact coexisted with the Nayakas of Madurai and never severed the ties with their overlord altogether. Rather, they maintained an ambiguous relationship of political cohabitation characterised by symbolic subordination and practical autonomy. The principal mechanism affecting these transformations, as in the case of the Madurai Nayakas, was the gift of

141 Reconstruction based on voc records and the traditional accounts of Marava history: Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, pp. 21–50; Vanamalai Pillai, The Setu and Rameswaram, passim; A. Ramaswami (ed.), Tamil Nadu District Gazetteers. Volume 6: Ramanathapuram (Madras: Govt. of Tamil Nadu, 1972), pp. 78–88; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 122–203; J.H. Nelson, The Madura Country: A Manual (Madras: W. Thomas, 1868), Part III, pp. 121–210. In 1729, one of these ‘million mutinies’ even led to the permanent partition of ‘Greater’ Ramnad between Sivaganga and a much-reduced Ramnad state. See: Bes, ‘The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits’, pp. 552–556; Price, Kingship and Political Practice, pp. 27–28, and 36–37; and: Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, pp. 50–62.

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‘real’ and ‘symbolic’ resources, emblems, titles, and lands in exchange for services rendered.142 In the instance of Ramnad, the first of these ‘redefining moments’ occurred in 1605, when Muttu Krishnappa Nayaka of Madurai (r. 1601–1609) granted Sadaikka Tevar I or Udaiyan Setupati (r. 1605–1621) a limited form of territorial autonomy including the rights of kumara varkkam or ‘adopted son’, which may well have been a belated recognition of de facto power relations. Three years later, in 1608, the ‘process of becoming’ was taken one step further by the Setupatis going to Rameswaram and receiving the sceptre (cenkol) of kingship from the priests of Ramanatha Cuvami.143 The next stage coincided with the reign of Raghunatha Tevar, who, besides moving his capital from Pogalur to Ramnad (a palaiyam 10 miles distant), started to create a court ceremonial based on distinct Vaisnavite themes. In exchange for various services rendered to his overlord, including the repulsion of Bijapuri and Mysorean invasions and crushing a palaiyakkarar rebellion in the Tirunelveli region, the Ramnad ruler was accorded the honourific titles ‘Tirumalai Setupati’ and ‘Defender of the Kingdom’, the perpetual remission of tribute (carvamaniyam, sarvamanyam) and a share in the pearl fishery, some lands near Mannarkovil (Mannarkoyil), the right to celebrate the Navaratri (Navarattiri) or Nine Nights’ Festival and the iraniyakarppa (‘golden womb’) sacrifice on the same scale as at Madurai, and permission to use the lion-face palanquin peculiar to the royal house of Madurai.144 The ‘final’ stage can be linked with the reign of Raghunatha Tevar or Kilavan Setupati (r. 1674–1710), the hero of the 18th-century Tamil poem ‘Muttu Vicaya Rakunata Cetupati Mitu Cokkanatak Kavirayar Patiya Panavitu Tutu’. First, Raghunatha unambiguously attempted to incorporate the élite Tamil Shafi’i Muslim trading community of Maraikkayars at Kilakkarai into the polity and court in a position of importance. Second, it has been suggested that the

142 Dirks, The Hollow Crown, p. 53; Idem, ‘Political Authority and Structural Change’; Idem, ‘The Structure and Meaning of Political Relations in a South Indian Little Kingdom’, Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 13, 2 (1979), pp. 169–204; Idem, ‘The Past of a Palaiyakarar: The Ethnohistory of a South Indian Little King’, Journal of Asian Studies 41, 4 (1982), pp. 655–683; Shulman, ‘On South Indian Bandits and Kings’. 143 Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, p. 21; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 266, and 276; C.A. Breckenridge, ‘From Protector to Litigant: Changing Relations Between Hindu Temples and The Raja of Ramnad’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 14, 1 (1977), pp. 88–94. 144 Nelson, The Madura Country. Part III, pp. 137–138; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madurai, p. 126; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 276; Ramaswami (ed.), Tamil Nadu District Gazetteers. Vol. 6, pp. 82–84.

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Ramnad court during this period acquired explicit ‘sultanist’ characteristics, including the creation of Abyssinian bodyguards with access to the ruler medi- ated through eunuchs. Finally, Raghunatha is also credited with transforming the mud fort of Ramnad into a substantial stone fortress, and with having the ability to raise forces from 30,000 to 40,000 men at short notice.145 The successful state formation of Ramnad on the periphery can be attributed to several distinct analytical features of the political dynamics of the decaying imperial system: the potential mechanisms of expansion or the need to ‘sub-contract’ the business of expansion on a largely internal frontier; a warrior lineage assuring horizontal legitimacy by winning a territory and successfully defending it against rival claimants combined with formal, vertical legitimacy from the titular overlord—in this case the Nayaka rulers of Madurai; the ecology of forces and terrains: sufficient physical distance to the titular overlord, adequate resources in the form of agriculture, manufacturing, and seaborne commerce, and underpopulated in terms of its political economy; the constellation of kin and clan, the wider incorporation of not just rajas and viras (‘heroes, warriors’) from within the lineage, but also Brahmins, merchants, artisans, peasants, and other groups from outside within the emerging order; and the adoption of a more diffuse and complex new ethos, quite distinct from the warrior-founders at the centre.146 Ramnad’s ‘little kings’ viewed the Dutch with ambiguous feelings. On the one hand, the Marava kingdom profited handsomely from voc trade at the Pamban Channel, Adirampatnam (Adirampattinam), Kilakkarai, and other ports and saw the Company as a useful ally in the event of an attack. On the other hand, with all their monopolistic claims and mercantile restrictions the Dutch were naturally seen as competitors and fair-weather friends, demanding all manner of exclusive rights while constantly excusing themselves from reciprocating by claiming that they had other treaty obligations. The dual

145 I. Nirmalatevi (ed.), Muttu Vicaya Rakunata Cetupati Mitu Cokkanatak Kavirayar Patiya Panavitu Tutu, Publication of the International Institute of Tamil Studies 20 (Cennai: Ulakat Timilaraycci Niruvanam, 1980); Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, p. 35; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 184–225; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 276; Ramaswami (ed.), Tamil Nadu District Gazetteers. Vol. 6, pp. 85–88. A Company report of September 1686 speaks of two Abyssinians (‘abucijnen’) in the direct entourage of Raghunatha Tevar. See: voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 457v, Extract miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 19.9.1686. 146 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 258–264.

Images And Ideologies 85 nature of Ramnad-Dutch relations—a combination of interdependence and competition—resulted in a balance between intimidation and negotiation.147 Guided by the same politico-economic principles as the Nayakas of Madurai, the Tevar pursued an ‘open door’ policy even more adamantly than his nominal suzerain did, since, as the Company realised, ‘his prosperity is closely associated with the sea’.148 Hence, the Tevar’s eagerness to assist the Company in its efforts to oust the Portuguese from Tuticorin and Jaffnapatnam in 1658. With the growth of Dutch pretensions in the 1660s, the Tevar, while giving official support to the Company, covertly assisted the aranmanai in the Tuticorin War of 1669 against the Company. The attempt of Raghunatha Tevar starting in the 1670s to incorporate the Muslim population of Kilakkarai as a client community into the polity and court in a position of importance (see the section on the ‘portfolio capitalists’) should be viewed in this light as well. In addition, the right of independent shipping served as an important status marker when maintaining commercial and diplomatic relations with other Asian rulers. Closely collaborating with his protégés, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars based at Kilakkarai (see below), the Ramnad ruler from the early 1680s adopted the practice of trading on his own account with Bengal, and at times with the Persian Gulf. In an interview with the Company Mer chant Joan van Vliet at Ramnad in June 1683, for instance, Kilavan Setupati claimed that the right to have his own shipping ‘was very dear to him in order to maintain his honour and respect among the other rulers. It was the only thing still blocking his way to complete happiness and glory, since all his predecessors had executed it without being obstructed…’. In conformity with anti-commercial ideology (if not actual practice), the Marava ruler professed that his request ‘would only serve to fulfill his glory without any consideration for profit…’.149 As a result, the Ramnad ruler staunchly opposed the exclusive claims of the Dutch on the local pearl and chank fisheries, rockfish skins, chaya roots, and other commodities, defended his right of independent shipping, rejected their requests for the construction of a stone house at Adirampatnam (and Tuticorin), and resisted their demand to maintain a presence at the island-shrine of Rameswaram to keep Malabar arecanuts from passing the Pamban Channel. In fact, it was his expulsion of a Company watch post near Rameswaram, which

147 Bes, ‘The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits’, p. 566; Rao, Shulman, and Subrah manyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 284. 148 voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1173r, Rapp. Van Reede, 2.7.1668; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 76, 168, and 229. 149 voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 552r–566r, Rapp. Van Vliet aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.7.1683.

86 chapter 1 initiated the Second Dutch-Ramnad War in the form of a brief Dutch punitive expedition under Major Philippus Pijl (d. 1696) to the island-shrine in August 1690 (see Chapter 7).150

The View of the ‘Portfolio Capitalist’ or Political Merchant

From the late sixteenth century, the ‘portfolio capitalist’, ‘merchant noble’, or political merchant was a characteristic feature in the Indian political and economic landscape. As we have seen, this development was part of the ‘commercialisation of royal power’ and ‘politicisation of merchant wealth’ in the ‘age of mercantilism’. A ‘portfolio capitalist’ has been defined as a large-scale entrepreneur who farmed revenue, engaged in local agricultural trade, commanded military resources (war animals, arms, and human labour), and often participated in long-distance trade.151 The ‘portfolio capitalist’ had to walk a tightrope and was vulnerable on several fronts. First, he maintained an ambiguous relationship with his sovereign authorities to whom he was both an asset and a potential threat because of the resources at his command. Second, his position as patron of his community was dependent on the infrastructure of local client groups and subsequently not undisputed. Finally, as a powerful merchant-prince, the ‘portfolio capitalist’ became the potential target of attacks by European competitors in the region. For all these potential insecurities, the ‘portfolio capitalist’ was more than able to resist European competition until well into the eighteenth century, both in economic terms and by offsetting their control of the sea by his control of military force on land.152 The most famous seventeenth-century examples of Indian ‘portfolio capitalists’ are Mir Muhammad Sayyid Ardestani (d. 1663) or the Mir Jumla of

150 The ritual significance of Rameswaram was recognised by all the local rulers in the area. Prior to the actual attack, for example, the Company received warnings from Muttu Virappa Nayaka III of Madurai and the Maratha ruler of Tanjore Shahaji Bhonsle not to attack the island, being ‘a holy place in the centre of the world’. Neither rulers, however, acted upon their threats of military reprisals against Dutch settlements in their respective territories. 151 Bayly and Subrahmanyam, ‘Portfolio Capitalists’; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, p. 224; C.A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, The New Cambridge History of India 2.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 1–44, and 459–460; Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, 1605–1690, p. 58; H.K. s’Jacob, ‘State Formation and the Role of Portfolio Investors in Cochin, 1663–1700’, Itinerario 18, 2 (1994), pp. 65–85. 152 Subrahmanyam and Bayly, ‘Portfolio Capitalists’, pp. 260–262.

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Golconda; the Bijapur general and governor of the Carnatic, Muzaffar al-Din Khan-i-Khanan (d. 1657); the Balija Chitti merchants Achyutappa or Astrappa ‘Malaya’ (d. 1634) and his brother Chinanna (d. 1659) and his family in Gingee, Tanjore, and the remnants of Vijayanagara around Pulicat; and the Gaud Saraswat, Brahmin Babba Prabhu (d. 1696) in Malabar (Kerala).153 Along with a large number of ‘little portfolio capitalists’,154 the most formidable group of ‘portfolio capitalists’ in the Madurai region was undoubtedly formed by the Kilakkarai-based family of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir Maraikkayar or, in his Tamilised form, ‘Citakkati’: Abd al-Qadir’s older brother (d. 1688), his brother’s younger son Citakkati Pillai called Raghunatha (d. 1698), Abd al-Qadir himself (c. 1650–1708), and the fourth, his son (d. 1710). The last member of the Periya Tambi family, who had served the Tevars, was later reinstalled as regent of the lowlands and given the permission to bear the honourific names ‘Vijaya Raghunatha’ again after Vijaya Raghunatha Setupati a.k.a. Thiru Udaya Tevar (r. 1710–1725).155 Abd al-Qadir and his relatives belonged to the Tamil Shafi’i Muslim community of maritime traders settled on the southeastern coast, known as Maraikkayar (from Tamil marakkalam, ‘boat’). Their heads went by the title Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, granted to the family by Raghunatha or Kilavan Setupati, ruler of Ramnad.156 A 1665 estimate put the number of

153 J.N. Sarkar, The Life of Mir Jumla, the General of Aurangzeb, second edn. (New Delhi: Rajesh Publications, 1979); D.C. Verma, History of Bijapur (New Delhi: Kumar Bros., 1974), pp. 142–143, 146, 155, and 191; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 222– 224; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 45–74 and 123–124; H.K. s’Jacob, ‘Babba Prabhu: The Dutch and a Konkani Merchant in Kerala’, in: L. Blussé, R. Ross, G.D. Winius (eds), All of One Company: The voc in Biographical Perspective (Utrecht: hes Uitgevers, 1986), pp. 135–150. 154 It would be illuminating to compare and contrast the careers of the contemporaries the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars at Kilakkarai, Timmarasa Ayya Nayaka (d. 1698) at Jaffnapatnam, and Karuppa Chitti at Melur, operating from Tevar, Dutch, and Nayaka- controlled bases, respectively. There are numerous references to the activities of these ‘portfolio capitalists’ operating in the region wheeling and dealing in a variety of official and unofficial functions from the early 1670s onwards. 155 Bes, ‘The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits’, p. 559, n. 32. 156 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 264–304; Shulman and Subrahmanyam, ‘Prince of Poets and Ports’; Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, esp. pp. 71–86; S. Arasaratnam, ‘A Note on Periathamby Marikkar: A 17th Century Commercial Magnate’, Tamil Studies 11, 1 (1964), pp. 51–57. Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam identify three individuals belonging to this family invested with the title Periya Tambi, but Company sources make it clear that there were four. The similarities with the Chulia merchants from South Coromandel acting as royal merchants (saudagar raja) in the Southeast Asian courts of Perak, Johore, Makassar, and Bantam are obvious. See: B. Andaya, ‘The

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Muslim inhabitants of the Ramnad and Madurai ‘port-hamlets’ at 22,640, Kayalpatnam (10,000), Kulasekharapatnam (5,400), and Kilakkarai (3,200) being the most prominent.157 Citakkati, ‘the Prince of Poets and Ports’, was the second-most powerful man in the state of Ramnad, and he and his family, from at least the 1670s onward, acted as revenue farmers of the coastal lands around Kilakkarai and for some time (1682–1685) the Fishery Coast as well. They not only controlled local resources of the Ramnad Coast (rockfish skins, chaya or dye roots, chanks or conch shells, salt, lime, nel or rice, tamarind, and so forth), but were also at the head of an extensive overseas trading network, including Sumatra, Bengal, Coromandel, Ceylon, Malabar, Ormuz, and Mascat, trading local products in exchange for military commodities, such as horses from Aceh and Persia, elephants from Ceylon, and guns and other military supplies from the Dutch and English at the Coromandel Coast.158 As mentioned, the ‘portfolio capitalist’s position was anything but unchal- lenged. In July 1683, for instance, Hassan Narayan Maraikkayar, a Muslim merchant and maniyakkarar of Adirampatnam on behalf of the Periya Tambi, repeatedly requested to be allowed to trade with the Company, promising to have himself discharged of his office and to set himself up as an independent merchant. In March 1684, while visiting the Company factory at Tuticorin, the envoy of Raghunatha Tevar, Ulagappa Cervaikarar, intimated to the Dutch chief Rutgert de Heijde that he would not hesitate to expose the Periya Tambi’s evil practices to his master, and that he intended to topple the Periya Tambi and assume the lease of the Madurai Coast, which was under the control of Ramnad at the time.159 With rivals at the Ramnad court, potential discontent within his own Maraikkayar community, and an ambiguous relationship with the Dutch, ranging from cordial trading relations to open warfare, the Periya Tambi had to be at home in many worlds, culturally, politically, and economically. His flexibility is best demonstrated by his reputation as the prototype of the magnanimous patron and wealthy Maecenas (the Tamil notion of the vallal), supporter and

Indian “Saudagar Raja” in Traditional Malay Courts’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 51, 1 (1978), pp. 13–36. 157 voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 783, Rapp. gedaen door Capptn. Van Rheede, 7.10.1665. 158 The best entries to recreate the worldview of Abd al-Qadir (‘Citakkati’) and his relatives are the eulogy-lamentations and laudatory verses by such poets as Namaccivayappulavar and Pattikacuppulavar and the Ceytakati Nontinakam (see below). For a discussion, see: Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 267–274, and 292–303; Shulman and Subrahmanyam, ‘Prince of Poets and Ports’, pp. 497–535. 159 voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 561r, Rapp. Van Vliet, secunde der Madurese kust, aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.7.1683; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 171r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684.

Images And Ideologies 89 sponsor of the local Muslim community’s own literary tradition, and his ability to survive repeated Dutch attempts to have him and his relatives excluded from political power while forcing them to maintain commercial relations with him. In the wake of the First and Second Dutch-Ramnad Wars, the Company obliged Kilavan Setupati, in March 1685 and September 1690, respectively, to exclude the Periya Tambi and his relatives from all positions of political power, but the stipulations of these treaties were subsequently blatantly disregarded by the Marava ruler.160 Whereas voc correspondence stereotypically depicts the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars in negative politico-economic and religious overtones as irritating and powerful commercial rivals and ‘sinister Moors’, a sharply contrasting, positive picture emerges from the Tamil literary tradition—Tamil Hindu single verses (tanippatal) and Tamil Muslim epic poems (kappiyam)—of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century referring to ‘Citakkati’. Tamil Hindu verses fall into two classes: eulogy lamentations at the time of Citakkati’s death centre on the memory of the famed generosity of the ‘prince of poets’, while encomia patterned after classical models cast him in the role of bandit- lover (Kallar). In terms of his own community, Citakkati’s great merit lies in his sponsoring of the major Tamil Muslim epic poem, Cirappuranam (‘The Purana of the Life of the Prophet’), deftly connecting the late-Nayaka entrepreneur (Citakkati) with two other symbolic exemplars of seventeenth-century Tamil Islam: Umaru Pulavar (Umurappulavar) (c. 1665–1703), court poet of the Lord of Ettayapuram and disciple of the great Katikai Muttuppulavar, and the scholar (alim) and Qadiri Sufi Shaykh Sadaqatullah (1632–1703) of Kayalpatnam.161

160 voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 247r–248r, Artikelen van de vrede met de Teuver, 15.3.1685; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 400r–402r, Conditien tot contract van vrede tussen de Comp. en Regnade Catta Teuver, 7.9.1690; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 377–380, and 531–536. 161 V. Narayanan, ‘Religious Vocabulary and Regional Identity: A Study of the Tamil Cirappuranam’, in: D. Gilmartin and B.B. Lawrence (eds), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), pp. 74–97; Idem, ‘The Ramayana and its Muslim Interpreters’, in: P. Richman (ed.), Questioning Ramayanas: A South Asian Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), pp. 265–284, esp. pp. 267–273; A.A. Manavalan, ‘Umaruppuluvar’, in: M. Lal (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1992), V, p. 4426; S. Subrahmanyam, ‘The Diversity in Indian Islam’, The Times of India, August 10, 2002, http://www.international.ucla.edu/southasia/ article.asp?parentid=27779 (accessed: 11 May 2011); Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 267–274.

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The most intriguing literary work concerning Abd al-Qadir is the Ceytakati Nontinatakam (‘The Cripple’s Play for Citakkati’), an anonymously authored work from the early eighteenth century dedicated to its patron, the ‘guru Ceytakati, who removes the suffering inherent in this age, the lord (manta- likan) from Baghdad, who is (also known as) Periya Tambi Maraikkayar’. The work, described as ‘a Muslim’s entrepreneur’s self-reflection in the mirror of his time, community, and place’, portrays the ‘court’ of the ‘great lord’ Citakkati at Kilakkarai, ruling in state amidst courtiers, business associates, notables, officials, accountants, and merchants from as far away as Gujarat, musicians playing kirttanams (‘songs, psalms’) in his honour, dancing girls waving lamps and peacock-feathered camara fans, and, most conspicuous of all, Tamil poets singing his praises—including Umaru Pulavar (Umaruppuluvar). The Ceytakati Nontinatakam signals the first major creative outburst in Tamil of an emerging self-conscious and confident Tamil Muslim community, provides a glimpse of the predominant cultural thematics of the period preoccupied with themes of violation and mutilation, and symbolizes the articulation of Citakkati as the paradigm of the ‘royal’ Vaishya with his wealth based on seaborne trade, close relations with the royal court, and royal pretensions imitating the king’s natural patronage of poets. Four major elements merge to compose the merchant- prince’s symbolic image at home in multiple worlds: royal assertiveness, and the idealised dharmic norms of the Hindu king seen especially in his magna- nimity and the panegyric responses it evokes; his identification as an alluring erotic hero befitting of any royal or quasi-royal figure in the period; his Muslim piety, promotion of conversion, and relations with the ulama and Sufi practice personified in the teacher Shaykh Sadaqatullah; and his potentially unruly or roguish qualities linked to the socioeconomic milieu of mercenary courtesans, predatory bandits, tricksters, and thieves within which he functioned so successfully.162 Indeed, the remarkable durability of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars and related Chulia Muslim merchants from southern Coromandel and their ability to manage a bewildering ‘portfolio’ of roles has been attributed to their relative

162 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 292–303. A similar basic outline is followed by the eighteenth-century Tiruccentur Nontinatakam (‘The Cripple’s Play of Tiruchendur’) by Manapperumal Pulavar, which includes a detailed description of the conflict between Vijayaraghava Chokkanatha Nayaka of Madurai (r. 1706–1732) and Shahaji Bhonsle of Tanjore (r. 1684–1712), as well as of the camp of the Raja Tondaiman at Turukkattuppalli. See: D. Shulman, The King and the Clown in South Indian Myth and Poetry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 373–379; K.V. Zvelebil, Tamil Literature, A History of Indian Literature X.1 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1974), p. 224.

Images And Ideologies 91 independence from European activities, cleverly exploiting their shipping capacity and safe conducts, their widely diverse operations from powerful merchant princes to itinerant pedlars, a continuing upward mobility to replace exhausted magnates, and the presence of diasporic networks across South and Southeast Asia, allowing them to act as mediators to many rulers by providing access to international markets.163

The Vision of the Paravas or Roman Catholic Fishermen

The Paravas originated as low-ranking pearl and chank or conch shell fishermen in a number of settlements stretching from the Ramnad Coast in the north to Cape Comorin, the southern tip of India, and into the southwestern shores of Travancore.164 A 1665 estimate put the number of Paravas living in the ‘port-hamlets’ of the Ramnad and Madurai Coasts at 18,210, Tuticorin (6,000), Manappad (4,000), and Punnaikayal (3,000) being the most prominent.165 The Paravas were organised under hereditary caste heads, called jati talaivans (pattangattim-mór or hooft pattangattijns) and ordinary pattangattins or village heads, along with annually elected sitatis or mayors, district heads (povos or wijkmeesters), and nayakkarars or civil judges.166 These caste

163 S. Arasaratnam, ‘The Chulia Muslim Merchants in Southeast Asia’, Moyen Orient & Océan Indien 4 (1987), pp. 136–139, and 143. 164 M.P.M. Vink, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The Christian Paravas, A “Portu guese” Client-Community in 17th-Century Southeast India’, Itinerario 26, 2 (2002), pp. 64–98; Idem, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of the Fishery Coast: The Portuguese-Dutch Struggle Over the Parava Commuity of Southeast India, c. 1640–1700’, Portuguese Studies Review 9, 1/2 (2001), pp. 372–397; Idem, ‘Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia: Dutch-Parava Relations in a Comparative Perspective’, Journal of Early Modern History 4, 1 (2000), pp. 1–42. 165 voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 783, Rapp. gedaen door Capptn. Van Rheede, 7.10.1665. Combine also with the much-cited figures provided by Joan Nieuhoff (1618–1671), the Dutch chief of Tuticorin between 1664 and 1665: Tuticorin 10,000, Manappad 4,000, Punnaikayal 2,800, Virapandiyapatnam 900, Alantalai 800, Vembar 800, and Vaippar 700. See: J. Nieuhoff, Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en Lantreize (Amsterdam: Wed. Jacob van Meurs, 1682), p. 182. 166 Older works on the Paravas and the pearl fishery include: S. Subrahmanyam, ‘Noble Harvest From the Sea: Managing the Pearl Fishery of Manar, 1500–1925’, in: Stein and Subrahmanyam (eds), Institutions and Economic Change in South Asia, pp. 134–172; Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, pp. 321–369; S. Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast: A Social Study of the Paravas of the Coromandel (New Delhi: Manohar, 1984); S. Bayly (née Kaufmann), ‘A Christian Caste in Hindu Society: Religious Leadership and Social Conflict Among the Paravas of Southern Tamilnadu’, Modern Asian Studies 15, 2 (1981), pp. 203–234;

92 chapter 1 notables formed the ruling élite (mejaikarar, ‘people of the table’) together with the wealthy mercantile segment, consisting of the Company merchant brokers (tupasis, talals) and the supervisors of the pearl and chank fisheries. Claiming ancestral connections with their ‘caste deity’, the Padre Periyar St. Francis Xavier (1506–1552), the mejaikarar were distinct from the dependent, ritually inferior service communities (kamarakkarar), formed by a number of highly specialised groups of fishermen and domestic servants and attendants of the chiefs.167 These indigenous hierarchies, based on a mixture of ascription and achievement for a ruling lineage, were unstable structures, particularly at times of succession occurring through lineage segments of family lines, thus providing an entry point for European patrons, such as the Dutch East India Company, willing to incorporate subordinate offices already present. The key element for a European ‘paramount’ was the kinds of indigenous services in the hierarchy that could be made to ensure access to resources and political stability, in return for legitimation and continuity in office. The Parava leadership— similar to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar—performed what Max Gluckman once termed ‘inter-calary’ or ‘inter-hierarchical roles’, subject to conflicting pressures from above and below, acting as an European ‘client-community’ and/or subjects of the aranmanai on the one hand and as a traditional patron with its own client network on the other. The ambiguities in the roles of patrons and clients allowed for client competition and patron rivalries backed by European or indigenous power.168 Existing political and commercial privileges were jealously guarded, both the hereditary post of pattangattim and the position of Company broker. Following the conquest of the Portuguese settlements on the Madurai Coast in January 1658, for instance, the recently deposed jati talaivan João da Cruz readily allied himself with the Dutch, while his brother Henrique was forced to

S. Arunachalam, The History of the Pearl Fishery of the Tamil Coast, Annamalai University Historical Series 8 (Annamalainagar: Annamalai University, 1952). 167 Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, pp. 67–68, 71–72, and 124–125. 168 C.W. Newbury, ‘Patrons, Clients, and Empire: The Subordination of Indigenous Hierarchies in Asia and Africa’, Journal of World History 11, 2 (1999), pp. 229–233; Idem, Patrons, Clients, and Empire: Chieftaincy and Over-Rule in Asia, Africa and the Pacific (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); M.J. Swartz (ed.), Local-Level Politics: Social and Cultural Perspectives (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1968). See also: C.A. Bayly, ‘Patrons and Politics in Northern India’, in: J. Gallagher, G. Johnson, and A. Seal (eds), Locality, Province and Nation: Essays on Indian Politics, 1870–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 29–68; M.H. Fisher, ‘Indirect Rule in the British Empire: The Foundation of the Residency System in India (1764–1858)’, Modern Asian Studies 18, 3 (1984), pp. 393–428.

Images And Ideologies 93 leave the field along with his Portuguese patrons to become the head of a powerful anti-Company faction.169 In August 1692, the ‘experienced merchant’ Tomé de Melo, inhabitant of Manappad, who had served as a voc broker since 1680, refused to pool resources with other local merchants in a so-called ‘compagnie’, arguing ‘that he had two sons and three son-in-laws with whom he could manage everything. They were all willing to assist their father, something which they would not be with regard to a stranger’. At the same time, the request of the jati talaivan Dom Xavier Pires and other office-holders of Tuticorin to be admitted to trade with the voc along with the local Parava Company brokers was flatly turned down by the latter.170 In fact, early modern entrepreneurship was based on a network of social relations, which is often referred to, in the words of Pierre Bourdieu, as ‘social capital’, in an era of intransparent markets caused by lack of trustworthy information and relatively small and instable markets and, most importantly, the difficulty to enforce contracts.171 In the four-fold varna scheme, the low-caste Paravas claimed regal or Kshatriya status, covering concepts of wealth, power, and prestige as governors and the de facto rulers of the territory, overseers and owners of the ports and the fisheries, warriors of indomitable courage and valour, famed people, and sponsors of religious causes.172 The Parava identity was initially based on endogamous marriage, kinship affiliation, contiguity and closeness of settlements, and, more especially, on a homogenous or corporate seafaring economy. The specialised corporate economy of this pearl and chank fishing community, the pivotal element upholding the entire structure of Parava social organisation, was threatened by the intrusion of Shafi’i Muslim traders who came to be known as Maraikkayars. Establishing themselves at local commercial centres, such as Kilakkarai and Kayalpatnam, they created competing networks including coastal fishermen, divers, weavers, artisans, and husbandsmen.173

169 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 419r–420r, Miss. toepas moor Andre de Morais te Punecaijle aan adml. Van Goens, 10.12.1658. João da Cruz had been deposed in mid-1657 at the orders of the Portuguese Captain António de Amaral. 170 voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 798v–799r, and 860r–860v, Dagregister gouvr. Van Rhee, 12.8–8.9.1692. 171 In the 1980s, Pierre Bourdieu was the first to introduce the by now very popular concept of ‘social capital’. For instance, P. Bourdieu, ‘Ökonomisches Kapital, Kulturelles Kapital, Soziales Kapital’, in: R. Kreckel (ed.), Soziale Ungleichheiten (Göttingen: Schwartz, 1983), pp. 183–198. 172 Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, pp. 17–31. 173 Arunachalam, The History of the Pearl Fishery, pp. 87–93; Rao, Shulman, and Subrah manyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 264–294, Bayly, Saints, Goddesss and Kings, pp. 79ff; Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, pp. 36–40.

94 chapter 1

These complex rivalries continued well into the Dutch period. In 1684, for instance, when the Fishery Coast was temporarily controlled by Raghunatha Tevar, the Marava ruler decided to farm out the tax collection in the region to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. The latter’s attempts to collect tribute and added provocations by his relatives acting as maniyakkarar or local tax farmers engendered a destructive circle of violence and retribution. In a post factum apologia, the Paravas argued that they had opposed the Periya Tambi, ‘because they refused to be under any Moorish government as they had fought and had been mortal enemies for over one hundred years…’.174 To preserve their communal heritage the Paravas appealed for help to the only power in the area that could effectively extinguish such a threat. Portuguese power served Parava purposes and reinforced their corporate identity further by the imposition of Catholicism and a Portuguese administrative superstructure on the older basis of a common caste polity and a specialised corporate economy.175 In 1536 Vikirama Aditha Pandya, renamed João da Cruz, became the first Christian jati talaivan of the Paravas, bartering with Parava chieftains their conversion to Roman Catholicism in return for Portuguese protection of the jati’s economic interests.176 By the end of Portuguese rule, Catholicism had emerged as a new and pivotal base of Parava identity on a par with the corporate economy of the jati. In fact, the Paravas had become a ‘Christian caste in Hindu society’, whose distinctive Catholic rites and doctrines came to reinforce their place in the Hindu caste structure.177 Thus, the Paravas became a client community of the Portuguese and, following their expulsion in 1658, of the Dutch. However, they possessed more

174 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 13v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684. See also: voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 332r–333v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 14.2.1684; Idem, ff. 407r–416v, Resol. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin, 21.3.1684; Idem, ff. 168v–178r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684; Idem, ff. 179v–184v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.4.1684; Idem, ff. 307r–310r, Extract Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.4.1684; voc 1405, obp 1685, f. 1839r, Transl. ola Teuver aan Timmersa, 26.4.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 310r–311r, Extract miss. opperk. Van Rhee en koopman Fauconnier van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 28.4.1684; Idem, ff. 335r–335v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 19.5.1684. 175 Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, p. 38; Zupanov, Disputed Mission, p. 220; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 153r–154r, Redenen en oorzaken Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669. 176 Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, p. 325; Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, pp. 42–43, and 54–59. 177 Bayly (née Kaufmann), ‘A Christian Caste in Hindu Society’, p. 204; Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, p. 56.

Images And Ideologies 95 power and maneuvering ability than one might expect of a low-caste convert client community. In the religious sphere, for instance, Roman Catholicism became the official doctrine, but the actual practice was an indigenised or Tamil bhakti devotional form of Latin Christianity worshipping Tampiran or Sarves varan (both rather ambiguous terms for the Christian God with distinct Saivite connotations), including the adoption of the Hindu-style ter- or car-pulling festivals (urcavams) of Tamil Nadu, the worship of local spirits and cult deities at mounds or ‘demon altars’ (putams), the performance of blood sacrifice (irattapali) at life-cycle rituals, and the use of hereditary shark charmers or kadal kattis in the pearl fishery.178 It comes as no surprise then that the initial Company efforts to convert the Paravas to the Dutch Reformed religion met with stiff resistance. Or as the French Jesuit Father Pierre Martin (1665–1716), a ‘Brahmin from the North’ and member of the Madurai Mission, gleefully put it in 1700, the Paravas ‘showed in this occasion an unshakable firmness and an inviolable attachment to their religion’.179 In fact, the Paravas preferred to have themselves served by the Jesuit

178 De Nobili replaced the ambiguous Tampiran, a form of Shiva, used by the Jesuit missionaries on the Fishery Coast in the sixteenth century, with Sarvesvaran (sarva + isvara, God, as the Universal Lord), claiming that the latter Sanskrit term was free of political and pagan subsignification. Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, esp. pp. 341–347; Bayly (née Kaufmann), ‘A Christian Caste in Hindu Society,’ pp. 210–213; F.X. Clooney, ‘Christ as the Divine Guru in the Theology of Robert de Nobili’, in: R. Costa (ed.), One Faith, Many Cultures: Inculturation, Indigenization, and Contextualization (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988), pp. 25–40; Idem, ‘Roberto de Nobili, Adaptation, and the Reasonable Interpretation of Religion’, Missiology 18, 1 (1990), pp. 25–36; Zupanov, Disputed Mission, pp. 41, 89, 198, 215–216, and 226; Idem, Missionary Tropics, pp. 27–28; voc 1479, obp 1691, f. 559r, Dgl. aantekening van de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure door opperk. Alebos en kapn. De Theil, 20.6.1690. For a discussion of the similarly syncretistic Hindu-Christian beliefs of Tamil Christians in the interior, such as the Alampuram Nadars (Shanars), low-ranking palmyra cultivators and petty traders in Ramnad, see: D. Mosse, ‘Catholic Saints and the Hindu Village Pantheon in Rural Tamil Nadu, India’, Man (n.s.) 29, 2 (1994), pp. 301–332; Idem, ‘Roman Catholicism and Hindu Village Society in Tamil Nadu, India’, in: Ch. Stewart and R. Shaw (eds), Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 85–107. 179 Letter from Father Pierre Martin, Missionary of the Company of Jesus, to Father Charles le Gobien, 1.6.1700. Cited in: C. Le Gobien (ed.), Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses Écrites des Missions Etrangères par Quelques Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jesus (Paris: Le Clerc, 1708), V, p. 100. On Pierre Martin: A. Flüchter, ‘Pater Pierre Martin—Eine “Brahmane aus dem Norden”: Jesuitische Grenzgänger in Südindien um die Wende zum 18. Jahrhundert’, Zeitenblicke 11, 1 (2012), http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2012/1/Fluechter/index_html (accessed: 6 January 2013).

96 chapter 1 fathers who had retreated to the interior close to Tuticorin. As a result, the Calvinist ministers João (Johannes) Ferreira d’Almeida (1628–1691), Philippus Baldaeus (1632–1672), and Henricus Bongaerts (ca. 1620–1671), dispatched to Tuticorin between 1658 and 1663 as part of a larger Company offensive against the indigenous Catholic population of Ceylon and southern India, viewed as potential Fifth Columnists for the Portuguese, got a critical and at best limited audience.180 Governor Adriaen van der Meijden (1653–1662) and the Council of Ceylon depicted the situation at Tuticorin and the other Parava coastal settlements in sombre tones in August 1662, lamenting that ‘they [the Calvinist ministers] only preach for the Dutch chief, his few subordinates, and the chairs, benches and walls [of the church]’. The poor showing was partly the result of a warning affixed to the church door by the jati talaivan, declaring all the Paravas who would enter the building would be considered as ‘rebels against God and traitors to the caste’. One Parava merchant, whose wealth depended on the Dutch and who therefore had disregarded the notice, was subsequently killed. This individual may have been the ‘prominent and sensible pattangattim’, who Admiral Van Goens reported in November 1659 had opted to be instructed by the predikant Almeida and eagerly frequented the Protestant church and catechisation at Tuticurin.181 In 1664 the Company cut its losses and thereafter decided to pursue a policy of freedom of conscience and, after 1679, even of freedom of religion, effectively allowing Jesuit priests to preach within the jurisdiction of Tuticorin itself. A temporary revival of anti-Roman Catholic sentiments in the Dutch Republic in the late 1680s182 coincided with the arrival of Commissioner General Van Rheede at Tuticorin. His edict of expulsion against the Jesuit priests in March 1690, one of Van Rheede’s many ill-advised and arbitrary decisions, led to violent disturbances in which Company soldiers were pelted with stones by angry Parava crowds. The so-called ‘first persecution’ proved to be short-lived,

180 J. van Goor, Jan Kompenie as Schoolmaster: Dutch Education in Ceylon, 1690–1795 (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1978), pp. 7–37; R. Boudens, The Catholic Church in Ceylon Under Dutch Rule (Rome: Officium Libri Catholici, 1957), pp. 73–88; S. Arasaratnam, ‘Oratorians and Predikants: The Catholic Church in Ceylon Under Dutch Rule’, Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies 1, 2 (1958), pp. 216–222. 181 Van Goor, Jan Kompenie as Schoolmaster, pp. 103–104; voc 1230, obp 1660, f. 133r, Miss. adml. Van Goens aan Batavia, 12.11.1659. 182 The temporary revival of anti-Catholic sentiments was largely the result of the aggressive policies of Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), including the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and the outbreak of the Nine Years’ War in 1688.

Images And Ideologies 97 ending shortly after Van Rheede’s (un)timely death in 1691 with the readmis- sion of Jesuit priests in the Company settlements along the Fishery Coast.183 Even in the political and commercial spheres, the Portuguese patrons and their Dutch successors experienced the independent-mindedness of their supposed loyal clients. Between 1659 and 1665, for instance, the Parava headman- in-exile Henrique da Cruz was negotiating with Walter Travers, the English chief of Palaiyakkayal, for religious and commercial privileges under English protection. As Travers reported to the English president and council at Surat, Da Cruz and his associates requested ‘that they with their padre (who is the hinge whereon they turned) may have their dwellings at Cale Velha, the seate of our factorie, free from violence: and their boates, by virtue of our passports, to navigate the seas void of all disturbances…’.184 Even after the disappearance of the English from the Madurai Coast in 1665, there was still room for manoeuvring between the contending parties on the Madurai Coast. Thus, local Company officials would complain repeatedly about the opportunism of the ‘cunning’ Paravas, who skillfully played off the aranmanai against the Company, wishing that they would no longer ‘be in two minds’. It was sourly observed that the Paravas ‘have come to the absolute conclusion that it is much safer for them to favour either the Company or the aranmanai according to time and circumstances, fearing that if they completely devoted themselves to one of the two sides, more and heavier impositions would be levied on them than the present ones’.185 It was not until the liberalisation of the Company’s religious and commercial policies and the rapid expansion of Company trade in Madurai after 1679 that the Parava client community would be more fully incorporated into the Dutch patronage network (see Chapter 7).

The Dutch Perception of the Indian

The seventeenth century has been described as an ‘era of advance’, a period in which Europe’s images of Asia became much sharper, deeper, and more com-

183 Vink, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of the Fishery Coast’. 184 In: Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1661–1664, pp. 254–255. 185 Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, pp. 48ff; Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, pp. 327 ff. For the independent-mindedness of the Paravas, see for example the letter of the jati talaivan Dom Henrique da Cruz and the other Parava headmen of January 1659 to Admiral Van Goens. voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 417r–417v, Brief van de principaalste Paravas aan adml. Van Goens, 23.1.1659; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 560v, Nadere consideratiën commt. Huijsman aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 23.12.1675.

98 chapter 1 prehensive than those of the previous century.186 In effect, ‘Dutch primacy in world trade’ or the ‘first modern economy’ during its Golden Age presaged the British ‘turning outwards’ or increasing involvement with empire in the later eighteenth century measurable in many ways: in terms of trade, of the movements of people seeking land, commercial opportunities, or civil and military office, of the scale of the deployment of the forces of the British crown overseas in war and peace, and of the attention given to empire by governments, by parliament and in public debate through pamphlets, the press, or the petitions.187 The topic of the ‘Dutchness’ of Dutch culture and society in the Golden Age has produced a small growth industry by itself.188 Similar to the ‘Indian’ perception of the ‘Dutch’, the ‘Dutch’ self-image was reinforced by othering the ‘Indian’. Though the ‘Dutch’ picture of the ‘Indian’ was fractured, it consisted of a number of common images: a ‘Christo-centric’, most notably Dutch Reformed, worldview; climatic determinism and proto-Orientalism; a self-perception as champions of freedom (haec libertatis ergo) combined with a paranoid ‘siege mentality’; and a ‘racial-biblical’ white somatic norm image or physical ideal of human appearance. The Dutch shared a certain sense of Eurocentrism in general and (most notably among ‘pulpit theologians’ at home or voc predikanten overseas) a distinct Western ‘Christo-centric’ worldview in particular, that is, the classification of all people to the degree they conformed to Dutch bourgeois values overall and especially the extent of which they shared in salvation or damnation, in light or darkness compared with the doctrines and practices of the Calvinist ‘True Faith’. Thus, even Adolff Bassingh, the German voc assistant from Dortmund and temporary resident in Trichinopoly, identifies himself as a ‘Christian man’ (Christen-mensch), sharing the negative opinions on deviant Hindu customs and practices strongly condemned by most Dutch Reformed

186 D.F. Lach and E.J. van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe. Volume III: A Century of Advance. Book One: Trade, Missions, Literature (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. XXXIX–XLIII. 187 Marshall, A Free Though Conquering People, XVI, pp. 1, and 14. Marshall, however, still qualifies this ‘turning outwards’ as ‘limited’ for most British people. 188 C. Brown, The Dutchness of Dutch Art (Amsterdam: Amsterdams Centrum Voor de Studie van de Gouden Eeuw, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2002). See, for instance: Frijhoff and Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity; S. Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (New York: Knopf, 1987); J.L. Price, Culture and Society in the Dutch Republic During the 17th Century (New York: Scribner, 1974); J. Huizinga, P. Geyl, and F.W.N. Hugenholtz, Dutch Civilisation in the Seventeenth Century, and Other Essays (New York: F. Ungar Publ. Co., 1968); Ch. Wilson, The Dutch Republic and the Civilisation of the Seventeenth Century (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968).

Images And Ideologies 99 ministers (see section on the theocratic vision).189 The centre, and hence the model of civilised behaviour, was believed to be located in Christian Western Europe. Physical distance from the centre correlated with the moral distance from the ‘measures of humanity’ or ‘civilisation’ as defined by the centre. The belief was that the more individuals or races came to adopt the various measures, defined outwardly in terms of dress, speech, food, and habitation, and inwardly by a pious Christian spirit, the closer they came to being civilised. The extension overseas of the program of ‘confessionalisation’, ‘social disciplining’, ‘civilising process’, or ‘Protestant ethic’ was aimed as much, if not more, at the Company’s own rank and file as at the indigenous populations of Asia.190 Indeed, even with regard to nature the Dutch Republic remained the cardi- nal point of reference. In an appendix to the second volume of Priangan, the Company historian Frederik de Haan revealed the extent to which the Dutchman’s (predominantly male) way of looking at the Indies remained limited by his native perspective. His appreciation of the landscape increased in proportion to its increased resemblance to the countryside of Holland.191 Dating from Greek and Roman times, the distinction between the centre and the periphery became not simply a geographical expression, but also a moral and philosophical judgment. One of the foundations of the European worldview can be traced to the ancient Greek idea of the dichotomy between the oikumene (the world inhabited by the Greeks and those like them) and the sphere of the ‘barbarians’ (barbari). In Roman times, the division was between those within the Romanum Imperium and the ‘barbarians’ (barbari) outside

189 Bassingh, ‘Description’, p. 301; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 343, and 365. 190 Though the literature on each one of these concepts is vast, the following are some of the foundational works on confessionalisation, social disciplining, the civilising process, and the Protestant ethic: H. Schilling, Konfessionalisierung und Staatsinteressen: Internationale Beziehungen 1559–1660, Handbuch der Geschichte der Internationale Beziehungen 2 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2007); Idem, Civic Calvinism in Northwestern Germany and the Netherlands: Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1991); G. Oestreich, B. Oestreich, and H.G. Koenigsberger, Neostoicism and the Early Modern State, Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982); N. Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, second edn. (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2000); M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London and New York: Routledge, 1976); R.W. Green, Protestantism and Capitalism: The Weber Thesis and Its Critics (Boston: Heath, 1959). 191 F. de Haan, Priangan: De Preanger-Regentschappen Onder het Nederlandsch Bestuur Tot 1811, 4 vols. (Batavia: Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, 1910–1912); R. Nieuwenhuis, Mirror of the Indies: A History of Dutch Colonial Literature, E.M. Beekman (ed.) (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982), pp. 6–7.

100 chapter 1 beyond the limes. This dichotomy was reformulated in religious terms with the spread of Christianity from the 4th century onwards between the members of Christendom (Respublicae Christianae) and the ‘pagan’ and ‘heathen’ peoples outside. The old division resurfaced in debates regarding Creation and the peopling of the world. Those in God’s image inhabited the ‘centre’, which meant Christian Europe; those who were less than human, the ‘monsters’ (created by God to enable ‘His People’ to ponder the wonder of his work), occupied the regions at the ‘periphery’, including the East. This tradition of identifying the periphery, including all its moral associations with monstrous races, with the East continued to influence European attitudes and actions toward the indigenous populations of India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.192 Though it always presented itself as a simple trader, the voc was the out- growth of a strongly Christian, most notably Dutch Reformed or Calvinist, culture. All Company servants, regardless of their geographical origins, had to be officially members of the Protestant church. Company correspondence is interspersed with more than simply perfunctory or obligatory references to God Almighty or Divine Providence. Church ceremonies played a prominent part in the life of even the most isolated Dutch outpost, the everyday routine business punctuated with numerous public days of penance and fasting (vasteda- gen), prayer (bededagen), and praise (dankdagen) especially before, during and after times of trials and tribulations in Europe or in Asia.193 Even in the vicinity of ‘distant’ Trichinopoly, for instance, the Van Rheede mission on 18 March 1668 did not neglect to publicly celebrate the news of the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667), ‘the desired and glorious peace the

192 K.M. Phillips, Before Orientalism: Asian Peoples and Cultures in European Travel Writing, 1245–1510 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014); G. Parker, The Making of Roman India: Greek Culture in the Roman World (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); J.P. Rubiés, Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South India Through Indian Eyes 1250–1625 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); M.B. Campbell, Wonder and Science: Imagining Worlds in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); Idem, The Witness and the Other World: Exotic Travel Writing, 400–1600 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); J.B. Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981); B. Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1450–1620 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967); C.J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought From Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967); M. Hodgen, Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964); A.P. Newton (ed.), Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949). 193 The Dagh-Registers of Batavia are particularly enlightening in this respect.

Images And Ideologies 101

Lord God had granted to our state and fatherland’, by lighting bonfires ‘with as much pump and circumstance as our condition and situation permitted’.194 The old Christian tradition that the farther away situated from the centre, the less civilised and the more depraved and deprived, was reflected in the command structure of the voc. It was a case of shifting perceptual centres with Amsterdam/Zeeland at the very heart, Batavia at its periphery; Batavia at the centre, Colombo at its periphery (a vision challenged by the ‘Ceylon- centric’ faction led by the Gentlemen Van Goens); and Colombo at the centre and Tuticorin and the various outposts on the ‘Opposite Coast’ (overwalsche custe) as its periphery. In Dutch Reformed parlance, the East (the periphery) was associated with corruption, greed, and debauchery, and the voc evolved into an ‘Anti-Christ’ in stark contrast to God’s elect in the Netherlands (the centre). The deprivations and the depravities committed by Company servants in these God-forsaken lands would have reinforced the view of their God- fearing, self-righteous compatriots in Holland that these occurrences were in keeping with the Divine Plan for those occupying the fringes of the civilised world centred in Europe.195 Apart from a Calvinist ‘Christo-centric’ worldview, to some extent the Dutch collective perception of the Indian can be considered to contain in embryonic form many of the characteristics of nineteenth-century Orientalism, including the notions of an Oriental personality, Oriental despotism, and an Asiatic mode of production. Indeed, it has been argued that one cannot ignore this ‘pre- history’ of Orientalism when making any argument on the long-term relationship between politics, power, and European perceptions of India. Moreover, early modern Europeans shared a number of common assumptions about Hinduism and ‘the Indies’ in general, regardless of the various religious and national backgrounds of the observers. Any attempt to compartmentalise and distinguish independent national and/or religious discourses, such as a Portuguese Catholic view or the Dutch Protestant view, would therefore be artificial.196 In a post scriptum to his 1668 embassy’s report, Van Rheede, for instance, commenting on his archnemesis Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, observed that ‘His and

194 Van Rheede, ‘Report’, f. 1165v (March 18, 1668); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 149, and 218. 195 L.Y. Andaya, The World of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the Early Modern Period (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993), pp. 42–46, and 207; P. Geyl, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century (London: Benn, 1964), II, pp. 100, 181–182, and 185; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 50. 196 Subrahmanyam, ‘An Eastern El Dorado: The Tirumala-Tirupati Complex in Early European Views and Ambitions, 1540–1660’, in: Shulman (ed.), Syllables of Sky, pp. 381–383; J.D. Tracy, ‘Asian Despotism? Mughal Government as Seen From the Dutch East India Company Factory in Surat’, Journal of Early Modern History 3, 3 (1999), pp. 256–280.

102 chapter 1 the country’s customs differ greatly from us,…, it being a fixed law among them that nobody will do good unless forced to do so since no virtue is embraced without force or money’. As a result, ‘the mind is hardened and children are raised and accustomed to it, everyone tormenting his lesser from the lowest to the highest’.197 One year later, in December 1669, Van Rheede and Senior Merchant Laurens Pijl described the inhabitants of Madurai as ‘bad people ruled by an even worse government’:

The inhabitants of Madurai are by nature slavish, indolent, suspicious, and poor, and subsequently evil, cunning, faithless, deceitful, and stingy. They possess hardly any virtues, such as honour and shame, and are intolerable in commanding and docile in obeying, cruel and merciless, never doing anything good except when forced to do so. The government over these people is farmed out to the highest bidder. This governor or tax- farmer acquires unlimited powers to tax and burden these people with unbearable despotism. They resort to such inhumane means to extort money that it is hard to imagine.198

Bassingh’s description of 1677 paints the Nayaka state and the region’s inhabitants in strikingly similar unflattering proto-Orientalist colours. Madurai’s ‘evil administration’ was headed by the ‘enormous tyranny’ of Chokkanatha Nayaka ‘the Avaricious’, giving free reign to the extortionate and torturous practices of his ‘inhumane’ and ‘money-hungry’ tax farmers. Bassingh also flatly condemned the ‘civil or rather brutal manners’ of the population, who, ‘being of an unreasonable nature, do not practice but unreasonable things’, contrasting it with Dutch ‘burgher virtues or civility’ (Borgerlyke Zeeden of Civiliteyt):

[S]ince these people are by nature servile, slow, crafty, distrustful, dishon- ourable, cunning, deceitful, incompassionate, shameless, and faint-hearted in general, as mentioned previously, thus one can easily understand from their character what sort of Civility is observed. For all these character traits cannot produce but disorderly life and brutality rather than any

197 Van Rheede, ‘Report’, f. 1189r; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 203, and 257. 198 voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 151r, Redenen en oorzaken van de Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669. For similar assessments: James Ford Bell Library, B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, [ff. 58, and 112–113], Beschrijving van den oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 23.11.1677; voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 45r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682.

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proper Burgher Virtues or Civility as indeed (with a few exceptions) is the case with this type of people.199

Bassingh’s description also contains elements of what has recently been styled ‘military Orientalism’, the fetishising of the ‘exotic’ warfare of Eastern and ‘martial races’ and the representation of enemies of the West as archaic curiosities or medieval throwbacks from another era. Westerners often used these ethnocentric notions concerning ‘Oriental’ methods in order to define themselves and justify their own brutal behaviour.200 Certainly the imperialist, ‘Ceylon-centric’ party-faction to which Bassingh belonged had a vested interest in depicting the ‘other’, inferior qualities of Madurai’s armed forces. Thus, Bassingh, starting out his voc career as a common soldier and hence partially based on first-hand experience, emphasises the differences with some of the accomplishments of the ‘military revolution’ in the école de guerre of the Northern Netherlands, including the introduction of a comprehensive code of military discipline (1590) and a High Military Court: the utter lack of discipline and order, the fragmented command structure and absence of an esprit de corps, the inadequate armament in shrill contrast with the ‘great pump and circumstance of costly tents, palanquins, elephants, camels, horses, beasts of burden, shovels, spades, inchiados, &a.’, the irregular payment, and the absence of martial qualities amongst the rank and file (‘this naked horde and cowardly soldiery’): ‘The Moors and a certain race called Rajputs are the bravest of this ruler’s army, but the actual character is represented by such warriors, who lack nothing but courage and bravery’.201

199 Bassingh, ‘Description’, p. 298; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 309, and 362. See also: Bassingh, ‘Description’, pp. 288, 289–290, 292, and 294–295; Vink, Mission to Madurai, esp. pp. 335, and 362. 200 P. Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War Through Western Eyes, Critical War Studies (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 201 See Bassingh, ‘Description’, pp. 293–294; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 312–313, and 355– 356. In his study of firearms in early sixteenth-century Mamluk Egypt, David Ayalon has argued that the disdain for firearms and the imperfect incorporation of the ‘military revolution’ among the social and military elite ‘was enormously reinforced by lack of discipline and internal dissensions’. See: D. Ayalon, Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mamluk Kingdom: A Challenge to A Medieval Society (London: Frank Cass, 1978), pp. 86–111. These ambivalent attitudes towards firearms, also prevalent among the warrior aristocracy in Mughal India, may have played a role in Nayaka period Tamil Nadu as well. Though pointing out ‘some suggestive elements’, Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam conclude that ‘in the present state of our knowledge, the answer to this question can be by no means

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These ‘Dutch Calvinist’ views bear striking resemblances with the ‘English Anglican’ and ‘Portuguese Catholic’ perceptions of the Oriental state. In March 1663, for instance, Walter Travers, the English factor at Alvar Tirunagari, reported that he had been forced to ‘sate down these many months and idly eat the Companies bread’ because of the ‘monthly excessive taxations’ of the aranmanai, squeezing the Madurai population (‘a beggardly crew’) ‘like spunges’. The ‘scale of oppression’ rendered ‘the wretched rabble the objects, not of pitty (a meer stranger to this government), but of merciless crueltie’. Almost twelve years earlier, in December 1651, Emmanuel Martinz, the Portuguese Jesuit and Superior of the Madurai Mission, wrote from Satyamangalam that the notion of a patrimonial state, with a ‘monarch regarding his people as a large family of which he is the father’, was foreign to Indian rulers. Instead, he asserted, these princes and their subordinate ‘small despots’ neglected ‘le bon ordre’, that is, the suppression of crime and injustice, considering themselves ‘large property- holders, and their kingdom as a vast [revenue] farm to be exploited’. One generation later, his countryman, the Jesuit Fernão de Queyroz (1617– 1688), observed that ‘pagan government’ could be considered ‘the most tyrannical, and barbarous that can be imagined’ as the rulers treated their subjects ‘worse than slaves’. Thus, though the lands were fertile and suited for all kinds of cultivation, ‘everything is frustrated by tyranny’. In addition, De Queyroz believed that the mind of the Indian had fallen victim to ‘the vices of a nature corrupted and enfeebled by sensual appetites’. The Indian had been perverted to such an extent ‘as to totally banish all truth, gratitude, and courtesy’.202 The French physician and traveller François Bernier (1625–1688), possibly influenced by the writings of Francisco Pelsaert, described despotism in India as ‘a tyranny often so excessive as to deprive the peasant and artisan of the necessities of life, and leave them to die of misery and exhaustion’.203 The striking similarities between ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ (whether Calvinist or Anglican) views on Hinduism will be discussed in the section on the theocratic view of the Dutch Calvinist ministers.

definitive’. See: Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 220–241, esp. p. 234. 202 Walter Travers from Alvar Tirunagari (‘Alvatty’) to Surat, 30.3.1663, in: Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1661–1664, p. 252; Em. Martinz to the R.P.V. Carraffa, general of the Company of Jesus, 31.12.1651, in: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, II, pp. 394–395; De Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon, I, pp. 80–81, 91–94, and 173. 203 F. Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1656–68 (London: Archibald Constable and Co., 1891), pp. 205, and 226–227.

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These seventeenth-century European proto-Orientalist images and imaginations of the Indian character, politics, military, and Hindu religion, however incomplete and confused, were in conformity with the all-encompassing, systemic notion of ‘geopsychology’ or ‘climatic determinism’ presented one century later by Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu (1689–1755). While the notion of ‘climatic determinism’ had been prevalent in Western civilisation ever since classical times and the topic of discussion of such writers as Hippocrates and Bodin, the intensification of cross-cultural contacts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries allowed for a more comprehensive and detailed treatment of the relationship between the environment and mankind.204 In his L’Ésprit des Lois (1748) Montesquieu argued that variations in national character (ésprits générals) were largely determined by climate. Dividing the world in three climatic zones—cold, temperate, and torrid—Montesquieu’s system, when dealing with the Indians, was guided by the concept of the ‘con- tradictions of the human spirit’. According to Montesquieu, all striking features of the population of India—their character, habits, customs, social and political organisation, and religious beliefs and practices—were characterised by paradox: the prodigal riches of the country and the frugality of its inhabitants, the civility of their customs and the barbarism of their habits, the moral purity of their spirits and the frenzy of their carnal desires, the greatness of their metaphysics and vulgarity of their idolatrous cults, the rigidity of their caste system and the evanescence of their political institutions, their notorious lack of courage and strength and their extreme corporal mortification.205 The Volksgeist or ‘spirit of the people’ and the character of the government were both products of the same environment and in many ways complementary. According to Pijl and Van Rheede, for instance, the ‘evil and violent’ nature of the indigenous people was the combined result of nature and nurture, hardened by the exposure from an early age to an oppressive system of government.

204 Using Hippocrates’ theory of the four humors and the Aristotelian notion of the ‘golden mean’, Bodin argued that the inhabitants of the southern and northern regions suffered from extremes (black bile and yellow bile, respectively), while those of the middle region (which included Asia) were superior, enjoying a proper blending of the elements. 205 Ch. de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, A.M. Cohler, B.C. Miller, and H.S. Stone transl. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), esp. Book XIV, Chapters I–IV; Inden, ‘Orientalist Constructions of India’, pp. 416, 421–423, and 441; T.C. Weinberger, ‘Introduction: Les Yeux Fertiles de la Mémoire: Exotisme Indien et Répresentations Occidentales’, Collection Purusartha 11 (1988), pp. 19–20. A subsequent article in the same volume unfortunately does not go beyond the Renaissance, but contains a number of observations applicable also to the post-Renaissance era. See: G. Bouchon, ‘L’Image de l’Inde Dans l’Europe de la Renaissance’, in: Idem, pp. 69–90.

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In typical proto-Orientalist fashion, the Madurai state was portrayed as one gigantic fiscal revenue pump, leading to suicides among desperate local merchants (‘completely ruined by tyranny’) and the desertion of entire villages whose inhabitants had been forced to sell themselves into slavery.206 In addition to a ‘Christo-centric’ (most notably Dutch Reformed) worldview along with climatic determinism and proto-Orientalism, the Dutch also perceived themselves as champions of freedom (haec libertatis ergo) combined with a paranoid ‘siege mentality’ inspired by a bricolage of mutually reinforcing images and imaginations—most notably the ‘Black Legend’, the ‘Batavian Myth’, the ‘Holland Garden’, and the ‘Biblical Exodus’—forged in the cauldron of the Eighty Years’ War against the Spanish Habsburg Empire and solidified during the subsequent period dominated by the wars of Louis XIV of France. The 1689 instructions for the Company Assistant and Ambassador Nicolaes Welter, for instance, state: ‘Nature learns that each and everyone, anticipating disaster, takes precautions and arms himself in order not to be surprised and destroyed’.207 Encounters with Spanish and French ‘tyranny’ at home and Oriental despotism and ‘slavish’ peoples overseas further strengthened this harmonising repertoire of self-congratulatory self-images and damning depic- tions of the other. Dutch iconography played an important role in furthering the process of nation-building and the creation of a broader sense of identification with the Dutch patria among the inhabitants of the oftentimes less than United Provinces and the officials of the voc as the bastion of freedom and liberty. Dutch patriotic scripture (both in the graphic and visual arts) drew on three kinds of complimentary sources: imaginary or heavily embellished Dutch antiquity and an equally obscure medieval history; a parade of easily recognisable ‘set piece’ tableaux of dramatis personae situated in the heroic events of contemporary history; and association by analogy—most notably Batavian and Hebrew-Israelite. From the onset of the Revolt, the ‘Black Legend’ became the label of convenience attached by Dutch propagandists to the atrocities committed by the Spaniards during their conquest of the Americas, to the systematic suppression, even extermination of native American peoples (eagerly embracing the accusations of De Las Casas), and to the persecution of heretics, Jews, and Muslims by the Spanish Inquisition. The image of Spanish tyranny and enslave- ment was one of inhuman cruelty, of sham Christianity, deceit, and hypocrisy. As such, it was ready-made for application to the Dutch situation and became

206 voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 151r–151v, and 159v–160r, Redenen en oorzaken Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669. 207 See Welter’s instructions, f. 185v; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 397, and 417.

Images And Ideologies 107 part and parcel of the ‘revolutionary geography’ of the Northern Netherlands.208 After the mid-seventeenth century, the receding of the Spanish threat and the increasingly hegemonic ambitions of Louis XIV produced a new enemy image.209 The impact of the Wars of Louis XIV, most notably the traumatic events surrounding the ‘Year of Disaster’ (1672), are best illustrated in Romeyn de Hooghe’s Spiegel der Fransse Tyranny (‘Mirror of French Tyranny’) of 1673.210 Dutch political, scholarly, and artistic elites at home and abroad also drew inspiration from the ‘Batavian Myth’, the alluring notion that the ancient Batavians described in Tacitus’ Historiae (Book IV, 14) and Germania (29)— heroic, virtuous, and freedom-loving who, under their leader, Claudius Civilis, had successfully revolted against the Roman yoke—had lived in the Northern Netherlands. From the outset, the ‘Batavian myth’ was a potent factor in building a new, broader sense of patriotic identification with Holland as the political, moral, and cultural centre of the Dutch patria and nation—most notably among republican advocates of a loose confederacy dominated by Holland and moderate ‘Cartesio-Cocceian’ intellectual-religious attitudes, members of the ‘States’ party of ‘True Freedom’.211 Not coincidentally, the voc Board of Directors opted to name their overseas administrative headquarters and central rendez-vous ‘Batavia’. Founded on the fiery ruins of the indigenous statelet of Jakarta on the island of Java in 1619,

208 For a thorough analysis of the spread of the ‘Black Legend’ and the image of the ‘noble Indian’ in the ‘revolutionary geography’ of the Dutch Republic: B. Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570–1670 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 68–122. See also: Frijhoff and Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity, pp. 37–38. 209 A. van Toorn and M. Spies, ‘“Christen Jeugd, Leerd Konst and Deugd”: De Zeventiende Eeuw’, in: H. Bekkering, N. Heimeriks, and W. van Toorn (eds), De Hele Bibelebontse Berg: De Geschiedenis van het Kinderboek in Nederland en Vlaanderen van de Middeleeuwen tot Heden (Amsterdam: Querido, 1989), pp. 127–128; J.C. Breen, ‘Gereformeerde Populaire Historiography in de Zeventiende en Achtiende Eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 37 (1922), pp. 254–273 and 372–382; Frijhoff and Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity, p. 38; P.C. Emmer, The Dutch Slave Trade, 1500–1850, European Expansion and Global Interaction 5 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), p. 13. 210 For a reproduction, see the website ‘Digitale Atlas Geschiedenis’, a joint pilot project of the National Library of the Netherlands/Koninklijke Bibliotheek at The Hague and the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam: www.digitaleatlasgeschiedenis.nl (accessed: 17 September 2007). 211 For an extensive bibliography on the ‘Batavian Myth’: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dutch/self_ study_packs/english_language/batavian_myth/bibliography.html; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ dutch/self_study_packs/english_language/batavian_myth/bibliography02.html (accessed: 17 September 2007).

108 chapter 1 the Gentlemen Seventeen preferred a name appealing to all inhabitants of the United Provinces rather than the more particularist ‘Nieuw Hoorn’ (named after one of the Company’s six founding members or chambers), hoping to instill a broader sense of patriotic identification amongst their Company servants.212 The besieged fenced or ‘Holland Garden’ (Hollandse Tuin), oftentimes including a watchful lion, a Holland Virgin, and the hat of liberty, became an important and recurrent motif in Dutch patriotic iconography from the late sixteenth century onwards.213 The ‘military revolution,’ with the Northern Netherlands as, at least for a while, one of the ‘principal schools of warfare’, transformed military conflicts into a seemingless endless series of protracted sieges of walled cities and fortifications—a reality most notably visualised in the genre of urban atlases both in the Dutch Republic (Jacob van Deventer, Joan Blaeu, and Frederik de Wit) and the voc world (most notably, the so- called ‘Vingboons Atlas’).214 As all Company servants were to be Protestant (if not in practice, at least in theory), this paranoid siege mentality or ‘mentality of the interloper’ was not

212 H.T. Colenbrander (ed.), Jan Pietersz. Coen: Bescheiden Omtrent Zijn Verblijf in Indië, 5 vols. (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1919–1923), III, pp. 756–757; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, I, p. 118, n. 1. 213 J.D. Tracy, For Holland’s Garden: The War Aims of the States of Holland, 1572–1588 (Amsterdam: Amsterdams Centrum Voor de Studie van de Gouden Eeuw, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2004); P.J. van Winter, ‘De Hollandse Tuin’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 8 (1957), pp. 29–121. 214 C. Koeman and J.C. Visser, De Stadsplattegronden van Jacob van Deventer, 12 vols. (Landsmeer: Robas, 1992–present); J.C. Visser (ed.), Door Jacob van Deventer in Kaart Gebracht: Kleine Atlas van de Nederlandse Steden in de Zestiende Eeuw (Weesp: Robas, 1995); J. Blaeu, Novum Ac Magnum Theatrum Urbium Belgicae Liberae Ac Foederatae (Amsterdam: I. Blaeu, 1649); Y.M. Donkersloot-De Vrij, Drie Generaties Blaeu: Amsterdamse Cartografie en Boekdrukkunst in de Zeventiende Eeuw (Amsterdam and Zutphen: Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum and Walburg Pers, 1992); F. de Wit, Theatrum Ichnographicum Omnium Urbium et Praecipuorum Oppidorum Belgicarum XVII Provinciarum (Amsterdam: Van Hoeve, 1980) (facsimile 1698); J. Vinckeboons and J. van Bracht, Atlas van Kaarten en Aanzichten van de voc en wic, Genoemd Vingboons Atlas in het Algemeen Rijksarchief te’s- Gravenhage (Haarlem: Fibula-Van Dishoeck, 1981); K. Zandvliet, Mapping for Money: Maps, Plans, and Topographic Paintings and Their Role in Dutch Overseas Expansion During the 16th and 17th Centuries (Amsterdam: Batavian Lion International, 1998); M. Gosselink, Land in Zicht: Vingboons Tekent de Wereld van de 17de Eeuw (Zwolle: Waanders, 2007). See also the ‘Atlas of Mutual Heritage’ website, an expanding academic catalogue of illustrations and data about settlements of the Dutch East and West India Companies: www.nationaalarchief.nl/amh (accessed: 17 September 2007).

Images And Ideologies 109 limited to the economic sphere alone, but also had distinct political and religious overtones. In consequence of their protracted war of independence against the ‘Most Catholic Kings’ of the Spanish Habsburg Empire and subsequently the ‘Most Christian Kings’ of France, the Calvinist Dutch in particular were inspired with convictions of fighting for a righteous cause against the forces of manifest inequity. In the voc world, the small numbers of Company servants overseas saw themselves as beset by hordes of ‘feigned friends and public enemies’, both European and Asian, eager for any opportunity to deprive them of the fruits of their honest labour.215 Though opposition from Asian (and European) competitors was often quite real, the Dutch charged these rivalries with anxieties that were proportional to their own position in an overwhelming and alien environment. The perceived vulnerability and apprehension towards Asian merchants and rulers, which made the Europeans appear rightless in the Indian Ocean Basin, reinforced their determination to trade with sword in hand, especially in view of the higher profits which armed trading offered as opposed to peaceful.216 As early as 1614 the future Governor General Jan Pietersz. Coen (1587–1629) had intimated to the Company Directors: ‘By experience [you] should be well aware that in the Indies trade has to be pursued and maintained under the protection and favour of one’s own arms and that the weapons must be financed through the profits so earned by trade. In short, trade without war or war without trade cannot be maintained’. Four years later, in 1618, ‘Iron Jan’ Coen warned the paymasters in the Dutch Republic:

We need to have people or else we will become the laughing-stock of the entire world, the treacheries of the rulers will continue unabatedly, and no virtue will be able to dissuade them from their purpose. Therefore, I pray you to send lots of people, ships, money, and supplies with the first fleet. If so, everything will fare well, if not, you will regret it. Do not despair and do not spare your enemies for God is on our side….217

215 L. Blussé, Tussen Geveinsde Vrunden en Verklaarde Vijanden (Amsterdam: knaw, 1999). 216 J.D. Tracy, ‘Introduction’, in: Idem (ed.), The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 9–13. 217 Coen’s letter also contained the (in)famous and oft-quoted words daer can in Indiën wat groots verricht worden (‘something glorious can be achieved in the Indies’). See: De Jong, De Waaier van Fortuin, p. 50.

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In similar fashion, in 1655 fellow ‘empire builder’ and future Governor General Rijckloff van Goens Senior (1619–1682) reported to the Company Directors on his return from the Indies: ‘There is nobody, who wishes us well in the Indies, indeed, we are deadly hated by all nations in Asia. By diminishing [our presence], they respect us even less and even the feigned friendship has disap- peared. In my opinion, sooner or later war will be the arbiter’.218 Thus, an unmistakable sense of ‘alienation’, feelings of isolation, vulnerability, and apprehension in an ‘other’, hostile environment permeate both voc correspondence and the Madurai ambassadorial reports, expressed most clearly in the recurring use of the term vreemd, meaning numerous interrelated things, ‘foreign, exotic, strange, alien’. Thus, Van Rheede informed Governor Van Goens Senior in March 1668 from Trichinopoly he was greatly longing for the completion of his mission ‘since all efforts seem to be in vain. I am fed her and there with hope, but everything is unpredictable and mixed with private interests or gain for the Hon. Company can only buy friends with money against so many enemies at this foreign court’. In similar fashion, Welter lamented in July 1689: ‘It is certain that we, who are foreign here, cannot see through the cunning practices of the courtiers. Our only defense is to remain on our guard and not to get caught in their snares’.219 This profound sense of otherness, of being strangers in a strange land, and instinctive distrust of non-Dutch communities was translated into a policy of spatial segregation in the cities under Company jurisdiction, such as Batavia, Cochin, and Colombo, and the division of auxiliary Asian fighting forces along ethnic and racial lines. In the latter city, the ‘whiteness’ of the fort and old town was preserved by assigning the communities of Hindu Chittis, Muslims, and Paravas their own separate residential quarters under their respective heads in a complicated system of social regulations and indirect rule. Similar attitudes and arrangements, however, could be found in English ‘fortified port-cities’, such as Madras and Calcutta with their distinct ‘Black’ and ‘White’ Towns. The ‘White Town’ consisted of the eic’s fort, its commercial buildings and offices, churches, and private houses, while within the ‘Black Town’ with its houses,

218 See: P.A. Leupe, ‘Vertooch Wegens den Presenten Staet van de Generale Nederlantse Geoctroijeerde Oost-Indische Compe. bij Rijckloff van Goens, Extr. Ord. Raed van India ende Commandeur Over de Retourvloot van Ao. 1655, Aen de Ed. Heeren de Gecommit teerde Bewinthebberen ter Vergaderingh van 17e., Representeerende de Suprioren en Hooghste Overheijt in ‘t Bestier ende Regeren Derzelver, Zijne Gebiedende Heeren, Overgelevert’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 4 (1856), pp. 141–180. 219 See Van Rheede’s report under March 31, 1668 (ff. 1175v–1176r), and Welter’s report under July 26, 1689 (f. 296v); Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 174, 234, 487–488, and 563.

Images And Ideologies 111 shops, and bazaars the population was fragmented by ethnic origin, caste, and occupation. This pattern of spatial/racial regulation and segregation was grafted on pre-existing indigenous traditions of urban living arrangements.220 In true Augustinian fashion, the Company’s hordes of ‘feigned friends and public enemies’ not only threatened the ‘City of Men’, but the ‘City of God’ as well. Citing Isaiah 1:8, Governor Baron van Imhoff of Ceylon (1736–1740), for example, stated in his political testimony or ‘Memorie van Overgave’ (1740): ‘And the daughter of Zion [the Dutch Reformed Church] is left as a cottage in the vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city’.221 Though present throughout Calvinist Europe and same faith diaspora overseas, the metaphor of the ‘Biblical Exodus’—the journey of God’s Chosen People from slavery and idolatry, through trial and tribulation, to freedom and godliness in the ‘New Zion’ or ‘New Jerusalem’—contributed to a distinct sense of Dutch identity. The image of the Netherlands-Israel was a stirring patriotic commonplace, which found expression in visual and even musical forms as well as in printed texts.222 Despite the existence of a white somatic norm image, pre-modern ‘racial- biblical’ taxonomies and classification schemes were less absolute or pri- mordial and more contingent or constructed than social scientists used to

220 Vink, ‘From Port-City to World-System’, p. 66. See: A. Singh, Fort Cochin in Kerala, 1750– 1830: The Social Conditions of a Dutch Community in an Indian Milieu, tanap Monographs on the History of Asian-European Interaction 13 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), pp. 23, and 42; C.L. Temminck Groll, The Dutch Overseas: Architectural Survey: Mutual Heritage of Four Centuries in Three Continents (Zwolle: Waanders, 2002); R. van Oers, Dutch Town Planning Overseas During voc and wic Rule, 1600–1800 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2000); R. Raben, ‘Facing the Crowd: The Urban Policy of the Dutch East India Company 1600– 1800’, in: K.S. Mathew (ed.), Mariners, Merchants and Oceans: Studies in Maritime History (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1995), pp. 209–246; J.F. Richards, ‘European City-States on the Coromandel Coast’, in: P.M. Joshi and M.A. Nayeem (eds), Studies in the Foreign Relationships of India (From the Earliest Times to 1947) (Hyderabad: State Archives, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, 1975), pp. 508–521; S.M. Nield, ‘Colonial Urbanism: The Development of Madras City in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, Modern Asian Studies 13, 2 (1979), pp. 217–246; F. Hasan, ‘Indigenous Cooperation and the Birth of a Colonial City: Calcutta, c. 1698–1750’, Modern Asian Studies 26, 1 (1992), pp. 65–82; P.J. Marshall, ‘Eigh teenth-Century Calcutta’, in: R. Ross and G.J. Telkamp (eds), Colonial Cities: Essays on Urbanism in a Colonial Context (Dordrecht: M. Nijhoff, 1985), pp. 87–104. 221 Memoir Left by Gustaaf Willem Baron van Imhoff; G.J. Schutte, ‘Een Hutje in den Wijngaard’, in: Idem (ed.), Het Indisch Sion: De Gereformeerde Kerk Onder de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Hilversum: Verloren, 2002), p. 186. 222 Schama, Embarrassment of Riches, esp. pp. 95–96, and 100; M. Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985).

112 chapter 1 suppose.223 Europeans overseas—largely single males, from the bachelor boedjang in the Dutch East Indies to the ‘single-walking’ eenlopendes in the Cape Colony—could and did ‘go native’, just as ‘whitening’ remained a viable option for Eurasian mestizos and indigenous peoples in the pre-modern era by adopting the other’s culture, most notable ‘major codes’ of sacredness (God, reason, progress, or rationality), civility (rules of conduct, traditions, and social routines), and primordiality (gender, generation, kinship, territoriality, language, and race).224 Though the voc authorities did employ legal-ethnic categories and applied a ‘colour bar’ or exclusionary mechanisms, being ‘Dutch’ or considered ‘white’ and concomitant career opportunities were, besides skin colour, contingent on a number of other factors—Protestant religion and Christian bourgeois life-style, social background, a Dutch education, along with connections and family ties.225 Expressed by the Council of Dordt in 1618–1619,226 Dutch seventeenth- century Calvinism espoused, in theory if not in practice, the ideal of assimila- tion rather than apartheid.227 In Batavia, hundreds of free and unfree Asians,

223 The Dutch sociologist Harmannus (Harry) Hoetink has defined the somatic norm image in pluralistic, segmented societies as ‘the complex of physical (somatic) characteristics which are accepted by a group as its norm and ideal’. See: H. Hoetink, The Two Variants in Caribbean Race Relations: A Contribution to the Sociology of Segmented Societies (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1967); G. Oostindië (ed.), Ethnicity in the Caribbean: Essays in Honor of Harry Hoetink, Archaeological Studies (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006). 224 Eisenstadt and Schluchter, ‘Introduction’, pp. 14–15. The debate, mostly centred around the emergence of natios and nationalities, pits historicists or modernists (for example, Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner, and Eric Hobsbawm) against primordialists. The contingency of identity was one of the main themes that emerged during the discussions at the ‘Contingent Lives’ conference in Cape Town in 2006. See: J. Gelman Taylor, M.P.M. Vink, H. Sutherland, and R. Ross, ‘Concluding Remarks’, in: N. Worden (ed.), Contingent Lives: Social Identity and Material Culture in the voc World (Cape Town: University of Cape Town, 2007), pp. 602–612. 225 U. Bosma and R. Raben, Being ‘Dutch’ in the Indies: A History of Creolisation and Empire, 1500–1920 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), pp. xv, and 24–25. 226 First chapter, clause nine of the section on ‘rejection of errors’. 227 M.P.M. Vink, ‘Freedom and Slavery: The Dutch Republic, the voc World, and the Debate Over the “World’s Oldest Trade”’, South African Historical Journal 59 (2007), p. 35; G.J. Schutte, ‘Verantwoording’, in: Idem (ed.), Indisch Sion, p. 12; Idem, ‘Het Indisch Sion: Een Terugblik’, pp. 242–243; G. Groenhuis, ‘De Zonen van Cham’, Kleio 21 (1980), p. 222; A. Sens, ‘Mensaap, Heiden, Slaaf’: Nederlandse Visies op de Wereld Rond 1800 (The Hague: Sdu Uitgevers, 2001); A. Blakely, Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); J. Schorsch, Jews and Blacks

Images And Ideologies 113

Eurasians, and Europeans were annually admitted as members of the Dutch Reformed Church. Its counterpart in Ceylon included various ethnic and soci- etal groups: Europeans, Eurasians, and indigenous peoples (Tamil and Sinhalese). At the Cape of Good Hope, at least in Cape Town itself, it involved ‘a not insignificant group, which cannot be simply dismissed in a footnote’.228 Nevertheless, similar to the ‘racial state’, the administrators of the voc exhibited strong symptoms of racial and ethnic engineering, a desire to classify and regulate, as demonstrated by the regular population censuses, the codification of local laws, the keeping of marriage registers, and the issue of identity papers—all of which were based on a detailed grid of ethnic distinctions. The voc passion for registration and accounting was demonstrated, among other things, by frequent population censuses. These censuses defined precise categories based on religion, language, and place of origins. Telling in this respect are the lists of the families at Colombo, Jaffnapatnam, and other Dutch establishment on the island of Ceylon in 1684, 1694, and 1696, distinguishing between numerous categories, including Europeans, mestizos, castizos, topazes, and blacks (swarten).229

in the Early Modern World (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 135–165; A.N. Paasman, ‘Mens of Dier? Beeldvorming over Negers in de Tijd voor de Rassentheorieën’, in: J.-E. Dubbeldam and J. Tanja (eds), Vreemd Gespuis (Amsterdam: Ambo, 1987), pp. 99–101; E. van den Boogaart, ‘Colour Prejudice and the Yardstick of Civility: The Initial Dutch Confrontation with Black Africans, 1590–1635’, in: R. Ross (ed.), Racism and Colonialism: Essays on Ideology and Social Structure (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1982), pp. 33–54; A. Biewenga, De Kaap de Goede Hoop: Een Nederlandse Vestigingskolonie, 1680–1730 (Amsterdam: Promotheus and Bert Bakker, 1999), pp. 276–278, and 281–282; H.E. Niemeijer, Batavia: Een Koloniale Samenleving in de Zeventiende Eeuw (Amsterdam: Balans, 2005). 228 For Batavia see: G.J. Schutte, ‘De Grote Koloniale Stadskerk: Batavia’, in: Idem (ed.), Indisch Sion, pp. 113–114, and 125; Niemeijer, Batavia. For Ceylon see: Schutte, ‘Een Hutje in de Wijngaard’, p. 180; Van Goor, Jan Kompenie as Schoolmaster. For the Cape Colony see: A.W. Biewinga, ‘Kerk in een Volksplanting’, in: Schutte (ed.), Indisch Sion, p. 217; Schutte, ‘Het Indisch Sion: Een Terugblik’, in: Idem (ed.), Indisch Sion, p. 237. 229 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 583–601, Lijste van families in Negombo, Colombo, Jaffnapatnam, Manaer, Trinquenemale, Calaptyn, ende Batticalao, 1684; voc 1544, obp 1695, ff. 820–854, Lijste van alle Europeanen, mestizos en topassen in het casteel en de stad van Colombo, Jaffnapatnam, en Mannaar, 1694; voc 1585, obp 1697, ff. 1400–1409, Lijste van families in Jaffnapatnam en Manar, 1696; G.J. Knaap, ‘Europeans, Mestizos, and Slaves: The Population of Colombo at the End of the Seventeenth Century’, Itinerario 5, 2 (1981), pp. 84–101; R. Raben, ‘Batavia and Colombo: The Ethnic and Spatial Order of Two Colonial Cities 1600–1800’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leiden, 1996; H.A.E. de Vos tot Nederveen Cappel, ‘De Dienaren van de V.O.C. Teelden in Ceylon Vele Kinderen Bij Europese, Mestiesen,

114 chapter 1

In addition, the voc also attempted to codify the laws governing some of the communities under its rule, such as the Tamils in northern Ceylon (in 1707), and subsequently attempted to impose the Islamic law of Batavia upon the Muslims of Ceylon—a powerful example of the rigid categorical thinking of voc administrators. The codification of the Tesavalamai (‘The Customs of the Land’) undertaken by Claes Isaaksz. the experienced disava of Jaffnapatnam (1703–1712), took place under the direction of Governor Cornelis Joan Simons of Ceylon (1703–1707). These laws dealt with succession to property, adoption, land possession, land mortgage, slaves, pawning of jewellery, donations, sale of land and cattle, hire or loan of cattle, or money, etc. Apart from the Tesavalamai, compilations were also made of the customary laws of the Muslims and the Mukkuvar caste, the Tamil-speaking Muslims in the Batticaloa and Puttalam district.230 Dutch marriage registers were another attempt by the voc authorities at racial and social engineering. The Christian religion provided the basis for marriage laws and secular intercourse, most notably the prohibition against marriage between Christians and non-Christians. As soon as the voc established itself in a new location and set up a garrison and local offices, it began to regulate sexual and social behaviour eager to protect Dutch religion and culture and thereby the group’s cohesion, but also anxious to safeguard their prestige with the peoples it had colonised. As a consequence, the (sexual) contact between Europeans (in general the rank and file) and members of other communities often took place in a twilight zone, not dignified by formal marriage, frequently appearing as concubinage. Following the conquest of Galle (1640)

Castiesen, Toepassen, Swarte, Bandanese, Maleise en Singalese Vrouwen’, Gens Nostra 33 (1978), pp. 308–315. 230 J.A. van der Chijs (ed.), Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, 17 vols. (Batavia and The Hague: Landsdrukkerij and M. Nijhoff, 1885–1901), VII, pp. 476–490; Idem, X, pp. 417–431; L. Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek: Plakkaten en Andere Wetten Uitgevaardigd Door Het Nederlands Bestuur op Ceylon, 1638–1796 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1991), I, p. cxvi; M. Jurriaanse, ‘The Compilation of the Customary Law of Jaffna (Thesawalamai)’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 110, 4 (1954), pp. 293–304; J. van Kan, ‘Uit de Ceilonsche Rechtsgeschiedenis: I. De Thesawalamai’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 102 (1943), pp. 441–451; C. van Vollenhoven (ed.), ‘Ceilonsch Volksrecht, Opgeteekend in 1707’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 75 (1919), pp. 240–280; S. Katiresu (ed.), A Handbook of the Thesawalamai or the Customary Law of the ‘Province’ of Jaffna (Jaffna: The ‘Young Men of Jaffna’ Press, 1909); J. Kohler, Rechtsvergleichende Studien Über Islamitisches Recht, Das Recht der Berbern, Das Chinesische Recht Und Das Recht Auf Ceylon (Berlin: C. Heymann, 1889); H.F. Mutukisna and R. Atherton (eds), A New Edition of the Thesawaleme, Or the Laws and Customs of Jaffna (Colombo: Ceylon Times Office, 1862).

Images And Ideologies 115 and Colombo (1656), for instance, stern punishments were imposed for ‘foul and filthy indecency’, including adultery and ‘public whoredom and concubinage’. These practices allegedly demonstrated a great contempt for true Christi anity, were considered damaging to the reputation of the Dutch nation, and would call down the wrath of God upon the perpetrators, though permission was granted to marry local women.231 The stern punishments notwithstanding, contrary to what has sometimes been suggested, racial mixing taking place among the Dutch and English in Asia was as commonplace as among the Portuguese. In Ceylon, for instance, within one generation or about thirty years of the arrival of the voc, the majority of the population in the Company settlement was mestizo, that is, having at least one Asian or Eurasian parent.232 Dutch marriage registers and the choice of marriage partners, however, do reveal an emerging pattern of social restratification. Higher-ranking Company employees tended to prefer European women, while men from the lower echelons—such as soldiers, assistants, and artisans—married women of Luso- Asian descent (‘Portuguese’, Christian descendants of freed slaves, and other converts to Christianity) or continued to practice concubinage in the face of numerous placards, ordinances, and resolutions. This tendency was reinforced by regulations concerning migration: only higher-ranking voc officials were permitted to bring their wives with them to Asia. As a result, class differences became reflected to quite an extent in skin colour. The children from a marriage between a European man and an Asian woman were called mestizos. However, the word ‘mestizo’ came to mean not only of mixed blood, but also carried the additional stigma of lower class.233 Thus, the Christian community split into various classes, the distinctions being strengthened by the choice of marriage partners. A powerful elite of local dynasties emerged, which firmly distinguished itself from other groups in the community, including Asians, the poorer Europeans, and Eurasian, partly via the practice of strategic marriages. The marriage strategies of the Dutch Chiefs (Opperhoofd) or Commanders (Commandant) of the Madurai Coast between 1657 and 1690 are illustrative of the pervasiveness of the ‘racial-biblical’ white somatic norm image. The

231 Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, I, pp. 3, 14–15, and 34–35; Bosma and Raben, Being ‘Dutch’ in the Indies, p. 28. 232 Knaap, ‘Europeans, Mestizos and Slaves’; Raben, ‘Batavia and Colombo’, pp. 104–105; Bosma and Raben, Being ‘Dutch’ in the Indies, pp. 22–23. 233 M. Roberts, I. Raheem and P. Colin-Thomé, People Inbetween: The Burghers and the Middle Class in the Transformations Within Sri Lanka, 1790s–1960s (Ratmalana: Sarvodaya, 1989), pp. 140–147; D.B. McGilvray, ‘Dutch Burghers and Portuguese Mechanics: Eurasian Ethnicity in Sri Lanka’, Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History 24, 2 (1982), pp. 235–263.

116 chapter 1 position was an important one per se, but also functioned as an important steppingstone to even higher office. All were newcomers (totoks) in Asia and married European wives. Joan van Vliet of Schiedam (1656–1690), scion of a local regent and leading voc family and Chief of the Madurai Coast between 1685 and 1690, married one Susanna Alvarez at Tuticorin in 1675 as a low-ranking teenage assistant, but more advanced in age and career married European women—Maria van Rhee, the daughter of a former chief of Madurai and future governor of Ceylon ca. 1680/2, and Wilhelmina de Witt, the widow of the former chief of Masulipatnam, in 1690.234 Even though racial-ethnic boundaries were more porous in everyday reality than colonial rhetoric would have us believe, ‘racial-biblical’ attitudes did exist in colonial circles among both high- and low-ranking officials of the voc. It is not difficult to assemble a long list of invectives and prejudices against mestizos and other non-whites or non-European born. In 1650, for instance, Gerard Demmer, a member of the Council of the Indies based in Batavia, went so far as to state that the children of mixed marriages inherited the nature and primitive characteristics of the mother and tended to be endowed with a ‘more evil nature and live a filthier and more debauched life than the indigenous peoples themselves’. In similar fashion, voc soldiery habitually resorted to abusive language, marked by pejorative descriptions of the other’s ancestry and faith. Interestingly, European military always liked to pair it with words referring to skin colour: ‘son of a nigger bitch’ was one favourite epitath.235 The colonial inclination to guard European exclusiveness and to compartmentalise the various other population groups should be seen against the backdrop of European perceptions of the non-European. This perception was

234 Apart from the numerous references in the voc archives: F.H. de Vos, ‘Supplementary Paper on the Monumental Remains of the Dutch East India Company in Ceylon’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 17, 52 (1901), pp. 13–14; Idem, ‘The Monumental Remains of the Dutch East India Company in Ceylon’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 15, 49 (1898), p. 222; Idem, ‘Second Supplementary Paper on the Monumental Remains of the Dutch East India Company in Ceylon’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 18, 54 (1903), p. 53; W. Wijnaendts van Resandt, De Gezaghebbers der Oost-Indische Compagnie op Hare Buiten-Comptoiren in Azië (Amsterdam: Liebaert, 1944), pp. 201–202; R.G. Anthonisz, ‘Some Early Marriages in Colombo, A.D. 1671–1699’, Journal of the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon 2, 4 (1909), p. 173; 3 (1910), p. 29; J.P. Lewis, List of Inscriptions of Tombstones and Monuments in Ceylon of Historical or Local Interest (Colombo: H.C. Cottle, 1913), p. 105. 235 voc 1175, obp 1651, ff. 200r–200v, Advies van Gerard Demmer, 20.1.1651; S. Kalff, ‘Gerard Demmer (slot)’, De Indische Gids 28, 2 (1906), p. 1124; Bosma and Raben, Being ‘Dutch’ in the Indies, pp. 22, and 53–55.

Images And Ideologies 117 dominated by a deeply entrenched ‘racial-biblical’ thinking, which traced its roots back to pre-colonial Europe. Even before the 18th century, racist (or bio- logical) explanations about the human species had been propagated—sometimes influenced by biblical stories of the offspring of Noah’s son Ham who had gone astray—but undoubtedly largely shaped by colonial experience.236 If we are to believe David Goldenberg, the biblical name Ham bears no relationship at all to the notion of blackness, and is of now of unknown etymology. Instead, the growing insistence on the chimerical curse of Ham (Genesis 9:25– 27) coincided with increasing numbers of black Africans taken as slaves, first in the Islamic east in the seventh century and then in the Christian West in the fifteenth century.237 More recently, David Whitford has similarly argued that broader medieval interpretations of the story became marginalised in the early modern period as writers such as Annius of Viterbo (c. 1432–1502) and George Best (d. 1584) began to weave the legend of Ham into their own books, expanding and adding to the legend in ways that established a firm connection between Ham, Africa, slavery, and race. For although in the original biblical text Ham himself is not cursed and race is never mentioned, these writers helped develop the story of Ham into an ideological and theological defence for African slavery, at the precise time that the trans-Atlantic slave trade began to establish itself as a major part of the European economy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.238 Religious and moral correctness as measured by Dutch Calvinism and bourgeois lifestyle, however, remained more important than the somatic norm image of whiteness. The association of Dutch ethnocentrism with physical and racial features, though not entirely absent, was uncharacteristic of its time. It was not until the nineteenth century that racial attitudes were justified by ‘scientific’ somatic, rather than religious-humanist arguments. Despite these common themes of a ‘Christo-centric’ (most notably Dutch Reformed) worldview, climatic determinism and proto-Orientalism, a self- perception as champions of freedom combined with a paranoid siege mentality, and a ‘racial-biblical’ white somatic norm image, the voc was anything but

236 W.D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), pp. 35–60; Bosma and Raben, Being ‘Dutch’ in the Indies, p. 24. 237 D.M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 9–10. For a similar opinion: Paasman, ‘Mens of Dier?’. 238 D.M. Whitford, The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and Justifications for Slavery, St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2009).

118 chapter 1 a value monolith. Rather, it was an institution rife with factionalism, personal animosities, and people with different principles and private agendas. The voc was a kaleidoscope of competing jurisdictions and subempires characterised by bureaucratic infighting and tussles over status, rank, and precedence.239 Thus, one can distinguish at least five different subgroups each with a corresponding worldview: the imperialist or ‘Ceylon-centric’ vision, the mercantile or ‘Batavia-centric’ view, the Calvinist predikant or theocratic vision, the view of the ‘common soldier’, and the external vision of the ‘outsider’.

The Imperialist or ‘Ceylon-Centric’ Vision

Typical of an early modern institution of the ‘age of mercantilism’, the voc from its inception was a Janus-faced hybrid institution straddling the divide between merchant and sovereign as embedded in its founding charter, which allowed

239 Apart from the bitter conflict between the imperialist or ‘Ceylon-centric’ and the mercantile or ‘Batavia-centric’ party-factions, illustrative of internal divisions among voc authorities are the bitter turf wars between the voc governments of Ceylon and Coro mandel from 1674 until 1683 when the right to trade with the southernmost part of the peninsula was assigned to the authority of Colombo even after the restitution of Nagapatnam to Pulicat in 1680. Similar jurisdictional tussles were fought between Ceylon and the commandement of Malabar over Tengapatnam and Kottar (Kottaram). An example of a conflict over rank and status is that between Commander Rutger de Heijde of the Madurai Coast and Sergeant Major Marten Scholten over precedence (preçeance), including an ‘ill-advised letter’ by De Heijde to Batavia, during the preparations for the expedition against the Tevar of Ramnad in early 1685. Though De Heijde threatened to resign and Batavia was willing to call his bluff by have him come over without pay, the conflict was resolved via the intervention of Governor Pijl of Ceylon, who had De Heijde transferred, appointing him head administrator at Colombo and replacing him by Joan van Vliet, second-in-command at Tuticorin, as Commander of the Madurai Coast. See: voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 24r–24v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1685; voc 912, bub 1685, f. 723, Miss GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.9.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 907r–907v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.11.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 144v, and 158r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 8.1.1686; voc 1429, obp 1687, f. 1203v, Notitie van de aangekomen en vertrokken schepen &a. op en van Ceijlon zedert 27 sept. 1685 tot 15 febr. 1686; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 11v–12r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.2.1686; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 291r, Resolutie gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 20.2.1686. Similar factional disputes also plagued the English East India Company, including the conflict between the anti-warparty under Thomas Papillon (1623–1702) and the warparty led by Josiah Child (1630–1699) in the 1670s and 1680s. See: Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, pp. 111–118.

Images And Ideologies 119 for the construction of forts, the appointment of governors, the quartering of soldiers, and the conclusion of treaties with indigenous rulers.240 The question whether to use mercantile or military means was the basis of the famous debate between the more commercially-oriented Laurens Reael, Governor General from 1615 to 1619, and his successor, the empire builder ‘Iron Jan’ Pieterszoon Coen (1619–1623 and 1627–1629), and continued to be a divisive issue throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century and beyond.241 Circular migration between the East Indies and the Dutch Republic cemented the ties between the governing class in the Northern Netherlands and that overseas and linked this issue with the intractable ‘culture wars’ between two rival blocs or party-factions, permeating the Dutch Reformed Church, politics, academia, and society at large. These party-factions represented, on the one hand, ideological and theological currents with conflicting attitudes to religion, politics, education, culture, and life-style, and, on the other, were built out of patronage networks and family influence, giving them (in part) the characteristics of clientage systems, competing for influence and office. Whereas moderate Dutch Reformed ‘Cartesio-Cocceians’ often had ties with the ‘States’ party-faction, espousing the cause of a loose republican confederacy dominated by the urban merchant-regent elite from the province of Holland, their orthodox ‘Aristotelian-Voetian’ counterparts were mostly ‘Orangists’, supporters of the increasingly royalist-federalist ambitions of the Dutch prince-stadholders from the House of Orange. This linkage of factional and clientage characteristics, most notably in times of crisis, with political ideology and theology was to prove one of the enduring, fundamental features not only of the Dutch Golden Age but the entire history of the Republic, though the ‘theological Eighty Years’ War’ lost some of its acrimony after the 1720s.242

240 M.P.M. Vink, ‘Between Profit and Power: The Dutch East India Company and Institutional Early Modernities in the Age of Mercantilism’, in: Parker and Bentley (eds), Between the Middle Ages and Modernity, pp. 285–306. 241 For a summary of the argument: Colenbrander (ed.), Jan Pieterszoon Coen, VI, pp. 333ff, and 451–474; M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago Between 1500 and About 1630 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962), pp. 196– 202, and 208–222; S. Arasaratnam, ‘Monopoly and Free Trade in Dutch-Asian Commercial Policy: Debate and Controversy Within the voc’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 4, 1 (1973), pp. 1–16. 242 D.J. Roorda, ‘Party and Faction’, Acta Historiae Neerlandica 2 (1967), pp. 188–222; Idem, Partij en Factie: De Oproeren van 1672 in de Steden van Holland en Zeeland, Een Krachtmeting Tussen Partijen en Facties (Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1979); S. Groenveld, Evidente Factiën in de Staet: Sociaal-Politieke Verhoudingen in de 17de Eeuwse Republiek der Verenigde Ned erlanden (Hilversum: Verloren, 1990); F.S. Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid Bij de voc 1672–1702

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The debate on the proper relationship between profit and power resurfaced in the 1670s following the territorial expansion under the ‘soldier-merchant’ and imperialist avant la lettre, Rijckloff van Goens Senior (1619–1682), gover nor of Ceylon between 1661 and 1675, and his son, Rijckloff van Goens Junior (1642–1687), governor of Ceylon from 1675 to 1679. Through their military successes the ‘Gentlemen Van Goens’, backed by Gillis Valckenier (1623–1680) and other influential Amsterdam voc Directors in the Dutch Republic,243 gained themselves a powerful position. Their goal was to give Ceylon a status equal to that of Batavia: Ceylon would have to become a self-sufficient settlement colony and the rendezvous for the Company factories in India and those in West Asia. By maintaining direct shipping connections with the Dutch Republic, the Van Goenses could correspond independently with the Company Directors, effectively bypassing the High Government at Batavia. As was customary in pre-modern societies, the Gentlemen Van Goens actively used their powers of patronage to place their clients and cronies in strategic positions. Apart from letters of recommendation, marriage, wealth, and a Dutch education, it is interesting to note that the office of secretary seemed to have functioned as an ideal launch pad to further one’s career. Both Cornelis Valckenburgh (d. 1688?), chief of Tuticorin from 1659 to 1663, and Marten Huijsman (ca. 1635–1685), chief of Tuticorin from 1674 to 1678, for instance, started out as private secretaries and personal confidants of Van Goens Senior and through his patronage quickly rose through the ranks in the Company hierarchy. One step down the ladder, the chiefs of Tuticorin themselves acted as patrons in their own right regarding their immediate underlings. Adolff

(Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1989), pp. 33–47; J. Adams, The Familial State: Ruling Families and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005); J. Gelman Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: Europeans and Eurasians in Colonial Indonesia, second edn. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009); J.I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 3–4, 390–395, 660–669, and 1030–1032. 243 Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid, pp. 33–40, 123–125, and 255–262; Roorda, Partij en Factie, pp. 180–189; J.E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795, 2 vols. (Haarlem: Loosjes, 1903–1905), I, pp. cxiii et seq. Gaastra strongly suggests that Valckenier was the patron of Van Goens. He was the leader of a group of Amsterdam Directors, who decided in 1674 to promote Van Goens to director general and forced through the discharge of his opponents in 1677. Another group of Amsterdam Directors, however, led by Joan Huydekoper (1625–1704), supported Van Goens’ opponent Van Rheede. Van Rheede, who resigned from the Council of the Indies in protest in 1677, returned to patria, where he would fuel the negative sentiments against Van Goens to make a triumphant comeback as commissioner general in 1684 and champion of the mercantile party-faction.

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Bassingh (c. 1645–1683), for instance, served as secretary under Huijsman both at Tuticorin and, following his patron’s transfer to Malabar in 1678, at Cochin until his untimely death due to a horse accident.244 Opponents of the Van Goenses, on the other hand, or independent-minded individuals, such as Robert Padtbrugge (1637–1703), chief of Tuticorin between 1673 and 1674, or Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede (1637–1691), commander of Malabar between 1670 and 1677, were obstructed by any means available, and, if possible, rapidly transferred or forced to resign. An anonymous report by ‘an honest servant of the Company’ to the Gentlemen Seventeen clearly exposes the detrimental impact of this all-pervasive system of patronage and patrimonial bureaucracy (in which the mercantile faction indulged as freely as the imperialists!):

It has been very harmful to the Company, that the control and direction of this entire government [of Ceylon] has been for many years in the hands of the house of the Gentlemen Van Goens, father and son, or those who depend on them; whereby all those who have not been willing to say “yes” and “amen” to their policies have been got rid of, or kept out of office, and all who said “yes” have been promoted and advanced, so that the proverb applies here in Ceylon more than elsewhere: “An ounce of favour is better than ten pounds of merit”.245

In the voc establishments outside Batavia, where the number of European newcomers was comparatively small, a layered society emerged within one generation dominated by a limited number of local family dynasties. At times, relations were deemed too close for comfort even to contemporary standards. Joan van Vliet (1656–1690), for instance, chief of the Madurai Coast between 1685 and 1690 and the son of a former governor of Malacca and town councillor of Schiedam, married Maria van Rhee, daughter of Thomas van Rhee, chief of the Madurai Coast between 1679 and 1682 and the future governor of Ceylon. When in 1686 Van Vliet visited Colombo on Company business, it was

244 Another famous example of a voc official furthering his career through the office of secretary is that of Hendrik Zwaardecroon (1667–1728). Starting out as the confidant of Commissioner General Van Rheede, Zwaardecroon eventually became Governor General in 1718. 245 voc 4897, Particuliere consideratiën van een getrouw dienaer van d’Ed Comp. raeckende de directie ofte gouvernement van’t Eylandt Ceylon aen d’Ed. Heeren Bewindhebberen in patria overgesonden. Cited also in: Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 92, and 99, n. 47.

122 chapter 1 unanimously decided by Governor Laurens Pijl (1679–1692) and the Council of Ceylon that he would only have an advising, rather than a concluding, voice in council in the presence of his father-in-law Van Rhee, then commander of Galle. This decision did not end the practice of strategic marriage alliances. In fact, Van Vliet would later (1690) marry Wilhelmina de Witt, the widow of Willem van Dielen, whose sister Johanna was married to Governor Pijl, who also happened to be a former chief of Madurai.246 The Van Goenses’ grandiose ‘Ceylon-centric’ vision included the establishment of political and commercial hegemony of the Company on the island of Ceylon and southern India from Cranganore (Kodungallur) on the Malabar Coast to Nagapatnam on the coast of Coromandel. In accordance with the mercantilist ‘Coen doctrine’, this Pax Neerlandica was to be based on force being equated with profit (hoe groter aantal militairen, hoe groter profijt) and involved not only the control of land through numerous forts and garrisons, but also the domination of the sea and monopolisation of the most lucrative commodities to be enforced by Company ships.247 To the Van Goenses and their underlings, such as Marten Huijsman, the end (still proclaimed to be commercial profit) justified the means, and the indigenous population was judged accordingly. Roman Catholics on the island of Ceylon and in southern India, for instance, were considered with somewhat mixed feelings. On the one hand, they were potential Fifth Columnists in league with the Portuguese viceregal administration at Goa. At the same time, however, the Parava and Roman Christian populations of Jaffnapatnam were considered by ‘rights of conquest’ as client communities whose special interests had to be protected via preferential treatment vis-à-vis their Tamil and

246 voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 290v–291r, Resolutie gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 20.2.1686; Wijnaendts van Resandt, De Gezaghebbers der Oost-Indische Compagnie, pp. 201–202; Anthonisz, ‘Some Early Marriages in Colombo’, p. 29. 247 The best way of grasping the extent of Van Goenses’ imperialist vision is by reading their letters to the Gentlemen Seventeen, especially between 1670 and 1675, their ‘memories van overgave’ to their successors as governors of Ceylon of 1663, 1675, and 1679, and such policy papers as: Beschrijvinge van de staat en gelegenheid van het eijlant Ceijlon door Van Goens, 24.9.1675, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, pp. 204–245; voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 306–312, Overgeleverd advies dir.-genl. Van Goens m.b.t. de toestand van Ceijlon, 7.11.1676; voc 1351, obp 1680, ff. 2539v–2550r, Vertoog van den toestand des gouvts. Ceijlon door oud-gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 25.2.1680; Leupe, ‘Vertooch Wegens den Presenten Staet van de Generale Nederlantse Geoctroijeerde Oost-Indische Compe. bij Rijckloff van Goens’, pp. 141–180.

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Sinhalese neighbours.248 This approach also conveniently allowed for shoring up imperialist claims to jurisdiction (mare clausum) over the Madurai Coast and the neighbouring waters of South India and Ceylon. There was no such ambiguity with regard to the local Muslim populations. Suffering from an extreme version of the ‘mentality of the interloper’ and eagerly drawing from the pool of pre-existing Portuguese Crusading and Reconquista imagery, Van Goens and his associates viewed all ‘Moors’ as commercial rivals (‘a cancer eating into the Hon. Comp.’s profits’) and an ‘evil race’ perverting the morals of both the Company servants and the native population. In keeping with his ‘Ceylon-centric’ views, Van Goens Senior justified his plans to expel the Muslims from Ceylon and ‘curtail’ their presence in southern India arguing that they impoverished Ceylon by exporting money and flooding the local market with useless trinkets, devouring everything like ‘a cloud of locusts’.249 In addition to being viewed as moral perverts and pestilent commercial rivals, the ‘Moors’ were also considered a political threat to the safety of Dutch Ceylon. Thus, the Muslim diasporic networks along the Indian coasts were seen as foreign bodies amidst indigenous host societies, merely paving the way for the Muslim tidal wave sweeping the subcontinent. Time and again, the imperialists would insist on the need to create a cordon sanitaire or buffer zone around Ceylon, or military intervention to halt the advance of their alleged ‘monolithic’ and single-minded archenemy. As Van Goens Senior put it in September 1675, the ‘Moors’ were continuously increasing their power and influence due to trade and shipping, ‘something the Zamorin [Samudri of Calicut], the Kolathiri [of Cannanore or Kannur], the Tevar, the Nayaka of Madurai and other rulers might realise too late, finding out what viper they had been nourishing on their chests’.250

248 For the Company policy vis-à-vis the Paravas and Roman Catholic population of Jaffnapatnam in this period, cf. Vink, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’; Idem, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of the Fishery Coast’; Idem, ‘Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia:’; Van Goor, Jan Kompenie as Schoolmaster; R. Boudens, ‘Attempts of Catholic Missionaries to Enter Ceylon in 1681–1683’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (n.s.) 4, 1/2 (1955), pp. 35–44; Idem, The Catholic Church in Ceylon Under Dutch Rule; Arasaratanam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 215–236, and esp. note 78. 249 voc 1252, obp 1666, f. 841, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1665. This argument was the driving force behind the attempt to control the trade between southern India and Ceylon (1670–1697). 250 See: Extract beschrijvinge van den staat en gelegenh. van Ceylon door Van Goens, 24.9.1675. In: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, pp. 214–215. The Van Goenses were

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In their depiction of the Hindus or ‘Gentiles’, the imperialists came closest to the stereotypes of the Oriental personality and Oriental despotism by portraying the common people as passive and hapless victims of an oppressive government. The Madurai populace was subsequently presented as being eager to seek Company protection. However, in the absence of a fortified settlement on the coast of Madurai, their only recourse left was flight or impoverishment, leading to depopulation and decreasing profits. The maniyakkarars or local tax farmers of Madurai in particular were the prime targets of imperialist rhetoric, which presented these local underlings as somewhat less than human. Although to a lesser extent than the ‘evil Moors’, even here dehumanisation proved to be an effective tool of imperialist propaganda.251

The Mercantile or ‘Batavia-Centric’ View

In the 1670s an increasingly powerful opposition to the imperialist party-faction emerged within the High Government at Batavia, among the Company Directors in the Dutch Republic, and, especially following the dismissal of the Van Goenses from the area, even on Ceylon itself. The most outstanding proponents of this mercantile or ‘Batavia-centric’ group were the Councillors of the Indies Cornelis Speelman (1628–1684) and Pieter van Hoorn (d. 1682) at Batavia and Governors Laurens Pijl (ca. 1634–1705) and Thomas van Rhee (1634–1701) in Ceylon; and a group of disaffected Directors, with the Company Advocate Pieter van Dam (1621–1706) and the Amsterdam Burgomasters and Company Directors Coenraad van Beuningen (1622–1693) and Joan Huydecoper (1625– 1704) as their chief spokesmen in the Dutch Republic. As the administration of the local voc Chambers was inextricably bound up with municipal government, this cabale shared certain ideological and personal affinities with the ‘States’ party-faction in the United Provinces, including the anti-Valckenier grouping of Lambertus Reynst (1638–1679), Cornelis van Vlooswijck (1602– 1687), Dirck Tulp (1624–1682), and Pieter de Graeff (1638–1707) in Amsterdam.252

constantly eyeing the island-shrine of Rameswaram, especially during and in the aftermath of Bijapuri incursions into Madurai (1659–1663) and in the wake of Ekoji’s conquest of Tanjore (1674–1675). 251 The request for permission to build a fortification at Tuticurin is a constant in the imperialist correspondence with the High Government at Batavia and the Directors at home and one of the key demands in the successive embassies to the Nayaka court of Madurai. 252 Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid, pp. 33–40, 123–125, and 255–262; Roorda, Partij en Factie, pp. 180–189; Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam, I, pp. cxiii et seq.; Adams, The Familial State.

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The mercantile faction in Ceylon was closely related in the most literal sense of the word. Thomas van Rhee, for instance, acted as chief of Tuticorin (1679–1682) and subsequently commander of Galle and governor of Ceylon (1692–1697). While serving as second-in-command at Tuticorin under Van Rhee, Joan van Vliet (1656–1690), chief of Tuticorin between 1685 and 1690, married, as we have seen, his daughter, Maria van Rhee. Following her death (and only a few months before his own), Van Vliet married in 1690 Wilhelmina de Witt, the widow of Willem van Dielen, brother-in-law of Governor Laurens Pijl (1679–1692).253 Although divided among themselves between moderate and more radical reformers (the most extreme reformer by far, the Amsterdam regent and bur- gomaster Coenraad van Beuningen, was eventually placed under legal restraint in 1688 for reasons of insanity),254 these men were all alarmed by the enormous costs associated with the imperialist policies which they considered inappropriate for an association of merchants (‘a project of a great and ambitious king rather than traders’). They believed the Company should not overstretch itself and that the prime directive of Company operations had been and should remain commerce not conquest. Moreover, if there were to be any colonisation, Batavia alone should be the place as it should also remain the central rendezvous in Asia following the common sense proverb pluribus

253 On Laurens Pijl: F.H. de Vos, ‘Laurens Pyl and Laurens Pit’, The Ceylon Antiquary and Literary Register, Third Series, 4 (1935–1936), pp. 278–279; Wijnaendts van Resandt, De Gezaghebbers der Oost-Indische Compagnie, pp. 62–63; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 773, n. 2; De Vos, ‘Monumental Remains’, p. 257; Idem, ‘Supplementary Paper’, p. 26; Lewis, List of Inscriptions of Tombstones and Monuments, pp. 216–217. On Thomas van Rhee: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 638, n. 1; F.H. de Vos, ‘Notes and Queries’, Journal of the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon 2, 2 (1909), pp. 88–89; Idem, ‘Monumental Remains’, pp. 223, 224, 247, and 258; Idem, ‘Supplementary Paper’, pp. 13, 14, 22, 49, 50, and 69; Idem, ‘Portraits of Dutch Governors of Ceylon’, Journal of the Dutch Burgher Union of Ceylon 5, 1 (1912), p. 15; D.G. van Epen (ed.), ‘Ceylon Tijdens het Nederlandsch Bestuur Onder de Oost-Indische Compagnie, van 1656 tot en met 1796: Historische- Genealogische-Heraldieke Aanteekeningen’, De Wapenheraut 1 (1897), pp. 33–35; Lewis, List of Inscriptions, pp. 105–106, and 216–217. On Joan van Vliet: De Vos, ‘Supplementary Paper’, pp. 13–14; Idem, ‘Monumental Remains’, p. 222; Idem, ‘Second Supplementary Paper’, p. 53; Wijnaendts van Resandt, Gezaghebbers der Oost-Indische Compagnie, pp. 201–202; Anthonisz, ‘Some Early Marriages in Colombo’, 2, 4 (1909), p. 173; 3 (1910), p. 29; Lewis, List of Inscriptions, p. 105. 254 M.A.M. Franken, Coenraad van Beuningen’s Politieke en Diplomatieke Aktiviteiten in de Jaren 1667–1684 (Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1966), p. 242; C.W. Roldanus, Coenraad van Beuningen, Staatsman en Libertijn (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1931), p. 53; Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid, pp. 200–202.

126 chapter 1 intentus minor ad singula sensus (‘a person engaged in various pursuits minds none of them well’). Indeed, Van Goens’ vision was considered too narrowly ‘Ceylon-centric’ overlooking the fact that the Company was an all-Asian enterprise where the profits and losses of the individual factories went into a common treasury, the so-called Staat van Indië. Instead of expensive forts, fleets, and forced trade, which offended Asian rulers and merchants and produced big budget deficits, the Company should focus on mesnagie en mercantiele middelen, that is, practice economy and use mercantile means to fight the competition.255 Despite some recognition of the correctness of Van Goens’ diagnosis and the desirability of monopoly, the anti-imperialist faction considered his solution for the Company’s problems too expensive, too unrealistic, and too extreme (in that order), while Van Goens’ proposals were denounced as ‘windy concepts’. Their policy regarding the local populations of South India and Ceylon was, therefore, guided by a greater sense of pragmatism and attention to commercial concerns. For instance, Batavia was less concerned than Van Goens cum sociis with the political manifestation of the ‘Moors’ (except for the political merchant or ‘portfolio capitalist’) and the potential threat to Dutch Ceylon. At the same time, the ‘Moors’ were also seen as detrimental to the Company’s trading interests, but noting that there were thousands of them settled along the Madurai Coast and even larger numbers in the lands of the Zamorin of Calicut, these calculating merchants, albeit grudgingly, drew up the balance sheet of empire and realised it would be impossible to implement Van Goens’ draconian plans of eviction and ‘curtailment’ without offending the local rulers and blowing the Company budget. The somewhat less radical scheme to strictly supervise and channel the Indo-Ceylon trade was readily approved, but subsequently partially abandoned when it also proved to be impractical and unprofitable.256

255 Although the Company correspondence of the 1670s is full of this ‘soul-searching’ debate, the best entries on the mercantile vision are the so-called generale missiven or letters from Batavia to the Directors between 1670 and 1675, along with such policy papers as: voc 1307, obp 1676, ff. 193–197, Praeparatoire consideratiën Pieter van Hoorn op de presente toestand van het eijland Ceijlon, 6.3.1675; voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 332–334, Nadere consid- eratiën Pieter van Hoorn op het eijlant Ceijlon, 28.11.1676; Consideratiën van H.A. van Rheede over Ceijlon, 23.11.1677, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, pp. 247–285. Van Dam’s ‘Concept en consideratiën’ of 1662 has been called ‘the first comprehensive and critical review of the overall trading position of the Company’. See: Arasaratnam, ‘Monopoly and Free Trade’, p. 7. 256 voc 889, bub 1665, f. 461, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1665. For a discussion of the liberalisation of the Indo-Ceylon trade by the Company:

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For reasons of state, ‘Batavia’ also initially supported the attempts to convert the Roman Catholic populations of Ceylon and Madurai. However, when these efforts proved to be fruitless, the Paravas (1664) and Ceylon Catholics (1687) were allowed to be served by Jesuit priests from the Madurai Mission and Goan Oratory, respectively, operating from areas outside Company jurisdiction. At the instigation of Chief Thomas van Rhee of Tuticorin, the Jesuits were even allowed inside Tuticorin after 1679 (except for the so-called ‘first persecution’ of 1690–1691). Unlike Van Goens and his associates, the mercantile faction did not consider the Paravas as a client community deserving preferential treatment. Following a series of violent communal conflicts between the Paravas and Muslims in early 1684, the Company clearly followed a ‘hands off’ policy, informing the Madurai authorities ‘that we would not have anything to do with the Paravas and that they could do with them whatever they wanted’.257 The mercantile position regarding the local Hindus was guided by the same politico-economical expediency as that regarding the other religious groups. Broadly speaking, the policy was one of non-interference and containment of their public practices in rural areas. The zeal of the Dutch Reformed ministers was praised, but, as Batavia reminded the ‘venerable predikanten’, ‘we wished the Reverends would understand that those who have the supreme authority in the name of the Company in India are not only held to care for church or ecclesiastical affairs and the exercise and spread of the Christian religion as the Reverends are, but are also forced to temporise with such things according to the demands of times and circumstances for the administration and welfare of the commonwealth’.258 In this respect, the mercantile (and imperialist) factions were politique or Erastian, inspired not so much by the deeply-rooted, dogmatic convictions of a Luther or Calvin, but rather the critical, moralising, tolerant body of ideas of Erasmus. Both factions agreed that the overseas church was subordinate to the political authorities. Though sincere members of the Dutch Reformed Church,

S. Arasaratnam, ‘Dutch Commercial Policy in Ceylon and Its Effects on the Indo-Ceylon Trade (1690–1750), Indian Economic and Social History Review 4, 2 (1967), pp. 109–116; Idem, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 159–177; Idem, ‘Aspects of the Role and Activities of South Indian Merchants c. 1650–1750’, Proceedings of the First International Conference of Tamil Studies (Madras: International Association of Tamil Research, 1968), I, pp. 582–596; Idem, ‘Mare Clausum, the Dutch and Regional Trade in the Indian Ocean, 1650–1740’, Journal of Indian History 61 (1983), pp. 117–128. 257 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 308r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.4.1684. 258 voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 883r–883v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en geeligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee van Ceijlon, 4.10.1690.

128 chapter 1 their pragmatic, secular approach stressed the preservation of peace and order and the furtherance of trade and commerce.259 Van Goens’ mounting problems with Raja Sinha II, the ‘Lion King’ of Kandy (r. 1629–1687), strengthened the hand of the mercantile party-faction at Batavia, increasingly involved in the affairs of the sultanate of Mataram in the interior of Java, in its opposition to the aggressive policy of the Ceylon government. With Ceylon budget deficits skyrocketing (peaking at 802,368 guilders in the financial year 1674–1675), Batavia’s determination to enforce a less ambitious mercantile policy, along with appeasement of Raja Sinha on Ceylon, grew proportionately, gaining an increasingly receptive audience among the Company Directors. As the Gentlemen Seventeen or ‘paymasters’ put it in August 1678, Ceylon and Malabar were ‘two very costly step-children of the Company, which are in a position…to crush us under the weight of their expenses’. Following the publication and discussion of various policy papers, the Java-centric faction at Batavia, with the support of the Company Directors, gained the upper hand over the imperialist faction based on Ceylon.260 In 1677 a comprehensive program was imposed on Ceylon centred around mesnagie en mercantiele middelen (‘frugality and mercantile means’), prescribing sharp reductions in expenditures on fortification, the number of personnel, and naval power, while urging neutrality and disengagement from indigenous politics.261 The recall of the Assistant- cum-Ambassador Bassingh from Trichinopoly in November 1677 served as an

259 See, f.e., A.Th. van Deursen, ‘De Wereld van de Gouden Eeuw’, in: Beliën, Van Deursen, and Van Setten (eds), Gestalten van de Gouden Eeuw, pp. 20–22; J.L. Price, ‘De Regent’, in: Idem, pp. 49–59. 260 The critical study on this topic is: Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid; see the general regulations of October 1676 and the subsequent orders by the Company Directors: voc 1342, obp 1680, ff. 1302–1523, Gen. reglement H. XVII van 16 October 1676, mitsgs. de successieve orders; voc 1353, obp 1681, ff. 546–716, Vervolg op het gen. reglement verleden jaar begonnen. As Batavia wrote to Van Goens the Younger in September 1679: ‘We are not pleased with so many specific calculations or proposals of profits and advantages which can be found in the Ceylon letters. From now on, Your Honour should refrain somewhat from this, showing effectively that the results and outcome accord with the proposals made’. voc 893, bub 1679, f. 1018, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.9.1679. For the response of the Ceylon Governor: voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 128v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679. 261 voc 691, f. 101, Resolutie GG en R, 14.9.1676; Idem, ff. 166–171, Resolutie GG en R, 30.1.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 178v–180r, and 185r–186v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon; voc 692, ff. 101–102, Resol. GG en R, 13.7.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 197r–197v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 17.7.1677; voc 692, ff. 137–141, Resolutie GG en R, 26.8.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 199v–202r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677.

Images And Ideologies 129 important marker of the shifting balance of power away from the imperialist or ‘Ceylon-centric’ party-faction to the mercantile or ‘Batavia-centric’ party- faction in the late 1670s and the ‘castle revolution’ at Batavia. The replacement of Van Goens Junior in late 1679 as governor of Ceylon by Laurens Pijl ended a 21-year-period in which the Gentlemen Van Goens and their cronies had determined Company policy in Ceylon, reflecting a similar transition in the Dutch Republic with the gradual disappearance of the war generation.

The Calvinist Predikant or Theocratic Vision

Both the imperialist and mercantile visions were at odds with the theocratic view of Calvinist predikanten or Dutch Reformed ministers, either Dutch ‘pulpit theologians’ at home (most notably Justus Heurnius, Antonius Walaeus, Gisbertus Voetius, and Johannes Hoornbeek) or voc predikanten overseas (including Abraham Rogerius, Henricus Bongaerts, and Philippus Baldaeus).262 Although internally divided between orthodox and more latitudinarian members (Counter-Remonstrants and Remonstrants or ‘Voetians’ and ‘Cocceians’ in the next incarnation), most ‘Reverend brethren’ were staunch believers in the superiority of the ‘True Christian Reformed Religion’. Hence, they pleaded for the subordination of the state to the church or at least for a more independent position of the overseas church, and a considerable missionary effort comparable with those of Lisbon (the Portuguese padroado real) and Rome (the Propaganda Fide) in the conversion of the ‘infidel’ Muslims, the ‘blind’ Hindus, and the ‘papist’ Catholics in the East. All these religions were condemned on doctrinal and practical grounds from a theological-moral highground.263

262 Having written ‘De Legatione Evangelica’ in 1618, Heurnius actually served as a predikant at Batavia from 1624 to 1634. 263 The best contemporary sources for the vision of the predikanten are the tracts of Dutch theologians in the Republic, such as Heurnius, Walaeus, Voetius, and Hoornbeek, and the published accounts of Rogerius and Baldaeus. Recent works on the predikant position towards Islam and Hinduism, respectively, are: K.A. Steenbrink, Dutch Colonialism and Indonesian Islam: Contacts and Conflicts, 1596–1950, second edn. (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopl, 2006), esp. pp. 11–75; J. van Goor, Kooplieden, Predikanten en Bestuurders Overzee: Beeldvorming en Plaatsbepaling in een Andere Wereld (Utrecht: hes, 1982), esp. pp. 109–134; Idem, ‘Een Groninger Predikant op de Kust van Coromandel’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 87, 2 (1972), pp. 205–215; Niemeijer, Calvinisme en Koloniale Stadscultuur, pp. 123–143; G.M.J.M. Koolen, Een Seer Bequaem Middel: Onderwijs en Kerk Onder de 17e Eeuwse voc (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1993), passim.

130 chapter 1

Considering Muslims as fanatical and unwilling to convert, the intellectuals of the ‘Futher Reformation’, Dutch theologians such as Justus Heurnius (1587– 1652), Antonius Walaeus (1573–1639), and Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676) demonstrated little appreciation, let alone knowledge, of Islam and merely assessed it in terms of unbelief, superstition, or heresy. In De Legatione Evangelica Ad Indos Capessenda Admonitio (‘An Admonition for the Zealous Pursuit of the Evangelical Mission to the Indies’) of 1618, the ‘first work in the Reformational tradition providing a detailed missionary theology’, the Leiden Professor Heurnius reminded the States General, the Prince of Orange, and the Company Directors of their obligation to convert the infidels in the territories under their jurisdiction. According to Heurnius, the newly-discovered lands had not been opened to the Company by God for reasons of material gain, but rather for the conversion of the heathens. Heurnius emphasised three factors of overriding importance for the success of the missionary work: a Christian way of life (praxis pietatis) of the sailors and soldiers in Company service, the establishment of proper schools for the indigenous population, and the propagation of the Holy Scriptures in the local vernacular languages. In fact, Heurnius was the first to suggest several elements for a more systematic missionary method. However, he did not envision a religious authority in charge, but rather appealed to the individual believer and the civic authorities. Moreover, typical of the predikanten’s belief in the superiority of the True Faith, Heurnius emphasised the missionary’s trust in God’s assistance over scholarship or linguistic skills. Thus, he showed much idealism, good will, and zeal, but gave no evidence of the slightest understanding of Islam.264 Founder and sole rector of the short-lived ‘Seminarium Indicum’ (1622–1632) in Leiden, the training ground for clergymen to be sent to the East (such as Rogerius and, indirectly, Baldaeus), Walaeus was the first theologian pleading for a Dutch translation of the Qur’an, which would inexorably expose the inferiority of Islam to the True Christian Faith. Disputing the validity of the Muslim concept of tawhid or ‘Oneness of God’, ‘the Father of the Reformed Mission’ argued that the Qur’an distorted Scriptures by not recognizing the divine nature of Christ and the concept of the Trinity. Islam, moreover, contradicted the moral and divine laws and Christ’s explicit directives, especially in regard to polygamy, divorce, and crimes of a sexually perverse nature that remained unpunished. Like his fellow-‘pulpit theologians’, Walaeus was no expert in

264 J.R. Heurnius, De Legatione Evangelica Ad Indos Capessenda Admonitio (Leiden: Elzevier, 1618). For a succinct summary of this rare book see: J.R. Callenbach, Justus Heurnius: Eene Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis des Christendoms in Nederlandsch Oost-Indië (Nijkerk: C.C. Callenbach, 1897), pp. 52–53.

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Islamic studies and his students probably acquired more missionary zeal than doctrinal and practical understanding from his teaching.265 Fitting the Riccian tradition, the Utrecht Professor of theology, Gisbertus Voetius, many of whose students left for the Indies, emphasised the accomoda- tionist imperative to adapt oneself to the philosophy, theology, religion, rites, and customs of the ‘primitive and illiterate’ (idioti et illerati) peoples. Although he considered knowledge of Arabic and the Qur’an indispensable for labouring among the Muslims, Voetius condemned Islam in similar terms as Walaeus. In the second volume of his Selectarum Disputationum Theologicarum (‘Select Theological Disputes’) on ‘Muhammadism’ published in 1655, this ‘champion of Calvinist orthodoxy’ defined Islam as ‘a complete denial of the true God and the covenant of the Gospel, a denial of the theological doctrine of redemption and the doctrine of morality’. In his view, the Islamic creed and its ignorant ‘priests’ (ulama) were completely at odds with Christianity by denying the Trinity and the redemptive nature of Jesus’ death, depicting the afterlife in heaven (al-jannah) in rather carnal terms, replacing the Holy Sabbath with Friday (yawn al-jumʾa, the ‘day of assembly’), and adhering to ‘pseudo-Catholic’ practices such as fasting (sawm or saum, one of the Five Pillars of Faith) and the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca.266 If the ‘fanatical’ adherents of Islam were beyond redemption, the predikanten believed there was still some hope for the ‘blind heathens’ or Hindus,

265 A. Walaeus, Het Ampt der Kerckendienaren (Middelburg: Adriaen vanden Vivere, 1615); Idem, Opera Omnia (Leiden: Adriaen Wyngaerden, 1647); L.J. Joosse, Reformatie en Zending: Bucer en Walaeus, Vaders van Reformatorische Zending (Goes: Oosterbaan & Le Cointre, 1988); J.D. de Lind van Wijngaarden, Antonius Walaeus (Leiden: Rijksuniversiteit, 1891); J. Borsius, ‘Antonius Walaeus in Zijn Leven en Zijne Verdiensten’, Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkelijke Geschiedenis 19, Serie 2, 8 (1848), pp. 1–55; Koolen, Een Seer Bequaem Middel, pp. 71–72; Steenbrink, Dutch Colonialism and Indonesian Islam, pp. 46–49. 266 G. Voetius, ‘De Muhammedismo’ appeared in volume two (published in 1655) of his Selectarum Disputationum Theologicarum, 5 vols. (Utrecht: Johannes van Waesbergen, 1648–1669); A.J. Beck, Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676): Sein Theologieverständnis und Seine Gotteslehre (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007); A. Goudriaan, Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625–1750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus van Mastricht, and Anthonius Driessen (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006); J.A. van Ruler, The Crisis of Causality: Voetius and Descartes on God, Nature and Change (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1995); J. van Oort, C. Graafland, A. de Groot, and O.J. de Jong (eds), De Onbekende Voetius: Voordrachten Wetenschappelijk Symposium Utrecht 3 Maart 1989 (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1989); C. Steenblok, Gisbertus Voetius: Zijn Leven en Werken, second edn. (Gouda: Gereformeerde Pers, 1976); H.A. Andel, De Zendingsleer van Gisbertus Voetius (Kampen: Kok, 1912); A.C. Duker, Gisbertus Voetius, 4 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1897–1915); Koolen, Een Seer Bequaem Middel, pp. 65–82; Steenbrink, Dutch Colonialism and Indonesian Islam, pp. 49–54.

132 chapter 1 living in darkness, to be enlightened by the ‘True Christian Reformed religion’. Voetius’ close friend and faithful disciple Johannes Hoornbeek (1617–1666) wrote a systematic treatise on mission theology called De Conversione Indorum et Gentilium (‘On the Conversion of the Indians and Gentiles’) appearing in 1669. In this work, Hoornbeek surveyed the history of heathen and pagan peoples, urging the Reformed Christians to emulate the Jesuit conversion methods, to institute a Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, to re- establish a seminary devoted solely to the training of missionaries, and to initiate the Jesuit system of reporting on missions by letter-writing.267 Though ensnared in the traps of Satan, Hindus did recognise the principle of mono- theism in the form of the existence of a creator-God (Brahmin) and shared a sense of ‘Trinity’ in the concept of Trimurti (Brahma-Visnu-Shiva). They also believed in the immortality of souls and an afterlife with eternal bliss in heaven (vaikuntha) or damnation in hell (yamalokam), sufficient proof that they still possessed at least some sparks of divine truth or ‘light of nature’ (lumen naturae).268 In De Beschaemde Christen (‘The Embarrassed Christian’) of 1669, Franciscus Ridderus (1620–1683), the ‘Voetian’, ‘Orangist’ minister first in Schermerhorn, then Brielle, and finally Rotterdam, drawing on the available travel literature, even praised the virtues of the ‘Heathens’ as an example to

267 J. Hoornbeek, De Conversione Indorum et Gentilium: Libri Duo (Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius van Waesbergen, 1669); J.W. Hofmeyr, Johannes Hoornbeeck as Polemikus (Kampen: Kok, 1975); B. Oosterom, Johannes Hoornbeeck Als Zendingstheoloog en Oecu menicus: Bijdrage tot het Onderzoek Naar de Zendingsgedachten in de Nadere Reformatie ([s.l.]: [s.n.], 1969); J. Ypma, Johannes Hoornbeek Als Missionstheoretiker: Untersuchungen Über Die Protestantische Missionsgeschichte des 17. Jahrhunderts und Deren Verhältnis Zur Katholischen Glaubensverbreitung, Besonders in Holland (Rome: Pont. Univ. Greg., 1958); Lach and Van Der Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. III: Book One, p. 280. 268 S. Arasaratnam, ‘Protestant Christianity and South Indian Hinduism, 1630–1730: Some Confrontations in Society and Beliefs’, Indian Church Review 15, 1 (1981), pp. 7–33; W. Caland (ed.), De Open-Deure tot het Verborgen Heydendom Door Abraham Rogerius. Werken Uitgegeven door de Linschoten Vereeniging 10 (The Hague: Linschoten Vereeniging, 1915), pp. XXXIX–XLII; Ph. Baldaeus, Naauwkeurige en Waarachtige Ontdekking en Wed erlegging van de Afgoderye der Oost-Indische Heydenen, Malabaren, Benjanen, Gentiven, Bramines en Meest Alle Andere Oost-Indianen… (Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius van Waesbergen and Johannes van Someren, 1672), pp. 2–3. For an annotated, albeit abridged, version of this third part of the ‘Naauwkeurige Beschryvinge van Malabar en Choro mandel’: A.J. de Jong (ed.), Afgoderye der Oost-Indische Heydenen door Philippus Bal daeus (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1917). De Jong, unfortunately, opted to leave out the vital polemical sections arguing that they ‘are of no concern to us’ (sic). See: De Jong (ed.), Afgoderye, p. LIX.

Images And Ideologies 133

‘shame’ fellow-Christians into observing the proper praxis pietatis. The sympathies of the orthodox predikant, however, were clearly of an utilitarian nature and his endorsement qualified as he remained unshaken in his belief in the superiority of the Dutch Reformed ‘True Faith’. In his foreword to the Dagelijksche Huyscatechisatie (‘Daily Domestic Catechisation’) published in 1659, Ridderus had already reassured his faithful audience of ‘Christian householders’: ‘Many of the Christian virtues can be discerned to some extent in those who have become alienated from Christendom. You hear us speak at times of the great virtues of the Heathens, but what they have done can be merely considered a work in the darkness without [heeding] the righteous decree of doing good’.269 While the erudite Open-Deure tot het Verborgen Heydendom (‘Open Door to the Hidden Heathendom’) appearing posthumously in 1651 by the Pulicat Reverend Abraham Rogerius (d. 1649) has been called ‘one of the most complete and objective accounts of South Indian Hinduism’ by a European before the end of the nineteenth century, the populist Afgoderye der Oost-Indische Heydenen (‘Idolatry of the East Indian Heathen’) published in 1672 by the Ceylon Predikant Philippus Baldaeus (1632–1672) has been justly considered a polemical and confused patchwork of translations from a number of published sources, unpublished manuscripts, and a few personal observations.270 In spite of these obvious differences, both Rogerius and Baldaeus criticised the special position of the Brahmins and their privileged access to the sacred texts, such as the Vedas, something hard to understand for the Bible-oriented Protestantism

269 C.C. Coeland, ‘Het Verborgen Leven met God’, http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/ nederlandse/coeland-leven2.html (accessed: 17 March 2011). See also: G. Schaap, Franciscus Ridderus (1620–1683) (Gouda: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Kerkgeschiedenis, 2008); H.J. Postema, Strijder op de Middenweg: Leven en Werk van Franciscus Ridderus (Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 2005); D.J. Budding, ‘De Visie op de Uitbreiding van het Koninkrijk Gods onder de Joden en Heidenen in de Nederlandse Gereformeerde Kerk Gerdurende de Periode 1650–1750 (Globaal)’, Documentatieblad Nadere Reformatie 6, 2 (1982), pp. 57–72; Frijhoff and Spies, 1650: Hard-Won Unity, pp. 224, 367–369, 565, and 571. I would like to thank Jos Gommans for the reference to Ridderus. 270 Lach and Van der Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. III: Book One, pp. 478–479, and 493–494; Idem, Vol. III: Book Two, pp. 911–918, 995–996, 1030, and 1056. For similar assessments of Rogerius and Baldaeus: Arasaratnam, ‘Protestant Christianity and South Indian Hinduism’, p. 21. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, however, argues that Van der Kley’s assessment of Rogerius ‘can simply not be sustained by a reading of the text in its context’, adding that it ‘can hardly be seen as either dispassionate or sympathetic’. See: Subrahmanyam, ‘Forcing the Door of Heathendom’, p. 143.

134 chapter 1 based on the two pillars of sola Scriptura and sola fides or the notion of the priesthood of all believers saved by faith alone.271 Calvinist puritanical sensitivities were further shocked by such practices as widow-burning (sati or suttee), a standard recurrent feature in any self-respect- ing text on Hinduism always claimed to have been personally witnessed, together with polygamy (pala-tara-manam) and cross-cousin marriage (murai), the presence of the temple dancing girls-‘prostitutes’ (tevatacis, devadasis), hookswinging (cetilattam, cetilkutti) and people having themselves voluntarily crushed during the car-pulling festivals (therutsavam), the sensuality of South Indian bhakti religion from the time of the Alvar and Nayanar poet-saints and the intensely and unashamedly erotic ideology of pokam of Nayaka period Tamilnadu, and the phallus- and vagina-shaped lingam and yoni symbols of Saivite Hinduism. Whereas Rogerius prim and properly opted to describe these symbols in Latin as ‘membrum virile in muliebri membro’ (‘the male organ in the female organ’), Baldaeus considered the Saivite worship and public display of ‘this sperm God’ sufficient proof of the ‘bestial lewdness’ of ‘these ungodly deprecators of all chastity and disgraceful bastards and sons of whores’.272 In the theocratic vision, the conclusive evidence of the ‘errors’ of the Hindus was their idolatry or image worship (pucai) in clear violation of the Decalogue or Mosaic Laws (Exodus 20:3). Where Rogerius described the Hindu pagoda or temple as ‘an inn or great palace for images, in which they are lodged as distinguished gentlemen’, Baldaeus considered it as a ‘temple of horrors’ filled with images of ‘crawling beasts, despicable animals, and gods of dung’.273 We can hear distinct echoes of these Protestant sentiments and sensitivities, though in somewhat muted form, in the sections on Hindu religion and domestic relations and customs in Adolff Bassingh’s ‘Description’.274 An outcome of the era of cuius regio, eius religio, first established at the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and confirmed and extended at the Peace of Westphalia (1648) when religious and political loyalties were deemed interchangeable, the predikanten considered Roman Catholicism as the most dangerous and greatest challenge to the ‘True Christian Reformed religion’.275 As a result, the Paravas

271 Caland (ed.), De Open-Deure, pp. 22, and 57; Baldaeus, Afgoderye, p. 47. 272 Baldaeus, Afgoderye, pp. 8 and 173; Caland (ed.), De Open-Deure, pp. 39–40, 57, 77–80, and 93. 273 Caland (ed.), De Open-Deure, pp. 118, and 126; Baldaeus, Afgoderye, p. 166. 274 Bassingh, ‘Description’, pp. 296–298, and 299–300; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 317–332, and 358–361. 275 For comparison, see the anti-Catholic sentiments of the English Reverend William Isaacson, who in January 1660 vehemently protested against the presence of the French Capuchin Friars Ephraim de Nevers and Zenon de Baugé at Madras. F. Penny, The Church

Images And Ideologies 135 were seen as ignorant people with a superficial knowledge of religion, who were misguided and confirmed in their superstitious image worship by the ‘papists’ or Jesuit priests operating from the territory of the Nayaka of Madurai in the interior.276 It is illustrative, however, of their unshakable faith in the superiority of their version of ‘true religion’, that these predikanten, in spite of the recurrent negative experiences of the actual encounter, continued to believe firmly in the future conversion of the Paravas and fruits of their righteous labour in the Lord’s vineyard. In 1660, for instance, the Ceylon Reverend Henricus Bongaerts was dispatched to Tuticorin to work among the Roman Catholic fishermen. Commenting on the ‘unabated stubborness of these lost Christians’, Bongaerts optimistically reported in March 1660, ‘Yet, I have seen something in these folks, regardless of wiser judgment, to have reason to hope that our efforts among these Christian people will bear some fruit…’.277

The View from the Bottom Up: The Common Soldier

As a ‘militarised trade diaspora’, the bulk of voc employees consisted of soldiers, Germans in turn forming by far the largest contingent among them. In general, there was little love lost between the higher echelons of the Company hierarchy, represented by the adherents of the theocratic, imperialist, and mercantile visions, and the military rank and file or common soldier. Governor Van Goens the Younger of Ceylon himself, when commenting on the ‘Batavia- centric’ mercantile view, described the Dutch administration on the island as a ‘military government’ rather than a commercial establishment, ‘where one can hear much less the clinking of money (so dear to everyone) than the cursing of soldiers [complaining] about their release and other inconveniences’.278 Even their commanding officers commented disparagingly on the amoral character

in Madras: Being the History of the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Action of the East India Company in the Presidency of Madras in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Smith, Elder, 1904), I, pp. 27–28; H.D. Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 1640–1800 (London: J. Murray, 1913), I, pp. 179–181; W. Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India, 13 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906–1927), X, pp. 403–405; Idem, The English Factories in India, XI, p. 59. 276 See, f.e., Baldaeus, Naauwkeurige Beschryvinge, p. 150; voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 421r–422r, Miss. Baldaeus van Tuticurin aan Van Goens, 15.3.1659; voc 1320, obp 1660, f. 322v, Miss. Bongaerts aan H. XVII, 4.2.1660; voc 1329, obp 1663, ff. 1130v–1131r, Miss. Bongaerts in Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 13.3.1660. 277 voc 1329, obp 1663, f. 1130v, Miss. dominee Bongaerts aan Batavia, 13.3.1660. 278 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 128r–128v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677.

136 chapter 1 and dissolute lifestyle of their own men: ‘the overwhelming mass of them is so addicted to drink that they are nearly soaked through with it’, rather spending ‘all their money on gambling and booze’ than on ‘decent shoes and stockings’.279 While their superiors, often recruited from higher social classes, viewed the ‘culture of the barrack’ with contempt and considered the voc rank and file an un-Christian and unruly lot, given to drinking, whoring, gambling, desertion, and plunder, the common soldier in turn resented the inadequate pay, poor quality of food, severe discipline, and the propensity for self-enrichment of their commanding officers. The slighting comments on the rapacious behav- ior of Governor Maetsuycker of Ceylon and his beloved (‘Herr Mattzücker mit seiner Liebsten’), Senior Merchant and Councillor of the Indies Arent Barentse (‘Herr Adam Berntsen’), and the commanding officers (‘die Grandes’) during the 1649 ‘punitive expedition’ against Portuguese Tuticorin and the shore temple of Tiruchendur, and the similar actions of Admiral ‘Richlof von Guntz’ and the ‘Herrn Officiers’ following the conquest of Portuguese Jaffnapatnam in 1658 are particularly revealing in this respect.280 It has been recently argued that the larger dissemination of knowledge in early modern Europe gave voice to the lower, already literate or semi-literate orders of European society. Europeans with inferior social pedigrees found the colonial setting a fertile ground for psychological self-promotion. Sensitive to charges of inferiority, they were even more prone to point a finger at each new kind of ‘otherness’ and to place it beneath themselves.281 As the traditional authorities—professors, ministers, and humanists—lost their monopoly in the disciplines of geography and history, at least as far as travel accounts were concerned, a process of inversion took place based on a warranty of simplicity. Everything that had previously been considered as proof of reliability was

279 Major Christiaan van Wrisberg (d. 1752), commander of the Cochin garrison. voc 2715, obp 1748, f. 179, Resolutie Cochin, 11.12.1747. Quoted in: Barendse, Arabian Seas, IV, pp. 1559–1560. 280 L’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen, 4, pp. 111–113, and 116; 6, pp. 163–164. These accounts are confirmed by other reports. Johan de Vogel (d. 1674), the secretary of Maetsuycker, observed in his journal of the ‘punitive expedition’ that looting of the inhabitants of Tuticorin on February 12 could not be prevented ‘since the soldiers were too eager for booty, and were preceded by several officers’. Two days later, the city was plundered ‘partly against the wishes, partly with the connivance of His Honour and the Council’. The Portuguese themselves later claimed that, following the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649, Governor Maetsuycker left for Ceylon with 20 thonis, 4 chaloupes, and 2 ships loaded with plunder from Tuticorin. voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 516r, and 517r, Extract dagregister Johan de Vogel, 31.1–1.3.1649; voc 1185, obp 1652, f. 539v, Corte verantwoordinge vanwege de voc over ‘t gepasseerde in Tuticurin Ao. 1649. 281 Zupanov, ‘Aristocratic Analogies and Demotic Descriptions’, pp. 123–148.

Images And Ideologies 137 turned upside down regarding traditional authorities, the social background and training of the author, and style employed. The ‘armchair traveler’ and his bookish knowledge were superseded by the man of practice, the authority of classical writers by empiricism, the high-born, well-mannered scholar by the common traveler without much cultural baggage but with a sharp and open eye, and elegant, rhetorical phrases by a simple, non-literary style.282 The outlook of common soldiers, such as Johann von der Behr, Johann Jacob Saar, Albrecht Herport, and Christopher Schweitzer, was greatly influenced by the fact that a large portion of the rank and file of the voc personnel came from German-speaking areas (the so-called High Germans or ‘Hochteutsche’), especially from Westphalia, the Palatinate, and Hesse. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some 200,000–300,000 Germans sought and found employment with the Dutch East India Company accounting for two-thirds of its foreign labour force.283 These migrant labourers or Hollandgänger, the majority of whom were unmarried small craftsmen and wage labourers in their early twenties, Lutheran, and with a modicum of education and voca- tional training, were attracted to enlist in Company service for a variety of reasons ‘between hope and despair’: unemployment and warfare or the need to escape punishment for criminal offense in their native country, the hope for wealth, plunder, and upward social mobility, and/or sheer curiosity for the ‘wonders’ of the East. Generally (though not always) unlettered foreign men from a low to modest social background, they were unfamiliar with the high policies and politico-commercial agenda of leading Company circles. Ignorant

282 R. van Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch Avontuur: Duitsers in Dienst van de voc (Nijmegen: sun, 1997), pp. 120–124. 283 See: D.E.H. de Boer, R. Holbach, and G. Gleba (eds), “… In Guete Freuntlichen Nachbarlichen Verwantnus und Hantierung…”: Wanderung von Personen, Verbreitung von Ideen, Austausch von Waren in den Niederländischen und Deutschen Küstenregionen vom 13.–18. Jahrhundert (Oldenburg: bis Verlag, 2001), esp. pp. 13–33, and 425–440; H.L. Zwitser, ‘De Militie van den Staat’: Het Leger van de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden (Amsterdam: Van Soeren, 1991), pp. 39–61; Idem, ‘De Soldaat’, in: Beliën, Van Deursen, and Van Setten (eds), Gestalten van de Gouden Eeuw, pp. 175–176; J. Lucassen, Migrant Labour in Europe, 1600–1900: The Drift to the North Sea (London and Wolfeboro: Croom Helm, 1987), esp. pp. 133–156; J.R. Bruijn, F.S. Gaastra, and I. Schöffer (eds), Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries, Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Grote Serie 165 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1979), I, pp. 154–155; J.R. Bruijn and J. Lucassen (eds), Op de Schepen der Oost-Indische Compagnie: Vijf Artikelen van J. de Hullu, Historische Studies 41 (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff and Bouma’s Boekhuis, 1980), Ch. 1, and App. 3; J.R. Bruijn, ‘De Personeelsbehoefte van de voc Overzee en Aan Boord, Bezien in Aziatisch en Nederlands Perspectief’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 91, 2 (1976), pp. 234–236.

138 chapter 1 of the customs of the lands and peoples of the East, their accounts provide more insights into the daily life of a voc soldier and a view of the Dutch overseas empire from the bottom up than in-depth observations on indigenous societies. Having little or no linguistic skills and having received no more than a basic education, these men, therefore, freely borrowed from other previously published travel accounts or gullibly accepted ‘bazaar gossip’ including out- landish and fabulous stories of sea monsters and other mythical creatures. Minimalist notions of the East, based on written, oral, and visual sources, included that Asia was inhabited by strange and exotic, though not necessarily inferior, heathens, despotic rulers, along with numerous miraculous people, animals, and plants. Opinions varied from a principled condemnation of hea- thenism and a certain compassion for these people who had been unable to find the ‘True Faith’ yet, to admiration for their piety greater than that of many a Christian (as also evident in Ridderus). Polygamy, widow-burning, and alleged sexual freedom were always intriguing and topics of great fascination. More systematic attention was given to the phenomenal world: nature, to fruits and plants and their usefulness, and to animals, their appearance, habits, and dangerous aspects. Asian countries were viewed as prosperous, offering prospects for personal enrichment. Asia was, therefore, at least in the seventeenth century, a place of opportunity for these ‘overseas guestworkers’, planning to work and make money for a limited number of years in the service of the voc only and then to return and build a civilian existence at home. In the eighteenth century, however, as Jürgen Osterhammel and others have argued, the reputation of Asia began to decline.284 It became a place where money, greed, nepotism, sickness, and death predominated. Often times, employment in the service of the voc came to be compared with slavery. No longer would one embark on a wonderous adventure to the earthly paradise (‘Irdisches Paradis’) overseas, but leave with a good chance never to return en route to the graveyard of the Europeans (‘Kirchhof der Europäer’).285

284 J. Osterhammel, Die Entzauberung Asiens: Europa und die Asiatische Reiche im 18. Jahrhundert (München: C.H. Beck, 1998). 285 Van Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch Avontuur, pp. 53–70, 118–122, 129, and 284–285; G. Dharampal- Frick, Indien im Spiegel Deutscher Quellen der Frühen Neuzeit (1500–1750): Studien zu Einer Interkulturellen Konstellation (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994); P. Kirsch, Die Reise Nach Batavia: Deutsche Abenteurer in Ostasien 1609 bis 1695 (Hamburg: Kabel, 1994), pp. 9–14; M. Harbsmeier, Wilde Völkerkunder: Andere Welten in Deutschen Reiseberichten der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt and New York: Campus, 1994); E.U. Kratz, ‘The Journey to the Far East: Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century German Travel Books as a Source Study’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 44, 1 (1981), pp. 65–87; I. Itscherenska, ‘Deutsche Reiseberichte Über Indien vom 16. bis 18. Jh.: Bemerkungen zu Ihren Aussagen

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Not surprisingly, the common soldier’s limited horizon and agenda of psychological self-promotion produced little understanding, let alone sympathy, for the ‘exotic’ cultures and peoples surrounding them. Indeed, it is this group, which expressed the most extreme manifestions of the white somatic norm image and voiced ‘racial’ sentiments and opinions most explicitly. In addition, their materialistic gaze was preoccupied with the outward manifestations of these indigenous societies, in particular the fabled riches of the Asian courts and temples. Johann von der Behr (c. 1620–1680) from Leipzig, for instance, who served the Company as a common soldier from 1644 to 1650, commented on the polygamy and incest of the inhabitants of Ceylon and compared them with ‘senseless and mindless cattle’ (see Figure 5). Moreover, after occupying the shore temple of Tiruchendur during the ‘punitive expedition’ in early 1649, Von der Behr noted with abhorrence (and some fascination) the horrible, dev- ilish stone idols of the warrior-god Murugan (Subrahmanya), and the golden and silver objects in the inner sanctum (karppakkirukam). While the temple was plundered (‘worinnen die Grandes gute Beute machten’), some of the stone images were mutilated by iron hammers and the temple’s gopuram or tower unsuccessfully put to the torch. These wanton acts of vandalism and arson, however, ‘caused damage to such an extent’, Von der Behr commented approvingly, ‘that it looked more like a pigsty than a temple’.286 Albrecht Herport (1641–1680), from the Swiss city of Bern, served as a common soldier from 1659 to 1668. Being somewhat less biased and more open- minded than most of his brothers-in-arms, Herport briefly described the dark skin, nudity, long ears, poor housing, and paltry furniture of the ‘Malabar people’, i.e., Tamils and Malabarese. Even in the sphere of religion, normally a very sensitive topic to seventeenth-century Europeans, Herport to a large extent managed to maintain a somewhat patronising neutrality while glancing over the worship of pagodas, statues, various types of animals and trees, and the Devil by the ‘ignorant heathen’ (unwüssende Heyden). Even the custom of sati or widow- burning is described without the usual derogatory terms. Illustrative of the lack of understanding, however, the emphasis is put more on the outward forms,

in Bezug auf das Ökonomiche und Soziale Leben in Indien’, in: H. Krüger (ed.), Neue Indienkunde/New Indology: Festschrift Walter Ruben zum 70. Geburtstag (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1970), pp. 91–108; R. Raven-Hart (ed.), Germans in Dutch Ceylon (Colombo: Colombo National Museum, 1953); H. Terpstra, Buitenlandse Getuigen van Onze Koloniale Expansie, second edn. (Amsterdam: P.N. van Kampen & Zoon, 1944). The travel accounts of Von der Behr, Herport, Saar, and Schweitzer have been reissued in modern editions by l’Honoré Naber, cf. l’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen, 4, 5, 6, 11. 286 L’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen, 4, pp. 66 and 115–116.

140 chapter 1 that is, the costly commodities (gold, jewelry, oils, spices, sandalwood) involved, than on the inherent meaning and symbolism of the ceremony itself.287 In similar fashion, Johann Jacob Saar (1625-ca. 1672) from Nürnberg, enlist- ing as a soldier in 1644 and returning as a corporal in 1660, commented on the clothing of the ‘Moors’ and ‘Gentiles’ and their bloodless internal conflicts and tradition of limited warfare. In the mind of this soldier pur sang, there was little room for higher sentiments (hence his nicknames ‘Jung-verdorben’ or ‘Leichtherz’). When fined for killing an Indian (in case of a Christian he would have had a bullet shot over his head as a first and final warning), Saar approvingly cites his ‘good friend’ the (unnamed) chaplain who commented: ‘An Indian was to be considered on the same level as a dog, which one should not esteem too much!’288 The account of Christopher Schweitzer from Stuttgart, a soldier and bookkeeper employed by the voc between 1675 and 1682, has been called ‘the last of the important relations [on Ceylon] published in the seventeenth century’.289 Although Schweitzer had a somewhat broader and more independent view than most of the other soldiers’ accounts, his work is characteristically more informative on the daily life of voc soldiers than on the local societies among which they lived, fought, and died. Having described the numerous threats which beset the military rank and file in the killing fields of Ceylon (eine Mördergrub der holländische Soldaten) in considerable detail, Schweitzer limited himself to a few superficial observations on the appearance of the local Tamils on the island: their ‘well-proportioned and very dark body’, their vege- tarian practices, their ‘mannerly’ way of dressing, and their ‘desperate beliefs, customs, and usages’.290

The External Vision of the ‘Outsider’

To some extent the common soldiers’ accounts resembled the external vision of the ‘outsiders’, either ‘vicarious tourists’291 or ‘armchair travelers’, such as

287 Idem, 5, pp. 118–125. 288 Idem, 6, p. 128. 289 Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. III: Book Two, p. 957; L’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen, 11. 290 L’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen, 11, pp. 56–59. 291 J. Roach, ‘The Global Parasol: Accessorizing the Four Corners of the World’, in: F. Nussbaum (ed.), The Global Eighteenth Century (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), p. 94; Idem, ‘The Enchanted Island: Vicarious Tourism in Restoration Adaptations

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Godefridus Carolinus, Olfert Dapper, and Johann Jacob Merklein, as their travelogues were, at least largely (or even completely), based on second-hand materials.292 However, there are two basic differences. First, unlike their military counterparts, these outsiders were educated and well-read people from a somewhat higher social background and hence their accounts were less likely to suffer from psychological promotion. Second, they were all non-sojourners; that is, they were no more than curious birds of passage and did not stay long enough in the area to learn one of the local languages, or at least gain more than a tourist’s impression of their ways.293 Carolinus and Dapper did not even visit the area at all and were ‘armchair travelers’ par excellence, merely compiling and editing other people’s travel accounts. Their works serve as testimonies for the existence of a truly international market for Asiatica and the ready exchange of knowledge in the West, as they were based on various contemporary translations from a number of European countries. Although of little additional value by themselves, they can provide convenient overviews of the existing level of understanding (or lack thereof) in Europe of Asia at any given time. For instance, Het Hedendaagsche Heidendom (‘The Contemporary Heathendom’) of 1661 by the Reverend Gode fridus Carolinus, minister at Barneveld (1634–1645) and Putten (1645–1665), included a description of Hinduism as one of the many ‘heathen’ religions of Asia, Africa, and some parts of Europe and was largely based on a mixture of older and more recent Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, French, and English accounts. Having been struck by disease, Carolinus decided to set out on his imaginary ‘odyssey’ or as he explained: ‘[Having read these disparate accounts], I realised that until now nobody had put together all the heathen religions

of The Tempest’, in: P. Hulme and W.H. Sherman (eds), ‘The Tempest’ and Its Travels (London: Reaktion Books, 2000), pp. 60–70. 292 Though an ‘armchair traveler’ as well, Isaac Commelin (1598–1676) and his Begin ende Voortgangh van de Vereenighde Nederlandtsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie (1645) is not discussed in this section. Though the collection of twenty-one separate voyages has been styled as ‘the most important Dutch collection of travel literature published during the seventeenth century’, the most detailed description of any part of India to be found in this two-volume work, Johan van Twist’s ‘Generale Beschrijvinghe van Indien’, is primarily a detailed account of Gujarat. I. Commelin (ed.), Begin ende Voortgangh van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Amsterdam: Facsimile Uitgaven Nederland, 1969); Lach and Van der Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. III, Book One, pp. 461–473. 293 Tracy, ‘Asian Despotism?’; G. Wang, ‘The Hokkien Sojourning Communities’, in: J.D. Tracy (ed.), The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 405.

142 chapter 1 ex professo. Therefore, I became disposed to see (besoeken, lit., ‘visit’) what I could get from the accounts on this topic’.294 The transfer of information about Asia occurred rapidly due to a brisk export trade in books throughout Western Europe and could in some cases be almost instant. Amsterdam in particular served as the ‘metropolis of print’. In the seventeenth century more books were printed here than in any other European city, many of them in French, English, and Latin. The transmission and re-use of knowledge, texts and images among collectors, publishers, and other members of this international ‘republic of letters’ flowed in all directions channelled by the Dutch transoceanic networks of the great chartered companies.295 Relying heavily on classical as well as numerous contemporary published and unpublished sources, for example, the 1672 description of the Hindu religion in Asia, of Naukeurige Beschryvinge van het Ryk des Grooten Mogols, en een Groot Gedeelte van Indiën (‘Asia, or Exact Description of the Empire of the Great Mughal, and A Large Portion of the Indies’) by the Amsterdam physician Olfert Dapper (1636–1689) even included the at the time unpublished (!) manuscript of Baldaeus’ Naauwkeurige Beschryvinge supplemented by information extracted from Company documents, manuscript letters, or interviews,296 and illustrated with the careful drawings of the Dutch painter-voc servant Philip Angel (1618–1664/1665).297

294 G. Carolinus, Het Hedendaagsche Heidendom, of Beschrijving van den Godtsdienst der Heidenen. (Amsterdam: Van Ravesteyn, 1661); De Jong (ed.), Afgoderye der Oost-Indische Heydenen, pp. LXII–LXIII. 295 Huigen, de Jong, and Kolfin (eds), The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks; C. Berkvens-Stevelinck, H. Bots, P.G. Hoftijzer, and O.S. Lankhorst (eds), Le Magasin de l’Univers: The Dutch Republic as the Centre of the European Book Trade (Leiden: Brill, 1990); P. Hoftijzer, ‘Metropolis of Print: The Amsterdam Book Trade in the Seventeenth Century’, in: P. O’Brien, D. Keene, M. ‘t Hart, and H. van der Wee (eds), Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 249–263. 296 O. Dapper, Asia, of Naaukeurige Beschrijving van het Rijk des Grooten Mogols ende Groot Gedeelte van Indien… (Amsterdam: Jakob van Meurs, 1672); De Jong (ed.), Afgoderye der Oost-Indische Heydenen, pp. LXXV–LXXXIII. A work instrumental in recreating the transfer of knowledge on Asia (along with Lach and Van Kley) in early modern Europe is: J. Landwehr, voc: A Bibliography of Publications Relating to the Dutch East India Company 1602–1800 (Utrecht: hes Publishers, 1991). 297 C.M. Stolte, Philip Angel’s Deex Autaers: Vaisnava Mythology from Manuscript to Book Market in the Context of the Dutch East India Company, c. 1600–1672, Dutch Sources on South Asia 5 (Delhi: Manohar, 2012); P. Mitter, Much Maligned Monsters: European Reactions to Indian Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 64, and 297–298, n. 277. I would like to thank Jos Gommans for these references.

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Dapper, who lived almost all his life in Amsterdam and probably never travelled farther than to nearby Utrecht, was a very diligent and intelligent com- piler of other people’s eyewitness accounts, supported by the backing and guidance of an exceptional patron, Nicolaes Witsen (1641–1717), and an outstanding printer, Jacob van Meurs (1619–1680). Between 1668 and 1688 Dapper published seven imposing, double-column folio volumes in Dutch on distant areas in the world, contributing to the broad turn of anti-dogmatic empiricism that was a conspicuous strand in Dutch culture in these years, and even to its Radical Enlightenment fringes.298 In the late seventeenth century, democratic republicans, ‘Spinozists’ and other members of the Radical Enlightenment, influenced by, among others, the ideas of the brothers Johan (1622–1660) and Pieter de la Court (1618–1685), Baruch de Spinoza (1632–1677), Balthasar Bekker (1634–1698), and other ‘New Philosophers’ argued for the common rationality and fundamental equality of all men—regardless of race, colour, and creed (with the possible exception of the Khoikhoi ‘Hottentots’ at the Cape of Good Hope allegedly beyond the pale of humanity). In many ways, these ‘pantheists, freemasons, and republicans’ and their radical criticism of religion and society anticipated many of the arguments of the Dutch ‘Patriots’ and Enlightenment philosophes in the late eighteenth century.299 Dapper’s account of South Indian Hinduism (and other non-Christian religions) was strikingly non-pejorative and open-minded and full of valuable information and has recently been called a ‘striking manifestation’ of the attitudes of the Radical Enlightenment.300 Thus, Dapper approvingly commented on the reported ‘freedom of conscience’ in India; explained the Hindu belief in

298 J.E. Wills Jr., ‘Author, Publisher, Patron, World: A Case Study of Old Books and Global Consciousness’, Journal of Early Modern History 13, 5 (2009), pp. 376, and 387; H.J. Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007). According to Cook, the dominant trait of Dutch Golden Age culture was circumspice, ‘look about you’. 299 The term ‘Radical Enlightenment’ was coined by Margaret C. Jacob and subsequently popularised by Jonathan Israel: M.C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London and Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1981); J.I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Idem, ‘The Intellectual Origins of Modern Democratic Republicanism (1660–1720)’, European Journal of Political Theory 3, 1 (2004), pp. 7–36; Idem, Monarchy, Organism, and Republicanism in the Later Dutch Golden Age (Amsterdam: Amsterdams Centrum voor de Studie van de Gouden Eeuw, University of Amsterdam, 2004). 300 Wills Jr., ‘Author, Publisher, Patron, World’, p. 415.

144 chapter 1 the transmigration of souls (cancaram, samsara) in a non-derogatory manner; presented Hindu imagery in an open-minded fashion rather than portraying them as monsters or work of the Devil; and retold the Hindu tale of the ten avatarams of Vishnu without a word of condescension. Though not condoning, Dapper even placed sati in its proper social contexts: family pressure, Brahmin persuasion, extorted promises to the dying husband, the conviction that the widow’s sacrifice will save her husband from a hellish rebirth, the miserable future that awaits the woman choosing her own life and being shunned and not allowed to remarry.301 Similarly, Bassingh points to some of the possible socio- religious and historical origins of sati—including the seduction of ‘poor and naïve Women’ by cowardly men, most notably the ‘cunning’ Brahmins—though he vociferously and repeatedly condemns the practice as ‘a cruel act, especially for a Christian having to watch such criminal proceedings’.302 Though influential in the international ‘republic of letters’ in the long run, the immediate impact of Dapper and the Radical Enlightenment within the Dutch Republic itself remained limited. Dapper’s ‘coffee table books’, though full of information, were mostly objects of conspicuous display and remained very much part of elite culture. In addition, Dappert’s singular contribution to an open-minded view of human religious and cultural variety suffered, initially at least, from two kinds of extraneous shocks: the competition of Baldaeus’ book, published in the same year, and the collapse of the book market in the wake of the joint attack on the Dutch Republic by France, England, and the bishoprics of Münster and Cologne in the ‘Year of Disaster’.303 Finally, Dapper’s pricey publications were far from being commercial successes: rather than indirect, ‘bookish’ compilations by ‘outsiders’, people wanted to be assured they were learning about a distant place from someone who had been there in what has been called ‘the triumph of the eyewitness mystique’. Personal, emo- tive stories of shipwreck, battles with tyrants and savages, and the like were deemed much more exciting and diverting than distanced, even-handed summaries of knowledge.304 ‘Outsider’ accounts also include reports by short-term, non-sojourner visitors or ‘tourists’, such as the Surgeon Johann Jakob Merklein (1620–1700) from

301 Dapper, Asia, pp. 52–58, 90–96, 137, and 144; Wills Jr., ‘Author, Publisher, Patron, World’, pp. 416–419. 302 Bassingh, ‘Description’, pp. 288, 300, and 301–302; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 296, 298, 339, 342, 343, 348, 363, and 365. 303 Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 776–825; Schama, Embarrassment of Riches, pp. 244–245, and 272–286; Wills Jr., ‘Author, Publisher, Patron, World’, pp. 393–394, and 420–421. 304 Wills Jr., ‘Author, Publisher, Patron, World’, p. 431.

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Winsheim, who was enlisted in the service of the voc between 1644 and 1653 and briefly touched the coasts of South India and Ceylon between March and May of 1649. His work, enlarged and supplemented by its editor or ghostwriter, the Nuremberg Professor Christoph Arnold (1627–1685), with materials drawn from Baldaeus, Dapper, Rogerius, and others, is filled with obligatory descriptions of the idolatry, poverty, and indolence of the common people (derogato- rily called ‘ein einfältiges Völklein’), and concludes this section by remarking rather conveniently: ‘[Jan Huygen van] Linschoten and the Reverend Abr. Rogerius relate somewhat more of the life and religion of these peoples, the latter of whom has issued a complete work in Dutch on this topic. We return to our voyage (sic)’.305 The fact that Arnold could (or at least believed he could) get away with this remark is significant in its own right. Along with almanacs, shanties and song- books, oral accounts of returnees (the so-called ‘gentlemen of six weeks’), collections of poems, playing cards, paintings, wall paper, signboards, maps, globes, and Asiatica (textiles, porcelain, lacquerware, et cetera), published travel accounts became increasingly popular in seventeenth-century Europe and were part and parcel of the intellectual and material baggage Company servants took with them en route to and from Asia. In the wake of the ‘First Shipping’ to Asia (1595–1597), for instance, the Dutch Republic was flooded with accounts of ‘voyages’, ‘descriptions’, ‘journals’, ‘short stories’, and so forth by ship captains, pilots, merchants, and others. The mind of a new voc recruit was therefore no simple tabula rasa, but filled with pre-conceived images and visions, which in turn were based on previous contacts and understandings.306 During his two-and-a-half months’ stay at Trichinopoly in late 1677, for example,

305 L’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen, 3, pp. 54–55. 306 H. Dibbits and G. Rooijakkers, ‘Materiële Cultuur Tussen Zee en Vasteland: De Diffusie en Receptie van Asiatica in de Republiek’, in: K. Davids, M. ’t Hart, H. Kleijer, and J. Lucassen (eds), De Republiek Tussen Zee en Vasteland: Buitenlandse Invloeden op Cultuur, Economie en Politiek in Nederland 1580–1800 (Leuven and Apeldoorn: Garant, 1995), pp. 123–148; M. Barend-van Haeften, ‘Reisteksten Over de Oost’, in: Idem, esp. pp. 112–113; B. Paasman, ‘Lof van Oost-Indiën: Liedjes Uit de voc-Tijd’, Indische Letteren 6, 1 (1991), pp. 1–17; Idem, Wie Wil D’r Mee Naar Indië Varen? Liedjes uit de Compagniestijd (Amsterdam: Querido, 1991), esp. pp. 150–163; E. Hartkamp-Jonxis (ed.), Sits: Oost-West Relaties in Textiel (Zwolle: Waanders, 1987), pp. 42–105; C.A. Davids, ‘De Zeeman’, in: Beliën, Van Deursen, and Van Setten (eds), Gestalten van de Gouden Eeuw, pp. 97–99. Adam Knobler has even suggested the concept of the ‘marketing of empires’ in early modern Europe, ‘Popular Imperialisms in the Early Modern Period: Mass Culture and European Expansion’, Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction, First meeting, Minneapolis, April 19–21, 1996 [unpublished paper].

146 chapter 1 the Company Resident Adolff Bassingh (c. 1645–1683) allegedly had ample opportunity to observe and interact with ‘some old Brahmins’ and other locals, but at the same time produced an extensive account of Madurai society with at least some portions heavily influenced by Rogerius, and, to a lesser extent, Baldaeus. Bassingh himself mentions neither Rogerius nor Baldaeus, but in his discussion of Hinduism refers to the ready availability of ‘complete works published in our language’ on ‘the religion or imagined beliefs of these people’ and the individual experience of his superior, Governor van Goens the Younger of Ceylon.307 In turn, these reports had been informed and shaped by indigenous intermediaries and tutors. Rogerius, a Dutch Reformed minister at Pulicat on the Coromandel Coast between 1632 and 1642, based his account of Hinduism, among others, on information gathered from the Smarta Brahmin Padmanabha (d. 1664), and other local interlocutors. Brahmins and other indigenous voc servants were employed by the Dutch in various functions as native scribes, ambassadors, intermediaries, and informants or courantiers, sending reports on indigenous affairs from the various courts and armies in the region.308 Similarly, the development of the Dravidian concept by the civil servant and scholar Francis Whyte Ellis (1777–1819) or the ‘highly mixed’ collection of Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada histories/chronicles by Colin Mackenzie (1753– 1821) in early nineteenth-century colonial Madras, indeed all Orientalist knowledge in the first phase of the founding of the British Raj, often involved the formation of large teams of Brahmin pandits and was the product of the interaction of European and Indian mental frames. Thus, most or all cross- cultural reportings were ‘interactive, mutual co-optations, weavings together of beliefs and practices from both sides’ in the same way as the formation of new knowledge in the early colonial period assumed an interpenetrating, ‘dialogic’ character.309

307 James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, [fl. 90], Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 23.11.1677. Also published in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indën, V, p. 296; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 317–318, and 358. 308 The final reference to Padmanabha in voc correspondence can be found in a letter from Governor Cornelis Speelman of Coromandel (1663–1665) to Batavia. In July 1664, the governor of Coromandel sadly reported that ‘our old Padmanabha [Brahmin] has also died on the 17th of this month’. voc 1248, obp 1665, f. 2067, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 26.7.1664. 309 Wills Jr., ‘Author, Publisher, Patron, World’, p. 378; D.A. Washbrook, ‘Orients and Occidents: Colonial Discourse Theory and the Historiography of the British Empire’, in: Winks (ed.), Historiography, pp. 604 and 609; Idem, ‘’South India 1770–1840’, esp. pp. 479–485, and 490– 496; Bayly, ‘The Second British Empire’, in: Winks (ed.), Historiography, p. 71; E.F. Irschick,

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Indeed, the activities of the compilers of travel accounts, such as Samuel Purchas (1575?–1626) in England, Melchisédech Thévenot (c. 1620–1692) in France, Isaac Commelin (1596–1676) in the Dutch Republic, and Theodorus de Bry (1528–1598) and his sons in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire should remind us that the process of cultural contact and reporting was often ‘messy’ and undirected. Moreover, it changed over time, and was interactive in the sense that perceptions and actions influenced each other on both sides involved in the cross-cultural encounter. Whatever the ‘previous’ understandings and visions, however generalised or specific the ‘prior’ understandings of the ‘other’, the contacts themselves caused readjustments and rethinking as each side was compelled to reformulate its ideas of self and other when confronted with unexpected actions and unimagined opportunities.310 Making implicit ethnographies explicit may therefore be a helpful, albeit somewhat artificial, exercise of the historian attempting to impose structures on a partially spontaneous and undirected process, but it is only half the work. To fully understand the logic and rationale (if ever there is one) behind cross-cultural encounters, it is imperative to consider the dynamics of actual contact as well.

Dialogue and History: Constructing South India, 1795–1895 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); T.R. Trautmann, ‘Inventing the History of South India’, in: Ali (ed.), Invoking the Past, pp. 44, 46, and 51; Idem, ‘Hullaballoo About Telugu’, South Asia Research 19, 1 (1999), pp. 53–70; N.B. Dirks, ‘Colonial Histories and Native Informants: Biography of An Archive’, in: Breckenridge and Van der Veer (eds), Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament, pp. 279–313; P. van der Veer, ‘The Foreign Hand: Orientalist Discourse in Sociology and Communalism’, in: Ibid., pp. 23–44; R.E. Frykenberg, ‘Constructions of Hinduism at the Nexus of History and Religion’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, 3 (1993), pp. 523–550, esp. 534–535; N.B. Dirks, ‘Castes of Mind’. 310 Schwartz, ‘Introduction’, in: Idem (ed.), Implicit Understandings, p. 6; Lach and Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. III, Book One, pp. 301–305.

chapter 2 Treasure for Textiles: The Import Trade

The Madurai Coast, or rather the fringe of that good and noteworthy piece of land, constitutes the extreme point of that important peninsula between the Indus and Ganges, bordered by Travancore to the west, the sea to the south, and Tanjore to the north and east…[I]ts trade consists preponderantly and even exclusively of domestic sales and the export of local products. Domestic sales consist of silver, copper, tin, spelter [zinc], camphor, spices, pepper, few European manufactures, and whatever the inhabitant might be able to seek more for his comfort, enjoyment, or necessity in case of a well-ordered government… [However, since] the value of the export trade far exceeds that of the import trade, one has to be prepared to supplement the deficit by using cash or bullion in order to pay for the textiles and other commodities. Considerations of Governor gustaaf willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon regarding the trade of the Dutch East India Company on the Madurai Coast, 1738.1

Having laid out the cultural parameters of the encounter by a portrayal of the repertoire of mentalités of the respective ‘ideal type’ actors and caste of characters, the current chapter discusses the material structures by describing the stage or the Madurai landscape defined by the long-term interaction of geography, culture, technology, and social power,2 impacting and impacted by the mutual economic exchange. Due to the focus of this study and the nature of the sources available, it does not claim to present a comprehensive ‘econoscopic’ study of the Madurai theatre, but rather only highlights those commodities and sectors pertinent to the encounter. The chapter opens with a succinct discussion of Madurai’s natural and human geography by surveying the physiography, climate, soils and vegetation of the ‘perennial nuclear region’ or ‘macroregion’ of Tamil Nadu in general and one of its microregions, the ‘Dry Southeast’ or, more specifically, Tirunelveli

1 voc 11297, ff. 21–23, and 37–38, Consideratiën van den raad ord. en Ceijlons gouvr. Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff over de handel van de Gen. Ned. O.I. Maatschappij op de Madurese Cust, 22.11.1738. 2 This definition is based on: D.E. Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, The New Cambridge History of South Asia IV.4 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 49.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 149 region, a ‘mosaic of local milieus’ and the stage of most of the encounter in particular. The long-term structures of these open-ended regions and their central places shaped the material base of the encounter or, in Braudelian terms, defined ‘the limits of the possible’.3 The second part of the introduction commences with a brief discussion of the general characteristics of pre-modern Euro-Asian trade in the ‘age of mercantilism’. As indicated by Van Imhoff, Dutch commerce in Madurai conformed to the ‘bullion for goods’ or rather ‘treasure for textiles’ model and was largely export-oriented. Thus, the value of Dutch exports, the bulk of which consisted of coarse cotton textiles, ‘far exceeded’ that of imports requiring significant amounts of precious metals ‘to supplement the deficit’. It also points to the vital role played by indigenous go-betweens, initially individual merchants and official brokers, but subsequently grouped in joint-stock ‘associations’. The remaining bulk of Chapters 2 and 3 consists of the actual discussion of the import and export trades involved in the encounter and the relative role of Dutch activities in the regional economy of Madurai organised by commodity. This ‘commodity history’-centric approach allows for an integrated analysis of the production, distribution, marketing, and consumption networks involved in each individual product. For various reasons, Dutch imports (Van Imhoff’s ‘domestic sales’) were dominated by treasure (cash and bullion), with all other imports—non-precious metals (copper, tin, lead, zinc or spelter, mercury, and vermillion); fine spices (nutmeg, cloves, mace, and cinnamon); pepper; arecanuts; and miscellaneous commodities—regarded as mere investments reducing the quantity of treasure necessary. In doing so, it also addresses a recent call to explore the persistence and continued viability of ‘traditional’ Asian commercial networks in the seventeenth century in the face of ‘innovative’ European merchant empires.4

3 David Ludden warns that the Tirunelveli landscape should not be equated with all of South India, or even Tamil Nadu, due to its economic, political, social, and cultural peculiarities and internal diversity, consisting of a ‘mosaic of local milieus’. See: D.E. Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 56, 60, 214–215, and 218. 4 ‘The challenge of historiography in the future is to explore the extent of this persistence, to identify the mechanics of its survival, and to reveal the extent to which the old Indian Ocean commerce system was still viable’. Arasaratnam, ‘Recent Trends in the Historiography of the Indian Ocean’, pp. 240, and 243–244. I will explore the interregional and trans-ghat or transpeninsular trades between Tamil Nadu and Malabar (Kerala) in relation to the commercial activities of the voc in southeast India in the seventeenth century in the second of three planned volumes in the series ‘Dutch Sources on South Asian History’ published by Manohar.

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Whereas precious metals accounted for the bulk of Dutch imports, exports consisted, in the words of Van Imhoff, ‘primarily of cotton and the textiles made from it’ and ‘trifles’ or secondary products, including pearls; chanks or conch shells; provisions (rice, millets and other grains); salt; rockfish skins; chaya roots; livestock (cows, horses, oxen, and sheep); people (slaves, and regular and extraordinary levies); coral stone and lime; and other miscellaneous products. The narrative provides unique qualitative and quantitative materials, filling the void left by the ‘relative dearth of inscriptions’ of the Nayaka period and the absence of ‘minute price data’ and ‘regional data in detail’ prior to information gathering as part of administrative modernisation in the late nineteenth century. As one noted South Indian historian laments, though ‘the Nayaka regime was fertile ground for the growth of militant merchant power’, ‘the structure of the regime did not generate records to document the rising volume of market exchange and commodity production that certainly occurred during the seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century sway of the Nayakas of Madurai’.5

The Natural and Human Geography of Tamil Nadu and Tirunelveli

Roughly speaking, the territory of the Nayaka state of Madurai at its peak encompassed the greater part of the modern state of Tamil Nadu located in the extreme south of the Indian Peninsula.6 The twin cities of Madurai and Trichinopoly formed the political, religious, economic, and demographic heart

5 Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 70, 73, and 79. 6 The following discussion is largely based on: G. Singh, A Geography of India, second edn. (Delhi: Atma Ram, 1976), pp. 265–276, and 307–316; R.L. Singh (ed.), India: A Regional Geography (Varanasi: National Geographical Society of India, 1971); O.H.K. Spate and A.T.A. Learmonth, India and Pakistan: A General and Regional Geography, third edn. (Bungay, Suffolk: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1967), pp. 683–690, and 739–782; N. Ginsburg (ed.), The Pattern of Asia (Englewood Cliffs, n.j.: Prentice-Hall, 1958), pp. 483–521, and 610–619; S.P. Raychaudhuri, Soils of India (New Delhi: Indian Council of Agricultural Research, 1963); The New Encyclopaedia Brittanica, fifteenth edn. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), XXI, pp. 164–170. For the ‘Dry Southeast’: Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India; Idem, ‘Ecological Zones and the Cultural Economy of Irrigation in Southern Tamilnadu’, South Asia, n.s. 1, 1 (1978), pp. 1–13; Filliozat, ‘Écologie Historique en Inde du Sud’; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part I, pp. 1–67; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 7–63; Spate and Learmonth, India and Pakistan, pp. 726–738; A.J. Nelson, A Manual of the Tinnevelly District in the Presidency of Madras (Madras: Government Press, 1879); H.R. Pate, Madras District Gazetteers: Tinnevelly (Madras: Government Press, 1917).

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 151 of the Nayaka body politic. Madurai, the political capital until 1665, drawing its life from the Vaigai and Tambraparni Rivers, with its 72 bastion fort each traditionally to be defended by one of the palaiyakkarars, was also the site of the great Saivite temple of Sri Minaksi-Sundaresvara with its nine towering gopurams, and the nearby market town (pettai) of Tirumangalam. Trichinopoly, strategically located on the banks of the Cauvery and Coleroon Rivers, became the capital of the Nayaka state in 1665 until its demise in 1736, famous for its ‘Rock Fort’ perched on a huge rocky outcrop commanding the most important crossing of the Cauvery River, the great Vaisnavite temple of Sri Ranganatha on the nearby island-town of Srirangam, and the site of a flourishing silk-weaving and handloom industry served by numerous neighbouring urban market centres, such as Tennur and Uraiyur.7 Representing the Tamil-speaking area of the former Madras Presidency, the modern state of Tamil Nadu (‘Land of the Tamils’) has an area of 50,216 square miles (130,058 square kilometres) divided into thirty-two districts. Tamil Nadu is ‘bounded’ by the Indian Ocean to the east and south and by the states of Kerala to the west, Karnataka to the northwest, and Andhra Pradesh to the north, though boundaries were open with numerous forms of interaction. Pre- modern South Asia in general was characterised by two ‘connected zones of extensive mobility’ or ‘interlaced trajectories, networks, circuits, zones, and regions of mobility’ criss-crossing southern Eurasia by land and by sea. Though attached to each other, inland India had closer overland ties with Persia, Palestine, and Central Asia, whereas coastal India had more extensive maritime ties with the ‘Greater Indian Ocean’, including ‘littoral societies’ from the Swahili Coast and the Red Sea across Southeast Asia into China. The Tamil and Kerala coasts are thus part of a larger circuit or subsystem, a ‘South Indian Mediterranean’ that also embraces coastal Sri Lanka, and the traffic between

7 On Madurai: W. Francis (ed.), Madras District Gazetteer: Madura, 2 vols. (Madras: Government Press, 1906); R. Burn, J.S. Cottton, W.S. Meyer, and H.H. Risley (eds), Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908), XVI, pp. 386–404, and 404–407; B.S. Baliga (ed.), Madras District Gazetteers: Madurai (Madras: Government of Madras Press, 1960). On Trichinopoly: F.R. Hemingway (ed.), Madras District Gazetteers: Trichinopoly (Madras: Government Press, 1907); Burn, Cottton, Meyer, and Risley (eds), Imperial Gazetteer of India, XXIV, pp. 25–43, and 43–48; L. Moore (ed.), A Manual of the Trichinopoly District in the Presidency of Madras (Madras: Government Press, 1878); V.N. Hari Rao (ed.), A History of Trichinopoly and Srirangam (Madras: University of Madras Press, 1948); K.S.K. Velmani (ed.), Gazetteers of Tamilnadu: Tiruchirappalli District, 2 vols. (Chennai: Government of Tamil Nadu, 1998–1999). Tennur and Uraiyur clearly emerge as important financial and commercial centres in the journals of Dutch ambassadors visiting Trichinopoly. See: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 467, 470, 484–485, 487, and 489.

152 chapter 2 the South Asian littoral and Southeast Asia.8 Elsewhere I have suggested that the ‘new thalassology’ of the ‘Greater Indian Ocean’, ‘Maritime Africa and Asia’, ‘Indian Ocean Rim’, or ‘Indian Ocean Africa and Asia’ should combine the concepts of the ‘Asian Seas’ (Frank Broeze), ‘a string of closely related regional systems stretching from East Asia…to East Africa’, and ‘littoral societies’ (Michael Pearson) along the Indian Ocean Basin, extending inwards into the interior with ‘porous frontiers acting as filters through which the salt of the seas is gradually replaced by the silt of the land’.9 Indeed, mental remapping requires moving away from relative immobile, essentialising ‘trait geographies’—values, languages, material practices, ecological adaptations, marriage patterns, and the like—towards ‘process geographies’ with various kinds of action, interaction, and motion (travel, trade, marriage, pilgrimage, warfare proselytisation, colonisation, exile, and so on), in which regions can be conceptualised as both dynamic and interconnected.10 Many similar de-territorialised concepts emphasising interaction, movement, and migration have been suggested in recent years.11

8 Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. xv–xvii, and 19; Idem, ‘The Formation of Modern Agrarian Economies in South India’, in: B.B. Chaudhuri (ed.), The History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization VII (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 10–14; Idem, Agrarian History of South Asia, pp. 3, 19, 34–48, 59, and 113. In the case of the Indian Ocean World, historians, focusing on sea and ocean basins as frameworks of historical analysis deeply indebted to Fernand Braudel and the methodology of the ‘Annales’ school, have identified a ‘Chinese Mediterranean’, a ‘Japanese Mediterranean’, a ‘Southeast Asian Mediterranean’ (including a ‘Philippine Island World’), an ‘Indian Mediterranean’, and an ‘Arabic-speaking Mediterranean’ to name only a few. See: Vink, ‘Indian Ocean Studies and the “New Thalassology” ’, p. 43. 9 See: Vink, ‘Indian Ocean Studies and the “New Thalassology” ’, pp. 52–53. 10 ‘Regional Worlds at the University of Chicago’, regionalworlds.uchicago.edu/about.htmls (accessed: January, 2007). See also: C. Burgess, ‘Asian Perspectives: The Asian Studies “Crisis”: Putting Cultural Studies into Asian Studies and Asia into Cultural Studies’, International Journal of Asian Studies 1, 1 (2004), pp. 121–136; D.E. Ludden, ‘Area Studies in the Age of Globalisation’, Frontiers 6 (2000), pp. 1–22; L.T. Fawaz and C.A. Bayly (eds), Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 2–7; M. Lewis and K. Wigen, ‘A Maritime Response to the Crisis in Area Studies’, Geographical Review 89, 2 (1999), pp. 161–168; and T.A. Volkman, Crossing Borders: Revitalizing Area Studies (New York: Ford Foundation, 1999) (available at: http://www.pacitaabad.com/PDF/Crossing%20 Borders.pdf). Apart from ‘Regional Worlds’, other individual projects of the ‘Crossing Borders’ initiative include: ‘Oceans Connect: Culture, Capital, and Commodity Flow Across Basins’, http://www.duke.edu/web/oceans; ‘Crossing Borders: Area Studies and the New Geographies’, http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/CrossingBorders (accessed: 25 January 2007). 11 A. Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 33; Idem, ‘Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 153

Though a natural and historical divide separating different climatic regimes and ‘perennial core regions’, the Western Ghats, for instance, never formed an insurmountable barrier to interaction between the east and west coast of India. A wide range of exchange occurred via the Perambadi, Periyar, Tamarasseri, Palghat, Bodinayakkanur, Kambam, Aryankavu, Shencottah, and Aramboli Gaps. One Dutch report of 1677 distinguished no fewer than twenty to twenty- four highroads leading to these various mountain passes (see Maps 6 and 7).12 As we will see, this openness and receptiveness to long-term patterns of mobility and circulation held even more true for the ‘Dry Southeast’ and the Tirunelveli region. Physiographically, Tamil Nadu is divided between the flat country along the eastern coast and the hilly regions, mainly in the north and west (see Map 7). The broadest part of the eastern plain is formed by the fertile Cauvery delta; farther south are the semi-arid plains of Ramnad and Madurai. The high Western Ghats run all along the state’s western border. The lower hills of the

for a Transnational Anthropology’, in: R. Fox (ed.), Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1991), pp. 191–210; J. Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 21, 25, and 36; M. Castells, The Rise of the Network Society, second edn. (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), pp. 500–509; R. Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’, in: M. Featherstone, S. Lash, and R. Robertson (eds), Global Modernities: From Modernism to Hypermodernism and Beyond (London and Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995), pp. 25–44; McNeill and McNeill, The Human Web; A. Reid, ‘Intra-Asian Networks: Global and Local in Southeast Asian History’, International Journal of Asian Studies 1, 1 (2004), pp. 5–6; Ludden, ‘History Outside Civilisation and the Mobility of South Asia’, pp. 7–8; Subrahmanyam, ‘Notes on Circulation’, pp. 21–43; S. Subrahmanyam, (ed.), Merchant Networks in the Early Modern World, 1450–1800, An Expanding World: The European Impact on World History, 1450–1800 8 (Aldershot and Brookfield: Variorum and Ashgate Publishing, 1996); C. Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Markovits, Pouchepadass, and Subrahmanyam (eds), Society and Circulation. 12 M.P.M. Vink, ‘The Dutch East India Company and the Pepper Trade Between Kerala and Tamilnad, 1663–1795: A Geo-Historical Analysis’, in: Mathew (ed.), Mariners, Merchants and Oceans, p. 278. See also: Memorandum Van Rheede, 14.3.1677, in: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 158; C.A. Innes and F.B. Evans (eds), Madras District Gazetteers: Malabar and Anjengo (Madras: Government Press, 1908), I, pp. 1, 4, 264 et seq.; W. Francis (ed.), Madras District Gazetteers: The Nilgiris (Madras: Government Press, 1908), I, pp. 1–3, 113, 223, 227, and 230–233; Idem, Madras District Gazetteers: Madura, I, pp. 2, 155, and 312; A. Sreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History (Kottayam: Sahitya Pravarthaka Co-operative Society, 1967), p. 5.

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Eastern Ghats and its outliers—the Javadis, Kalrayans, Shevaroys, and Pachaimalais—run more or less through the centre of the region. The important rivers include the Cauvery, Ponnaiyar, Palar, Vaigai, and Tambraparni, all of which flow eastward from the Western Ghats. Most of these rivers are perennial and flow year-round in normal years, but their ebbs and flows from dry to rainy seasons differ markedly. Many smaller rivers even dry up altogether during the dry months. On the other hand, the torrential flows during the season of maximum rains, from October to December, may transform these large rivers into wild currents, occasionally wreaking havoc on the region. In 1676, for instance, one Dutch observer commented on the seasonal character of the Tambraparni River draining into the Gulf of Mannaar near Attur (hence styled the ‘river of Attur’ or Atoerse revier), 16 miles south-southwest of Tuticorin, either flooding the surrounding countryside in the rainy season or virtually disappearing during the long dry interval.13 The natural drainage basins of these rivers with their rich agricultural potential, dense populations, and relative ease of communications formed so- called ‘perennial nuclear regions’, creating the basis for economic, social, political, and cultural organisation throughout Indian history. In Tamil country, this regional pattern started with the emergence of the three new chiefly lines called the muventar or the ‘three crowned kings’—Chera, Chola, and Pandya—during the Sangam period in the first century, including the Pandyas with their capital at Madurai drawing its life, similar to the Nayaka state of Madurai, from the waters of the Vaigai and Tambraparni rivers and a system of dams, channels, and tanks (eris) to make unpredictable natural runoff nourish paddy plants throughout the growing season.14 The pattern of stabilised medieval core regions provided by irrigated agriculture was continued in Nayaka- period Tamil Nadu by both Madurai and Tanjore. Tanjore, one of the ‘great Southern Nayakas’ and successor-states of Vijayanagara similar to Madurai was based, like their Chola predecessors, on the Cauvery delta and a huge masonry diversion dam, known as the Grand Anicut (anaikkattu). In 1675, one

13 voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 830v, Relaas commr. Huijsman wegens de nuttigheden die de Cie. int huren der Madurese zeehavens zou komen te genieten, 11.4.1676. 14 The term ‘perennial nuclear region’ was coined by the British geographer Oskar Hermann Spate (1911–2000) in the first edition of his India and Pakistan (1954). In turn, the American anthropoligst G. William Skinner (1925–2008) has pointed to the role of ‘physiographic macroregions’ with often unsynchronised developmental macrocycles in the history of China first described in his landmark essays in The City in Late Imperial China (1977). Spate and Learmonth, India and Pakistan, pp. 173–189; G.W. Skinner, ‘Presidential Address: The Structure of Chinese History’, Journal of Asian Studies 44, 2 (1985), pp. 271–292; Idem (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977).

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Dutch observer waxed lyrically about the agricultural potential of Tanjore in the following terms:

This small country more than all other Coromandel lands is blessed with an extremely large river [the Coleroon/Cauvery], which originates in the north of Palghat in the Malabar mountains [the Western Ghats]. This river crests during the months of May, June, July, and August and floods this small region in such a manner, that it is more fortunate than Egypt through the flooding of the Nile, since during these months this region and all of Coromandel receives no rain.15

Whereas the physical quality of seasons in South Asia forms a huge transition zone between the aridity of Southwest Asia and the humidity of Southeast Asia, the regional climate of Tamil Nadu itself is essentially tropical. The Tamil year, in keeping with the old Indic calendar, is divided into six seasons, each of which lasts two months: spring (ilavenil, ‘light warmth’) during the months of Chithirai and Vaigasi (mid-April/mid-June); summer (mutuvenil, ‘harsh warmth’) during the months of Ani and Adi (mid-June/mid-August); the rainy season (kar, ‘dark clouds, rain’) during the months of Avani and Purataci (mid-August/ mid-October); autumn (kulir, ‘chill, cold’) during the months of Aippasi and Karthigai (mid-October/mid-December); early winter (munpani, ‘early dew’) during the months of Markazhi and Tai (mid-December/mid-February); and late winter (pinpani, ‘late dew’) during the months of Masi and Panguni (mid- February/mid-April). Life is determined by the rhythm of the monsoons: the dry monsoon between January and May is the ‘season of circulation’, the time for travel, migration, moving herds, trading and transporting, rituals and festivities (esp. in January and February), stealing, guarding, and fighting using dirt roads trampled hard and riverbeds dried up in the hot sun.16 The temperature in summer seldom exceeds 108°F (43°C) and in winter seldom falls below 64°F (18°C). The lowest temperatures are recorded during December and January, and the highest from April to June. Rain depends on the southwest monsoon from April to September and the fickle second northeast monsoon from October to January and averages between 25 and 75 inches (635 and 1,905 mm.). The heaviest precipitation falls in the Nilgiris and other hill areas within the

15 Beschrijvinge van de staat en gelegenheid van het eijland Ceijlon door Rijckloff van Goens aan GG en R, 24.9.1675, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, V, p. 233. 16 Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, pp. 23–26, and 31; Idem, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India.

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Western Ghats, the least in the plains of Ramnad and Tirunelveli districts (see Map 9). Rainfall, moreover, is very uncertain and unpredictable from one year to another, with a fairly high incidence of drought (and to a lesser extent floods) depending mainly on the northeast monsoon. The months of uncertainty (the Dutch referred to October as the wijffelmaand) when the direction of the monsoons change (April–May and, especially, October and November) are the most hazardous for shipping because of violent cyclonic storms. During the fifty-year-period between 1638 and 1688, for instance, the Dutch recorded 28 heavy storms battering the east coast of India: 1 in January, 2 in February, 3 in March, 3 in May, 6 in October, 11 in November, and 2 in December.17 Apart from the rich alluvial soils of the river deltas, most notably the Cauvery and Tambraparni, the predominant soils are clays, loams, sands, and red later- ites (leached soils with a high content of iron oxides and aluminium hydrox- ide). The black cotton-growing soil known as regur is found in parts of Salem and Coimbatore in the west, Ramnad and Tirunelveli in the south, and Trichinopoly in the central region of Tamil Nadu. In the higher altitudes of the Western Ghats—the Nilgiris, Anaimalai, and Palni Hills—vegetation is akin to that at middle latitudes. In parts of the Western Ghats, and in the hills of the northern and central districts, a mixture of evergreen and deciduous forest can be found. Deciduous forests are located on the eastern slopes (see Map 8). Tamil Nadu as a ‘macroregion’ is a conglomerate of highly diverse sub- or microregions or agro-climatic zones. The ‘Dry Southeast’ or, more specifically, Tirunelveli region, about 5,000 square miles (12,949 square kilometres) in extent, consisting of present Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts and parts of Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram districts, held centre stage in the Dutch-Madurai encounter. Here, along the so-called ‘Opposite Coast’ (over walse custe) the Company settlements could be found and most of the interaction between the various actors took place. Whereas the state of Madurai was dominated by the core region surrounding the twin cities of Madurai and Trichinopoly, from the late Pandya period Tirunelveli and the contiguous town of Palaiyamkottai across the Tambraparni River served as the functioning religious, political-military, and economic heart of Tirunelveli district. During the Nayaka period, Tirunelveli became the southern provincial capital of Tirunelveli simai called Tirewareteesiem or simply the ‘lowlands’ (benedenlanden) in Dutch sources. Located in the densely populated central Tambraparni Valley with its irrigated agriculture based on four permanent stone dams or anicuts (anaikkattu) and numerous diversionary channels, tanks, and paddy fields

17 voc 1477, obp 1691, f. 30r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 23.12.1689; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 108v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 24.9.1690.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 157 constructed after 1200 at the intersection of the major north–south and east– west transport routes, the ‘sprawling composite urban site’ or ‘urban complex’ consisted of Tirunelveli proper and its major temple, the Nellaiyappa Koil (temple town), Palaiyamkottai and its fort ascribed to Ariyanatha Mudaliyar (fortress town), and Melapalayam and its textile industry (manufacturing centre).18 The Tirunelveli region replicates the diversity of Tamil Nadu and has been described as a ‘natural mosaic’ or ‘mosaic of local milieus’, though within the ensuing ‘patchwork of agrarian mileus’ three coherent agricultural zones are discernible: the wet zone, the densely populated, politico-economic heartland based on the central Tambraparni river valley and paddy rice cultivation on irrigated, wet land (nanjai, nansey, nancey); the dry zones of the black soils (regurs) of the north and the red sandy soils (teris) of the south with their scattered settlements of peasants growing millets and dry crops on unirrigated, dry land (punjai, punsey, puncey); and: the mixed wet-and-dry zone inbetween, including many crops adapted to cultivation under tank irrigation (eris) and a practice called ‘dry crops on wet land’ (nanjai-mel-punjai) (see section on food grains in Chapter 3).19 The Western Ghats loom large in influencing both rainfall and drainage patterns of the Tirunelveli region. The climate of South India east of the Western Ghats is largely semi-arid tropical located in the rain shadow of the Ghats during the southwest monsoon between June and August. The Tirunelveli region is one of the most arid parts of the peninsula. North along the Tamil coastal plain, from Madras to Tanjore, the land can expect more than 40 inches of rain each year, whereas Tirunelveli averages under 30. Besides being most meagre, rainfall is also most unpredictable. Nearest the coast, less than 20 inches of rain nourish the sandy soil each year, and percolate quickly down into the water table. In the south at Tuticorin, for instance, rainfall is as low as 22 inches. The landscape of the coast and red teri (‘sandy waste’) carries a thin vegetation of palmyra (toddy) palm groves and patches of dry, thorny scrub. Joan Nieuhoff, the Dutch chief of the Madurai Coast between 1664 and 1665 (see Figure 3), observed that ‘on the Madurai Coast neither foliage nor grass grows, except

18 Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, p. 147; Idem, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. xv, 22, 43, 52–53, 69, and Map 18. The Tirunelveli urban complex accounted for about 25 percent of the population in the central Tambraparni River valley in 1823. 19 Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 56, and 60–62. Spate describes the ‘Dry Southeast’ with its low rainfall as ‘the dominant factor’ as a ‘complex area’, distinguishing the following ‘sub-regions’: coast and teri tracts; the Upper Vaigai basin; the Madurai-Ramnad tank country; the Tirunelveli black soil plain; and the Tambraparni basin. See: Spate, India and Pakistan, pp. 726–738.

158 chapter 2 for some white-thorn and houseleek’. Ten years later, in 1675, Governor Rijckloff van Goens Senior painted an equally bleak picture describing the southern Ramnad Coast between Rameswaram and Valinokkam as a ‘sad, dry, and hot coast’, and the Fishery Coast as ‘very arid, withered, and covered with thorny bushes’.20 A bit farther west, toward the mountains, in the central part of the region, conditions improve with rainfall averaging about 30 inches, and soils running from rich black loam and clay in the north to red clay and sand, to mostly red sand in the south. Along the base of the mountains, in the far west, a narrow stretch of favoured land receives southwest monsoon rains through the Shencottah Gap and some smaller gaps between the peaks. With low rainfall, natural drainage plays a prominent role in defining agricultural conditions. In this respect, again, the influence of the Western Ghats stands out. Drainage routes in Tirunelveli not fed from the hills receive very little water, so that river and streambeds often sit bone dry for all but a few weeks each year. Many tiny streams do flow down the slopes of the Ghats eastward, pouring water onto land at the foot of the soaring hillsides. The Chittar, Pachaiyar, Nambiyar, Hanumathi, and streams in the upper Vaippar basin all bubble with life for several months near the Ghats, but dry out fast as they flow east. Among these only the Chittar and Pachaiyar carry water as far as 20 miles, to their rendezvous with the Tambraparni. The only perennial river in the region, the Tambraparni has its water source neither in the plains nor on hillsides, but high in the Ghats, in 250 square miles drenched by more than 100 inches of rain every year. Tiny compared to the great perennial rivers of South India—the Krishna, Godavari, and Cauvery—the Tambraparni is for its size one of the most productive rivers in India. Dropping from peaks to plains in a series of crashing falls, most notably at Courtallam northwest of Tirunelveli, ‘the spa of the South’, it flows quietly along a nearly flat, shallow valley 60 miles to the Gulf of Mannaar, bearing plentiful water through a thirsty landscape.21 Even more than pre-modern India as a whole, Tirunelveli constituted a ‘wide-open historical space’ at the intersection of overseas trade and Asian capitalisms, having more sea connections with other Indian Ocean coastal sites than overland connections with India’s northern interior and Central Asia. As David Ludden has stated emphatically: ‘Tirunelveli is a region of the Indian Ocean as well as of India’ with pre-modern circuits of mobility and

20 Nieuhoff, Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en Lantreize, p. 188; Beschrijvinge van Ceijlon door Van Goens, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, p. 236. 21 Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 19–20; Spate, India and Pakistan, pp. 726–738.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 159 circulation spanning West Asia, Gujarat, Kerala, Sri Lanka, Bengal, and Southeast Asia. Spatial ‘zones of transition’ around Tirunelveli shaping the region’s history included the Madurai connection northwards, the Chera country and Travancore westwards, Cape Comorin southwards, Sri Lanka eastwards, and the Ramnad Coast and across the straits Sri Lanka northwards. As numerous studies have demonstrated, the Dutch in particular altered territorial formations of power along the coast in Nayaka period Tamil Nadu by attach- ing Tirunelveli and Ceylon, referring to the region as the ‘Opposite Coast’ (overwalse custe).22 As for the size of India’s pre-modern population, estimations have varied considerably in the absence of direct hard evidence. Based on the A’in-i Akbari, W.H. Moreland (1920) estimated the population of all of India (undivided India of pre-1947) in 1600 at 100 million, while putting that of the Deccan and southern India at 30 million arrived at on the basis of the size of armies. Allowing for the population of regions not covered in his two estimates, Kingsley Davis (1951) raised Moreland’s estimate to 125 million, which figure was maintained until 1750. Incorporating the estimates of Jatindra Mohan Datta (1960) and Josiah C. Russell (1967; 1973), Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones (1978) put the population of the Indian subcontinent at 105 million in 1500, 135 million in 1600, 150 million in 1650, 165 million in 1700, 175 million in 1750, and 190 million in 1800. Comparing the extent of cultivation and the land:man ratio with the figures of the 1901 census, corroborated by other calculations based on productivity rates and sizes of armies, Irfan Habib (1982) and Shireen Moosvi (1987) put the Indian population for 1600 at 140–150 million. Arguing for a compound growth rate of 0.14 percent per annum, Habib believed the Indian population to have increased by 33 percent to a total of 200 million by 1800. Sanjay Subrahmanyam (1990), however, has denounced Habib’s estimates as rather high and his annual compound growth rate as ‘absurdly low’ compared with demographic developments elsewhere unsubstantiated by qualitative evidence. Accepting the calculations of Ashok V. Desai (1972; 1978), who argued that Akbar’s empire in 1600 contained a population somewhere between 64.9 and 88.3 million,

22 Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. xv–xviii, and 19; Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce; Idem, ‘Rural Industry and Commercial Agriculture in Late 17th Century South Eastern India’, Past and Present 126, 1 (1990), pp. 76–114; Idem, ‘Connected Histories: Notes Towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies 31, 3 (1997), pp. 735–762; S.J. Stephen, The Coromandel Coast and its Hinterland: Economy, Society, and Political System (ad 1500–1600) (Delhi: Manohar, 1997).

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Subrahmanyam believes the annual population growth in southern India to have been somewhat over 0.3 percent between the mid-sixteenth and late seventeenth century, declining to below 0.2 percent thereafter. These assumptions would imply that India’s population below an imaginary line extending from Karwar on the west coast to Srikakulam on the east coast amounted to 10.7 million in 1550, 15.1 million in 1650, and 18–20 million in 1800. Somewhere inbetween is Sumit Guha (2001). Taking seventeenth-century tax collections as his guide, Guha gives an all-India estimate of 117 million for 1600. Allowing for marked geographical variations in population growth (slow or negligible growth in the north and centre, and a more dynamic demographic regime in the east and south of the subcontinent), Guha arrives at 18–19 million for the Madras Presidency and an aggregate of 161 million for the subcontinent in 1800. Most recently, Angus Maddison (2001; 2003), averaging the Davis and Habib estimates, has put India’s population at 110 million in 1500, 135 million in 1600, 165 million in 1700, and 209 million in 1820.23 According to the census of 1801–1802 the population of Tinnevelly District was 571,669 or about 2.86 percent of the 20 million for South India in 1800. By the seventeenth century, when the region had attained its ‘full human settlement pattern’, the population was concentrated in the region’s densely populated wet zone or ‘fertile crescent’, curving from west to east from the Shencottah Gap down the Tambraparni valley. The first comprehensive

23 On population: W.H. Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar (London: Macmillan, 1920), pp. 19–21; K. Davis, The Population of India and Pakistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 24–27; J.M. Datta, ‘A Re-examination of Moreland’s Estimates of Population of India at the Death of Akbar’, Population Bulletin of India 1, 1 (1960), pp. 165–182; J.C. Russell, ‘The Population of Ancient India: A Tentative Pattern’, Journal of Indian History 47, 2 (1969); and 50 (1973), pp. 267–289; A.V. Desai, ‘Population and Standards of Living in Akbar’s Time’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 9, 1 (1972), pp. 42–62; Idem, ‘Population and Standards of Living in Akbar’s Time—A Second Look’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 15, 1 (1978), pp. 53–79; C. McEvedy and R. Jones, Atlas of World Population History (New York: Penguin, 1978), pp. 182–189; I. Habib, ‘Population’, in: Habib and Raychaudhuri (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of India, I, pp. 163–171; Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce, pp. 14–16, and 358–361; Idem, ‘A Tale of Three Empires: Mughals, Ottomans, and Habsburgs in a Comparative Context’, Common Knowledge 12, 1 (2006), pp. 66–93, esp. 84, and 88; S. Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595: A Statistical Study (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 395–406; S. Guha, ‘The Population History of South Asia from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries: An Exploration’, in: T. Liu, J. Lee, D.S. Reher, O. Saito, and W. Feng (eds), Asian Population History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 63–78; Maddison, The World Economy, Table B-10, p. 241; and: www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/ sixbilpart1.pdf (accessed: 3 December 2012).

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 161 population statistics in 1881 shows a population density in the wet zone of more than 750 people per square mile, less than 250 people per square mile in the northern and central dry zones, while the mixed zone was a mixture: pockets of high density fed by tanks were surrounded by stretches of dry land with scattered communities.24 Assuming a similar proportion of 2.86 percent for 1650 on the basis of Subrahmanyam’s estimate of 15.1 million for South India,25 Tinnevelly would have contained a population of 431,860 in the mid-seventeenth century. These numbers are not inconsistent with figures arrived at on the basis of a contemporary estimate of pepper consumption in the Tirunelveli lowlands, the lands of Ramnad south of Rameswaram, and somewhat higher. In 1677, Marten Huisman, the Dutch commander of the Madurai Coast, and his second-in-command Michiel de Geus held the annual consumption of pepper in this region to be 3,750 bahar or 1.8 million pounds. Based on their argument that this quantity would provide each household in the area with less than one pound of pepper per month, this would mean at least 150,000 households or a population of circa 750,000 (based on an average household of five as indicated by the census of 1871–1872). According to the census of 1871–1872, the population of Tinnevelly District (1,693,959) accounted for 18.95 percent of the population of the districts of Trichinopoly, Madura, Coimbatore, Nilgiris, and Salem, roughly equivalent with the area covered by the Nayaka state of Madurai in the seventeenth century. Assuming that Tinnevelly district also made up 18.95 percent of the population in the pre-colonial period, its population of 431,860 (1650) and 571,669 (1800) would imply a total population of Madurai of 2.28 and 3.02 million, respectively.26 These figures, of course, are tentative at best, but at least provide some numerical impressions and an indication of the range of possibilities. The majority of the Company settlements were located along the ‘Opposite Coast’. The numerous ports of outlet of Tamil Nadu were set in what has been

24 See: Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 60–63. 25 Apart from 15.1 million for South India as a whole in 1650, Subrahmanyam puts the combined population of the domains of Madurai, Tanjore, Gingee, and Chandragiri in the late sixteenth century at 6 million. Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce, pp. 14–16, and 358–360; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 99–100. 26 voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1283r–1283v, Aenmerckingen Huijsman en De Geus over het gedane rapport van boeckhr. Caperman raeckende den inlantsen handel op d’custe van Madure, 17.5.1677; H. Waterfield, Memorandum on the Census of British India of 1871–72 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1875), Table 13, p. 46; D.E. Ludden, Peasant History in South India (Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1985), p. 138; Stuart, A Manual of the Tinnevelly District in the Presidency of Madras, App. I, p. 161.

162 chapter 2 called a ‘regime of equality’, either open roadsteads, fully exposed to the force of the elements of the ocean, or sheltered behind mouths of rivers and creeks with problems of entry and exit created by shifting channels and sand bars. A 1699 Company map of the region provides an extensive bird’s-eye view of the contemporary port settlements along the Ramnad and Fishery Coasts (see Map 6). North of Pamban, ports of the Ramnad Coast (Costa d’Inchiado) include Adirampatnam, Kollukkadu, Puduppatnam, Sembaippatnam, Send alaipatnam, Manamelkudi, Ammapatnam, Kottaippattnam, Arasanagari, Sundara pandiyapatnam, Tittandadanam, Vattanam, Tondi, Karankadu, Morappanai, Tiruppalaikudi, Vattakkuddi, Devipatnam, Alangakulam, and Attangarai. South of Pamban, the Ramnad ports include Periyapatnam, Kilakkarai, Serandai, Valinokkam, Mariyur, and Mukkaiyur. Ports of the Fishery Coast (Costa da Pescaria) north of Manappad include Vembar, Vaippar, Pattanamaradur, Tuticorin, Palaiyakkayal, Punnaikayal, Kayal patnam, Virapandiyapatnam, Tiruchendur, Alantalai, Udangudi, Kulasek harapatnam, Manappad, Uvari, Kuttankuli, Idindikarai, Panjal, Perumanal, and Cape Comorin. Traditionally, the Seven Ports of the Fishery Coast, the so-called yelu ur (‘major ports’) or ‘Seven Ports’ (Portuguese, Os Sete Portes) consisted of Vembar, Vaippar, Tuticorin, Punnaikayal, Virapandiyapatnam, Manappad, and Alantalai. South of Manappad, the seven ‘intermediate ports’ (ar ur) are Periyatalai, Uvari, Kuttankuli, Idindakarai, Panjal, Perumanal, and Cape Comorin. According to a ‘rough calculation’ of 1665 and detailed lists of the pearl fisheries of 1668 and 1669, the major port settlements were Vedalai, Periyapatnam, and Kilakkarai along the Ramnad Coast, and Kayalpatnam, Tuticorin, Punnaikayal, and Manappad along the Fishery Coast. Most of them seemed to have been spatially segregated communities replicating residential patterns prevalent throughout the Indian Ocean World (see Chapter 1). In 1665, the most important Muslim ports by far were Kayalpatnam (10,000 inhabitants) and Kulasekharapatnam (5,400 inhabitants) on the Fishery Coast followed by Kilakkarai (3,200 inhabitants) and Vedalai (1,600 inhabitants) on the Ramnad Coast. The most important Christian ports were Tuticorin (6,000 inhabitants), Manappad (4,000 inhabitants), and Punnaikayal (3,000 inhabitants), all three located on the Fishery Coast (see Table 1).

The Import and Export Trades: Treasure for Textiles

One of the most striking features of European-Asian trade prior to the Industrial Revolution was the inability of Europe to provide commodities at competitive

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 163

Table 1 Inhabitants and number of vessels of some of the villages along the Ramnad and Fishery Coasts in the 1660s

1665 1668 1669 Inhabitants Total Pearl fishery Pearl fishery Christian Muslim Vessels Men Vessels Men Vessels

I. Ramnad Coast Kottaippatnam 93 4 72 2 Tondi 74 2 37 1 Attangarai 595 14 82 3 Pamban 17 1 0 0 Vedalai 1,600 533 18 553 20 Periyapatnam 600 405 15 385 13 Kilakkarai 3,200 1,116 35 1,837 76 Valinokkam 120 0 0 0 0 Mariyur 400 47 2 61 2 Mukkaiyur 100 320 0 0 0 0 II. Fishery Coast Vembar 1,000 8 307 9 367 12 Vaippar 800 7 601 16 655 19 Pattanamaradur 1,000 8 135 6 112 3 Tuticorin 6,000 75 4,091 123 4,109 135 Palaiyakkayal 750 6 288 9 455 15 Punnaikayal 3,000 55 1,366 54 1,573 54 Kayalpatnam 10,000 102 2,398 66 2,633 81 Virapandiyapatnam 1,000 1 400 10 450 13 Alantalai 1,000 0 0 0 0 Kulasekharapatnam 5,400 0 0 0 0 Manappad 4,000 4 754 19 793 23 Periyatalai 280 0 0 0 0 Koodutalai 80 0 0 0 0 Uvari 360 0 0 0 0 Kuttankuli 240 0 0 0 0 Vijayapati 80 0 0 0 0 Idindikarai 160 0 0 0 0 Panjal 240 0 0 0 0

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Table 1 Inhabitants and number of vessels of some of the villages along the Ramnad and Fishery Coasts in the 1660s (cont.)

1665 1668 1669 Inhabitants Total Pearl fishery Pearl fishery Christian Muslim Vessels Men Vessels Men Vessels

Perumanal 320 0 0 0 0 Cape Comorin 90 0 0 0 0 Total 18,210 22,640 266 16,359 483 17,530 555

Sources: voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 783, Rapp. gedaen door Capptn. Van Rhede, 7.10.1665; voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1158v, Monture der thonijs, stenen en personen de 15en maart 1669 in de parelvisserij van Tuticorin opgenomen, 27.6.1668; voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 942v, Monture der thonijs, stenen en personen den…maart 1669 in de parelvisserij van Tuticurin opgenomen, 16.7.1669. Combine also with the much-cited figures provided by Joan Nieuhoff, the Dutch chief of Tuticorin between 1664 and 1665: Tuticorin 10,000, Manappad 4,000, Punnaikayal 2,800, Virapandiyapatnam 900, Alantalai 800, Vembar 800, and Vaippar 700. See: Nieuhoff, Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en Lantreize, p. 182. prices and of similar quality.27 The reasons for the dominant position of Indian cotton textiles in world markets, for instance, before the ‘European cotton revolution’ of the late eighteenth century are both complex and controversial. Historians have pointed to a variety of factors: the lower prices of Indian manufactured goods resulting from highly productive agricultural systems and abundant supplies of cheap grain; the technological and design superiority of Indian cloth, including colour, washability, and design; a well-structured system of regional and long-distance trade efficiently coordinated by a variety of Asian merchant networks; and: the flexibility and capacity of Indian textile producers to tailor and customise fashionable products to suit the tastes and preferences of differentiated markets.28

27 In the end, of course, gold and silver, whether minted or unminted, are commodities as well, their value fluctuating according to market conditions, their price expressed along the Madurai Coast in fanams, one of the smallest gold coins known with an alloy of silver and copper and extensively used for commercial transactions throughout the region. 28 G. Riello and P. Parthasarathi (eds), The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 5–7, 22, 28, 161, 264–267, and passim; J. Irwin and P.R. Schwartz, Studies in Indo-European Textile History (Ahmedabad: Calico Museum of Textiles, 1966); P. Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720–1800, Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society 7 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 165

As a result, Dutch, English, French, and Danish trading activities on the Indian Peninsula (with the notable exception of Surat, the ‘atypical factory’ because of its vast hinterland market for imports29) were export-oriented con- forming to the ‘bullion for goods’ or rather ‘treasure for textiles’ model, purchases of an innumerable variety of textiles being made largely in the form of precious metals. In a sense, all other imported goods were merely considered investments to reduce the amount of treasure necessary. Minimum sale prices were often prescribed, either to ensure that at least the costs of these commodities should be recovered, or, in the case of the monopolistic fine spices and pepper, to prevent European competitors from re-exporting these products to Europe. Some scholars even wonder as to which was the actual ‘core’ and the ‘periphery’ of the early modern world economy in view of contemporary mercantilist concerns in England, the Dutch Republic, and elsewhere over the ‘fundamental structural imbalance in Indo-European trade’ and resulting ‘drain’ of precious metals to the global ‘sinks’ of India and China and the ‘near panic’ among European textile producers and the perceived threats of a ‘deindustrialising’ Europe in response to the invasion by textiles from India (‘the world’s greatest producer of cotton textiles’) in the wake of the ‘calicoe craze’ in the late seventeenth century and the ‘consumer revolution’ of the ‘long eighteenth century’ (1680–1820).30 Accordingly, cotton was Madurai’s veritable cash crop and the one crop that Tamil sayings have yielding ‘potfulls [of money]’ and cash (panam).31

43–44; Idem, ‘Rethinking Wages and Competitiveness in the Eighteenth Century: Britain and South India’, Past and Present 158, 1 (1998), pp. 79–109; T. Roy, ‘Introduction’, in: Idem (ed.), Cloth and Commerce: Textiles in Colonial India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 11–32; K.N. Chaudhuri, ‘The Structure of the Indian Textile Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in: Roy (ed.), Cloth and Commerce, pp. 38–84; R. Barnes, ‘Intro duction’, in: Idem (ed.), Textiles in Indian Ocean Societies: A Reassessment of Dates, RoutledgeCurzon Indian Ocean Series (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 5. 29 Winius and Vink, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, pp. 61–67. The Surat Factory, for instance, accounted for 60–80 percent of total European imports by the eic during the seventeenth century. K.N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660–1760 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 229. 30 Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, p. 237. See also: Idem, pp. 153–160, 194, 197, 205, 215–220, 277–280, and 343–344; Idem, Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 307–308, and 318; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise, pp. 337–339; Parthasarathi, Transition to a Colonial Economy, p. 5. 31 Quoted in: Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, p. 151. There were similar signs of prosperity in various regions of the subcontinent, including Mughal North India, resulting

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According to Paul Bairoch, as late as 1750, on the eve of the British Industrial Revolution, India (‘the first world-market in manufactured goods’), possessed 24.8 percent of the world’s manufacturing capacity, supported by highly sophisticated commercial and banking systems.32 The rage for Indian cottons precipitated political crises throughout Europe. Protectionist laws, from a partial ban in 1701 to a total ban in 1721, were passed by English Parliament in 1700 and 1720, prohibiting the use or wearing of ‘all wrought silks, Bengalls, and stuffs mixed with silk or herba, of the manufacture of Persia, China, or East India, and all calicoes painted, dyed, printed or stained there’. Mercantilist concerns, including hack-written pamphlets and anti- calico riots supported by the English wool and silk trades along with London and provincial weavers’ guilds seeking to disrupt the sale and wear of calico and to secure formal political address, also resulted in the members of the Court of Directors being forced to give their personal bond on the renewal of the Company’s charter in 1693, promising the export of 150,000 pound ster- ling in commodities, while the charter of 1698, reconfirmed for the United Company in 1709, stipulated that one-tenth of the total value of the Company’s exports must be in English goods.33 In France, the authorities employed every conceivable measure within their repertoire beginning with a ban on imported ‘printed or painted cotton’, except for ‘Guinea cloth, percales and muslin’, in 1686, including supervision, inspec- tions, confiscation, imprisonment, and fines. The most extreme measure passed

from steady commercial expansion from the sixteenth century onwards. See: M. Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab, 1707–48 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986); Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars. 32 P. Bairoch, ‘International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980’, Journal of European Economic History 11, 2 (1982), pp. 269–333, esp. 296; Washbrook, ‘From Comparative Sociology to Global History’, p. 416. 33 P. O’Brien, T. Griffith, and P. Hunt, ‘Political Components of the Industrial Revolution: English Cotton Textile Industry, 1660–1774’, Economic History Review 46, 3 (1991), pp. 395–423; S.D. Chapman and S. Chassagne, European Textile Printers in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of Peel and Oberkampf (London: Heinemann Educational, 1981); A.P. Wadsworth and J. de Lacy Mann, Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1931), pp. 111–144; B. Lemire, Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660–1800 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 3–42; Idem, ‘Domesticating the Exotic: Floral Culture and the East India Calico Trade With England, c. 1600–1800’, Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture 1, 1 (2003), pp. 64–85; Idem, ‘Revising the Historical Narrative: India, Europe, and the Cotton Trade, c. 1300–1800’, in: Riello and Parthasarathi (eds), The Spinning World, pp. 205–226.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 167 in 1717 condemned those buying and selling calicoes to life servitude in the French galleys. Yet, no matter how draconian the laws, nothing worked.34 In the Dutch Republic with its open economy and significant imports of precious metals from the Americas, the outflow of silver and gold never excited the protests that it did in England and France. The export of precious metals was in general free, especially after the States General lifted the prohibition on the export of unminted silver in 1644. Though in 1690 the regulation was introduced that anyone wanting to export silver had to offer a similar quantity to the bank of exchange or the mint master, the Company Directors asked for dispensation and meanwhile disobeyed the injunction. In 1701, with Dutch access to the silver of Spanish America threatened following the accession of Philip of Anjou as Philip V (r. 1700–1724), the States General exempted the voc from the temporary suspension of the export of bullion from the Republic to the extent that it could send out the cash already bought to Asia. While facing opposition from the textile town of Haarlem to the importing of finished silks, the voc, unlike its English counterpart, had a free hand in the sphere of cotton cloth and calicoes. In the eighteenth century Leiden cloth manufacturers tried constantly to persuade the Dutch East India Company to buy their products. A promise of the Amsterdam chamber in 1742 to do so with half their textiles was not fulfilled, but in 1772 the voc consented to annually purchase Leiden textiles for a total of between 70,000 and 100,000 guilders. 35 A crucial role in facilitating and negotiating the import and export trades was played by individual indigenous merchants and official brokers (tupasis, talals) from various backgrounds. For certain broker fees (taraku, talali), these local go-betweens facilitated the exchange between the different cultures of the South Asian littoral through a system of advance contracts.

34 H. Weber, La Compagnie Française des Indes (1604–1875) (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1904), pp. 504–505; Ph. Haudrére, La Compagnie Française des Indes au XVIIe Siècle (1719–1795) (Paris: Librairie de l’Inde, 1989), I, pp. 427–428; F. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th Centuries II: The Wheels of Commerce (London: HarperCollins, 1985), pp. 178– 180; O. Raveaux, ‘Space and Technology in the Cotton Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: The Examples of Marseilles Printed Cottons’, Textile History 36, 2 (2005), pp. 131–145. 35 F.S. Gaastra, ‘The Exports of Precious Metals from Europe to Asia by the Dutch East India Company, 1602–1795’, in: J.F. Richards (ed.), Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1983), pp. 449–450; Bruijn, Dutch- Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 182–184; De Vries and Van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, p. 458; Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, pp. 337–338, and 361–362; J.G. van Dillen, Van Rijkdom en Regenten: Handboek tot de Economische en Sociale Geschiedenis van Nederland Tijdens de Republiek (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 481–493.

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Forward contracting was the preferred method over direct purchase from and supervision of producers. In order to exercise some control over the prices and quality of products and reduce internal competition and the danger of large irrecuperable outstanding debts, individual merchants on the Coro mandel Coast were gradually brought together in so-called ‘associations’ (maatschappije). Under this arrangement individual merchants would pool resources in a joint-stock company (gemeene beurse) by holding a monopoly of local trade with the Company. To prevent internal competition and ensure the price and quality of the commodities delivered to the Company, each association was accorded exclusive trading rights in a clearly circumscribed area. Moreover, to limit cash advances and forestall outstanding bad debts, each merchant was, at least in theory, held financially accountable in case one of his associates defaulted or went bankrupt. The first of these associations were formed at Pulicat during the terms- of-office of Governor Laurens Pit of Coromandel (1652–1663) and it was gradually followed by the creation of others in the local Company settlements and factories, including Sadraspatnam, Tegenampatnam (Devenampatnam), Masulipatnam, Drakshavaram (Draksharama), Palakollu, Madapollam, and Nagapatnam. In May 1680, the first Indian joint-stock companies or ‘associations of indigenous merchants’ were formed on the Madurai Coast at Tuticorin and Alvar Tirunagari, followed by others at Kayalpatnam, Manappad, Kottar (Kottaram), and Kilakkarai. Although a list of the original membership is no longer existent, the reintroduction of the ‘associations’ in 1692 following a brief and disastrous experiment with the system of individual brokers by Commissioner General Van Rheede (1690–1692) provides the names of these merchants in the 1680s, including Muslim Maraikkayars, Hindu Chittis, and Christian Paravas.36 Before long, the English and French followed suit and organised similar associations on the coast. In Madras the first joint-stock group of merchants was set up in 1680 under the agency of Streynsham Master (1678–1681), followed by all the English settlements and factories along the coast. The joint-stock companies of Coromandel broke up in the 1730s under the strains of internecine warfare in the Carnatic and the resulting impoverishment of merchants. The system was never successfully transplanted to Bengal,

36 voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 352r–352v, Cort vertoogh en redenen waerom d’E Comp. nu eenigen tijd geleden op Tutucorijn niet (als voor desen) van gewilde en genoegsame cleden gediend is geweest, 12.3.1692; voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 781r, 783v–786v, 797v–799r, 801r–802r, 827r, 853r, 855r, and 862v–867v, Dagreg. gouvr. Van Rhee op de voijagie naar Tuticurin, 12.8–8.9.1692; Idem, f. 1126v, Kort relaas koopman en opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticurin der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter custe Madre, 30.11.1692.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 169 where the tradition of financial and political independence of individual merchants was much greater.37 Under the 1680 agreement, the merchants of Tuticorin were to limit their operations in the district including the circumvening villages of Tuticorin, Sivakasi, Srivilliputtur, and Sankarankovil (Sankarankoyil, Sankarankoil). In turn, the Manappad merchants were restricted to Kulasekharapatnam, Viravanallur, Kallakadu, Kallidaikurichi, and Tenkasi. The Alvar Tirunagari merchants were assigned to Alvar Tirunagari, Palaiyamkottai, Srivaikuntam, and surroundings. Finally, the Kottar merchants were to operate in Travan core proper, whereas the Kilakkorai merchants were to trade at Kilak karai, Adirampatnam, and the Ramnad interior including the region around Pudukkottai.38 In an assessment of the role of Europeans in Asian trade, W.H. Moreland has asserted that European activities, especially those of the Dutch in eastern India, promoted the rapid expansion of the ‘traditional’ Indian economy in the seventeenth century.39 As we will see, however, the role of Dutch activities in Madurai’s regional economy was varied, stimulating in some while restrictive in other ways, fitting into and changing existing structures and patterns. Moreover, the relative share of the Company in the regional economy was significant in some commodities and sectors, while marginal in others. Finally, the growth of the Indian economy in the seventeenth century was both generated by factors intrinsic to developments in Asian societies and the new impetus provided by the European presence.

37 J.J. Brennig, ‘Joint-Stock Companies of Coromandel’, in: Kling and Pearson (eds), The Age of Partnership, pp. 71–94, esp. 77–82; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 239–251; Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, pp. 146–149; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 305–312; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre- Colonial India, pp. 167–173. 38 voc 1369, obp 1682, ff. 1389r–1389v, Artikelen en contract bij opperh. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam gemaakt met de Sjentiefse en Moorse koopl., 10.11.1677; voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 385v–386r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680; voc 904, bub 1680, f. 1123, Miss. GG en R aan 1e commr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.10.1680; voc 1505, obp 1683, ff. 359v, and 371v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, opperk. en geëligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust, 31.1.1682; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 351v–357r, Eenige aanmerkingen over de jegenwoordige toestand op de Madurese kust opgesteld door de gewezen koopman Krijn Caperman, 12.3.1692; voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 781r et seq., Dagregister gouvr. Van Rhee van Ceijlon, 12.8–8.9.1692. 39 W.H. Moreland, From Akbar to Aurangzeb: A Study in Indian Economic History (London: Macmillan and Co., 1923), pp. 79–80.

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Though the value of external trade was relatively small (some 5 percent of the gross domestic product in pre-colonial India according to one guesstimate), it could be significantly higher in the coastal regions. In 1675, for instance, the export trade (both Asian and European) of the whole of the Coromandel Coast was estimated to be 10–12 million Dutch guilders, Dutch exports amounting to ca. 2 million guilders (16.7–20 percent). In comparison, based on the takings of the local furza or imperial customs house, Surat’s total trade in 1699 came to 16.32 million rupees or 24.48 million guilders. The European share amounted to ca. 2 million rupees or 3 million guilders, the Dutch taking the lion’s share of 1.23 million rupees or 1.84 million guilders (7.5 percent).40 While it is hard to quantify the exact impact of external trade on the regional economy, we can put these figures into some perspective. The total revenue, for instance, of the Qutb Shahi state of Golconda in the year 1685–1686 was 48 million rupees or 72 million guilders, while the annual revenue of the Adil Shahis of Bijapur in the 1650s was 52 million rupees or 78 million guilders.41 The annual revenue of the Nayakas of Tanjore during the reigns of Ekoji (Vyamkoji) and Shahaji Bhonsle (1675–1712) may have been as high as 4.08 million star pagodas or 24.5 million guilders, but was probably significantly lower.42 ln the early seventeenth century, the combined fiscal collection of the three great Nayakas of Tanjore, Madurai, and Gingee has been estimated at some 8 million pagodas or 48 million guilders.43 In 1677 the six provinces of Madurai were reportedly farmed out for a total of 1.2 million pardaus or 3.6 million guilders, including the Tirunelveli ‘lowlands’ rented for 420,000 pardaus

40 Bayly, ‘Indigenous Social Formations and the “World System”’, p. 117; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, p. 96; Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, pp. 18–19. Though Chaudhuri completely despaired of the possibility to ever quantify the impact of silver imports on the Indian economy in the absence of any estimate of total national income or output, he did argue that interregional and foreign trade was ‘fairly important’ to the economy of the subcontinent. Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, pp. 159–160, and 583, fn. 19. 41 H.K. Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shahi Dynasty (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1974), p. 235; Verma, History of Bijapur, p. 235. 42 According to one later estimate, in the reigns of Ekoji and Shahaji (1675–1712), 32,050,000 kalams of paddy (= 1,373,571 tons of paddy or 842,142 tons of rice) were produced in Tanjore. The Dabir’s Settlement figures of 1773 were a total 2.410,382 star pagodas (2,062,154 pagodas or 85.55 percent in land revenue) on 18,904,000 kalams. These numbers produce the following: 32.05 kalams : 18.904 kalams = 1.6954083792 × 2,410,382 pagodas = 4,086,581.8398 pagodas × 6 = 24,519,491 guilders. Subrahmanyam, ‘Politics of Fiscal Decline’, pp. 194–195, and 197; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, p. 210. 43 Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 111–112.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 171 or 1.26 million guilders.44 At the same time, the value of Dutch imports in 1677–1678 amounted to 133,486 guilders (see Table 26, Chapter 5), constituting 3.7 percent of Madurai’s total revenue or 10.6 percent of the revenue of Tirunelveli province. The value of Dutch imports would increase dramatically in the subsequent period, peaking at 549,271 guilders in 1690–1691 (see Table 2, Chapter 2, and Table 29, Chapter 6). Massive Dutch investments, centred on textile piece goods, hence provided a powerful external stimulus for the Madurai economy most notably in the Tirunelveli region where the voc settlements were located. The ‘first impact of the European world economy’45 provided jobs for hundreds of indigenous Company servants and thousands of local cotton growers, spinners, weavers, dyers, washermen, merchants, bank- ers, porters, boieiros or bullock-team drivers, and other cross-cultural brokers.

The Import Trade: Precious Metals and the Rest

The bulk of the import trade consisted of precious metals, which were supplemented by limited quantities of base metals (especially copper from Japan, tin from Malaysia, lead and zinc or spelter from Europe and Southeast Asia); fine spices (cloves, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon) from Eastern Indonesia and Ceylon; and pepper and arecanuts from Malabar and Ceylon. Other miscellaneous commodities included aromatic woods, dye woods and other dyes (sandalwood, agilwood, sappanwood, camphor, benzoin, radix china or

44 voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 408r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en koopman Ooms van Tuticurin aan superint. Van Goens, 5.3.1659; voc 1282, obp 1672, f. 1133r, Rapp. opperk. Pijl der presente gestalte van de Madurese kust aan adml. en gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon, 27.9.1671; voc 1304, obp 1675, ff. 324v–325r, Rapp. opperk. Huijsman wegens den stant der saecken van Madure aan superint., adml., en gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon, 29.3.1674; voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 346r–346v, Transl. contract landregent Commare Suami Modeljaar rakende de verpanding der 4 landschappen van Tuticurin, Cailpatnam, Collesegrepatnam en Aetoer aan d’E. Compe., 2.7.1676; James Ford Bell Library, B 1738 Mos.: f. 68, 23 November 1677; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 405v–406r, Contracte van alliantie tusschen Renga Kistna Muouttou Wierapa Naick ende Van Rheede, 29 July–6 August 1690; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 31, and 529. The annual revenues of the two provinces of Satyamangalam and Dharapuram, recently lost to Mysore, were estimated to be 800,000 pardaus or 2.4 million guilders. For the actual revenues: voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 371r–371v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 393v–394r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688. 45 Bayly, ‘Indigenous Social Formations and the “World System” ’, p. 119.

172 chapter 2 chinaroot, etc.) from Southeast Asia; silk textiles, carpets, brocade, dried fruit, the attar of roses (‘rose water’, a fragrant essential oil derived from the petals of the flower), Shiraz wines, and some dye root from Persia; European manufactures, such as linen, hats, and other daily ‘necessities’ mainly for the local Company personnel; and Bengal produce, including silks, muslins, gold embroidery, powdered sugar, and edible oils. Until the late eighteenth century, Euro-Asian trade conformed to the ‘bullion for goods’ model characterised by a chronically and significantly unfavourable balance of trade for Europe, which necessitated the import of large quantities of precious metals into Asia to settle the account. India and China most notably were the early modern workshops and the seemingly bottomless ‘silver sinks’ of the pre-industrial world economy. In typically proto-Orientalist discourse, the Dutch, and especially the imperialist, ‘Ceylon-centric’ faction, routinely attributed poor sales of Company imports in the region to the oppressive nature of the Madurai government and unstable conditions in the interior (bovenlandse revolutien). In imperialist propaganda of the 1670s, the aranmanai was depicted, in the words of E.L. Jones, as a ‘giant revenue-pump’ or ‘military plunder machine’ solely geared towards the extraction of revenue, leading to the impoverishment and depopulation of the area.46 In the older literature, perpetuating proto-Orientalist perceptions imbued with modernisation theory, the pivotal role of bullion in long-distance trade between Europe and Asia was ascribed to the alleged rigidity of consumer tastes and inelasticity of demand due to the poverty of the masses and rapacity of officials, political merchants, and revenue farmers in the ‘traditional’ societies of the East, rendering Asian markets for European goods extremely small

46 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 329v, Rapp. Huijsman van den presenten toestandt der saecken op de custe van Madure, 5.12.1675; voc 1307, obp 1676, f. 681r, Miss, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 1.2.1676; voc 1316, obp 1678, ff. 205r–207v, Consideratiën Huijsman rakende den handel van d’E Comp. op de kust van Madure, 8.12.1676; voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1263v, and 1280v, Rapp. Caperman wegens tgene in de landen van Cottate, Pannagoedij, Callecare, Wiervenaloer, Tengansij, Madure, Sillegaetsie &a. heeft onder- vonden, 13.5.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 92r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677; Bassingh, ‘Beschrijvinge…’, in: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 297, and 349; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 114r–114v, Rapp. Van Rhee van den jegenwoordigen toestant en negotie ter custe Madure, 19.10.1679; voc 1351, obp 1680, f. 2550r, Vertoog Van Goens de Jonge van de toestand des gouvts. van Ceijlon, 25.2.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 205r–20rv, Rapp. Van Rhee van den presenten toestant, commercie en andere zaecken ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680; E.L. Jones, The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia, second edn. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 225–238.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 173 and static. In addition, Crown or Company servants in Asia were said to lack sufficient incentive to enlarge the market, knowing that the main profits of the East India trade were derived from the exports. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the absorption of precious metals by India or China reflected the irrational, Oriental penchant for hoarding treasure and luxury consumption.47 More recently, a more compelling alternative explanation rather than irrational Orientalist penchants and essentialising tendencies of ‘traditional’ societies has been put forward, pointing to the inability of Europe to supply Western products at competitive prices before the ‘great divergence’. Europe as yet had no distinct cost advantages, which came only with the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century, while the relative skills of Indian manufacturers far surpassed those of their European counterparts.48 Other factors, which contributed to limit the demand for European products in

47 Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, pp. 189, 192, 197, 201, and 213; R.C. Blitz, ‘Mercantilist Policies and the Pattern of World Trade, 1500–1750’, Journal of Economic History 27, 1 (1967), pp. 39–55; J. Sperling, ‘The International Payments Mechanisms in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Economic History Review, second series, 14, 3 (1962), p. 450. For a recent restatement: C.P. Kindleberger, ‘Spenders and Hoarders’, in: Idem (ed.), Historical Economics: Art or Science? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 25–85. For a reassessment: Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 155, and 228–229; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise, pp. 319–320; K. Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 259–260. 48 F.S. Gaastra, ‘The Exports of Precious Metals from Europe to Asia’; Idem, ‘De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in de Zeventiende en Achttiende Eeuw: De Groei van een Bedrijf. Geld Tegen Goederen. Een Structurele Verandering in het Nederlands-Aziatisch Handelsverkeer’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 91, 2 (1976), pp. 249–272; F.S. Gaastra and I. Schöffer, ‘The Import of Bullion and Coin into Asia by the Dutch East India Company in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in: M. Aymard (ed.), Dutch Capitalism and World Capitalism: Capitalisme Hollandais et Capitalisme Mondiale (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 222–223; O. Prakash, Precious Metals and Commerce: The Dutch East India Company in the Indian Ocean Trade (Aldershot and Brookfield: Variorum, 1994), V, pp. 159–187; IX, pp. 83–96; X, pp. 55–73, XI, pp. 171–192, XII, pp. 475–491; A. Pol, Schepen met Geld: De Handelsmunten van de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, 1602–1799 (The Hague: Sdu, 1989); Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 294–322; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 183–192; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 158–160, and 456; Furber, Rival Empires of Trade, pp. 230–234; and: Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India, pp. 84–85. The mainstream ‘trade deficit explanation’ is rejected by ‘bullionist’ historians Dennis Flynn and Arturo Giráldez in favour of an alternative ‘arbitrage trade’ model based on the divergence of bimetallic ratios between regions. See: D.O. Flynn and A. Giráldez, ‘Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid- Eighteenth Century’, Journal of World History 13, 2 (2002), pp. 391–427, esp. 396–397.

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Madurai and the ‘drain’ of precious metals, included the high transport and transit duty costs of overland trade in the face of the limited availability of navigable rivers and the decentralised political system in South India in post- Vijayanagar times. Most of the portage, therefore, during the dry season was by pack-oxen and human bearers, while some small carts were also being used subject to numerous transit tolls.49 Asian (and European) competition from Malabar, Tanjore, and Gingee severely limited the catchment area of Tuticorin and other Dutch factories along the Madurai Coast. Whereas imports from Malabar via the various gaps in the Western Ghats were especially damaging to Dutch sales in the south, east coast ports such as Nagapatnam, Porto Novo (Parangipettai), Cuddalore, and Tegenampatnam serviced not only the city of Tanjore, Manachanallur, Kumbakonam, and other Tanjore markets, but also established links with Trichinopoly, Tirumangalampettai, Salem, and other towns in northern Madurai (see Maps 4 and 6 for the regional trade routes). In 1679, for instance, Chief Thomas van Rhee of the Madurai Coast commented that Tirumangalampettai was the furthest market serviced by small quantities of goods imported by the Dutch at Tuticorin,

because further west, west-northwest, and northwest all places are supplied from both Trimelevas [Tirumullaivasal], Porto Novo, Cuddalore, Tegenampatnam, and from Malabar to the west… As a result, not a single pound of minerals, spices, sandalwood, quicksilver, vermillion &. is brought from Tuticorin to Manachanallurpettai, the most distant market town of Trichinopoly. Thus, the bulk of local sales are to the east at Tirumangalam pettai, Kottar, and Viravanallur &a….50

Several attempts in the 1670s and 1680s to incite the local merchants from Trichinopoly and Tirumangalampettai to buy the Company’s imports directly at Tuticorin were therefore doomed from the beginning (see Chapters 5 and 6).

49 J. Deloche, Transport and Communications in India Prior to Steam Locomotion. I: Land Transport (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 73–82, 90, et seq.: Idem, ‘Études sur la Circulation en Inde IV: Notes sur les Sites de Quelques Ports Anciens du Pays Tamoul’, Bulletin de l’École d’Extrême-Orient 74 (1985), pp. 141–166; Idem, ‘Études sur la Circulation en Inde V: Le Chenal de Pampan et la Route de Pèlerinage de Ramesvaram: Un Example d’Aménagement Ancien’, Bulletin de l’École d’Extrême-Orient 74 (1985), pp. 167–182; Idem, ‘Études sur la Circulation en Inde VIII: De la Trouée de Palghat et du Plateau de Maisur a la Pédiplane Tamoule: Liaisons Routières Anciennes et Vestiges de Chemins’, Bulletin de l’École d’Extrême-Orient 78 (1991), pp. 51–86. 50 voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 114v, Rapp. Van Rhee van den jegenwoordigen toestant en negotie ter custe Madure, 19.10.1679.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 175

Initial efforts by the English to push the sale of European imported goods, such as woollens, in Madras through their Indian merchant contacts in the 1660s and 1670s by tagging sales on to the lucrative textile contracts ended in dismal failure as well. Only in the 1680s, when eic servants at Madras had obtained greater leverage over Indian merchants and with the expansion of Muslim power southwards, did sales pick up somewhat, though the bulk of the investment still had to be financed through the import of bullion.51 Another reason for the limited import market was that during this period spices were apparently used far more by Muslims in their cooking than by Hindus, especially those of eastern India. Hence the areas where spices sold well were the Deccan sultanates of Golconda and parts of Bijapur. A Dutch report of 1679 drew a sharp distinction between the population in ‘Moorish lands’ and the inhabitants of Madurai, who (in accordance with their ‘stingy nature’) preferred earthen vessels over copperware and pepper instead of fine spices. This tendency, however, was reinforced by the Company’s policy of fixed high prices for these monopolistic products.52 Thus, the raison d’être of the activities of the European trading companies in India (with the notable exception of Surat) was the procurement of export goods for other parts of Asia as well as Europe. Indeed, European-Indian exchange mainly took place in the form of ‘bullion for goods’ or rather ‘treasure for textiles’. Excluding copper, which also served as a monetary medium, on average 60–70 percent of total Dutch imports on the Madurai Coast between 1659–1660 and 1690–1691 consisted of precious metals. Treasure accounted for a smaller portion only in the late 1660s, when shipments from Europe were temporarily hampered by the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665– 1667) and large sums of cash were generated locally by the tax on diving stones in the pearl fisheries of 1667, 1668, and 1669, briefly decreasing the needs for external funds (see below). The drop in the share of treasure in 1685–1686 was a result of a decree issued by the Tokugawa shogunate, temporarily prohibiting the export of gold kobans from Japan (see Tables 2 and 3).53

51 Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 153 and 192–195; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 216–235. 52 voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 114r–114v, Rapp. Van Rhee van den jegenwoordigen toestant en negotie ter custe Madure, 19.10.1679; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 107–108. 53 In comparison, the proportion of treasure in total Dutch imports in Bengal between 1663 and 1690 averaged between 70 and 80 percent. Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, pp. 65–68. See also: Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 185–192. Between 1660 and 1688, precious metals accounted for 74.65 percent of total English imports into Asia. See: Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 507, and 511–512.

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In comparison, precious metals accounted for 75–88 percent of Dutch imports in Bengal during the last four decades of the seventeenth century and about 75 percent in Coromandel in the first two decades of the eighteenth century. In Gujarat, the ‘atypical factory’, however, the ‘treasure for textiles’ model is not applicable since large quantities of spices, most notably cloves, and Japanese bar copper could be sold in the vast and densely populated hinterland, which included the Mughal court. Between 1660 and 1700, the Company was even able to export vast quantities of silver rupees from northwest India due to the sale of these monopolistic and monopsonistic goods, peaking at 700,000 guilders in the 1670s. For the period 1708–1756, the proportion of bullion in English imports into India amounted to 74 percent in Bengal, 84 percent in Madras, and 57 percent in Bombay (Mumbai).54 As a result of the drying up of Asian supplies of precious metals (Japan, Persia, and Gujarat) in the late seventeenth century and the rapidly increasing volume of Euro-Asian trade during the ‘consumer revolution’ of the ‘long eighteenth century’, direct shipments of currency by the voc to Asia (excluding bills of exchange) rose sharply from 9.20 million guilders per year in the decade of 1640/1641–1649/1650 and 28.61 million guilders in 1690/1691–1699/1700 to 39.28 million guilders in 1700/1701–1709/1710 and 66.03 million guilders in 1720/1721–1729/1730.55 Between 1650 and 1695 the voc exported some 50 million guilders (56.4 percent) in precious metals and 38.69 million guilders (43.6 percent) in trade goods and Company requirements from the Dutch Republic. For the period 1700–1750 228.27 million guilders (69.4 percent) worth in precious metals and 100.66 million guilders (30.6 percent) in trade goods and Company requirements were received in Batavia. While in the seventeenth century an average of 0.5 million guilders a year in merchandise was sent to

54 See: Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in India, Table 3.3, pp. 98–99; Idem, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, p. 66; Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, p. 188 n. 361; K.K. Datta, ‘India’s Trade in Europe and America in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 2, 3 (1959), p. 315. 55 J. de Vries, ‘Connecting Europe and Asia: A Quantitative Analysis of the Cape-Route Trade, 1497–1795’, in: D.O. Flynn, A. Giraldéz, and R. Von Glahn (eds), Global Connections and Monetary History, 1470–1800 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), Table 2.8, p. 76. For shipments from Europe: Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 39 and 187. For assignaties: Gaastra, ‘Geld Tegen Goederen’. For Japan: O. Nachod, Die Beziehungen der Niederländischen Ostindischen Kompagnie zu Japan im Siebzehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Rob. Friese Sep.-Cto., 1897), Table E, pp. ccvii-ccviii; Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, Table 11, p. 58. For Persia: Gaastra, ‘Exports of Precious Metal’, Appendix 4, Tables 1 and 2, pp. 474–475. For Gujarat: Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise, Table 5.2, p. 185.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 177

Asia, after 1700 only 0.25 million guilders of trade goods were delivered, the remainder being Company requirements.56 Leaving intra-Asiatic trade from the 1670s largely to English private merchants, increased demand in Europe led to growing exports of treasure (excluding bills of exchange) by the eic as well, rising from 4.05 million guilders in 1630–1639 and 45.33 million guilders in 1680–1689, to 64.48 million guilders in 1720–1729. In the twenty-three years between 1601–1624, the eic exported 9.04 million guilders (68.2 percent) in treasure and 4.21 million guilders (31.8 percent) in commodities. Between 1660 and 1699 the eic sent out 102.35 million guilders (75.7 percent) in precious metals and 32.91 million guilders (24.3 percent) in goods, for the period 1700–1749 282.96 million guilders (79.4 percent) in treasure and 73.19 million guilders (20.6 percent) were received by the factors in Asia. In addition, the annual average value of bills of exchange drawn from Fort St. George, Bengal, Bombay, Fort York (Bencoolen, Sumatra), and St. Helena between 1710 and 1745 increased from 281,000 guilders in 1710–1719, 829,000 guilders in 1720–1729, and 1,732,000 guilders in 1730–1739 to 1,816,000 guilders in 1740–1745.57 In comparison, treasure accounted for 78.95 percent (an average of 28.26 million livres tournois or 14.13 million guilders) of total exports of French East India Company exports to Asia between 1725/1726 and 1764/1765.58 According to one recent estimate, total exports of bullion from Europe to Asia increased from 3.44 million (1651–1675), 6.23 million (1676–1700), and 11.35 million (1701–1725), to 16.65 million guilders (1726–1750) per annum.59 In fact, ‘bullionist’ historians Dennis Flynn and Arturo Giraldéz, representing the culmination of a long tradition of venerable scholarship, have recently described the role of Europeans, albeit somewhat extravagantly and simplisti- cally, as that of mere ‘intermediaries in the trade between the New World and China’. Though accurate in some ways, this characterisation leaves out the

56 In the 1660s specie exports amounted to 1.2 million and commodity exports (trade goods and Company supplies) to 1.8 million guilders or a 40:60 division. In the 1720s specie exports amounted to 6.6 million and commodity exports to 2.4 million guilders or a 73:27 division. Gaastra, ‘Exports of Precious Metal’, p. 461; Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schöffer, Dutch- Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 283–284; De Vries and van der Woude, First Modern Economy, Table 10.8A, p. 460. 57 Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, Tables A.24, C.1, C.2, C.3, and C.4, pp. 438, and 508–512; Idem, The English East India Company: The Study of An Early Joint-Stock Company, 1600– 1640 (London: Frank Cass and Co., 1965), Table III, p. 115; Idem, ‘The East India Company and the Export of Treasure in the Early Seventeenth Century’, Economic History Review, new series, 16, 1 (1963), pp. 24–25; Idem, English East India Company, pp. 116–117. 58 Haudrére, La Compagnie Française des Indes, IV, Tables II E and F, pp. 1196–1198. 59 De Vries, ‘Connecting Europe and Asia’, Table 2.9, p. 78.

178 chapter 2 other great pre-modern ‘sink’ India, overlooks significant revenues derived by Europeans from intra-Asiatic trade, slights the commodity component of Euro-Asian commerce, and neglects alternative Asian (most notably Japan, Persia, and Gujarat) and other non-American sources of bullion. Similarly mis- leading and reductionist is also André Gunder Frank’s famous (or notorious) metaphor, that Europe ‘used its American money to buy itself a ticket on the Asian train’, while it ‘offered the Europeans their first real opportunity to ante up in the Asian-dominated global casino’.60 Prior to fossil fuels and the Industrial Revolution, precious metals, silver in particular, however, did serve as the lubricant of the merchant-capitalist engine of the early modern world economy in general and the Company trade in India in particular—though gold played a more important role in the South.

Precious Metals: Bullion in the India Shop

Asian coins imported by the Dutch on the Madurai Coast to finance the export trade consisted of gold kobans from Japan, silver abasis from Persia (Bandar Abbas or Gombroon), together with various Indian currencies, such as silver rupees and mahmudis from Surat, gold pagodas from Pulicat, plus Nagapatnam and Marava gold fanams. Centuries of increase in the money supply accompanied diversification of coinage in the region. In 1800, no less than thirty-two different types of gold and silver coins circulated in Tirunelveli minted as far afield as Surat, Porto Novo, Tanjore, Travancore, Arcot, and Madras.61 Dutch imports from Europe in our period consisted of the so-called negotiepenningen or ‘commercial coins’ specifically intended for export (ducatons, provintie- or rijksdaalders, kruisdaalders, and bankdaalders), along with silver and gold bullion. A special case was formed by Spanish and Mexican silver reals of eight (real de a ocho), which were sold either on the basis of their intrinsic or their nominal value.

60 D.O. Flynn and A. Giráldez, ‘Born With a ‘Silver Spoon: The Origin of World Trade in 1571’, Journal of World History 6, 2 (1995), p. 203; A.G. Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), pp. xxv, and 261. See also: Idem, pp. 4–5 and 37. For an overview of the bullion trade in the Indian Ocean in the early modern period: M.N. Pearson, ‘Asia and World Precious Metal Flows in the Early Modern Period’, in: J. McGuire, P. Bertola, and P. Reeves (eds), Evolution of the World Economy: Precious Metals and India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 21–57. 61 Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, p. 76.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 179

64.66 67.04 76.26 48.96 *** 69.32 70.34 50.04 71.80 64.16 68.63 62.21 54.12 80.35 65.89 88.84 76.51 Percent 86,343 319,513 122,017 199,519 169,821 133,577 179,228 163,880 122,446 351,469 361,892 283,837 109,665 208,700 362,058 208,358 Silver and gold Silver 297,611 150,357 159,527 272,961 549,271 253,461 303,616 417,088 159,476 474,767 136,486 254,799 409,453 250,094 489,500 497,998 Total imports Total 1681–82 1680–81 1690–91 1677–78 1675–76 1678–79 1682–83 1676–77 1679–80 1683–84 1687–88 1684–85 1686–87 1685–86 1688–89 1689–90 Year ** 5.62 61.61 71.57 75.10 * 15.63 32.52 * * 22.50 85.03 79.04 93.42 70.89 88.55 70.98 68.79 86.30 ** 46.78 Percent 1,764 10,108 57,815 15,677 63,817 54,572 22,047 47,345 87,304 63,028 29,796 49,408 26,496 60,889 159,017 150,855 Silver and gold Silver 31,378 81,485 80,737 32,052 63,234 69,674 76,843 67,465 76,984 98,590 63,690 69,039 85,896 64,684 212,533 187,006 Total imports Total 1659/60–1690/91 Value of Dutch imports of precious metals (bullion and coins) on the Madurai Coast (in guilders) and their share in total Dutch imports, of imports, Dutch in total Coast (in guilders) and their share imports of Dutch on the Madurai Value (bullion and coins) metals precious 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratiën over den generalen handel ter custe Madure 1738. No. 5 Samentreckinge van het geheele beloop der het geheele van 5 Samentreckinge 1738. No. Madure custe handel ter den generalen over de consideratiën tot 11297, Bijlagen

voc 1673–74 1672–73 1670–71 1671–72 1669–70 1666–67 1667–68 1668–69 1665–66 1664–65 1663–64 1662–63 1660–61 1661–62 Table 2 1659/60–1737/38. Madure…, van Compagnie op de custe Nederlandsche de generale van reekeninge voor negotie *Influence of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, 1665–1667. *Influence ofWar, the Second Anglo-Dutch do not seem figures The low respectively. **Influence of guilders in taxes, and 133,424:8 125,881:19 producing the pearl fisheries ofTuticorin, 1668 and 1669 at 1668. of the ban on export after Japan to from silver be related to ***Influence of of ban on the export during 1685–1686. Japan the temporary from gold Source: 1659–60 Year 1674–75

180 chapter 2

Since the economy of Madurai (and South India) was based on the gold standard, the most important precious metals were gold kobans and pagodas, with significant supporting roles for silver rupees and mahmudis from Surat along with Persian abasis (see Table 3). Due to increasingly restrictive measures of the Japanese authorities after 1664 against the outflow of bullion and a temporary slack in the Company’s trade with Persia between 1660 and 1690, Asian sources of bullion and coins were drying up in the late seventeenth century. This development accords with and contributed to the decline of the Dutch intra-Asiatic commercial network during this period. Thus, after 1680 increasing amounts of precious metals had to be sent from Europe in order to finance the rapidly growing long-distance trade in the ‘long eighteenth century’ (see Chapter 6).62 All precious metals imported had to be converted into Madurai gold pagodas and their subsidiaries, the half-pagoda (pardau) and the fanam. The Madurai fanam was one of the smallest gold coins known, with an alloy of silver and copper, and was widely used for ordinary commercial transactions throughout the region. The Dutch, therefore, considered it to be the standard currency (vaste standpenning), fixing its value at 6 stuivers or 0.30 guilders until 1679 and 6 ¾ stuivers or 0.3375 guilders thereafter. All other Asian and European coins and bullion were viewed as commodities, their value (expressed in fanams) fluctuating in accordance with market conditions. Between 1659–1660 and 1689–1690, silver bullion was sold by the Dutch at their local factories for prices ranging from 83.25 and 94 Madurai fanams per mark (1 mark = ca. 243.5 grams), while gold bullion fetched 1,200 to 1,330 fanams per mark. The so-called Dutch negotiepenningen or ‘commercial coins’ such as silver leeuwendaalders, rijksdaalders, bankdaalders, and ducatons were sold for 8.62 fanams (leeuwendaalders) to 11.5–11.75 fanams (ducatons). The Persian large silver abasis fetched 3.5–4.06 fanams, their smaller counterparts made 2.75–3 fanams, while mahmudis were sold for 1.37–2.34 fanams. Pulicat gold pagodas fetched 16.75–20 fanams, Surat silver rupees 4.56–5.7 fanams, Marava gold fanams 0.75–0.85 fanams, and ‘Moorish’ gold ducats 20.25–21 fanams. In 1689, coinage current at Trichinopoly and Tirumangalampettai included

62 Thus, Dutch exports of kobans from Japan declined from 1,154,148 guilders (1670–1679) and 298,383 guilders (1680–1689) to 228,952 guilders (1690–1699). Simultaneously, exports of precious metals (including bills of exchange) from Europe increased from 15,599,000 guilders (1670–1680) and 27,744,000 guilders (1680–1690) to 32,160,000 guilders. See: Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, p. 58; Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, p. 20; F.S. Gaastra, De Geschiedenis van de voc, second edn. (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1991), p. 139; Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 187.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 181 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 163,880 1689–90 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5,126 28,215 162,892 1688–89 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3,647 71,857 10,562 21,476 10,399 36,349 221,469 1687–88 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2,362 2,329 7,884 27,118 26,443 188,183 1680–81 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 71,774 25,929 58,642 49,866 1679–80 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 108 3,248 8,699 13,732 1691, ff. 1070r–1070v, Rendement der koopmans. en provisien ten comptoire Tuticurin, Alwatirnegarij, Alwatirnegarij, Tuticurin, comptoire ten en provisien der koopmans. Rendement obp 1691, ff. 1070r–1070v, 1470, 49,444 1678–79 1689, ff. 955r–963r, Aanwijzinge wat goederen en contanten ten comptoire Tutucorijn, Manapaar, en Manapaar, Tutucorijn, comptoire ten en contanten goederen wat Aanwijzinge obp 1689, ff. 955r–963r, 1691, ff. 549r–550r, Rendement der naargenoemde koopmansch. die ten comptoire Tutucurin, Alvatiernegarij, Alvatiernegarij, Tutucurin, comptoire die ten koopmansch. der naargenoemde Rendement obp 1691, ff. 549r–550r, 1447, 1468, 1691, ff. 640r–643r, Memorie getrocken uijt de negotieboeken van diverse goude, en zilvere specien, die tegens specien, die tegens en zilvere goude, diverse van uijt de negotieboeken Memorie getrocken obp 1691, ff. 640r–643r, 1479, 0 0 0 0 0 0 voc 1,038 1,624 3,308 6,834 11,873 15,525 26,157 30,154 24,482 1677–78 Sources of Dutch gold and silver imports on the Madurai Coast, 1677/78–1680/81 and 1687/88–1689/90 (in guilders) and 1687/88–1689/90 of Coast, 1677/78–1680/81 imports on the Madurai Sources and silver gold Dutch 1682, ff. 1990r–1992v, 1994r–1996v, 1998r–1998v, and 2001v–2005r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmans. op de Madurese kust op de Madurese koopmans. en soort van kwantt. wat Aanwijsinge and 2001v–2005r, 1998r–1998v, 1994r–1996v, ff. 1990r–1992v, obp 1682, 1370, voc

Dutch silver bullion silver Dutch bullion gold Dutch ducatons Spanish reals bankdaalders provintiedaalders Marava fanams Marava fanams Nagapatnam mahmudis Surat abasis Persian ducats ‘Moorish’ Europe leeuwendaalders Pulicat pagodas Surat/Bengal rupee Surat/Bengal Asia kobans Japanese The figures for 1677/1678–1680/1681 are absolute, those for 1687/1688–1689/1690 are close approximations based on total sales and prices fetched by these by sales and prices fetched based on total close approximations are those for 1687/1688–1689/1690 absolute, are for 1677/1678–1680/1681 * The figures year. in each respective Tuticorin coins at Sources: 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; zijn verkocht, voc 1.3.1687–30.2.1688; Alwatirnegarij, Table 3 1.3.1688–30.2.1689; voc en Manapaar zijn omgezet, 1.3.1689–30.2.1690; voc en Manapaar, 1669/70–1689/90. fanems zijn verwisselt, Madurese

182 chapter 2

Japanese gold kobans (93.5–94 fanams), Pulicat gold pagodas (18.62–18.87 fanams), Nagapatnam pagodas (18.12 fanams), Madras pagodas (17.62–18.12 fanams), São Tomé pagodas (16.25 fanams), European and ‘Moorish’ gold ducats (20.75 and 19.75 fanams, respectively), rijksdaalders (10.5 fanams), Spanish silver reals (10.5–11 fanams), and silver rupees (5.18 fanams).63 The prices of imported precious metals not only fluctuated over time, they also differed across space from locality to locality. As a rule, precious metals in the interior enjoyed a premium over coastal areas. In 1689, for instance, a Japanese gold koban was valued at 94 fanams at Trichinopoly, 93.5 fanams at Tirumangalampettai, and 91.25–93.25 fanams at Tuticorin. A Pulicat gold pagoda fetched 18.875 pagodas at Trichinopoly and 18.625 pagodas at Tirumangalampettai, while a Spanish silver real was sold for 10.5 and 11 fanams, respectively.64 Imported precious metals could either be traded for fanams from professional money changers or shroffs (cirappu, carappu) known as taksal shroffs (Hindi, ‘mint’) specialised in buying bullion or foreign coins from the public or melted and converted directly at the local mint. A contemporary list of professional moneychangers and dealers along the Madurai Coast includes several Tamil and Telugu merchants, exchanging small quantities of imported precious metals against Madurai fanams. The list of these merchants, active in the 1680s, include names such as Vasanappa Nayaka (trading gold kobans and silver bullion for a total of 4,200 fanams); Ponni Chitti (trading gold kobans for 6,808 fanams); Venkatri Nayaka (trading gold kobans and Pulicat gold pagodas

63 voc 1256, obp 1667, f. 451r, Rapp. majoor Van der Laen, en de koopl. Pijl en Huijsman der Manaerse parelvisserij, 22.5.1666; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 210r, Consideratiën Huijsman rakende de handel van d’E Comp. op de kust van Madure, 8.12.1676; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1990r–1992v, 1994r–1996v, 1998r–1998v, and 2001v–2005r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmans. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht, 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; voc 1418, obp 1687, f. 549v, Uitrekening vande gouden en zilveren muntswaardije, inhoud der maten en zwaarte der gewichten in de resp. gewesten in Indië, 1686; voc 1447, obp 1689, ff. 955r–963r, Aanwijzinge wat goederen en contanten ten comptoire Tutucorijn, Manapaar, en Alwatirnegarij, 1.3.1687–30.2.1688; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 549r–550r, Rendement der naargenoemde koopmansch. die ten comptoire Tutucurin, Alvatiernegarij, en Manapaar zijn omgezet, 1.3.1688–30.2.1689; voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 1070r–1070v, Rendement der koopmans. en provisien ten comptoire Tuticurin, Alwatirnegarij, en Manapaar, 1.3.1689–30.2.1690; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 640r–643r, Memorie getrocken uijt de negotieboeken van diverse goude, en zilvere specien, die tegens Madurese fanems zijn verwisselt, 1669/70–1689/90. 64 voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 318v, and 322v, Rapp. Welter, 9.9.1689; voc 1479, obp 1691, f. 643r, Memorie getrocken uijt de negotieboeken van diverse goude, en zilvere specie die tegens Madurese fanems zijn verwisselt, 1669/70–1689/90.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 183 for 1,981 fanams); Arti Chitti (trading gold kobans and silver bullion for 1,505 fanams); Timappa Nayaka (trading gold kobans, pagodas, Marava and Tanjore fanams, ‘Moorish’ ducats, and silver rupees, for 4,823 fanams); and Venkata Krishna Nayaka (trading gold kobans, Marava fanams, and other ‘minted gold’ for 5,995 fanams). The main advantage of using shroffs was that they ordinarily made on the spot payments, though on occasion they asked for time up to two months or an arrangement involving payment in installments. The obvious disadvantage was the fee or rabat they charged for their services. In order to prevent these ‘cunning money changers’ from setting the market, the Dutch, as a rule of thumb, deemed it advisable to keep 40,000–50,000 pardaus in reserve in the form of fanams, though they were not always in a position to live up to the ideal. The use of shroffs seemed the have been the preferred method by far on the Madurai Coast. The mint might give a better return, but the Company was uneasy at the thought of providing Madurai officials with additional political leverage by entrusting large parts of its working capital within their power.65 In similar fashion, between 1660 and 1680 most of the bullion and specie imported by the eic was sold to private dealers in precious metals at the going market rate. From the early 1680s to 1717 a dual system was followed. The treasure was sold to the merchants when prices were deemed favourable; otherwise some of it was coined into rupees or pagodas at the Company’s mints in Madras and Bombay.66 Unlike the strictly supervised system in Mughal India, the collapse of the Vijayanagara state led to the proliferation of mints and a decentralised and complex system with a multitude of coins differing in weight, fineness, and value in the South.67 The European trading companies were allowed to

65 voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 41v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.6.1677; voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 4r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.9.1687; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 361v–362r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688; voc 1459, obp 1690, f. 882v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 156r–156v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 28.12.1690; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 435r–435v, Transl. rekening van verwisselde gouden specien naar opgifte der kooplieden, 16.1.1691. 66 Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, p. 189. 67 O. Prakash, ‘Foreign Merchants and Indian Mints in the Seventeenth and the Early Eighteenth Century’, in: J.F. Richards (ed.), The Imperial Monetary System of Mughal India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 171–192; Idem, ‘On Coinage in Mughal India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 25, 4 (1988), pp. 475–491; Idem, ‘Sarrafs, Financial Intermediation and Credit Network in Mughal India’, in: E. van Cauwenberghe (ed.), Money, Coins and Commerce: Essays in the Monetary History of Asia and Europe

184 chapter 2 convert their bullion and foreign coins into local coins in their own mints by several rulers of the so-called ‘successor-states’. No such privilege, however, was ever obtained from the Nayakas of Madurai. The goal of the voc was to acquire a ‘free mint’ at Tuticorin in order to issue Madurai gold pagodas and fanams, similar to existing privileges at Pulicat (1647) and Nagapatnam (1658; extended in 1676). Especially in the 1670s, the Company’s imperialist, ‘Ceylon- centric’ faction repeatedly attempted to get permission from the aranmanai to mint fanams at Tuticorin or Attur. These efforts, however, all came to naught because the aranmanai was unwilling and unable to relinquish its control over one of its cash cows and symbols of authority (see Chapter 5).68 Imported precious metals, therefore, had to be converted into Madurai currency at the local mint into pagodas and its subsidiary half-pagodas (or pardaus), and fanams. Copper cash (kasu) was also minted to facilitate small transactions. The most important mint of Madurai was located at Tirunelveli, which the aranmanai, similar to other mints, had leased out to revenue farmers. In 1677, for instance, monthly revenues from the copper mint of Trichinopoly alone reportedly amounted to 1,200 pardaus or rixdollars. The main advantage of using a local indigenous mint was that the new coins (karukkana-panam) commanded a batta or premium over their current counterparts in circulation. Disadvantages included irritants, such as the risk of unauthourised transit tolls, plunder, fraud, unofficial cess fees, and the occasional outright denial of minting privileges. The main problem, however, was the timelag between handing in the precious metals and the actual delivery of the coins by the mint, which at times could take weeks, if not months. In addition, there were expenses involved in government tolls and mint duties (sei- gnoriage), wages and materials, plus the costs of getting the precious metals processed and sent to the mint. A Dutch assay of 1688 showed that the intrinsic value of 1 Madurai fanam, valued after 1680 at 6¾ stuivers, was no more than 5 stuivers and 7 571/912 penningen in gold, holding only 5 stuivers and 14

(From Antiquity to Modern Times) (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1991), pp. 473–490. These articles have been conveniently reissued in: Prakash, Precious Metals and Commerce; Idem, European Commercial Enterprise, pp. 157–163; I. Habib, ‘Monetary System and Prices’, in: Raychaudhuri and Habib (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of India, I, pp. 360–381; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 182–189. 68 See, for example: voc 1277, obp 1671, f. 1619v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.7.1670; voc 894, bub 1670, f. 624, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 17.10.1670; voc 895, bub 1671, f. 448, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 16.7.1671; voc 1280, obp 1672, f. 283r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 18, 268 n. 21, 274 n. 36, 366, and 373.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 185

309/384 penningen in gold, silver, and copper contents. Including minting wages, seigniorage, and so forth, 1 Madurai fanam cost 6 stuivers and 1 8343/17481 penningen.69 The import of precious metals not only facilitated the monetisation of the Madurai economy and land revenue demand, but also stimulated a movement toward an increasing recourse to the system of revenue farming. Whether one accepts the ‘bullionist’ or demographic explanation for a ‘price revolution’ or not is irrelevant in the case of India. The activities of the European trading companies and the concomittant influx of significant amounts of cash and bullion were, by and large, not accompanied by a rise in prices of the so-called wage-goods, especially staple food items. Though there did occur a sectoral price rise in export commodities such as textiles, European imports of precious metals in general served as an instrument of growth and led to an increase in the level of output, income, and employment in the Madurai economy. These factors were some of the very reasons the Madurai authorities actively pursued a ‘bullionist’ ‘open door’ policy (see Chapter 1).70

Non-Precious Metals: A Weighty Business

Non-precious or base metals (copper, tin, lead, zinc or spelter, mercury, and vermillion) were the largest single commodity of Dutch imports in value next to treasure. According to their relative importance, these metals can be divided into three groups: copper and tin, both imported in fairly sizeable quantities; a

69 Bassingh, f. 66, ‘Beschrijvinge van den oorspronck der Naijken van Madure…’. In comparison, in 1692 imperial tolls and mint duties at the Rajmahal mint in Bengal were 3.37%, wages and materials 1.03%, and processing costs 2.10%. Prakash, Precious Metals and Commerce, XI, pp. 179–182. 70 Prakash, Precious Metals and Commerce, V, pp. 161–175; VI, pp. 22–26, and 32; VII, pp. 197– 198; X, pp. 57–73; Idem, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, pp. 221–256; Van Santen, De Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, pp. 90–98; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, p. 197; S. Chaudhuri, Trade and Commercial Organisation in Bengal, 1650–1720 (Calcutta: K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1975), App. A, pp. 241–248. For different opinions: Raychaudhuri and Habib (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of India, I, pp. 372–374; Moreland, From Akbar to Aurangzeb, pp. 178–179. Chaudhuri acknowledges that the price of export goods and food grains did exhibit ‘secular upward movements’, though the precise effects of the bullion imports on the Indian economy cannot be traced in view of the re-exportation of precious metals to China and Southeast Asia and interregional flows. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 159–160.

186 chapter 2 so-called middling-group made up of lead and spelter or zinc; and vermillion and mercury or quicksilver, imported in very small amounts.71 Copper (cempu) was in demand because of its varied use in the making of implements, household utensils (afterwards thinly coated with tin), religious statuaries, armaments, in building and, for the greater part, in the minting of small coins (kasu) to facilitate minor transactions. By the middle of the seventeenth century, copper mines in Rajasthan and Central India were progres- sively exhausted, and copper from Japan, Siam (Thailand), Burma, and Sweden began to replace internal supplies on the subcontinent.72 Even when the Dutch had a rigorous monopoly of the Japanese export trade in bar copper from their ‘prison’ factory at Deshima, Nagasaki, Indian merchants were still able to ship some of the mineral from Southeast Asian ports, particularly Tenasserim and Ayuthya, where Japanese copper found its way

71 Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 108, 118–127, 138, 183–184, and 193–194; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 182–185, and 194–197; Furber, Rival Empires of Trade, pp. 248–253; Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, pp. 54, 93–94, 122–141, 161–162, and 227; M.P.M. Vink, ‘Passes and Protection Rights: The Dutch East India Company as a Redistributive Enterprise in Malaca, 1641–1662’, Moyen Orient & Océan Indien 7 (1990), pp. 73–101; J.E. Hoffman, ‘Early Policies in the Malacca Jurisdiction of the United East India Company: The Malay Peninsula and the Netherlands East Indies Attachment’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 3, 1 (1972), pp. 1–38; G.W. Irwin, ‘The Dutch and the Tin Trade of Malaya in the Seventeenth Century’, in: J. Ch’en and N. Tarding (eds), Studies in the Social History of China and South- East Asia: Essays in Memory of Victor Purcell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 267–288; K. Glamann, ‘The Dutch East India Company’s Trade in Japanese Copper, 1645–1736’, Scandinavian Economic History Review 1, 1 (1953), pp. 41–79. 72 The ‘commodity history’ on copper is extensive: Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 206, 208, 221, and 234; R. Shimada, The Intra-Asian Trade in Japanese Copper by the Dutch East India Company During the Eighteenth Century, tanap Monographs on the History of Asian-European Interaction 4 (Leiden: Brill, 2005); Idem, ‘Dancing Around the Bride: The Inter-Asian Competition for Japanese Copper, 1700–1760’, Itinerario 27, 2 (2003), pp. 37–60; Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal; E.M. Jacobs, Koopman in Azië: De Handel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie Tijdens de 18de Eeuw (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2000), pp. 113–121; Glamann, ‘The Dutch East India Company’s Trade in Japanese Copper’, esp. pp. 54–70; Y. Suzuki, ‘Japanese Copper Trade by the Dutch East India Company, 1646–1805’, Bulletin of the Faculty of Letters (Hanazono University) 32 (2000), p. 190; Nachod, Die Beziehungen der Niederländischen Ostindischen Kompagnie zu Japan, pp. 316, and 356; G.V. Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth-Century Thailand, Special Report 16 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1977), pp. 88–89, and 173; F. Perlin, The Invisible City: Monetary, Administrative and Popular Infrastructures in Asia and Europe, 1500–1900 (Aldershot and Brookfield: Ashgate, 1993), pp. 261–262; Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, pp. 167–168.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 187 through Chinese and Japanese traders. In addition, some Burmese copper was brought from Pegu and Tenasserim. Nevertheless, the Dutch maintained a commanding position in the copper market throughout the seventeenth century and were thus able to keep prices relatively stable between 1,050 and 1,450 fanams per bahar. Dutch copper imports peaked at 111,857 pounds or 2,330 bahar sold for 251,678 fanams or 84,941 guilders in 1683–1684. Between 1680– 1681 and 1689–1690, an average of 71,231 pounds or 1,484 bahar worth 159,111 fanams or 53,700 guilders was sold annually at the Madurai Coast. Tin (takaram) was imported into Madurai from a variety of sources across insular and mainland Southeast Asia, such as Sumatra, western Java, the Malaysian Peninsula, and Siam (Ujung Salang or Phuket). As a soft, easy to work metal with a multitude of household uses and as raw material for the production of cheap coins, it sold well throughout the east coast of India. Despite Dutch efforts to control the so-called ‘tin districts’ of western Malaysia north, east, and south of Malacca following its conquest from the Portuguese in 1641, the tin market became increasingly competitive after 1660. Major ports for the import of tin along the Coromandel Coast were Nagapatnam, Porto Novo, Tegenampatnam, Madras, Pulicat, and Masulipatnam, from where the excess of what could be consumed in the hinterland was reshipped to western India, Bengal, and West Asia.73 Unable to capture any major share of the market, Dutch imports of tin were rather negligible, peaking at 43,359 pounds or 90.33 bahar worth 63,323 fanams or 21,371 guilders in 1681–1682. Between 1680–1681 and 1689–1690, however, an average of only 17,377 pounds or 36.2 bahar worth 25,302 fanams or 8,539 guilders was sold annually at the Madurai Coast. The failure to monitor and control competition in the Malaysian Peninsula was also translated into a downward pressure on tin prices, which steadily fell from 1,050 fanams per bahar of 480 pounds in 1670–1671, 1,000 fanams in 1672–1673 and 1673–1674, 760 fanams in 1676–1677, 700 fanams between 1678–1679 and 1688–1689, to 680 fanams in 1689–1690 (see Table 4).

73 Vink, ‘Passes and Protection Rights’; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 108, 118–126, and 138; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India, pp. 140–143, and 234–236; Van Santen, De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, pp. 21–24; Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, pp. 48–51; S. Arasaratnam, ‘The Coromandel-Southeast Asia Trade 1650–1740’, Journal of Asian History 18 (1984), pp. 113–135; Hoffman, ‘Early Policies in the Malacca Jurisdiction of the United East Indies Company’; Irwin, ‘The Dutch and the Tin Trade of Malaya’; S. Arasaratnam, ‘Some Notes on the Dutch in Malacca and the Indo-Malaysian trade, 1641–1670’, Journal of Southeast Asian History 10, 3 (1969), pp. 480–490; Jacobs, Koopman in Azië, pp. 152–172.

188 chapter 2 ) * 1479, 1479, 0 0 0 0 0 0 750 voc 1,703 1,787 2,301 4,515 1,365 1,768 2,835 5,672 4,035 4,638 2,026 3,864 4,398 Zinc (guilders) 0 0 0 0 0 0 3,120 1,500 9,162 4,814 8,918 3,363 3,630 9,623 4,432 6,202 7,687 8,828 4,200 11,205 Zinc (pounds) 0 0 0 0 158 109 735 270 843 504 629 692 968 1,417 1,519 1,126 1,273 1,220 2,503 3,020 Lead (guilders) 0 0 0 0 975 590 8,312 6,157 1,440 7,752 3,578 6,725 5,295 4,020 2,880 3,860 7,664 4,684 16,519 13,690 Lead (pounds) 0 0 0 19 86 315 730 8,122 5,142 2,410 1,980 7,202 4,787 6,385 9,927 8,824 6,970 5,094 21,341 11,596 Tin (guilders) 0 0 0 30 131 480 1,536 9,727 11,613 5,040 4,526 14,161 12,974 14,632 17,928 16,502 10,348 20,168 23,559 43,359 Tin (pounds) 0 870 435 2,175 3,551 1,339 3,220 45,951 56,154 22,681 46,341 84,941 10,684 52,382 25,765 37,062 55,368 69,788 59,094 44,299 Copper (guilders) 0 480 960 1,478 4,273 3,390 2,400 13,150 72,913 77,819 61,025 91,902 61,306 34,353 58,335 70,952 32,258 73,947 111,857 43,925 or 0.3375 guilders afterwards. or 0.3375 and 6¾ stuivers or 0.30 guilders until 1679, at 6 stuivers valued in fanams , which were listed are sources Copper (pounds) Quantity and value of Dutch imports of non-precious metals (copper, tin, lead, and zinc) on the Madurai Coast, 1670/71–1689/90 (in pounds and guilders Coast, 1670/71–1689/90 and zinc) on the Madurai tin, lead, of and value Quantity imports of Dutch (copper, metals non-precious 1682, ff. 1990r–2005r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht, 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; kust zijn verkocht, op de Madurese koopmansch. en soort van kwantt. wat Aanwijsinge ff. 1990r–2005r, obp 1682, 1370,

voc 1688–89 1689–90 1687–88 1683–84 1684–85 1685–86 1686–87 1681–82 1682–83 1677–78 1678–79 1679–80 1680–81 Year Table 4 1675–76 1676–77 1671–72 1672–73 1673–74 1674–75 1670–71 * Sale prices in voc Source: de Compagnie verkocht, van reekening voor en Alvatt. Manapaer, Tuticurin, tot coopmansz. van allerhande soorten Specificatie van obp 1691, ff. 591r–604r, zijn Madure kuste ter hier koopmans. de voornaamste prijzen wat tegen de negotieboeken uit getrokken aanwijzing Korte f. 646r, Idem, 1670/71–1689/90; 1669/70–1689/90. verkocht,

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 189

The middling group of non-precious metals consisted of lead and spelter or zinc. Lead (iyam) was in good demand in India and imports came from Europe and Southeast Asia as domestic production of lead mines at Mochia Magra, Ballaria at Zawar near Udaipur in southern Rajasthan, and at Taragarh Hill in Ajmer were insufficient. Lead was used as a compound for miscellaneous purposes: the production of coins, the manufacturing of amulets, the decoration of temples with bright colours, in the making of cosmetics and black eye paint (curma, surma), and in Ayurvedic medicine, including the treatment of indi- gestion.74 Prices were very stable, fluctuating between 250 and 300 fanams per bahar. The greatest part of Dutch imports of lead (seughloot) originated from the Dutch Republic, peaking at 13,690 pounds or 28.5 bahar worth 2,503 guilders (7,416 fanams) in 1680–1681. Between 1680–1681 and 1689–1690, an average of 7,443 pounds or 15.5 bahar worth 1,355 guilders (4,014 fanams) was sold annually at the Madurai Coast. Zinc or spelter (tuttam, tuttunagan) was used in a wide variety of alloys, including brass, bronze, and other metals, and was also employed in Ayurvedic herbo-mineral products. Despite the relative scarcity on the Indian subcontinent, it was mined from the late fourteenth century onwards at Zawar, near Udaipur. Local zinc mines and melters, however, were unable to meet strong domestic demand, most notably for brass, domestic supplies being supplemented by large quantities of zinc imported from China by European and Asian traders, from Kwangtung (Guangdong) ports such as Macao and Canton (Guangzhou) with easiest access to the mines in the south-central province of Hunan. Following the loss of Taiwan (1662) and the failure of the diplomatic effort (the so-called ‘broken dialogue’) with the new Qing regime after 1687, the voc for the next four decades relied on indirect trade relations with China maintained via Macao Portuguese and Chinese merchant-brokers (quevees) arriving at Batavia: voc ships could be employed more economically in the ‘Western Districts’ (Westerkwartieren) west of Malacca than in Chinese waters, Chinese junks could operate considerably cheaper than Company vessels, while the junk trade proved to be a major asset to the well-being of the ‘Chinese colonial town’ of Batavia in the form of profits from sales of commodities (pepper, fine spices, lead, etc.), custom duties, head taxes, safe conduct fees, and so

74 M. Deb and W.D. Goodfellow (eds), Sediment-Hosted Lead-Zinc Sulphide Deposits: Attributes and Models of Some Major Deposits in India, Australia and Canada (New Delhi: Narosa Publishing House, 2004); S. Bagchi and A.K. Ghose, ‘History of Mining in India— Circa 1400–1800 and Technology Status’, Indian Journal of History of Science 15, 1 (1980), pp. 25–29; C. Winder, ‘The History of Lead’, LEAD Action News, Vol. 2, No. 1, Summer 1994, http://www.lead.org.au/lanv2n1/lanv2n1-11.html (accessed: 3 July 2012).

190 chapter 2 forth. In 1694, the Company purchased 119,150 pounds of zinc worth 9,512 rixdollars from 21 Chinese junks and 1 Portuguese vessel from Macao calling at Batavia.75 Zinc served as a major ballast good, which was cheap, plentiful, and highly marketable. The sales price at Tuticorin varied between 640 and 720 fanams per bahar. Dutch imports peaked at 11,205 pounds or 23.34 bahar worth 5,672 guilders (16,807 fanams) in 1685–1686. Between 1680–1681 and 1689–1690, an average of 7,305 pounds or 15.2 bahar worth 3,547 guilders (10,510 fanams) was sold annually at the Madurai Coast (see Table 4). The bottom group of non-precious metals was formed by mercury or quicksilver (akaram, iracam, iracatam), finding a limited market for refining purposes in mining, gilding, making mirrors, and medicinal purposes, and vermillion (ilingkam), a bright red mercuric sulfide used as a pigment or dyeing material. Small quantities were imported by the Dutch at the Madurai Coast, either brought by Chinese merchants to Batavia or shipped from the Dutch Republic. Sales of mercury and vermillion peaked at 449 pounds (1679–1680) and 362 pounds (1688–1689) pounds, respectively.76

75 G.B. Souza, ‘Ballast Goods: Chinese Maritime Trade in Zinc and Sugar in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in: R. Ptak and D. Rothermund (eds), Emporia, Commodities and Entrepreneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, c. 1400–1750 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991), pp. 291–315; Idem, The Survival of Empire: Portuguese Trade and Society in China and the South China Sea, 1630–1754 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 50–52, and 87–186; L. Blussé, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and the Dutch in voc Batavia (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1986), pp. 121–137; H.W. Sommerlatte, ‘Messing und Zink: Alte Berichte aus China und Neuere Ausgrabungen in Indien’, Kultur und Technik 12, 1 (1988), pp. 46–52; P.T. Craddock, L.K. Gurjar, and K.T.M. Hegde, ‘Zinc Production in Medieval India’, World Archaeology 15, 2 (1983), pp. 211–217; P.C. Ray, A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century, A.D.: With Sanskrit Texts, Variants, Translation and Illustrations, second edn. (Calcutta: The Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works Ltd., 1903), I, pp. 157–158; A.K. Panda and S. Rout, ‘Zinc in Ayurvedic Herbo-Mineral Products’, Natural Products Radiance 5, 4 (2006), pp. 284–288; F. Habashi, Discovering the 8th Metal: A History of Zinc (Brussels: International Zinc Association, 1998), pp. 3–5. 76 voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1990r–2005r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht, 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 591r–604r, Specificatie van allerhande soorten van coopmansz. tot Tuticurin, Manapaer, en Alvatt. voor reekening van de Compagnie verkocht, 1670/71–1689/90; Idem, f. 646r, Korte aanwijzing getrokken uit de negotieboeken tegen wat prijzen de voornaamste koopmans. hier ter kuste Madure zijn verkocht, 1669/70–1689/90.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 191

The Fine Spices: Nutmeg, Cloves, Mace, and Cinnamon

Numerically insignificant, but psychologically and symbolically of great importance were the fine spices. Nutmeg (attam, attikam, catikkay, kiricciram), cloves (cantaka-putpam, tivviya-kantam, teva-kucumam, vaciyam, karuvay), mace (ettiri, catippu, vacuvaci), and cinnamon (karuva, nakam) were necessary cooking ingredients for the wealthier classes and were also used for medicinal purposes in India. Nutmeg, mace, and cloves from Eastern Indonesia, and cinnamon from Ceylon were imported in small quantities and mostly transported inland to urban centres of consumption in the central Deccan, Mysore, and towns with substantial Muslim populations, such as Trichinopoly and Madurai.77 These fine spices were also standard fare in the lists of presents of Dutch embassies to Indian courts and meticulously distributed to rulers and officials according to the perceived hierarchy. Having acquired monopsonistic rights by the late 1660s, the Dutch also consciously used fine spices (along with curiosities, Bengali goods, and West Asian imports) in embassies and diplomatic missions to indigenous rulers and officials as marks of their perceived respective status. In 1668, for instance, the Dutch ambassador Hendrik van Rheede gifted the ruler of Madurai, Chokkanatha Nayaka, with 30 pounds of nutmeg, 15 pounds of cloves, and 15 pounds of mace; the pradhani Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and Chokkanatha’s brother Achyutappa Nayaka were each presented with 8 pounds of nutmeg, 4 pounds of cloves, and 4 pounds of mace; the Governor of Madurai Chokkalinga Nayaka, the Councillor Chinnatambi Mudaliyar, and the Senior Chamberlain Kumara Rangappa Nayaka were each honoured with 4 pounds of nutmeg, 2 pounds of cloves and 2 pounds of mace; several lesser court servants were each given 2 pounds of nutmeg, 1 pound of cloves, and 1 pound of mace.78 Except for Surat, the atypical prime market in India for spices, sales of cloves, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon in the subcontinent were limited. Dutch imports of cloves (including the highest quality cloves known as giroffelnagelen) on the Madurai Coast peaked at 510 pounds or 21.25 man of 24 pounds each with a total value of 2,352 guilders (6,970 fanams) in 1687–1688 (see Table 5). Between 1680–1681 and 1689–1690, an average of 368.7 pounds or 15.36 man worth 1,691

77 The following is largely based on: Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 107–108, 133, 136–138, and 181–183; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 192–197; Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, pp. 14–15, 93–95, and 157–159; Gaastra, De Geschiedenis van de voc, pp. 124–127, and 133–138; Glamann, Dutch- Asiatic Trade, pp. 104–108, and Appendices C and F. 78 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1188r–1189r, Rapp. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon, 2.7.1669; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 201–203.

192 chapter 2 ) * 1479, 1479, voc 5 0 3 0 0 0 0 5 Cinnamon (guilders) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 6 0 0 Cinnamon (pounds) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 29 105 617 165 196 146 282 784 243 564 984 980 1,174 1,730 Mace (guilders) 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 32 25 36 80 80 48 124 216 375 224 254 258 298 Mace (pounds) 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 51 56 172 179 341 841 759 956 1,382 1,075 2,813 1,264 Nutmeg (guilders) 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 51 34 96 102 416 202 347 453 354 855 450 546 Nutmeg (pounds) 0 0 0 0 0 45 137 583 438 206 894 1,124 1,253 1,390 1,838 2,352 2,057 2,202 2,260 2,227 Cloves Cloves (guilders) or 0.3375 guilders afterwards. or 0.3375 and 6¾ stuivers or 0.30 guilders until 1679, at 6 stuivers valued in fanams , which were listed are sources 0 0 0 0 0 1682, fls. 1990r–2005r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht, 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; kust zijn verkocht, op de Madurese koopmansch. en soort van kwantt. wat Aanwijsinge 1990r–2005r, fls. obp 1682, 10 30 49 96 301 510 128 275 277 252 483 394 440 490 446 Cloves Cloves (pounds) Quantity and value of Dutch imports of fine spices (cloves, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon) on the Madurai Coast, 1670/71–1689/90 (in pounds and guilders of Coast, 1670/71–1689/90 and value Quantity and cinnamon) on the Madurai mace, imports of Dutch nutmeg, (cloves, fine spices 1370, 1370, voc

1691, ff. 591r–604r, Specificatie van allerhande soorten van coopmansz. tot Tuticurin, Manapaer, en Alvatt. voor rekening van de Compagnie verkocht, de Compagnie verkocht, van rekening voor en Alvatt. Manapaer, Tuticurin, tot coopmansz. van allerhande soorten Specificatie van obp 1691, ff. 591r–604r, zijn verkocht, Madure kuste ter koopmans. de voornaamste prijzen wat tegen negotieboeken uit de getrokken aanwijzing Korte f. 646r, Idem, 1670/71–1689/90; 1669/70–1689/90. 1683–84 1684–85 1685–86 1686–87 1687–88 1688–89 1689–90 * Sale prices in voc Sources: Table 5 Year 1670–71 1671–72 1672–73 1673–74 1674–75 1675–76 1676–77 1677–78 1678–79 1679–80 1680–81 1681–82 1682–83

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 193 guilders (5,011 fanams) was sold annually at the Madurai Coast. Dutch imports of nutmeg, either whole kernels (noten) or broken ones (rompen), peaked at 855 pounds or 35.62 man worth 2,813 guilders (8,336 fanams) in 1686–1687. Between 1680–1681 and 1689–1690, an average of 371.9 pounds or 15.5 man worth 961 guilders (2,847 fanams) was sold annually at the Madurai Coast. Dutch imports of mace (macis of foelie), a derivative of nutmeg, peaked at 375 pounds or 15.62 man worth 1,730 guilders (5,125 fanams) in 1685–1686. Between 1680–1681 and 1689–1690, an average of 194.5 pounds or 8.1 man worth 752 guilders (2,229 fanams) was sold annually at the Madurai Coast.79 These limited sales were also partly the result of a deliberate market strategy to maximise revenues in view of the inelastic demand. The Company Directors prescribed minimum sale prices to discourage rival European traders from buying up spices in India and import them into Europe. Prices for cloves and mace averaged between 324–360 and 324–378 fanams per man, respectively. The price of nutmeg rose steeply in the 1680s from 120 fanams between 1679– 1680 and 1681–1682 to 216 fanams in 1689–1690.

Pepper: The ‘Black Gold from Malabar’

Whereas the Dutch had acquired monopsonies in the marketing of fine spices, in the 1650s and 1660s they also established strong positions in the pepper and arecanut trades via exclusive agreements with indigenous rulers and/or the control of coastal areas and trade emporia in Sumatra, Malabar, and Bantam (Banten). For various reasons, however, the subsequent effort to corner the market in these products and the attempt to compete with indigenous traders ended in utter and costly failures. Pepper was imported into Madurai from various regions: large quantities of black pepper or Piper nigrum (milaku) from Malabar, and small amounts of long pepper or Piper longum (kanai/kanna or tippali) from Burma and Siam.80 Pepper was a labour-extensive cash crop grown in the Serra or hilly interior of Malabar. One of the major groups of ‘pepper farmers’ were the monophysite

79 In comparison, annual Dutch sales on the Coromandel Coast in the 1680s amounted to 9,500 pounds of nutmeg, 16,150 pounds of cloves, and 3,300 pounds of mace. Between 1678 and 1684, the Dutch sold 5,573 pounds of cloves, 4,475 pounds of nutmeg, and 955 pounds of mace per annum in Bengal. 80 Apart from Company archival sources, the following is largely based on: Vink, ‘The Dutch East India Company and the Pepper Trade Between Kerala and Tamilnad’; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, passim; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 107–108, and 184–185; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 175, and 193; Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, pp. 94–95, and 160–161.

194 chapter 2

St. Thomas Christians, claiming to be descendants of original converts made by the Apostle Thomas. In response to growing demand, between 1580 and 1780 their numbers probably doubled from 75,000 to 150,000. A Dutch report of 1677 observed that these Indian Christians occupied more than 1,400 villages and had 150 churches in the interior and lowlands concentrated in the central districts of Malabar.81 In the early seventeenth century the Portuguese put the pepper production in southwest India from Onor (Honavar) to Travancore at a minimum of 158,000 quintals or ca. 13 million pounds per annum. About 20,000 to 30,000 quintals were brought by the Portuguese to Lisbon, the remainder being either consumed locally or exported overland to Tamil Nadu, and north by sea to Gujarat. An estimate of 1680 put the annual pepper production of southern Malabar between Cranganore and Cape Comorin at 8,000–10,000 kandis or 4–5 million pounds. One year later, in 1681, a Dutch observer estimated that only one-third of the pepper production of Malabar, which he set at 15,000 kandis or 7.5 million pounds per year, was exported by sea, the remainder being consumed locally or transported overland. Another estimate of 1689 set the average annual output of the ‘black gold from Malabar’ at 13,000 kandis or 6.5 million pounds for the region as a whole: 5,000 kandis (2.5 million pounds) from southern Malabar, 4,000 kandis (2 million pounds) from the lands of the Kolathiri raja of Cannanore, 2,000 kandis (1 million pounds) from the lands of the Zamorin of Calicut, and another 2,000 kandis (1 million pounds) from Kanara.82

81 Vink, ‘The Dutch East India Company and the Pepper Trade Between Kerala and Tamilnad’, pp. 285–286; P. Malekandathil, ‘The Portuguese and the Ghat-Route Trade: 1500–1663’, Pondicherry University Journal of Social Science and Humanities 1, 1/2 (2000), pp. 129–154; L.W. Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 2–4, 15, 26, 93, 121, and 176; K.P. Padmanabha Menon, History of Kerala: A History of Kerala Written in the Form of Notes on Visscher’s Letters from Malabar (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1984), III, p. 421; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 164; K.C. Zachariah, The Syrian Christians of Kerala: Demographic and Socio-Economic Transition in the Twentieth Century (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006). 82 voc 1464, obp 1690, f. 79r, Miss. commr. Isaac van Dielen en raad van Malabar aan H. XVII, 17.1.1689; Pearson, The Portuguese in India, pp. 44–46; Vink, ‘The Dutch East India Company and the Pepper Trade Between Kerala and Tamilnad’, pp. 276–277; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 163. For the estimate of 1680: voc 1361, obp 1681, f. 540v, Miss. commr. Huijsman en raad van Malabar aan Batavia, 20.8.1680. See also: voc 1227, obp 1659, f. 255v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1658; voc 882, bub 1658, f. 381, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon, 9.8.1658; voc 1246, obp 1664, f. 1326, Vertoogh Van Goens wegens den staet en gelegentheijt van d’E Compe. op d’vaste Indise cust, mitsgaders het waerdige eijlant Ceijlon, 5.8.1664.

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Harvested and dried between late December and late January, the fruits were subsequently transported to the Malabar Coast in order to be shipped overseas or carried overland across the Western Ghats. Dutch pepper exports from Malabar between 1663 and 1690 ranged between 355,071 pounds (1674) and 3,195,133 pounds (1689), averaging 1,256,874 pounds a year. At the same time, English exports from the west coast of India to Europe between 1664 and 1690 ranged between 22,881 pounds (1679) and 1,905,161 pounds (1689), averaging 867,591 pounds per year. Thus, the two European companies combined annually purchased 2.1 million pounds of pepper on the Malabar Coast.83 In addition to the Europeans, pepper was also traded overseas by Muslim Mappila (Muppilah) and Maraikkayar, Hindu Konkani Brahmin, and other indigenous merchant groups to Madurai and further northward. In 1660, no fewer than 50 pepper vessels from Kayamkalum, Quilon, and Travancore destined for the southernmost Madurai Coast were said to be bottled up in their respective ports due to the presence of a large Dutch fleet in the region. In June 1662, it was reported that during the previous six months 576,000 pounds or 1,200 bahar of pepper had been imported overseas from Malabar at Kulasekharapatnam and Manappad alone.84 The bulk of the pepper, however, seems to have been transported overland, especially after the Dutch, led by the Company’s imperialist faction, set out to enforce a series of exclusive agreements imposed on the rajas of Malabar in the 1660s in an effort to prohibit the overseas export of pepper and other ‘contraband goods’ to Madurai and elsewhere. Moreover, insisting on the observation of the restrictive clauses in passes and payment of small fees (pasgelden) not only created much tension with rulers and merchants, but cruising the waterways near Cape Comorin and Pamban Channel also proved to be ineffective. In 1668, for instance, one Dutch voc official commented that the blockade of the coast had ‘led to the practice of pepper being exported overland, which, as we have been told, did not amount to much previously’. Nine years later, in 1677, another observer (and opponent of Van Goens cum sociis) cynically and perhaps somewhat gleefully reported that ‘everything was transported overland,

83 voc 1474, obp 1691, ff. 457v–459r, Samentrekking van alle peper dewelke op de gehele Malabarse kust bij de E. Comp. is genegotieerd, 1659–1689; voc 1474, obp 1691, f. 805r, Samentrekking van alle peper welke op de Malabarse kust sedert 1 jan. 1690 tot ult. December daaraanvolgende bij d’E. Comp. is genegotieerd en ontvangen, 24.1.1691; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, p. 524. Chaudhuri provides no figures for 1668. 84 voc 1233, obp 1660, f. A171v, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 22.11.1660; voc 1236, obp 1662, ff. 659–660, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.4.1661; voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 1248v, Rapp. boekhr. De Haze van tgene in desen jaarse Tutucorijnse parelvisserij voorgevallen is en de verdere staat der Madurese overkust, 20.6.1663.

196 chapter 2 exactly what one had sought to prevent at sea with such great expenses and hazards. All the while, the indigenes ridiculed us for our lost labours’.85 Apart from the St. Thomas Christians, an important role in the overland trade was played by Tamil Brahmin Pattars as porters and boieiros or bullock- team drivers. Although there were large concentrations of Pattars from Tirunelveli, Tanjore, and Coimbatore scattered throughout Malabar, their main habitat was in and around the Palghat region. Thus, they were strategically situated halfway between the east and west coast along one of the main thorough- fares of the transpeninsular trade. In addition, the Pattars also enjoyed several commercial privileges, such as partial exemption from inland duties, free food at temples and local courts, and the exclusive right to carry local goods.86 The overland trade between Malabar and Madurai was a large-scale enterprise involving great numbers of animals and people. A report of March 1664 noted that daily 100 bullocks (bois) or ca. 22,000 pounds of pepper was carried from the interior of Travancore to Madurai alone. The annual pepper toll revenues of the raja of Travancore reportedly amounted to 150,000 fanams or 6,283 rixdollars or (at a toll of 6 rixdollars per kandi) the equivalent of 1,047 kandis or 209 lasts of 2,400 pounds, totalling 501,600 pounds (1 Amsterdam pound = 0.494 kilograms). In 1665, the inland pepper tolls near Tengapatnam were allegedly farmed out annually for 12,000 fanams. In 1669, a Dutch traveller en route from the Madurai Coast to Malabar encountered in the vicinity of the village of Panagudi near Kottar ‘an enormous number of pack-animals, coming from and going to Malabar grazing outside the village’. He added: ‘It may sound unbeliev- able, but I guess there must have been 10,000 [pack-animals] covering a half an hour distance. In each village one has numerous animals, but they pale into comparison with this particular village’. Apart from bullocks or pack-oxen, certain mountain passes could only be crossed by human porters, three to five being required to carry one boi or 220 pounds. ‘In this manner’, one Dutch observer commented in 1677, ‘all things that are imported into and exported from Malabar are carried by these Pattars on their heads and shoulders, and sometimes whole armies of them can be found on the up-country roads’.87

85 Vink, ‘The Dutch East India Company and the Pepper Trade Between Kerala and Tamilnad’, p. 276; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. 51, and 182–184. 86 Vink, ‘The Dutch East India Company and the Pepper Trade Between Kerala and Tamilnad’, pp. 284–285; Padmanabha Menon, History of Kerala, III, p. 9; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 98. 87 voc 1246, obp 1665, ff. 642, 670, and 688, Miss. gouvr. Hustaerdt en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.3.1664; Idem, ff. 842–844, Miss. gouvr. Hustaart en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1664; voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 730, Rapp. kapt. Van Rheede van zijn verrichtingen in de landen van Trevancore en Madure, 7.10.1665; voc 1273r, obp 1670, f. 1280r, Dagreg. kaptn. Jan Bax gaande van Colombo over Tuticurin om de ragias op Malabar te bezoeken,

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In addition to these scattered impressionistic references, in 1677 a comprehensive report or ‘accurate visitation’ of the size of the overland trade between Malabar and Madurai estimated that annually 15,000 bahar or 7.2 million pounds of pepper were transported across the Western Ghats to the east coast, including 2,720 bois (1,200 bois and 4,560 human loads) via Panagudi, 800 bois (2,400 human loads) via Kallidaikurichi, 600 bois via Alvar Kurichi, 4,800 bois via Tenkasi, 3,600 bois via Rajapalaiyam, 12,000 bois via Madurai, and 6,000 bois via Tirumangalampettai (see Map 6). A critical addendum to the report, however, considered it to be ‘an unrealistic quantity’ and instead considered an annual amount of 3.6 million pounds of pepper more likely. Based on a monthly consumption of 1–1.5 pounds of pepper per household, a little over half (3,750 bahar or 1.8 million pounds) was allegedly consumed in the lands of Ramnad south of Pamban, the Madurai lowlands or province of Tirunelveli, and somewhat to the north.88 Another report of the same year estimated that annually 18,000 bois or 4 million pounds of pepper were carried overland from Malabar to the Madurai uplands, plus another 6,000 bois or 1.33 million pounds to the lowlands. The annual turnover of the three pettais near Trichinopoly alone was estimated to be 6,000 bois or 1.33 million pounds of Malabar pepper and 100 bois or 22,000 pounds of long pepper. Part of the pepper was transported to Ariyalur, Valigondapuram, Manachanallur, Tanjore, Tirupati, and other places further north.89 Finally, in 1689 the Malabar pepper annually transported via Dindigul northwards was put at 7,350–10,800 bois or 1.62–2.38 million pounds, while the annual pepper consumption of southern

16.5.1669; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 98. See also: Bassingh, ‘Beschrijvinge’, in: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 286, and 345; J.-B. Tavernier, The Six Voyages of John Baptiste Tavernier Through Turkey into Persia, and the East Indies: Travels in India (London: R.L. and M.P., 1678), pp. 27–28; K.V. Krishna Ayyar, A Short History of Kerala (Ernakulam: Pai and Co., 1966), p. 88; K.M. Panikkar, Malabar and the Portuguese: Being a History of the Relations of the Portuguese with Malabar from 1500 to 1663 (Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala, 1931), p. 96. 88 voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1262r et seq., Rapp. boekhr. Krijn Caperman, 13.5.1677; Idem, ff. 1282r–1283v, Aenmerckingen Marten Huijsman en Michiel de Geus over het gedane rapp. van Caperman raeckende den inlantsen handel op d’custe van Madure, 17.5.1677. See also: voc 1316, obp 1678, ff. 216r–217v, Consideratiën Huijsman rakende de handel van d’E Comp. op de kust van Madure, 8.12.1676; Idem, f. 191v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 15.12.1676; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 12v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1677; Idem, f. 41v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.6.1677. 89 Bassingh, ‘Eenige Verhalinge’, in: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 284–286, and 344–346. See also: voc 1330, obp 1678, f. 893r, Instr. voor den adsistent Adolf Bassingh gaande nae Tritchenapallij, 4.9.1677; voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 539r–541r, Miss. commr. Huijsman en raad van Malabar aan Batavia, 20.8.1680.

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Coromandel and the Coromandel Coast as a whole was estimated to be 2,500 kandis or 1.25 million pounds and 5,000 kandis or 2.5 million pounds, respectively.90 Dutch pepper sales on the Madurai Coast pale in comparison with these consistent and impressive numbers. One (overly optimistic) Dutch estimate of 1678 put the maximum quantity of pepper to be sold annually on the Madurai Coast at 500 bahar or 240,000 pounds at 30 rixdollars per bahar. In a response to these inflated numbers, another report of 1680 asserted that no more than 10 bahar or 4,800 pounds could be sold at Tuticorin, Manappad, and Alvar Tirunagari for 23 rixdollars per bahar. This extreme downward cor- rective was based on actual Company pepper sales, which between 1669–1670 and 1689–1690 occurred merely in four years and then only in very modest amounts: 19,080 pounds of round pepper worth 3,118 guilders (10,394 fanams) in 1676–1677; 34,320 pounds of round pepper worth 5,609 guilders (18,697 fanams), and 1,740 pounds of long pepper worth 793 guilders (2,644 fanams) in 1677–1678; 12,960 pounds of round pepper worth 2,349 guilders (7,830 fanams), and 620.25 pounds of long pepper worth 313 guilders (1,042 fanams) in 1678–1679; and 40,740 pounds worth 8,307 guilders (24,614 fanams) in 1681–1682.91 The reasons behind the marginal Dutch share in the regional pepper market are various. Indigenous merchants bought the pepper firsthand from producers without the additional costs of middlemen. Moreover, the overhead costs of these traders were much smaller than those of the Company with its numerous establishments, large number of personnel, and extensive naval presence.

90 voc 1464, obp 1690, f. 127r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 30.6.1689; Welters, in: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 447, and 535; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 21v–23v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 23.12.1689. 91 voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 657v, Memorie Huijsman der eisen die voor 1678 op Tuticurin te bezorgen zijn, 26.1.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 16v–17r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 16v–18v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.3.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1990r–1992r, and 1994r–1995v, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soorten van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht, 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 591r–604r, Specificatie van allerhande soorten van coopmansz. tot Tuticurin, Manapaer, en Alvatt. verkocht, 1670/71–1689/90; Idem, ff. 646r, Korte aanwijzing tegen wat prijzen de voornaamste koopmans. hier ter kuste Madure zijn verkocht, 30.9.1690. In comparison, a 1681 report estimated optimistically that 250,000 pounds or 520 bahar of pepper could annually be sold at Nagapatnam. However, actual sales in 1679–1680 and 1681–1682 were merely 199.75 and 94 bahar, respectively. voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 358v–359v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.2.1680; voc 1369, obp 1682, f. 1547r, Weinige artikelen ingesteld bij comms. Jacob Jorisz. Pits wegens de constitutie van de stad Nagapatnam, 18.7.1681; voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 505r, Miss. gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 26.9.1682.

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Indeed, the internalisation of protection costs, celebrated by some historians as an important institutional innovation leading to greater transparency of markets, placed the Europeans at a clear and distinct disadvantage when competing with Asian traders on even terms.92 These merchants, moreover, had a better knowledge of local market conditions than their European counterparts. Apart from the privileges enjoyed by some commercial groups, special geographic circumstances, such as the relatively short distance of cross-peninsular routes, the absence of navigable rivers, and the dictates of the monsoon regime preventing direct overseas trade between the west and east coast, represented additional factors contributing to favouring ‘traditional’ overland networks over their ‘modern’ European counterparts.93 All these factors combined more than offset the avoidance of high inland tolls (which were lowered by the rulers due to the growing size of the overland trade) and the economies of scale involved in maritime trade. Thus, an ambitious attempt in the late 1680s, one of the numerous ill-conceived brainchilds of Commissioner General Van Rheede, to compete with the overland trade by importing large quantities of pepper at Nagapatnam ended in a costly failure, partly because prices could not be set too low in order to prevent English, French, and Danish competitors from shipping pepper to Europe. In September 1692, almost 1 million pounds of pepper lay unsold in the Company warehouses at Nagapatnam, Sadraspatnam, Tegenampatnam, and Porto Novo.94

92 This issue is part of the famous Steengaard-Meilink Roelofsz controversy in colonial historiography: N. Steensgaard, ‘The Dutch East India Company as an Institutional Inno vation’, in: Aymard (ed.), Dutch Capitalism and World Capitalism, pp. 235–257; M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, ‘The Structures of Trade in Asia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Niels Steensgaard’s “Carracks, Caravans, and Companies”, The Asian Trade Revolutions. A Critical Appraisal’, Mare Luso-Indicum 4 (1980), pp. 1–43. For an overview of the debate: Vink, ‘Between Profit and Power’. 93 A similar case is formed by the trans-peninsular trade across Malaya frustrating Dutch monopolistic policies in the so-called ‘tin districts’. See: M.P.M. Vink, ‘Mare Liberum and Dominium Maris: Legal Arguments and Implications of the Luso-Dutch Struggle for the Control of Asian Waters’, in: K.S. Mathew (ed.), Studies in Maritime History (Pondicherry: Pondicherry University, 1990), pp. 38–68; Idem, ‘Passes and Protection Rights’. 94 voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 417v–422v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.8.1687; voc 1438, obp 1688, ff. 1236r–1238r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 13.8.1687; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 80v–81r, 85r–85v, and 87v–89v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 1.12.1688; voc 1463, obp 1690, ff. 118r–118v, and 170v–171r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 5.12.1688; voc 1464, obp 1690, f. 79r, Miss. commr. Van Dielen en raad van Malabar aan H. XVII, 17.1.1689; voc 1463, obp 1690, f. 291r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 10.4.1689; Idem, f. 129r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 10.4.1689; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 21v–25r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 23.12.1689; voc 1486, obp 1691, ff. 135v–136v, and 155v–156r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van

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Arecanuts: The Daily ‘Chew’ of the Inhabitants

A similar fate befell the Dutch attempt to corner the regional market in arecanuts. The seed of the areca palm (Lat., Areca catechu), the arecanut was generally chewed by the people of India and Ceylon with the leaf of the betel vine along with lime as a mild stimulant.95 ‘The chew’ was, and still is, a common social habit found in all classes of society. In 1687, for instance, one Dutch observer commented that the local inhabitants were so used to chewing arecanuts and betel leaf that they ‘consider it almost as indispensable as bread’. Apart from an immense popular demand, peaking in the festival season (January-February) when festivals and weddings normally take place, there was also an equal abundance of supply on Ceylon and at Malabar though not on India’s east coast where the areca palm did not grow well.96 Like pepper, arecanuts (pakku) were grown as a labour-intensive cash crop in villages scattered across the countryside and had to be painstakingly acquired by itinerant pedlars. Ceylon arecanuts were collected in three ways. The subject population was held to deliver a fixed quota of arecanuts to the Company known as ‘village areca’ against a fixed low price. Anything delivered in excess of the quota, known as ‘bought areca’, was accepted at higher price. Finally, the highest price was paid for the arecanuts allotted to Sinhalese or indigenous heads, mudaliyars, arachchis, lascorins, etcetera, in recompense for their services. Arecanuts from Galle and Kalutara were deemed most valuable; medium-quality areca was collected around Colombo; while the poorest quality was harvested at Kalpitiya. The areca from Ceylon was deemed less

Coromandel aan Batavia, 23.7.1690; voc 1473, obp 1691, ff. 87r–90v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 15.2.1691; voc 1502, obp 1691, f. 1395r, Korte samentrekking van de ronde peper hier ter kuste [Coromandel] sedert 1687 ontvangen, 30.9.1692. 95 Apart from information contained in Company correspondence, the following account is largely based on: Arasaratnam, Maritime Trade, Society and European Influence, II, pp. 4, 12–13, and 17–18; V, pp. 79–80, and 84–85; VI, pp. 342, and 344; VII, pp. 8–9; Idem, Ceylon and the Dutch, III, pp. 111, 116, and 120; VI, pp. 63, and 67; XII, pp. 109, 111–112, 115–117, 119, and 124–128; XIII, pp. 49, and 51–52; XV, pp. 225, 227, 230–232, and 234–238; Idem, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 109, 133–134, 139, and 185; Idem, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 146–149, 152–153, 160–172, and 207; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, passim; Jacobs, Koopman in Azië, pp. 44–45, 80, 94, 178, and 187. 96 voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 417v–418r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.8.1687. See also: voc 1245, obp 1665, f. 443r, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 15.12.1664; voc 1448, obp 1689, ff. 296v–297r, Miss. comms. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan H. XVII, 20.12.1688; Betel-Quid and Areca-Nut Chewing and Some Areca-Nut-Derived Nitrosamines, iarc Monographs 85 (Lyon: who Press, 2004).

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 201 durable than Malabar boiled areca, though it could be preserved longer through layering with dry sand. It was also harder to chew, and (after 1670) more expensive and held in higher regard than Malabar areca.97 The Company distinguished at least three varieties of Malabar arecanuts: kali pakku or boiled areca and Perimbalam pakku from the lands of the Samudri in northern Malabar, which were held in higher esteem than cut and veti pakku or dried areca from Kayamkulam, Purakkad, and the interior of southern Malabar. The bulk of the kali pakku was exported to the Carnatic and Golconda, whereas the majority of the veti pakku was carried to Madurai, Tanjore, and Gingee. Malabar boiled arecanuts were considered more durable, softer to chew, and (after 1670) cheaper than Ceylon areca. Despite its inferior taste, it was therefore increasingly preferred by the common people.98

97 voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 438v–439r, Consideratiën Pijl en Van Galisse wegens de memorie van Van der Dussen rakende de handel van deze kust, 25.10.1666; voc 1329, obp 1678, f. 1178v, Rapp. Van Rhee wegens zijn verrichtingen in Tanjore, Mannarcoil &a., 6.1.1677; Idem, ff. 1284r–1284v, Aenmerckingen Huijsman en De Geus over het gedane rapp. van Caperman, 17.5.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 192v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 18.5.1677; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 7v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; voc 1369, obp 1682, ff. 1540r–1541r, Weinige artikelen ingesteld bij comms. Pits wegens de constitutie van de stad Nagapatnam, 18.7.1681; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 162–163r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687; voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 432r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 23.11.1687; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 126v–127r, and 133r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.2.1688; Idem, ff. 190v–191r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 10.8.1688; voc 1491, obp 1692, ff. 416r, and 419r, Instr. Pijl voor gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 28.1.1692. 98 voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 653r, Instr. Van Goens aan opperh. Verwer en Van Rhee te Nagapatnam, 30.9.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 324r, Rapp. Vorwer wegens de toestand van ‘s Comps. zaken tot Nagapatnam, 20.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 322v, Miss. Verwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 5.12.1676; voc 1329, obp 1678, f. 1178v, Rapp. Van Rhee wegens zijn verrichtinge in Tanjore, Mannarcoil &a., 6.1.1677; Idem, ff. 1283r–1284v, Aenmerckingen Huijsman en De Geuse over het gedane rapp. van Caperman, 17.5.1677; voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 417v–418v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.8.1687; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 414v, Transl. ola manigar van Pembenaer Oirea Theuver aan Van Vliet, opperh. der Madurese kust, 9.11.1688; voc 1463, obp 1690, ff. 358r–358v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 30.6.1689; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 21v–22r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 23.12.1689; voc 1474, obp 1691, ff. 392r–392v, Memorietje van de verzonden areca en peper over Tuticorin naar Nagapatnam, 10.1.1690; voc 1486, obp 1691, f. 135v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 23.7.1690; voc 1473, obp 1691, ff. 87r–87v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 15.2.1691; voc 1502, obp 1693, ff. 1393r–1394v, Korte samentrekking van de gekookte en gesneden areca van Malabar sedert 1687 hier te kuste Coromandel ontvangen, 1.10.1692.

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Extreme caution needs to be used with regard to the actual volume of the areca trade for the numbers mentioned in Dutch correspondence were part and parcel of the soul-searching debate between the Company’s imperialist and mercantile factions in the 1660s and 1670s, providing higher and lower numbers, respectively. The annual production of areca on Ceylon was estimated to be 3,000 lasts or 36,000–40,000 amanams of 24,000 pieces, which was carried between the months of March/April and mid-October by Dutch and several hundreds of small indigenous vessels from the coasts of Madurai, Ramnad, and Coromandel in exchange for rice, salt, coarse textiles, and other commodities. Indeed, the short-distance trade with Madurai and Coromandel formed the lifeline of Ceylon’s economy. Between July 1665 and September 1666, for instance, no fewer than 112 vessels carried 21,000 amanams of areca from Kalpitiya alone, while 30–40 large sampans exported another 5,000–7,000 amanams from Batticaloa.99

99 For estimates of the annual output of Ceylon areca: voc 1261, obp 1668, f. 483r, Resol. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 5.2–25.2.1667; Manuscript papers relating to…, f. 43, Concept van de negotie in rade tot Colombo gemediteert ende t’samengestelt op de consideratie bij den coopman Laurens Pijl ingedient, 8.2.1667; voc 1255, obp 1667, f. 924, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 25.2.1667; voc 1261, obp 1668, f. 254v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 25.1.1668; voc 1266, obp 1669, ff. 867v–868r, Rapp. Van Goens de Jonge over den staat vant uitgestreckte gouvernemt. des eijlants Ceijlon, Mallabaar en Madure, 15.8.1669; voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 647v, Part. miss. gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 1.1670; voc 1274, obp 1671, f. 9r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 30.11.1670; voc 1280, obp 1672, f. 294r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 39v–42v, Miss. superintendent Van Goen en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; Idem, ff. 1025r–1025v, Miss. Van Goens de Jonge van Cochin aan H. XVII, 25.2.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 210r, Consideratiën Huijsman rakende de handel van d’E Comp. op de kust van Madure 8.12.1676; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 109r–109v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 31.10.1679; voc 1351, obp 1680, ff. 2539v–2540r, Vertoog Van Goens de Jonge van de toestand des gouvernements van Ceijlon; 25.2.1680; voc 1463, obp 1690, f. 290r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 10.4.1689; S. Pieters (ed.), Memoir of Rijckloff van Goens Jun. Governor of Ceylon (1675–1679) to His Successor Laurens Pijl (Colombo: Government Press, 1910), p. 3. For information about the size of the Indo-Ceylon trade: voc 1245, obp 1665, f. 434v, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 15.12.1664; voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 97r, and 106r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.5.1666; Idem, f. 213r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1666; Idem, f. 611r, Rapp. Van der Dussen en De Saint-Martin wegens de visite tot Jaffnapatnam, 4.10.1666; Idem, f. 169v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.11.1666; voc 1261, obp 1668, f. 350r, Extract miss. opperk. De Vogel van Calpentijn aan adml. Van Goens, 22.7.1667; voc 891, bub 1667, ff. 595–596, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.9.1667; voc 1261,

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 203

The Indo-Ceylon trade was dominated by Muslim Maraikkayars, along with significant numbers of Hindu Chittis and some Christian Parava merchants. Like their overland counterparts, these barqueiros or boatsmen could operate within extremely small profit margins. In 1687, for instance, the 1,300 amanams of Ceylon areca purchased by some Nagapatnam boatsmen was sold locally for 2,030 rixdollars with a profit of 97 rixdollars or a mere 5 percent.100 One estimate of 1666 put the annual sale of Ceylon areca, mostly from Kalpitiya, on the Madurai Coast by the Muslim Maraikkayars of Kayalpatnam and a few Parava Christians at 16,000–18,000 amanams at 60–70 fanams or 6–7 rixdollars per amanam. A critical addendum to the estimate, however, considered the estimate to be ‘impossible’. The amount of 16,000–18,000 amanams might very well be handled by Madurai boat owners or barcquiers, but not all of it was consumed locally. Moreover, if the price were kept at 6–7 rixdollars, annual sales would not exceed 4,000-5,000 amanams. However, if prices were lowered to the current market rate of 38–45 fanams (3.8–4.5 rixdollars), sales could amount to 12,000–15,000 amanams and more since a large share of the arecanuts would then be reexported to Ramnad and Tanjore.101 It was this flourishing trade which the Company’s imperialist, ‘Ceylon- centric’ faction tried to take over as part of the so-called ‘areca plan’ (concept van den arreeck). Optimistic projections of the Company’s imperialist faction in the 1670s predicted that the entire Ceylon arecanut harvest could be sold with great profits along the Madurai, Ramnad, and Coromandel littoral. In 1672, potential profits from sales of 36,000 amanams at Tuticorin, Kayalpatnam, and Nagapatnam were calculated to be 100,000 rixdollars or 250,000 guilders. In 1674, projected total revenues from the sale of 40,000 amanams (30,000 amanams at

obp 1668, f. 258v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 25.1.1668; voc 1266, obp 1669, f. 596r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1669; voc 1277, obp 1671, f. 1586v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.5.1670; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 56r–56v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.5.1686; Idem, ff. 177v–178r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687; Valentijn, Oud- en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, pp. 220–221. 100 voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 92r–93r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.9.1687. Compare with the equally small profit margins in the indigenous overseas trade between Malabar and Kulasekharapatnam: voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1844v–1845r, Consideratiën Van Rhee en Van Vliet van des E. Comps. belangh en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681. 101 voc 1256, obp 1667, f. 429r, Rapp. Van der Dussen wegens ‘t verrichten op de Madurese kust, 12.5.1666; Idem, ff. 97r–97v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.5.1666; Idem, ff. 438r–438v, Consideratiën Pijl en Van Galisse wegens de memorie van Van der Dussen, 25.10.1666.

204 chapter 2

Madurai, Ramnad and Coromandel; 10,000 amanams at Bengal, Surat, and Tonkin) were set at 200,000 pagodas or 1.2 million guilders. These figures were excessive, something even the wishful Company’s imperialist faction eventually had to acknowledge. In 1679, therefore, the estimated revenues from the sale of 36,000 amanams of Ceylon arecanuts (22,000 amanams at Madurai, Nagapatnam, and Ceylon; 14,000 amanams at Surat, Coromandel, Bengal, and Persia) were revised downwards to 180,000 rixdollars.102 Actual arecanut sales on the Madurai Coast fell far short of imperialist projections and wishful calculations. Between 1670–1671 and 1689–1690 sales peaked at 5,105 bois of 30,000 pieces worth 81,409 guilders (241,211 fanams) in 1681–1682. Average annual sales, however, during this twenty-year period were merely 1,570 bois for 90,429 fanams, 1,161 bois for 65,127 fanams between 1670– 1671 and 1679–1680 and 1,979 bois for 115,731 fanams between 1680–1681 and 1689–1690 (see Table 6). In comparison, sales of Ceylon arecanuts at Nagapatnam between 1672–1673 and 1683–1684 were 67,057 small amanams of 20,000 pieces or an average of 5,588 small amanams per year.103 The high fixed prices set by the Company were one of the reasons for declining sales of Ceylon arecanuts along with the growing competition of Malabar arecanuts. In 1676, for instance, one Dutch observer commented that the annual turnover of Ceylon areca at the Madurai Coast had decreased from 8,000–10,000 amanams of 24,000 pieces to 2,000 bois (2,250 amanams) and less. In 1677, it was reported that previously 250–300 amanams and 300 amanams of Ceylon areca, imported via Nagapatnam, Tranquebar, Karaikal (Karaikkal, Karikal), and

102 For various imperialist projections and calculations: voc 1261, obp 1668, ff. 482v–483r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 5.2–25.2.1667; Idem, ff. 254v–255r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 25.1.1668; voc 1280, obp 1672, f. 294r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 39v–42v, Miss. superintendent Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; Idem, ff. 1025r–1027v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 25.2.1675; voc 1332, obp 1679, f. 923r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 13.2.1679; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 109r–109v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 31.10.1679; voc 1351, obp 1680, f. 2539v, Vertoog Van Goen de Jonge van de toestand des gouvernements van Ceijlon, 25.2.1680; Pieters (ed.), Memoir of Rijckloff van Goens Jun., p. 3. 103 voc 1369, obp 1682, f.1539v, Weinige artikelen ingesteld bij comms. Pits wegens de constitutie van de stad Nagapatnam, 18.7.1681; voc 1371, obp 1683, f. A476r, Generale missive, 19.3.1683; voc 1435, obp 1688, f. 420, Extract uit de Nagapatnam negotieboeken betr. aanwijzing hoedanig de areca sedert feb. 1680 tot 1686 is verkocht, 19.12.1687; voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 131r–131v, Opstel van den Ceijlonsen areek hoedanig deselve sedert 1672 tot 1681 ter stede Nagapatnam zijn verkocht, 28.6.1689.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 205

Table 6 Dutch sales of Ceylon arecanuts on the Madurai Coast, 1659/60–1689/90 (in pounds and guilders*)

Financial Quantity Total value Financial Quantity Total value year (bois) (guilders) year (bois) (guilders)

1659–60 415 n.a. 1674–75 2,018 47,214** 1660–61 7.3 n.a. 1675–76 170 5,875 1661–62 0 0 1676–77 156 3,359** 1662–63 191 n.a. 1677–78 546 10,906 1663–64 12 n.a. 1678–79 2,111 26,128 1664–65 0 0 1679–80 3,515 52,846 1665–66 807 n.a. 1680–81 4,164 66,409 1666–67 1,423 n.a. 1681–82 5,105 81,409 1667–68 1,007 n.a. 1682–83 2,926 69,614 1668–69 974 n.a. 1683–84 2,985 71,018 1669–70 1,916 32,358 1684–85 338 4,955 1670–71 1,578 26,039** 1685–86 1,622 34,477 1671–72 8 156 1686–87 1,075 28,670 1672–73 354 4,460 1687–88 1,366 28,126 1673–74 1,154 24,230 1688–89 167 4,565 1689–90 49 1,344

* Sale prices in voc sources are listed in fanams, which were valued at 6 stuivers or 0.30 guilders until 1679, and 6¾ stuivers or 0.3375 guilders afterwards. ** All numbers in italics are close approximations based on the actual sale prices of that year. Sources: voc 1297, obp 1675, f. 663v, Specificatie van alle den areeck die op Colombo soo vercoght. als verscheijde plaetsen versonden is, 31.3.1659–30.2.1673; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1990r–2006r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht, 1.3.1677– 30.2.1681; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 591r–604r, Specificatie van allerhande soorten van coopmansz. tot Tuticurin, Manapaer, en Alvatt. voor reekening van de Compagnie verkocht, 1670/71–1689/90; Idem, f. 646r, Korte aanwijzing getrokken uit de negotieboeken tegen wat prijzen de voornaamste koopmans. hier ter kuste Madure zijn verkocht, 1669/70–1689/90.

Adirampatnam, had been sold at Mannarkovil and Kumbakonam per month, respectively, while another 1,000 amanams used to be sent to Tanjore, Ariyalur, and other places. Presently, however, hardly a single boi of Ceylon areca per month was imported since all the merchants had gained access to cheaper supplies of Malabar areca at Dindigul, Palghatcherri, Trichinopoly, Manachanallur, and other markets in Madurai. The annual turnover, for instance, of Ceylon arecanuts at the three pettais near Trichinopoly in 1677 was merely 1,400 bois. Twelve years later, in 1689, it was reported that not a single boi of Ceylon arecanuts

206 chapter 2 could be found in Trichinopoly while all the local shops were filled with Malabar arecanuts.104 Indeed, the high prices of Ceylon areca had diverted the traditional westward flow of Malabar areca to Surat in the 1670s eastwards to Madurai and Coromandel. As a result, it came to be considered a ‘cancer against the profits of Ceylon’. One estimate of 1675 put the annual amount of Malabar arecanuts that was transported overland at 4,000–5,000 bahar of 500 pounds each or 8,000-10,000 amanams of 24,000 pieces each with a total value of 60,000–70,000 rixdollars, one-third of which could be sold at the Madurai Coast. Another less conservative estimate of the same year, however, put the annual value of this trade at 225,000 rixdollars. Taking a sale price at Coromandel of 12 pagodas or 24 rixdollars per bahar, this would imply 9,375 bahar or 28,125 small amanams of 20,000 pieces. Taking a purchase price at Malabar of 7–8 rixdollars per bahar, the numbers would be truly staggering: 28,000–35,000 bahar or 84,000-105,000 small amanams.105 In 1676, an eyewitness on the Madurai Coast observed that whereas previously 2,000–3,000 bahar of Ceylon arecanuts had been sold at the Madurai Coast, at present only 800–1,000 bahar could be dispensed of at 10–12 pardaus or rixdollars per bahar. If no Malabar arecanuts were carried overland, however, the quantity reportedly could be increased to 2,000 bahar. One year later, in 1677, a report of an inspection tour along the eastern edge of the Western Ghats stated that each year 12,500 bahar or 6 million pounds of Malabar arecanuts were imported overland by pack-oxen and porters across the Ghats to Madurai, including 2,192 bois (792 bois and 4,200 human loads, called ‘burdens’ or drachten) via Panagudi, 600 bois (1,800 burdens) via Kallidaikurichi, 360 bois via Alvar Kurichi, 4,800 bois via Tenkasi, 3,600 bois via Rajapalaiyam, 9,600 bois via Madurai, and 4,800 bois via Tirumangalampettai. A commentary on this report considered the numbers ‘improbable’ and argued that they should be cut in half to 6,250 bahar or 3 million pounds. About 1.5 million pounds were

104 voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 210r–210v, Consideratiën Huijsman rakende de handel van d’E Comp. op de kust van Madure, 8.12.1676; voc 1319, obp 1678, ff. 1177v–1178r, Rapp. Van Rhee wegens zijn verrichtinge in Tanjore, Mannarcoil &a., 6.1.1677; Bassingh, f. 9, ‘Eenige verhalinge…’; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 292r, 293r–293v, 320v, and 322v, Rapp. Welter, 9.9.1689, in: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 47, 482, 484–485, 514, 516, 559–560, 582, and 584. 105 voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 1027r, Miss. Van Goens de Jonge van Cochin aan H. XVII, 25.2.1675; voc 899, bub 1675, f. 585, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.12.1675; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 832v, Advies Huijsman wegens de Malabarse areca, 9.3.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 79v–80v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.4.1676; voc 903, bub 1679, f. 1003, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.9.1679.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 207 consumed locally in the Madurai lowlands, somewhat to the north, and in the lands of Ramnad south of Rameswaram, the remainder being carried to the north.106 Another observer in Malabar stated in 1677 that annually over 25,000 kandis of 500 pounds each (12.5 million pounds) or 62,500 amanams of arecanuts were transported overland from Malabar between Cannanore and Cape Comorin to Madurai and the neighbouring regions. A commentary to his statement asserted that this region produced no more than 15,000 kandis (7.5 million pounds) or 37,500–40,000 amanams of arecanuts. About one-third or 5,000 kandis were brought to the coast where it could be bought for 6 rixdollars per kandi or 30,000 rixdollars total. This estimate would have the overland trade (excluding local consumption) be 10,000 kandis or 5 million pounds with an invoice value of 60,000 rixdollars.107 An eyewitness at Trichinopoly in late 1677 claimed that the turnover of Malabar arecanuts at the three local pettais or markets was 800 bois per mensum (9,600 bois or 2.1 million pounds per annum), part of which was carried northward by pack-bullocks to Ariyalur, Valigondapuram, Manachanallur, and other markets in Tanjore, Gingee, and Golconda. Moreover, another 500 bois per month (6,000 bois or 1.32 million pounds per year) were sold in the lands just south of the Madurai capital.108 A report of 1689 commented that all Malabar arecanuts carried across the Western Ghats had to travel via Dindigul northward. Thus, annually 7,350– 10,800 bois (1.62–2.37 million pounds) passed Dindigul, 2,000–3,000 bois each in the months of January, April, and November, and 150–200 bois each in the remaining nine months of the year. Other (optimistic) assessments of the same year estimated that 9,000 kandis or 4.5 million pounds of Malabar arecanuts (valued at 540,816 guilders invoice and 864,000 guilders at sale prices) could be sold on the east coast of India, and 2,500 bahar or 1.2 million pounds (valued at 240,000 guilders sale price) in southern Coromandel.109 Though these estimates vary considerably, they consistently indicate a flourishing ‘traditional’ overland commerce of very sizeable proportions. The

106 voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 210r–210v, Consideratiën Huijsman rakende de handel van d’E Comp. op de kust van Madure, 8.12.1676; voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1262r et seq., Rapp. Kaperman, 13.5.1677; Idem, ff. 1282r–1283v, Aenmerckingen Huijsman en De Geus, 17.5.1677. 107 s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. 162–163. 108 Bassingh, ff. 1, 5. 9, and 22, ‘Eenige verhalinge’. 109 voc 1464, obp 1690, f. 127r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 30.6.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 257r, and 321r, Rapp. Welter, 9.9.1689; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 20v–21r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 23.12.1689.

208 chapter 2 trans-ghat trade in arecanuts and other commodities was a large-scale enterprise involving thousands of pack-oxen and human porters, dominated by ‘boieiros [Port., cattle drivers, herdsmen], botiqueiros [Port., shop- or stall-keeper], and other hawkers’. The distributive network was divided between wholesale traders, the boieiros, sedentary retailers, and shopkeepers, along with itinerant pedling merchants. In 1677, for instance, one Dutch traveller in the border region between Madurai and Tanjore observed 58 shops en route from Tiruvarur to Mannarkovil, and another 75 in Mannarkovil itself. In 1685, two Tuticorin pedlars at Kilakkarai had only sold 10 of their 150 bois of arecanuts in 30–40 days in small portions of 250–500 nuts each worth 1–2 fanams. In 1688, the Company’s indigenous merchants sent with 5 bois of arecanuts to the ‘ordinary week market or cantai’ at Srivilliputtur managed to sell merely 1 boi over the course of three months. In the same year, five Malabar merchants were trying to sell their 20–25 bois of pepper and arecanuts at Ammanpettai near Tanjore. In 1689, a pedlar at the Uraiyur pettai on the outskirts of Trichinopoly, who reportedly had purchased 1 boi of Ceylon arecanuts at the Srivilliputtur market five months before, was still in the possession of 8,000 unsold nuts.110 As with the trade in pepper, the Dutch attempt to corner the arecanut market in the 1670s proved to be counterproductive, stimulating not only com peting overland but overseas trade networks in Malabar arecanuts as well. Following an ‘advantageous contract’ with the Tevar in 1674 not to let Malabar arecanuts pass Pamban Channel, provisional orders were issued in late 1675 prohibiting the intrusion of Malabar areca in the Bay of Madurai (Gulf of Mannaar). Enforced by a restrictive pass policy and the cruising of voc vessels near Cape Comorin and Pamban Channel, the measure was circumvented by Muslim Mappila and Maraikkayar merchants, landing arecanuts just west of Cape Comorin. From there the arecanuts were transported overland by pack- oxen to Kulasekharapatnam and elsewhere. In 1676, 3,329 bois or 800,000 pounds of Malabar arecanuts were reported to have been carried from the west cape of Cape Comorin to Kulasekharapatnam alone. The Company was unable to plug this and other loopholes. In late 1680, permission was thus given to ship

110 voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1177v–1178r, Rapp. Van Rhee, 6.1.1677; voc 1364, obp 1682, f. 11r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1682; voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1347r, and 1358v, Notulen gehouden door den adsistent Welter op Killekarre, 5.10.1685; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 342v–343r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.8.1688; voc 1449, obp 1689, ff. 455r–455v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperk. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 16.8.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 226v–227r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 2.11.1688; Idem, f. 442v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.11.1688; voc 1463, obp 1690, ff. 357v–358r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 30.6.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 293r, Rapp. Welter aan opperk. Van Vliet, 9.9.1689.

Treasure For Textiles: The Import Trade 209

4,000 small parcels of Malabar arecanuts of 120 pounds each or a total of 480,000 pounds directly to Manappad against the payment of 1 fanam per parcel of 2,500 amanam. However, in 1681 and 1682 no less than 6,215 and 6,870 parcels of 240 pounds each or totals of 1.49 and 1.65 million pounds were imported overseas to Manappad and Kulasekharapatnam, respectively. Unable to stem the ‘rising tide’ of Malabar arecanuts, the maximum annual amount of areca to be legally exported to the Bay of Madurai was subsequently increased to 9,000 parcels, but even this allotment was exceeded. In 1683, no fewer than 11,444 parcels or 2.75 million pounds of Malabar arecanuts were carried overseas to Manappad.111 Faced with this formidable competition, the Dutch attempted various stop- gap measures. Requests to the local rulers of South India to prohibit their subjects from trading in Malabar arecanuts were refused for obvious reasons since revenues from overseas trade formed a significant part of their revenues. The

111 For references to the quantity of Malabar arecanuts shipped to Manappad and Kulasekharapatnam: voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 287v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 48v–49r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 831r, Relaas commr. Huijsman wegens de nuttigheden die de Cie. int Huren der Madurese zeehavens zou komen te genieten, 11.4.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 119v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1676; Idem, f. 210r, Consideratiën Huijsman, 8.12.1676; voc 1364, obp 1682, f. 53v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 368v–369v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, opperk. en g’eligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust, 31.1.1682; voc 1387, obp 1684, ff. 1750v–1751r, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 20r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 22.6.1683; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 320v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.1.1684; Idem, f. 17r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 199v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; voc 1544, obp 1695, f. 948v, Kort vertoog opperk. en opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticorin der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter kuste Madure, 1.12.1693–30.11.1694. For an overview of the quantity of Malabar arecanuts sold at Coromandel between 1687 and 1692: voc 1502, obp 1693, ff. 1393r–1394v, Korte samentrekking van de gekookte en gesneden areca van Malabar sedert 1687 hier te kuste Coromandel ontvangen, 1.10.1692. For the Dutch policy towards the overseas trade in Malabar arecanuts: voc 899, bub 1675, ff. 476–477, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 4.11.1675; Idem, ff. 585–586, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 400v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman te Tuticurin, 7.1.1677; voc 904, bub 1680, ff. 1458–1515, Miss. GG en R aan commr. Huijsman en raad van Malabar, 21.11.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1843v–1844r, Consideratiën Van Rhee en Van Vliet, 23.4.1681; voc 908, bub 1682, f. 935v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel, 25.8.1682; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. 104–105, 124–125, 158–163, 219, 236, and 261.

210 chapter 2 idea of cornering the market and buying up all the arecanuts in Malabar was abandoned as unrealistic and unprofitable, requiring a large and relatively unproductive outlay of capital. Seizing and confiscating any indigenous vessel with contraband goods led to tensions with the local rulers of Malabar and Madurai, while the naval blockade was anything but water-tight and promoted the growth of overland trade. In the end, the only means the Dutch could adopt was to go ‘merchant-style’ (coopmansstijl) and try to fight the competition by dumping practices and underselling. As with the pepper trade, however, an aggressive campaign to promote sales in the late 1680s ended in a costly failure. In 1692, more than 4 million pounds of arecanuts were rotting in the Company warehouses at Nagapatnam, Sadraspatnam, and Porto Novo.112 Whereas the voc was unable to compete in the market for Asian goods, it is telling that the eic encountered similar problems in its determined attempts to enlarge the market for European commodities throughout Asia from the early 1660s. The policy of expansion, set in motion by the Company’s internal needs at home, was strongly resisted by the Chiefs of the Indian factories in the 1670s. Sir William Langhorn, the Governor of Madras (1670–1678), intimated to the Court of Directors in November 1676: ‘Note that the sales of Europe goods is no furtherance to the Investments, but the contrary, being things merely obtruded upon them in favour of the English manufactures and a mere burthen and pestering of their godowns’.113 The condition of chronic oversupply and the inability to provide commodities at competitive prices and of similar quality was a structural feature of pre-modern European trade in Asia, resulting in the continuous ‘drain’ of precious metals to the early modern workshops and global ‘sinks’ of India and China.

112 The volume of correspondence on the revival of the ‘areca concept’ by Commissioner Van Rheede in 1687 is truly staggering. For references in 1687 alone: voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 417v–422v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.8.1687; voc 1438, obp 1688, ff. 1236r–1238r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 13.8.1687; voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 425r–426r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 19.8.1687; Idem, ff. 47r–49v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.9.1687; Idem, ff. 86v–99r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.9.1687; Idem, ff. 102r–103v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 16.9.1687; Idem, ff. 432r–432v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 23.11.1687; voc 914, bub 1687, f. 1133, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 26.11.1687; voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 199r, and 223r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687. For the final breakdown of the effort: voc 1502, obp 1693, ff. 1393r–1394v, Korte samentrekking van de gekookte en gesneden areca van Malabar sedert 1687 hier ter kuste Coromandel ontvangen, 1.10.1692. 113 Quoted in: Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 217–218, and 234.

chapter 3 Treasure for Textiles: The Export Trade

Apart from trifles, such as sugar, wax, honey, salt, lime, and such things aside, exports [from the Madurai Coast] consist primarily of cotton and the textiles made from it. The Madurai Coast and the entire country of the Nayaka, that important part of the former empire of Karnataka [Vijayanagara], …, should always be regarded in this manner, since experience and common sense has taught undisputedly, that all those who value it higher will fare badly and take wrong stock. Nevertheless, this small piece of land is not to be despised, for it will still reward the efforts of those who settle on its borders and both import the first [silver and other commodities] and export the latter [cotton and the textiles made from it]. This was not only known to the Portuguese when they conquered the coast, but also to our people, who in turn took it from them and immediately set out to take advantage of both the import and export trades…’. Considerations of Governor gustaaf willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon regarding the trade of the Dutch East India Company on the Madurai Coast, 1738.1

While precious metals or treasure constituted the principal items of Dutch imports, cotton textiles or woven piece goods were the raison d’être of the Company’s export trade on the Madurai Coast. All other export commodities were merely of secondary importance: pearls and chanks, fisheries organised along similar lines; rice, nel, millets, and other food provisions; the ‘political barometer’ commodities of rockfish skins and chaya roots monopolised by the Tevar of Ramnad2; livestock, such as cows, horses, oxen, and sheep; people, including slaves, and regular and extraordinary levies; and high-volume, low- value bulk goods, such as salt, lime, and coral stone, used as ballast. The remaining miscellaneous export commodities included agricultural produce (sugar, indigo,

1 voc 11297, fls. 21–23, Consideratien van den raad ord. en Ceijlons gouvr. Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff over de handel van de Gen, Ned. O.I. Maatschappij op de Madurese Cust, 22.11.1738. 2 A similar role was played by saltpetre obtained mostly from North India (most notably in a few districts of Bihar near Patna, and, to a lesser extent, the Ajmer district in Gujarat) and the coast of Coromandel (Golconda, and Gingi). Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 168–170; Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, esp. pp. 58–60; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, 336–341.

300854 212 chapter 3 tamarind, tobacco, yams, coconuts, and so forth); extracted produce (saltpetre, iron, and steel); forest products (various sorts of timber, rattan, honey, and wax); and: manufactured goods (gunny bags, packing twine, coir rope, mats, baskets, arrack, pots, pans, et cetera). This last group, however, usually referred to as ‘trifles’, played no significant role in the actual encounter.

Cotton Textiles: The Bride around Whom Everyone Dances

Woven piece goods formed the mainstay of a multitude of local cotton growers, spinners, weavers, dyers, and washermen, and the raison d’être of the Company trade at the Madurai Coast. In the years for which we have accurate data, cotton textiles accounted for 58.71 percent (63,450 out of 108,073 guilders) in 1677–1678 to 94.12 percent (205,496 out of 218,305 guilders) in 1688–1689 of all Dutch exports from the region (see Table 7). In comparison, though no figures are available for the seventeenth century, textiles accounted for about 75 percent of Company exports from Coromandel in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and 75–95 percent of Company exports from Bengal between 1640 and 1720. Indeed, playing on a popular phrase in Company correspondence, cotton was ‘the bride around whom everyone else danced’.3

3 Coromandel, apart from being the ‘left hand of the Moluccas’ in the inter-Asiatic trade, was also the first major export area of textiles destined for Asia and Europe. Total Dutch exports from Coromandel increased from ca. 0.6 million guilders per annum between 1620 and 1640 to 2.0 million guilders between 1651 and 1655, peaking at 3.78 million guilders in 1686. After the 1680s, Coromandel’s role as the textile manufacturer of Europe was taken over by Bengal. Total Dutch exports from Bengal rose from 0.15 million guilders in 1648–1649 and 1–2 million guilders between 1655 and 1680 to 3–4 million guilders between 1710 and 1720. Textiles and raw silk accounted for 61.50 percent, 83.63 percent, and 74.49 percent of Bengal exports in 1675/1676, 1701/1703, and 1722/1723, respectively. As the Japanese market for Bengal goods imploded due to increasing restrictions imposed by the Tokugawa Shogunate and demand in Europe took off, some 70 percent of all Bengal exports were shipped to Europe from the early 1690s onward. Prakash, Dutch East India Company, Tables 3.3 and 3.5, pp. 70, and 76–77; Idem, European Commercial Enterprise, Tables 5.1, 5.3, 5.4, and 6.2, pp. 98–99, 196, 198, and 222–223. The English eic experienced a similar ‘eastward shift in the Indian subcontinent’ with the commercial eclipse of the Surat factory, the outlet of cheap and coarse textiles from Gujarat and the Deccan. Exports from Madras to Europe by the eic peaked in the 1680s (3.82 million guilders or 39.7 percent out of a total of 9.63 million guilders of British exports to Europe in 1684/1685), with Bengal exports reaching their highest point in the 1710s (3.99 million guilders or 57.3 percent out of a total of 6.96 million guilders by 1720/1721). Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, pp. 98, and Table C.2, 508–509.

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Apart from their obvious practical-aesthetic uses in clothing, bedding, and decoration as commodities that embody ‘exchange value’, cotton textiles also signified ‘use value’ as a non-utilitarian cultural medium or means of self- definition, hierarchical display, and ritual gift-giving.4 Among the most highly visible examples of symbolic usage was the role of luxurious garments—robes, turbans, and other outer courtly garments—in the killattu dress ceremony employed by rulers and others holding authority as an effective sociopolitical and ritual tool to cement loyalty to the superior and define a relationship of honourable service. Following the extensive and long-standing usage of Indian luxury textiles in gift-giving, the Company itself spent a total of 1.19 million guilders in gift-giving in Asia over a 177-year period, including thousands of pieces of high-quality pieces of cloth, one of the most common of presents to indigenous rulers and officials.5 Two regimes of cotton cultivation were prevalent in Madurai: extensive cultivation of Coconada cotton or nadam- or nattan-parutti, a perennial (Lat., Gossypium nadam), on the thinner and lighter red soils (teris); and intensive cultivation of the Indian cotton plant or uppam-parutti, a herbaceous variety (Lat., Gossypium herbaceum), on the rich and loamy black ‘cotton’ soils (regurs). Apart from ecological conditions, such as soil type and availability of water (see Maps 8 and 9), the major factor behind the distribution patterns of these regimes was the availability of capital provided by political and revenue authorities in the form of takkavi (taccavi), or advances to cultivators for the financing of production.6 Extensive

4 A. Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in: Idem (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 4; J. Guy, Woven Textiles: Indian Textiles in the East: From Southeast Asia to Japan (London: Thames and Hudson, 1998), pp. 10, and 14–18; P. Machado, ‘Awash in a Sea of Cloth: Gujarat, Africa, and the Western Indian Ocean, 1300–1800’, in: Riello and Parthasarathi (eds), The Spinning World, pp. 170–172; Lemire, ‘Revising the Historical Narrative’, pp. 207–210. 5 Vink, Mission to Madurai, esp. pp. 27, 57, 137, and 137, n. 49; Gordon (ed.), Robes of Honour; Riello and Parthasarathi, ‘Introduction: Cotton Textiles and Global History’, in: Idem (eds), The Spinning World, p. 12; O. Prakash, ‘The Dutch and the Indian Ocean Textile Trade’, in: Riello and Parthasarathi (eds), The Spinning World, pp. 156–157; R. Laarhoven, ‘The Power of Cloth: The Textile Trade of the Dutch East India Company (voc), 1600–1780’, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Australian National University, 1994. 6 The following discussion is largely based on Dutch archival materials along with: Riello and Parthasarathi (eds), The Spinning World; Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, esp. pp. 50–53, and 62–66; Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India; Idem, An Agrarian History of South Asia; Idem, Peasant History in South India, pp. 56–57, 59, 62, and 76; S. Arasaratnam, Maritime Commerce and Power: Southeast India, 1750–1800 (Aldershot and Brookfield: Variorum, 1996), pp. 22–53; Idem, Merchants, Companies and Commerce,

300854 214 chapter 3 cultivation accounted for the bulk of cotton grown in the Baramahal (Salem), Trichinopoly, and Dindigul districts, and was also widespread in Coimbatore, Tinnevelly, and Ramnad districts. It required little capital or labour, and was an integral part of peasant subsistence strategies through the practice of inter- cultivation with coarser, dry grains and oil seeds. First, grains took less time to yield a harvest, providing income to the cultivator before cotton yielded its product. Second, the inter-cultivation of grains increased the productivity of the cultivator’s lands. Third, inter-cultivation allowed for limiting the uncertainties in timing and the quantity of precipitation as the two crops had different rainfall requirements. As a perennial shrub, nadam cotton was much more drought-resistant than cereals. Yielding crops for three to five years, nadam cotton was commonly sown between August and October, and harvested six to twelve months after sowing. Uppam cotton was commercially much more important, with yields at least twice as high as nadam cotton. Concentrated on the clayey, heavy black ‘cotton’ soils (regur) in the environs of Madurai, and, to a lesser extent, in northern Tinnevelly and Coimbatore district, uppam cotton cultivation was intensive, requiring large inputs of capital and labour and entailing much greater risks than nadam cultivation. As the core of the Nayaka kingdom, Madurai district not only had the right ecological conditions (black soils, and availability of water), but also a political superstructure, which supplied credit to support a capital-intensive production regime. The expansion of the agricultural frontier was partly the result of the military aspirations of the Madurai Nayakas, seeking to increase the revenue base of the state. Uppam cotton was grown in rota- tion with bull-rush millet (kampu, kambu) and sorghum (cholam). Usually sown in October-November, cotton was picked starting in January and throughout February, March, and April. In favourable seasons, when the May showers were abundant, the plants flowered for a second time, and another, but less plentiful, crop was picked in July or August and then the plant pulled.7

pp. 61–63, 215–221, 265–267, and passim; Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, pp. 142–148, and 156–162; Chaudhuri, ‘The Structure of the Indian Textile Industry’; V. Ramaswamy, Textiles and Weavers in Medieval South India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985); J.J. Brennig, ‘Textile Producers and Production in Late Seventeenth Cen tury Coromandel’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 23, 4 (1986), pp. 333–356; Subrahmanyam, ‘Rural Industry and Commercial Agriculture’; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India, pp. 163–184; Spate and Learmonth, India and Pakistan, pp. 759–761, and 780–782; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part II, pp. 105–106. 7 Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 50–53, and 62–66; F.A. Nicholson, Manual of the Coimbatore District (Madras: Madras Government Press, 1898), p. 232; Ludden, Peasant History in South India, p. 51.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 215

Table 7 Value of Dutch exports of textiles from the Madurai Coast (in guilders) and their share in total Dutch exports, 1677/78–1689/90

Financial year Total exports Exports textiles Percentage

1677–78 108,073:18:12* 63,450:9:10 58.71 1678–79 121,007:17:14 78,187:16:6 64.61 1679–80 253,685:12 218,580 86.16 1680–81 344,164:19 317,610:17:6 92.28 1681–82 391,344:15:10 352,371:9:5 90.04 1683–84 371,292:17:6 340,413:18:6 91.68 1684–85 129,034:8:11 100,159:–:11 77.62 1687–88 393,587:5:6 304,229:16:10 77.30 1688–89 218,305:12:10 205,496:7:4 94.13 1689–90 186,227:9:10 136,836:14:9 73.48

* 1 guilder = 20 stuivers = 320 penningen. Sources: voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1993r–2006r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmans. op de Madurese kust zijn verhandeld, 1677/78–1680/81; voc 1525, obp 1694, ff. 1238r–1240v, Extract getrocken uijt d’Tutucorijnse negotieboecken van diverse jaeren…waerbij aengewesen werdt wat quantitijt lijwaeten deser custe zijn ingekoght, 20.4.1693; voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratien over den generalen handel ter Custe Madure 1738. No. 5 Samentreckinge van het geheele beloop der negotie…op de Custe van Madure, 1659/60–1737/38.

After picking, the cotton (panci) underwent a thorough, two-step cleaning, and was sold at local markets where prices could differ sharply both regionally and seasonally. In June 1689, for instance, a Dutch visitor reported that 58 palam (9.86 pounds) of cotton could be purchased for 1 fanam at the markets near Kayatar and Idaiseval. However, only 40–50 palam (6.8–8.5 pounds) could be had for the same price at Sivakasi where prices had risen from 60 to 65 palam (10.2–11.05 pounds) due to heavy after rains, which had caused the cotton to rot on the plants. A similar fate had befallen the cotton near Vinakuddi (Vinakudi) and Modhagam (Madagam) where prices had increased from 65 to 70 palam (11.05–11.9 pounds) to 50 palam (8.5 pounds) for 1 fanam. In July 1689 cotton around Trichinopoly cost merely 1 31/49 fanam per tolam (1 tolam = 100 palam = 16.5 pounds) or 10.11 pounds per fanam, but 2 1/2 fanam per tolam or 6.6 pounds per fanam at Tirumangalam the following month in August 1689.8

8 voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 248v–249v, 251r, 292v, and 322v, Rapp. Welter, 9.9.1689. See: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 436–438, 440, 483, 516, 529–530, 531, 559, and 584.

300854 216 chapter 3

While much of the cotton cultivation was concentrated in the interior districts, the major weaving centres were located on the coast. The trade in cotton was one of the largest bulk trades in the Indian subcontinent at this time. In ca. 1814, Trichinopoly (630 kandis), Madurai, Dindigul, and Ramnad (1,980 kandis), Tinnevelly (2,360 kandis), and Coimbatore (4,457 kandis) districts combined produced 9,427 kandis or 4.7 million pounds of cleaned cotton (compared to total of 43,576 kandis for all of South India). At an average bullock load of 9 maunds (0.45 kandis), it would have required almost 21,000 bullock loads to transport this quantity. In 1850–1851 Madurai district had 74,688 acres of cotton, while exports of raw cotton and woven piece goods amounted to 12,104 rupees (1849–1850) and 136,137 rupees (1850–1851) respectively. At the same time, Tirunelveli district exported 6,500 tons of raw cotton and less than 300,000 rupees worth of cloth. Coimbatore cotton and yarn was exported in all directions: north to the Baramahal (Salem), east to the major weaving centres on the Coromandel Coast (Cuddalore, Porto Novo, and Pondichéry), west, albeit in small quantity, across the Western Ghats to Malabar, and south to Trichinopoly, Madurai, and Tirunelveli. The southeastern coast was also supplied with cotton from Madurai, Ramnad, and Tirunelveli itself.9 After an initial cleaning of the cotton by the cultivators to separate the seed from the fibre, the bulk of the raw cotton was transported to the manufacturing regions where a second cleaning was done immediately before spinning. Spinning, mostly low-status women’s work using a large or smaller delicate wheel depending on the quality of the yarn, was concentrated in the dry areas of South India. Cotton spinning was closely connected to the rhythms of the agricultural season, coinciding with a long agricultural off-season lasting from mid-January to July. The best spinsters came from the poorest, ‘untouchable’ households. For them spinning would have been invaluable in its dual role as a supplement to earnings from agricultural labour and insurance during times of dearth. Once spun, the yarn was ready for the manufacture of plain clothes, though a small fraction of the yarn concerned was dyed or bleached for the manufacture of cloth patterned in the loom. A variety of looms, including vertical looms and modified versions of the simple horizontal loom known as draw looms, were to be found in South India, though the pit loom, ‘the work horse in South Indian weaving’, accounted for the bulk of textile production in the region. The weavers who produced patterned goods bleached and dyed the yarn themselves using a vast repertoire of binding agents and colouring agents

9 Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 67–71; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part V, App. C and E, pp. 146, and 162b; Ludden, Peasant History in South India, p. 139.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 217 to impart colours and vitality. These finishing processes were located in places where water was abundant and possessed the proper chemical properties.10 Unfortunately, similar precise data for the seventeenth century are lacking, but a few scattered references point to the vast size of cotton cultivation, manufacturing, and trade. According to (highly optimistic) assessments in the 1670s, annually 500,000 pieces of textiles from Madurai could be sold at Ceylon with a total invoice value of 375,000 rixdollars. In addition, in the month of October 1677, for instance, 100 bois (22,000 pounds) of textiles were sent from the vicinity of Trichinopoly overland to Kottar. In 1690, during the so-called ‘cotton famine’ on the Coromandel Coast, thousands of bahars (1 bahar = 480 pounds) of cotton were exported from the lands of Madurai, while one year later, the Konkani Brahmin Babba Prabhu and the Company brokers alone reportedly exported 2,000 bahar or 960,000 pounds of Madurai cotton to Coromandel.11 Dutch textile exports from Madurai in the twenty years between 1670–1671 and 1689–1690 amounted to 995,602 pieces total or 49,780 pieces per annum (see Table 8). Assuming Parthasarathi’s estimate of the share of Dutch exports in total South Indian cloth production (9.99 percent) to be applicable to late seventeenth-century Madurai, the total textile production of Madurai in the late seventeenth century amounted to 498,298 pieces per year. If we further

10 For an excellent introduction to the technology, producers, and the organisation involved: P. Parthasarathi, ‘Cotton Textiles in the Indian Subcontinent, 1200–1800’, in: Riello and Parthasarathi (eds), The Spinning World, pp. 23–31. See also: Idem, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 11–12, and 56–61; V. Ramaswamy, ‘Notes on Textile Technology in Medieval India with Special Reference to the South’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 17, 2 (1980), pp. 227–241. 11 voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 647v–648r, Part. miss. gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 1.1670; voc 1277, obp 1671, ff. 1619v–1620v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.7.1670; voc 1274, obp 1671, ff. 9r–9v, Miss, gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 30.11.1670; voc 1280, obp 1672, ff. 294r–295r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 896, bub 1672, f. 354, Miss. GG en R aan superintendent Van Goens en gedestineerd gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 16.4.1672; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 647r–647v, Instr. superint. Van Goens aan opperh. Verwer en Van Rhee, 30.9.1674; Idem, ff. 39v–42v, Miss. superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; Valentijn, Oud- en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, pp. 220–221, 236, and 273; E. Reimers (ed.), Memoirs of Ryckloff van Goens, 1663–1675, Selections From the Dutch Records of the Ceylon Government 3 (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1932), p. 37; Bassingh, f. 15, ‘Eenige verhalinge’; voc 1478, obp 1691, f. 700v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 4.7.1690; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 350v–351r, Cort vertoogh en redenen waerom d’E Compe. nu eenigen tijd geleden op Tutucorijn niet van gewilde en genoegsame cleden gediend is geweest, 12.3.1692.

300854 218 chapter 3 distinguish Dutch exports by decade (285,142 pieces between 1670–1671 and 1679–1680, and 710,460 pieces between 1680–1681 and 1689–1690), Madurai annually produced 498,298 and 711,171 woven piece goods in the 1670s and 1680s, respectively. The three major professional, full-time weaving castes in Tamil Nadu spread along the Carnatic lowlands were the Tamil-speaking Kaik(k)olar, and Telugu- speaking Devanga (Devangalu) and Sales, besides a number of smaller castes who practiced weaving as a part-time occupation, producing low-skill, coarser varieties of cloth. The Tamil-speaking Kaikolars (kai, ‘hand’, kol, ‘shuttle’), carrying names such as Mudali and Nayanar under hereditary caste headmen called Peridanakkarar or Pattakarar, were concentrated in the middle Carnatic districts of Salem and Coimbatore, while smaller concentrations could also be found in Trichinopoly, Madurai, and Tirunelveli. The Kaikolar specialized in weaving coarse cloth of great length, the Guinea- or longcloth (lungis) and salam puris both for export and local consumption. Through their seventy-two natu system, individual Kaikolar ‘warrior merchants’ within their local segmented territories were part of a larger pan-regional system extending throughout Tamil Nadu. The 1871 census lists 273,823 Kaikolar in the Madras presidency.12 The Devanga (Devangulu) and Sales were the two great Telugu-speaking weaving castes and could be found in the northern Tamil districts of Coimbatore and Salem and further south in Madurai. In the 1871 census they numbered 133,427 in the Madras presidency.13 Small concentrations of Sales (Skt. Salika, ‘weaver’), carrying names such as Senapati under hereditary caste headmen with the same title, were located in Tirunelveli district. In the 1871 census there were 210,928 Sales in the Madras presidency.14 Besides these three major weaving castes, there were numerous minor weaving castes among Tamils, Telugus, and other linguistic groups, such as the Tamil-speaking Seniyars (Seniyans) and Koliyars (Koliyans), the Malayalam-speaking Saliyars (Saliyans), and the Saurashtri Patnulkarar. Some other castes located in specific regions engaged in weaving as a side occupation while carrying out the major employment of their caste.15

12 M. Mines, The Warrior Merchants: Textiles, Trade and Territory in South India (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 11 and 114; E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 7 vols. (Madras: Government Press, 1909), III, pp. 31–44. 13 Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 11, and 114; Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, II, pp. 154–166. 14 Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 11, and 114; Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, VI, pp. 265–277. 15 For the Koliyars: Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, III, pp. 302–304. For the Patnulkarar: Idem, VI, pp. 160–176; Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, pp. 118–119.

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In fact, there was a movement into and out of weaving as an occupation, and a splintering of weaving castes on the basis of specialisation. Weaving castes, like most other occupations in India, also maintained agricultural pursuits. On the other hand, other occupational castes, such as fishermen and landless labourers of untouchable castes, especially Pallas (Pallars, Pallans) and Pariahs (Pariyas, Paraiyars), came into weaving.16 Most of the textile producers in the vicinity of Palaiyamkottai and Alvar Tirunagari reportedly were ‘barber and Palla weavers’. The textile weavers of the villages around Nagapatnam, such as Purvachery, Naranamangalam, Sangaman galam, and Manjikudi, consisted mostly of Kaikolars and some Seniyars, Saliyars, and Chedars, while there were also settlements (kuppams) of Pariah weavers. Further south, the majority of the weavers reportedly were Pariahs.17 While small numbers of weavers were virtually ubiquitous and could be found in the most insignificant hamlets, elite consumption and overseas demand stimulated urban concentration of the weavers in central places and their limited commercial hinterlands. Manufacturing and commercial activities were usually spread out among a number of nearby residential settlements. Production was most often organised in clusters of centres at walking distance from one another, while economic specialisation was organised largely within endogamous identity groups (defined by jati, sect, and ethnicity). Weavers were part of a peripatetic population, displaying a high degree of mobility in response to invasions, political pressures, as well as famines and similar natural calamities. Migration was also used as a bargaining chip during conflicts with merchants and a way to escape debt.18 Near Cape Comorin, along the Tambraparni River, an 1823 census shows that many sites of revenue collection called ‘villages’ had small populations, but substantial concentrations of manufacturing, processing, and commercial activity as well as very high population densities. This picture is corroborated

For the Saliyars: Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, VI, pp. 277–279. For the Seniyars: Idem, pp. 361–362. 16 This discussion excludes the export of gunny bags made from hemp or sanambu (Lat., Crotalaria juncea) by the Saluppar weavers. Gunny was exported in large quantities along with cotton yarn and packing twine from the Madurai Coast during this period. 17 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 648v–649r, Instr. superintendent Van Goens aan opperh. Verwer en Van Rhee tot Nagapatnam, 30.9.1674; voc 1543, obp 1696, f. 621v, Rapp. Welter aan Bergaigne, opperk. en opperh. der Madurese kust wegens zijn verrichtinge op de buitencomptoiren Alvatiernegarij en Manapaar, 2.10.1694; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, p. 59; Parthasarathi, ‘Weavers, Merchants and States’, pp. 95–96. 18 Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, pp. 146–147; Washbrook, ‘Progress and Problems’, p. 67; Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 29–30.

300854 220 chapter 3 in various late seventeenth-century Dutch accounts. A report of 1677, following several years of devastating warfare and widespread dislocation, mentioned the then current number of looms (makkams) compared, in some cases, to previous times: 300–350 at Tenkasi (previously 3,000), 100 (previously 1,000) at Alvar Kurichi, 400–500 at Viravanallur, 200 (previously 1,000) at Thirukurungudi, 90 at Kallakadu and Kallidaikurichi, and 150 at Srivilliputtur. In the 1680s, 450 weavers were active in the Palaiyamkottai-Tirunelveli region, 25 around Alvar Tirunagari, 400–500 near Sivakasi, and 255 at Kulasekharapatnam. In addition, production centres in Ramnad could be found, among other places, near Adirampatnam (50 looms), Kilakkarai (500 looms), and Pudukkottai and surroundings (1,400 looms), whereas 4,200 looms were operating in the vicinity of Kottar in the lands of Travancore. The number of looms only represents a rough indication of the direct additional employment generated by the demand for textiles, ignoring any multiplier effects and linkage effects such as additional opportunities available to cotton growers, boieiros and porters, merchants, and so on. Not all of these looms, of course, were producing to meet Dutch demand, but with an estimated 5–6 full-time jobs per loom it was no exaggeration when a contemporary observer remarked that ‘thousands of people have to live and subsist on growing cotton, spinning yarn, and weaving textiles’.19 Despite the relative dearth of pre-modern statistical data, several historians have tried to assess the impact of European activities on Indian textile production. Based on the number of looms required to produce the average number of pieces of textiles exported by the Dutch and English East India Companies, Om Prakash has estimated that between 1709 and 1718 European demand provided 86,967–111,151 full-time jobs or 8.69–11.11 percent of the total employment in Bengal’s textile manufacturing sector. Dutch exports accounted for 33,770– 44,346 full-time jobs or 3.37–4.43 percent of total employment in the region. The Dutch and English export trades resulted in an annual addition of 34 million rupees to the income of Bengal. Similarly, Joseph Brennig has estimated that in the late seventeenth century less than half of the total cloth production

19 voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 205v–206r, Rapp. Van Rhee van de presente toestant, commercie en andere zaecken ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680. For the numbers: voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1262r et seq., Rapp. Caperman, 13.5.1677; voc 1387, obp 1684, ff. 1753r–1753v, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 561r–561v, and 562v–563r, Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtinge aan het hof van de vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683; voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 249v, Rapp. Welter, 9.9.1689; voc 1543, obp 1696, ff. 616v, and 628v–629r, Rapp. Welter aan Bergaigne wegens zijn verrichtinge op de buitencomptoiren Alvatiernegarij en Manapaar, 2.10.1694; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 254.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 221 of northern Coromandel was destined for the Dutch and English Companies’ export trade. Criticising both estimates, Prasannan Parthasarathi has calculated more recently that, in terms of quantity, between 1700 and 1725 the exports of the English and Dutch Companies accounted for 12.29 (1,339.9 tons) and 9.99 percent (1,088.9 tons) of total South Indian cloth production (10,894 tons), respectively. Since the textiles exported by the Europeans were generally the finer varieties, figures would have been higher in value terms.20 ‘Head weavers’, who were known under various titles, had moved away from the mass of weavers by their ownership of land and/or looms into a position of leadership. They provided a source of leadership and helped to forge weaver collective solidarity, looking after their general interests vis-à-vis the merchants and the state and ensured that contractual obligations were upheld on both sides.21 Serving as village and community leaders and heads of powerful corporate structures, some of them became merchants, but did not give up their weaving and did not enter into the process of negotiation between merchants and weavers. Dutch sources contain occasional references to head weavers, such as Rowthar Muppan and Thikarankutti at Savarimangalam; Kalavathi Adaviyar22 at Srivaikuntam; Marudakutti, merchant and muppan ‘of the weaving caste’ at Alvar Tirunagari; Kalingan Nattar, Mugamoodi Labbai, Chedu Mahmud Nayanar and Chedu Abd al-Qadir at Palaiyamkottai; Ali Nayinar Pillai at Kongarayankurichi; and Shahid Kalingi23 and Mithil at Perur.24

20 O. Prakash, ‘Bullion for Goods: International Trade and the Economy of Early Eighteenth Century Bengal’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 13, 2 (1976), pp. 159–187, esp. p. 161; Idem, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, pp. 242–248, and 256; Idem, ‘On Estimating the Employment Implications of European Trade for the Eighteenth Century Bengal Textile Trade—A Reply’, Modern Asian Studies 27, 2 (1993), pp. 341–356; S. Chaudhuri, ‘European Companies and the Bengal Textile Industry in the Eighteenth Century: The Pitfalls of Applying Quantitative Techniques’, Modern Asian Studies 27, 2 (1993), pp. 321–340; Brennig, ‘Textile Producers and Production in Late Seventeenth Century Coromandel’, pp. 343–344; Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 73–77. 21 Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 32–34. 22 Adaviyar, name of a class of Tamil-speaking weavers found in the Tanjore and Tinnevelly districts. See: Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, I, p. 2. 23 Kallangi, fanciful name, returned by Pallis at times of census. See: Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, II, p. 92. 24 voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1850r, Consideratiën Van Rhee en Van Vliet van des E. Comps. belangh en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 802r–802v, Dagreg. gouvr. Van Rhee van Ceijlon, 12.8–8.9.1692; voc 1525, obp 1694, ff. 1234r, and 1236r, Verklaring bij enige inlandse wevers tot laste van de inlandse koopman Babbaporboe, 6.4.1693.

300854 222 chapter 3

The person from the weaving caste most deeply involved in the process of negotiation was the broker (tupasis, talals). Himself a weaver but having abandoned weaving for brokerage, he was the merchant’s agent in the weaving village, placing orders for the merchant, getting agreement on prices and distributing advances when necessary. Besides keeping track of progress made on large orders, his most important task was to control the quality of the cloth delivered.

Table 8 Dutch exports of staple cotton piece goods from the Madurai Coast, 1670/71–1689/90 (in pieces)

Financial Kachchais Salampuris Muris Guinea ʻNegro Rumals Total pieces year cloth clothʼ

1670–71 12,178 1,957 925 1,540 3 0 20,615 1671–72 625 136 15 692 0 0 3,633 1672–73 1,714.5 196 35 9 0 0 1,954 1673–74 26,323 900 641 2,192 8,883 892 45,517* 1674–75 34,921 0 0 2,606 0 0 39,206* 1675–76 6,297 1,422 1,393 3,632 0 0 13,870 1676–77 6,068 1,662 4,961 2,793 554 0 16,715 1677–78 1,962 2,655 5,129 170 2,692 0 35,037 1678–79 3,950 9,100 4,186 2,150 11,070 0 34,215 1679–80 17,727 27,986 2,206 8,049 4,800** 1,360 74,380 1680–81 19,169 54,310 1,150 8,862 0 2,640 106,204 1681–82 7,440 64,059 1,394 10,707 0 0 95,988 1682–83 8,560 54,147 3,690 8,380 0 0 79,817 1683–84 18,020 48,507 3,316 12,750 0 0 89,139 1684–85 1,840 9,549 1,262 7,088 0 5,300 27,362*** 1685–86 26,273 17,268 3,160 8,590 256 8,625 68,224 1686–87 17,819 14,827 2,467 18,481 0 0 63,776 1687–88 22,615 15,277 1,272 23,113 0 0 72,795 1688–89 21,960 20,901 2,057 5,430 0 2,400 62,696 1689–90 16,308 14,893 1,401 3,588 0 4,000 44,459

* The result of the so-called ‘São Tomé effect’, that is, the French occupation of São Tomé (1672– 1674), forcing the Dutch to shift part of their textile orders from southern Coromandel to the Madurai Coast. ** After 1679–1680 ‘Negro cloth’ was purchased at Bimilipatnam. *** The outcome of communal tensions on the Madurai Coast in 1684 (see Chapter 6). Source: voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmans. tot Tutucurin, Manapaar, en Alvatt.rij. voor rekening van de generale Comp. zijn ingekocht, 1670/71–1689/90.

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Though there are some similarities with the ‘putting out’ system in Europe, including advance financing, artisans sturdily clung to their independence, control over their tools, and their raw materials. The weaver would accept money from the merchant and kept for himself the freedom to use this money on purchasing and repairing his loom, purchasing his cotton thread, his dyes, alum, wax, and the many other things necessary for his craft. In fact, the weavers arguably had a strong bargaining position when dealing with the merchants due to the prevailing market conditions and the existing social and political order in pre-colonial India: the high demand for their labour, weaver mobility (most notably in the dry zone), the powerful collective identity and solidarity of weavers in contrast to the competition among merchants, and the asymmetries in the contract system, extending far more freedoms to the weavers than to the merchants.25 Though thousands of varieties of cotton cloth were manufactured in the Indian subcontinent, the bulk of cotton textiles demanded by the European trading companies in South India consisted of only a few assortments albeit with countless local variations. Besides a long-standing history of sharing cultural, social, and political features, standardisation of production in the region was further stimulated by the fact that textiles were produced by members from the same weaving castes, similar financing and contractual terms, and the mobility of textile manufacurers.26 Dutch cotton export varieties can be divided into three categories based on demand (see Table 8).27 The first category is made up of coarse staples, especially kachchais, salampuris, muris, and Guinea cloth (lungis or longcloth), which were purchased each year in large quantities. Even the coarsest cloth,

25 Parthasarathi, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, esp. pp. 22–35, and 121–134; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 253–262; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre- Colonial India, pp. 3–5, and 163–169. 26 Parthasarathi, ‘Cotton Textiles in the Indian Subcontinent’, p. 33; Idem, The Transition to a Colonial Economy, pp. 7–8. 27 Parthasarathi distinguishes three major categories of Indian textiles based on the quality of the weave and the finishing of the cloth and their respective markets: coarse stuff fitting the budgets of working people sold both in the bazaars of the subcontinent and in the Indian Ocean World, markets in which Europeans hardly competed; middling-range textiles procured by the East India Companies, variations on the middling-quality cloths purchased by the middle classes of the subcontinent; and: high-quality goods, mainly muslins and high-quality calicoes woven from finer yarn and containing greater density of yarn in the weave, in great demand among the wealthy of the subcontinent, the Indian Ocean World, and purchased for export overseas by Europeans. Parthasarathi, ‘Cotton Textiles in the Indian Sucontinent’, pp. 32–38.

300854 224 chapter 3 except for the stuff sold in Asia, procured by the Dutch East India Company was superior in quality to the average ‘bazaar cloth’ of southern, western, or eastern India. A second category consisted of regulars, such as ‘perie moen emoelam’,28 agalams (‘spreads’), Sivakasi and Palaiyamkottai kachchais (local varieties of kachchais from Sivakasi and Palaiyamkottai), gingangs (ginghams), dungaris, and tupetis. These varieties were in constant, albeit limited demand. A third category included the failed experiments of new, high-quality assortments, which the Company attempted to introduce to the Madurai weavers. Though the bulk of Madurai textiles were coarse varieties as knowledge and skill levels of weavers in South India tended to decline as one moved from north to south, the Dutch in the late 1670s tried to have the local weavers and painters produce finer, painted assortments in demand in Europe, such as scarves (dasjes), rumals or handkerchiefs (neusdoeken), beatilhas or muslin veils, chintzes, and girdles or turbans (gordels of tooken).29 Indian textiles constituted one of the core commodities in the Dutch intra- Asian trade network. Whereas the Coromandel Coast (at least until the 1660s) specialised in the manufacturing of relatively inexpensive cotton textiles destined for Southeast Asian markets,30 the bulk of the overseas export of Madurai

28 ‘Perie moenemoelam’, combination of periya, ‘large, great’, mulam, ‘cubit, gold leaf’, and/ or possibly Mullimunai, a coastal village in Tiruvadanai taluk, Ramnad district, between Pudupattinam and Karankadu. 29 For helpful glossaries and discussions of the varieties of Indian textiles: Irwin and Schwartz, Studies in Indo-European Textile History; Hartkamp-Jonxis (ed.), Sits, pp. 107– 112; M. Chandra, Costumes, Textiles, Cosmetics and Coiffure in Ancient and Medieval India (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, 1973), Ch. 5; S. Sangara, Indian Textiles in the Seventeenth Century (New Delhi: Reliance Publication House, 1998); P. van Dam, Beschrijvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, F.W. Stapel and C.W.Th. Baron van Boetzelaer van Asperen en Dubbeldam (eds), Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Grote Serie 63, 68, 74, 76, 83, 87, and 96, 7 vols., (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1927–1954), I, i, pp. 735–739; A.C. Burnell and H. Yule, A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases (London: Murray, 1903), passim. See also: F.S. Gaastra, ‘De Textielhandel van de voc’, Textiel Historische Bijdragen 34 (1994), pp. 50–69; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 500–505; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 96–102, and 389–394; Chaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 156–162, and 221–222. Useful are also: M. Kooijmans and J. Schooneveld- Oosterling (eds), voc-Glossarium: Verklaringen van Termen, Verzameld Uit de Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Die Betrekking Hebben op de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie. See: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/pdf/vocglossarium/VOCGlossarium. pdf (accessed: 29 May 2014). 30 O. Prakash, ‘The Dutch and the Indian Ocean Textile Trade’, pp. 148–154. A portion of the Indian textiles shipped to Batavia was for the use of the Company itself, uses including the manufacturing of sailcloth for the Company’s ships, the production of uniforms for

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 225 textiles was sold at Ceylon, where it was exchanged for arecanuts. Indeed, textiles were considered the ‘wheel to keep the areca trade going’. In addition, small quantities of Madurai textiles were occasionally sent to Batavia under the head- ing of ‘Javanese assortment’, along with Malacca and the Malaysian Peninsula, Persia, and the Cape of Good Hope. As part of the attempt of the Company’s imperialist faction to control the Indo-Ceylon trade (1670–1697) and make Ceylon independent from Coromandel textiles (the so-called concept der lijwaten), the Dutch tried to monopolise the sale of cloth on the island. According to these partisan projections, annually 500,000 pieces of kachchais and other coarse textiles from Madurai could be sold if the competition were kept out. A total investment of 375,000 rixdollars (500,000 kachchais at 3/4 rixdollars a piece), imperialist calculations projected, would turn out a handsome 60 percent profit or 225,000 rixdollars (550,000 guilders). To substantiate these rather fanciful figures, it was claimed that the Kandyan toll registers of the custom house (bangsal) demonstrated that more than 100,000 pagodas of textiles were imported by merchants from Tranquebar, Porto Novo, Cuddalore, Adirampatnam, and the Madurai Coast at Kottiyar and at least as many at Puttalam. These estimates, however, proved to be overly optimistic. The imperialist scheme failed due to internal revolts and war with Kandy, inadequate networks of purchase, transportation, and distribution, lack of capital, insufficient knowledge of local market conditions, and stiff competition from ‘traditional’ Asian merchants compounded by high overhead costs. In 1681 Batavia calculated that actual annual profits had been 50,000 guilders or merely one-tenth of the projected revenues. Moreover, in 1682 the Kandyan toll revenues from Batticaloa and Kottiyar were reportedly only 14,000 larins or 2,800 rixdollars. Based on the local import and export duties of 7 percent each, the total value of imports would be somewhere around 20,000 instead of 100,000 rixdollars.31

cavalry and guards and for use on ceremonial occasions, to dress the slave population, and part of the salary of the Company’s employees. 31 For the imperialist projections: voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 647v–648r, Part. miss. gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 1.1670; voc 1277, obp 1671, ff. 1619v–1620v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.7.1670; voc 1274, obp 1671, ff. 9r–9v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 30.11.1670; voc 1280, obp 1672, ff. 294r–295r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 896, bub 1672, f. 354, Miss. GG en R aan superintendent Van Goens en gedestineerd gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 16.4.1672; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 647r–647v, Instr. superint. Van Goens aan opperh. Verwer en Van Rhee, 30.9.1674; Idem, ff. 39v–42v, Miss. superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; Valentijn, Oud- en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, pp. 220–221, 236, and 273; Reimers (ed.), Memoirs of Ryckloff van Goens, p. 37. For the mercantile response: voc 906, bub 1681, ff. 925–926, Miss. raden van

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Based on the figures of Dutch exports to Ceylon for the financial year 1688– 1689, the bulk of the textiles sold on the island (in descending order of importance) were salampuris (61,972 guilders invoice value), Guinea cloth (50,153 guilders), and kachchais (47,470 guilders). Significant secondary varieties consisted of gingangs (10,710 guilders), muris (6,842 guilders), agalams (5,375 guilders), and tupetis (3,745 guilders). Gross profit margins on these assortments averaged between 50 and 60 percent (see Table 9). Annual Company textiles imported from Asia into Europe increased from 127,500 pieces between 1675–1679 and 226,800 pieces between 1680–1684 to 316,200 pieces between 1685–1689, dipped briefly to 156,900 pieces between 1690–1694, to resume their secular upward trend to 364,600 pieces between 1695–1699.32 Starting in the late 1670s, Dutch investments in Madurai textiles for

Table 9 Dutch sales of staple textiles on the island of Ceylon, 1688/89 (in guilders)

Textile variety Invoice value Sale value Profit margin (percentage) salampuris 61,972:11:13 95,830:2:6 54.63 Guinea cloth 50,153:19:6 78,452:1:2 56.42 kachchais 47,470:15:4 70,240:15:1 47.97 gingangs 10,710:19:5 17,257:2:8 61.12 muris 6,842:8:11 9,922:–:8 45.01 agalams 5,375:11:8 8,052 49.79 tupetis 3,745:14:12 5,584:18 49.10

Source: voc 1468, obp 1689, ff. 542v–548v, and 551v, Rendementen der naergenomineerde coop- manschappen, provisie &a. tsedert primo martio Ao. 1688 tot ulto. febr. Ao. 1689 te Ceijlon omge- set, 30.2.1689.

India aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.10.1681; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 89v–90r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 243r–245r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.9–2.10.1683. 32 G. Riello, ‘The Globalization of Cotton Textiles: Indian Cottons, Europe, and the Atlantic World, 1600–1850’, in: Riello and Parthasarathi (eds), The Spinning World, Table 13.1, p. 265. Riello’s estimates are based on auction sales (in value) and average value per piece. See: F.S. Gaastra, ‘The Textile Trade of the voc: The Dutch Response to the English Challenge’, South Asia 19, Special Isue (1996), pp. 85–95; M. Morineau, ‘The Indian Challenge: Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries’, in: S. Chaudhuri and M. Morineau (eds), Merchants, Companies and Trade: Europe and Asia in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 273–275; N. Steensgaard, ‘The Indian Ocean Network and the Emerging World-Economy, c. 1500–1750’, in: S. Chandra (ed.), The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commerce and Politics (New Delhi and Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1987), p. 126.

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Europe (the so-called ‘fatherland assortments’ or vaderlandse sorteringen) amounted to 163,529 guilders in 1680–1681, 167,233 guilders in 1681–1682, and peaked at 302,601 guilders in 1682–1683. Thereafter, they decreased to 64,886 guilders in 1688–1689 and 39,036 guilders in 1689–1690, not to pick up again until the late 1690s. Exports of ‘Coromandel-style’ textiles—scarves, girdles, chintzes, and beatilha handkerchiefs—did not take off until after 1700 with the voc increasingly shifting its area of procurement south of Point Calimere where competition from European traders was less severe. In 1701, for instance, Dutch textile investments in the Madurai and Tirunelveli districts alone reportedly amounted to 1.4 million guilders.33 This movement partly reflects the general trend of Dutch return cargoes (‘retouren’) to Europe, but partly reflects specific local factors, such as a series of poor cotton harvests in the 1680s compounded by the disastrous decision and hence short-lived experiment (1690–1692) of Commissioner General Van Rheede to replace the ʻassociations of indigenous merchantsʼ with a brokerage system led by his crony, the Konkani Merchant Babba Prabhu.34 As mentioned before, the finer, painted varieties of Madurai cloth exported to Europe were scarves, beatilhas, beatilha handkerchiefs, girdles or turbans, and chintzes. Searching for ways to find additional supplies of these varieties outside of Coromandel proper in order to satisfy the rapidly expanding demand in Europe (the so-called ‘calicoe craze’) and growing competition from European and Asian merchants to the north, these assortments were introduced to Madurai weavers in the 1670s. Production of scarves subsequently peaked at 2,598 pieces in 1677–1678, beatilha handkerchiefs at 3,095 pieces in 1677–1678, girdles at 3,192 in 1673–1674, beatilhas at 1,700 in 1683–1684, and chintzes at 2,727 in 1680–1681. These exports, however, proved to be a temporary phenom- enon and, though the textiles were cheaper than their Coromandel equivalents, the innovative effort was discontinued in the mid-1680s due to the poor quality of locally produced textiles and painting.

33 Vink, ‘Encounters on the Opposite Coast’, pp. 125–133; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise, pp. 221, and 224; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, p. 177. 34 voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratien over den generalen handel ter Custe Madure 1738. No. 3 Samentrekkinge van het inkoops kostende en rendement bij verkoop in Nederland van alle de Madurese lijwaten…, 1680/81–1734/35. For criticism on the decision to replace the associations with individual brokers, see: voc 1491, obp 1692, ff. 511v–513r, Instr. Pijl voor gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 28.1.1692; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 350r–352r, Cort vertoogh waerom d’E Comp nu eenigen tijd geleden op Tutucurijn niet van gewilde en genoegsame cleden gediend is geweest, 12.3.1692; voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 1125v et seq., Kort relaas opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticurin der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter kuste Madure, 30.11.1692. Fortunately, some of the most valuable insights are found during crises in cloth production, turning these moments into ‘veritable gold mines for the historian’. See: Parthasarathi, Transition to a Colonial Economy, p. 9.

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Attempts were made to properly instruct the Madurai weavers and painters by their Coromandel counterparts and the Dutch Painter-Merchant Gerrit Claesz. Clinck (1646–1693) from Delft, specially commissioned by the Company Directors from Europe in 1685. Clinck was to be involved in various stages of the textile trade: the deliberate, purposeful contracting-out of the desired textiles with the indigenous suppliers; the delivery of the new products and the subsequent inspection thereof; and, most notably: the ‘improvement’ of the quality in the form of measurements, patterns, and new inventions. Clinck was to ‘provide instructions and assist in the supervision in order to improve the orders for Europe’ and to introduce those ‘forms, colours, and other innovations most popular and fashionable in our fatherland’. Hence, he was instructed to point out the proper specifications of these varieties to the weavers and suppliers in order to achieve the desired ‘reform and improvement of various textiles both painted and white’. Clinck, moreover, was also to leave behind specific instructions at the various Company settlements how the textiles were to be woven, painted, and manufactured and ensure that the cloth was of the appropriate width. As part of his first assignment, Clinck briefly called at Tuticorin in early August 1686, and, accompanied by Senior Merchant Joan van Vliet, Chief of the Madurai Coast as his host and interpreter, met with indigenous merchants, painters, and one of the local head weavers. All of Clinck’s and subsequent Company efforts, however, proved to be fruitless.35 In typical proto-Orientalist fashion, the Dutch attributed the inability and/ or unwillingness of the Madurai weavers and painters to produce cloth in accordance with the higher specifications or Coromandel standards to the ‘obstinate stubborness’ and ‘laziness’ of the tradition-bound weavers and painters. However, it seems more likely that intensification of work and the reduction in quality of goods produced was simply one of three ways to achieve higher levels of output in response to growing demand along with the adoption and diffusion of new technologies and an increase in the ranks of textile workers.36 The victory of the Madurai weavers in the ‘quality battle’ was the combined outcome of existing market conditions and the prevalent social and political- legal order in pre-colonial South India. The strong bargaining position of weavers was in part a product of the great demand for South Indian cloth. Producers

35 H.B. van der Weel, ‘In die Kunst en Wetenschap Gebruyckt’: Gerrit Claeszoon Clinck (1646– 1693), Meester Kunstschilder van Delft en Koopman in Dienst van de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Hilversum: Verloren, 2002), esp. pp. 55–58. 36 Parthasarathi, ‘Cotton Textiles in the Indian Subcontinent’, pp. 40–41; Idem, Transition to a Colonial Economy, p. 18.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 229 were operating in a sellers’ market with the onset of a worldwide ʻconsumer revolutionʼ in the ‘long eighteenth century’ (1680–1820), including a rising demand for Indian textiles, ‘the first global commodity’, in Europe, West Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, and elsewhere, constituting the ‘first world-market in manufactured goods’.37 In addition, the asymmetries in the weaver-merchant contract resulted from weaver mobility used as an effective tactic and bargaining chip, weaver solidarity provided by jati or caste (endogamy, temple and ritual life), space or territory, corporate structures (most notably provided by head weavers), and their working lives, providing a strong sense of collective identity. Merchants, in contrast, could not form a united front to place pressure on weavers, nor did they have access to political institutions with which they could discipline and control weavers as deeply-held notions of moral polity and geographical limits on states in South India withheld rulers from violating community-sanctioned property rights and priveleges and intervening in the labour market. Indeed, Burton Stein views ‘community and states’ to be typical of India’s medieval age between 300 and 1700, consisting of a balanced relationship between a still localised civil society based on clan, sect, guild, and caste institutions, and formal state structures.38 Following the brief experiment with the finer ‘fatherland assortments’, Dutch attention from the late 1680s shifted back to the coarser traditional varieties. Thus, in 1688–1689 the orders from Europe for Madurai textiles consisted of 35,000 pieces of Guinea cloths, 25,000 salampuris, 5,000 kachchais, 2,000 sailcloth, 1,500 ‘perie moenemoelam’, 1,000 muris, 1,000 ‘Ikendan’ tupetis, and 1,000 dungaris.39

37 For the expression ‘the first global commodity’: Riello and Parthasarathi, ‘Introduction’, p. 2. The expression ‘first world-market in manufactured goods’ can be found in: Washbrook, ‘From Comparative Sociology to Global History’, p. 416. 38 Stein, A History of India, p. 21; Parthasarathi, The Transition to A Colonial Economy, pp. 22–35, and 124–134. For similar limitations places on the power of the sovereign by the community in the case of the Maratha territories: F. Perlin, ‘Concepts of Order and Comparison, With a Diversion on Counter Ideologies and Corporate Institutions in Late Pre-Colonial India’, Journal of Peasant Studies 12, 2/3 (1985), pp. 87–165, esp. p. 132. 39 voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 373v, and 376v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 305v–306r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 22r–22v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, f. 115v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 82v–83r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; Idem, f. 98v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.9.1685. For references to the activities of Clinck, who spent almost two months at Tuticorin between July and September 1686: voc

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Pearls: The Noble Harvest from the Sea

If not the most valuable, certainly the most prestigious commodity of the Fishery Coast and the one it was named after was the Indian pearl oyster or pictada (Lat., Margarita vulgaris), a close relative to both scallops and mussels. The larvae of the pearl oyster (calapa, calaku, ‘soerel kallipay’) settle in collec- tives on particular banks, to form a pearl bed (par). The pearl (sippi) itself is the result of a process of irritation, created either by a foreign body intruding into the oyster, or a particle deposited by the oyster itself.40 While the larger pearls were used for jewelry and similar decorative purposes, the smaller ‘fruits’ of this ‘noble harvest from the sea’, the seed- or stamp-pearls, were used for embroidery and medicinal purposes.41

1420, obp 1687, ff. 444r–445r, Extract miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin, 26.7.1786; Idem, ff. 447r–449v, Rapp. koopman Gerard Clinck belangende de bevindinge en procure van verscheijde geschilderde en ongeschilderde lijwaten op de Madurese cust, 10.8.1686; Idem, ff. 445r–445v, Extract miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin, 12.8.1686; Idem, ff. 445v–446r, Extract miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin, 17.8.1686; Idem, f. 64r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 9.9.1686; Idem, ff. 144v–146r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687. For the orders of patria for 1688–1689: voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 210v–211v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687. 40 Apart from the archival sources to be mentioned in the footnotes, the following is based on: Subrahmanyam, ‘Noble Harvest From the Sea’, pp. 135–153; Arunachalam, The History of the Pearl Fishery; Extract miss. comms. genl. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 16.1.1691, in: Van Dam, Beschrijvinge van de Oost-Indische Compagnie, II, ii, pp. 412–433; Hornell, The Indian Pearl Fisheries of the Gulf of Manar and Palk Bay; G. Vane, ‘The Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 10, 34 (1887), pp. 14–40; E. Thurston, ‘Pearl and Chank Fisheries of the Gulf of Mannar’, Madras Government Museum Science Series 1 (1894), pp. 7–62. Subrahmanyam bases his account largely on the published letter of Van Rheede to the Gentlemen Seventeen of January 1691 in Van Dam. Despite claims to the contrary, Van Rheede in turn based himself (apart from his own personal observations) also on previous accounts, such as: voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 72r–73r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1681; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 59v–61v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 362r–362v, and 363v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682. 41 For the complexities of the process in determining the size and value of the various qualities of pearls: voc 1418, obp 1687, f. 549v, Uitrekening van de gouden en zilveren muntswaardije, inhoud der maten en zwaarte der gewichten in de resp. gewesten in Indië, 1686; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 369v–371v, Uijtreeckeninge van de goude en silvere munten- waerdije, inhout der maten, swaarte der gewichten onder het gouvernemt. Ceijlon en de Custe Madure, 1689; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii, pp. 419–427.

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The pearl fishery (calapam, calapa-k-kuli, calapa-t-turai) was a shifting activity, following the location of the most productive pearl banks in a particular season. The location of the banks determined where the fishery would be held, either at Tuticorin on the Madurai Coast under the jurisdiction of the aranmanai or at Arippu on the island of Mannaar under the jurisdiction of the Dutch. A 1682 survey listed 31 pearl banks between Valinokkam on the Ramnad Coast and south of Punnaikayal, the richest and most considerable being ‘Touraijrampaar’ (par, ‘pearl bank’) near Pattanamaradur. Nine years later, in 1691, another report distinguished no less than 47 pearl banks, distributed as follows: Quilon to Punnaikayal 9; Punnaikayal to Pattanamaradur 22; Pattana maradur to Rameswaram 6; Mannaar to Kalpitiya 9; and Kalpitiya to Negombo 1. A 1699 map of Madurai and Ramnad depicts 32 pearl banks between Tiruchendur and Vedalai, 28 along the Madurai Coast and 4 along the Ramnad Coast (see Map 4).42 Apart from its locational variability, the fishery was also a seasonal activity, dictated by the vagaries of the monsoon regime. In Portuguese times, two fisheries were held, the ʻlittle fisheryʼ (pescaria pequena) at the onset of the northeast monsoon in November, and the ‘great fishery’ (pescaria grande) at its end in April-May. The Dutch subsequently only held one fishery between mid- March and mid-May.43 The pearl fishery was anything but a regular annual occurrence. In the 33-year-period between 1658 and 1690, only 10 pearl fisheries were organised. Indeed, following the six fisheries of the 1660s, no fishery was held for more than twenty years, except for the so-called ‘small Tuticorin fishery’ of 1679, which turned out to be a total fiasco. Apart from the natural life cycle of the pearl oyster (ca. 5 years), Dutch reports pointed to various natural and man- made causes for such intervals: violent storms and shifting currents covering the pearl banks with sand, the incidence of various parasites, such as a certain seaweed (‘sourang’), a kind of oyster (killikkay, wingshell, a mollusc, Lat., Avicula),

42 voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 362v–363v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; Extract miss. comms. genl. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 16.1.1691, in: Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii, pp. 414–415. voc 1615, obp 1700, facing f. 471v, Dagreg. gehouden bij gouvr. De Heere op de reize naar en van Tuticurin, 8.9–2.10.1699. 43 For descriptions of the organisation of the fishery during the Portuguese period in Company correspondence: voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 79, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.2.1659; Idem, ff. 443r–443v, Rapp. koopman Eduard Ooms nopende de negotie op de Madurese overkust, 4.4.1659; voc 883, bub 1659, f. 616, Miss. GG en R aan comms. Van Goens te Colombo, 28.8.1659; voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 760, Rapp. Van Rheede van zijn verrichtingen in de landen van Trevancore en Madure, 7.10.1665. See also: Subrahmanyam, ‘Noble Harvest From the Sea’, pp. 140–144.

300854 232 chapter 3 and a small mussel (curan, mollusc), along with damage incurred by anchors of the thonis, ‘theft’ by the pearling population in collusion with local Company officials, and over-exploitation of natural resources.44 However, when the fishery did occur it could be a highly lucrative enterprise and therefore was considered by some contemporaries as ‘a mine of such noble jewels’. Based on the turnover of the kuliyals or divers, two contemporary estimates put the capital value of the pearls caught in the Tuticorin fishery of 1668, the second-largest of all the fisheries between 1658 and 1690, at 50 tons of gold or 5 million guilders and 60 to 100 tons of gold or 6 to 10 million guilders, respectively. Though admittedly these were mere (and rather optimistic) ‘rough calculations’, there are other more exact data indicating that the pearl fishery could indeed be an extremely capital-intensive enterprise. Dutch revenues, for instance, from various taxes on the 1668 Tuticorin fishery amounted to 125,881 guilders, while those of the 1669 Tuticorin fishery were 133,242 guilders (see Table 10). Moreover, the value of the ca. 8,000 ounces of seed pearls alone gathered after the actual fishery of 1663 was 188,000 guilders.45 When the pearl fishery was held at Tuticorin under the jurisdiction of the aranmanai, the revenues of the Company merely consisted of the tax on diving stones (steengelden), a pear-shaped stone weighing about 11 pounds used by the divers to quickly reach the seafloor, and a fine levied on the Muslim divers dating from the Portuguese period for having killed two Jesuits and three fidalgos. The revenues of this fine could amount to 1/5 to 1/6 of total revenues. If, however, the fishery was held at Arippu under Company jurisdiction, the Dutch also farmed out the revenues of the bazaar, including a 4 1/2% tax on provisions and a stamp tax (chappa vari) on textiles amounting to 2 stuivers or

44 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 326v–327r, Rapp. Huijsman van den presenten toestandt der saecken op de custe van Madure, 5.12.1675; voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 362v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 131v–132r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 8.1.1686; Van Rheede, in: Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii, pp. 415–416. There are 147 species of algae recorded in the Gulf of Mannaar alone, comprising 42 species of green algae, 69 species of red algae, and 5 species of blue-green algae, together with 731 species of molluscs belonging to three classes, namely Bivalvia, Gastropoda, and Cephalopoda See: http://www.indiancoastguard.nic.in/Indiancoastguard/NOSDCP/ Marine%20Environment%20Security/gom.pdf (accessed: 28 June 2012). 45 voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 948, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1663; Idem, ff. 1245–1248, Rapp. De Haze van tgene in desen jaarse Tutucorijnse parelvisserij voorgevallen is…, 20.6.1663; voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1197r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.7.1668; voc 1266, obp 1669, ff. 867r–867v, Rapp. Van Goens de Jonge over den staat vant uijtgestrekte gouvernemt. des eijlants Ceijlon, Mallabaar en Madure, 15.8.1669.

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0.10 guilders per piece of cloth, while selling licences to merchants for the pearl market for 4, 5, and 8 fanams, sometimes 5, 6, and 10 pardaus. Finally, they enjoyed one day’s catch of their own subjects, i.e., the inhabitants of Jaffnapatnam and Mannaar. A similar arrangement existed on the northern side of the Gulf of Mannaar at Tuticorin. In exchange for providing protection (kaval) here, the aranmanai claimed one day’s catch of the fishery from the divers, while levying tolls on the sale of provisions and textiles at the local bazaar. Moreover, all the Madurai merchants were held to bring the pearls to the pearl market (pettai) at Palaiyakkayal or Punnaikayal. In case of a sale, the buyer had to pay four and the seller two percent to the local maniyakkarar and four to five specially appointed officials. These would then provide the buyer with a written statement, guaranteeing him free passage in all the lands of the aranmanai. If the fishery were held at Arippu, however, the aranmanai could only claim one day’s catch from its own subjects (the majority of the divers).46 The Nayaka of Madurai also enjoyed freedom from the tax on 5 thonis or vessels or about 97 diving stones, along with the Tevar of Ramnad (3 free thonis or about 59 stones) and the notables of the local Parava and Maraikkayar communities and other individuals and institutions enjoying one or more ‘free stones’ in the pearl fishery. This arrangement points to the existence of various potentially conflicting claims and inclusive and interpenetrating domains, which needed to be legitimised and reconciled. As we will see, these competing claims and overlapping jurisdictions amongst these ‘co-sharers’ were the cause of repeated conflicts, which at times erupted into open violence.47

46 For references to the division of revenues at Tuticorin: voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 442r–443r, Rapp. Ooms nopende de negotie op de Madurese overkust, 4.4.1659; voc 1242, obp 1664, ff. 971r–971v, Memorie Van Goens voor gouvr. Hustaert van Ceijlon, 26.12.1663; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 231r–232r, Rapp. De Heijde, Van Rhee en Van Vliet rakende ‘t verhandelde met de landregent Calitiappa Pulle, 19.4.1679; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 60v–61v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 565r–565v, Dgl. aantekening Alebos en De Theil van het voorgevallene in de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure, 20.6.1690. For the various sources of Dutch revenue at Arippu: voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 446r et seq., Rapp. Vosch, Pijl en Huijsman der Manaerse parelvisserij, 22.5.1666; voc 1264, obp 1668, ff. 518v, 520r, and 521r, Rapp. Vosch, De Vogel en Pijl der Aripose of Manaerse visserij, 27.5.1667; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 60v–61r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681. 47 voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 454r–455r, Rapp. Van der Laen, Pijl en Huijsman der Manaerse parelvisserij, 22.5.1666; voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 521r, Rapp. Vosch, De Vogel en Pijl der Aripose of Manaerse parelvisserij, 27.5.1667; voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1151r, Rapp. Van Rheede, De Vogel en Pijl betr. de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure, 27.6.1668; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 941r–943r, Rapp. Van Rheede, Pijl en De Vogel van de parelvisserij op de banken voor Tuticurijn, 22.6.1669.

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The fishery drew a large migrant population to the fishing camp at Tuticorin or Arippu, a vast mobile improvised town consisting of perhaps more than 50,000 people, including divers or kuliyals and their assistants or mantakkams named after the rope for hauling up the divers, boat owners (campannottis) and their representatives or turams aboard the thonis, along with their families. The 1668 and 1669 Tuticorin fisheries, for instance, consisted of 483 thonis and 16,359 and 555 thonis and 17,530 direct participants (families excluded), respectively, whereas the 349 thonis of the 1690 Tuticorin fishery were manned by 8,870 persons, including 2,601 divers (see Figure 8). The pearl fishery was also attended by throngs of merchants, the so-called ‘56 privileged nations at the pearl market’ (aimpatti aru teciya).48 In 1649, a visitor of the ‘fairly large and extremely populous’ pearl market at ‘Moutoucail’ [Kayal] reported the presence of various ‘well-dressed’ foreign traders, such as Banyans and Muslims. In 1679, it was observed that in case of a pearl fishery, ‘the merchants and traders come from all parts for 200 miles and more, bringing all sorts of merchandise for sale at the fishery’ (see Figure 9). The Dutch commissioners of the 1694 Arippu pearl fishery reported the arrival of ‘numerous merchants from the lands of the Mughal, Madurai, Tanjore, et cetera, with large capitals’. Nearly two centuries later, in 1890, a British observer listed the following groups present at the pearl fishery that year:

Jains and Arabs from Bombay; Mohammedans from Nagore, Kailpatan, Keelakarai and Tondy; Komaty Chetties from Negapatan and Kumbakonem; and Chetties and petty traders from Ramnad, Madura, Jaffna, Paumben &c; also boutique-keepers from Batticaloa, Mannar, Jaffna, Trincomalee, Colombo etc.49

48 Traditional Indian texts list 56 tecam or countries, including Panti-nattu, the Pandyan country of South India, one of the three Tamil dynasties (muventar). 49 voc 1187, obp 1652, f. 513v, Extract dagreg. secrets. De Vogel gedurende de expeditie van Tuticurin, 31.1–1.3.1649; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 829r, Relaas Huijsman wegens de nuttigheden die de Cie. int huren der Madurese zeehavens zou komen te genieten, 11.4.1676; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 231r, Rapp. opperk. De Heijde, Van Rhee en onderk. Van Vliet rakende ‘t verhandelde met de landregent Calitiappa Pulle, 19.4.1679; voc 1479, obp 1691, f. 556v; Dgl. aantekening Alebos en De Theil, 20.6.1690; voc 1543, obp 1695, f. 651v, Rapp. commr. Blom en opperk. Van Keulen en Bergaigne van het voorgevallene in de parelvisserij van Aripo, 8.5.1694; Subrahmanyam, ‘Noble Harvest From the Sea’, p. 139. The estimate of the overall numbers present at the pearl fishery is also based on: W.F. Sinclair and D. Ferguson (eds), The Travels of Pedro Texeira: With His Kings of Harmuz and Extracts From His Kings of Persia, Publications of the Hakluyt Society, second series, 9 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1902), pp. 177–179; Subrahmanyam, ‘Noble Harvest From the Sea’, p. 138.

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Table 10 Dutch revenues derived from the pearl fisheries of Tuticorin and Arippu/Mannaar, 1658–1690 (in guilders)

Year Location Number Revenues of vessels

1658 Tuticorin n.a. 4,626* 1659 Tuticorin 160** 10,975:1* 1661 Tuticorin n.a. 14,498:17* 1663 Tuticorin 329 17,230:19* 1666 Arippu/Mannaar 270 68,473:10 1667 Arippu/Mannaar 412 77,742:12 1668 Tuticorin 483 125,881:19 1669 Tuticorin 555 133,424:8 1679 Tuticorin 33 721:10 1690 Tuticorin 349 73,365:1:8

* These figures are net revenues, that is, gross revenues minus expenditures incurred for the inspection of the pearl banks and free stones for the Nayaka of Madurai, the Tevar of Ramnad, the Parava pattangattins, and others. ** The Muslims boycotted this fishery because of the fine they were held to pay to the Company (see text). Sources: voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 400r–400v, Miss. superintendent Van Goens aan koopman Valckenburgh te Tuticurin, 9.5.1659; voc 1230, obp 1660, f. 126r, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticurin aan Batavia, 6.11.1659; voc 1236, obp 1662, f. 664, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticurin aan Batavia, 20.8.1661; voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 948, Miss, gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1663; Idem, ff. 1245–1248, Rapp. De Haze in desen jaarse Tutucorijnse parelvisserij, 20.6.1663; voc 1241, obp 1664, ff. 605r–605v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.8.1663; voc 1242, obp 1664, ff. 971r–971v, Memorie Van Goens voor gouvr. Hustaert van Ceijlon, 26.12.1663; voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 446v, and 456r, Rapp. Van der Laen, Pijl en Huijsman der Manaerse parelvisserij, 22.5.1666; voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 521r, Rapp. Vosch, De Vogel en Pijl der Aripose of Manaerse parelvisserij, 27.5.1667; Idem, f. 499r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1667; voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1152r, Rapp. Van Rheede, De Vogel en Pijl betr. de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure, 27.6.1668; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 941r–943r, Rapp. Van Rheede, Pijl en De Vogel van de parelvisserij op de banken voor Tuticurijn, 22.6.1669; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 235v, Rapp. De Heijde, Van Rhee en Van Vliet rakende ‘t verhandelde met de landregent Calitiappa Pulle wegens het opduiken der weinige ontdekte pareloesters, 19.4.1679; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 555r–565v, Dgl. aantekening Alebos en De Theil van het voorgevallene in de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure, 20.6.1690. The figures provided by Subrahmanyam are incomplete. See: Subrahmanyam, ‘Noble Harvest From the Sea’, pp. 146–147, and 152.

The kuliyals or divers were divided by the Europeans according to religious denomination into Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. Muslim divers were considered the best, while those from Ceylon were deemed the worst as they lacked regular practice via the fishing of chanks (see below). Taxes on the diving stones (steengelden) were discriminatory and reflected the Dutch Reformed

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‘Christo-centric’ worldview: Christians paid the least tax, usually 7 pardaus or rixdollars, Hindus paid somewhat more, usually 9 1/2 pardaus, while Muslims paid the most, usually 12 pardaus. If the diver died during the course of the fishery, the tax was reduced to a ‘half-stone’. Whereas the divers were recruited from the ranks of the poor, lower-class kamarakkarar Christian Paravas and Muslim Labbais, the campannottis or boat owners were from the elite mejaikarar Christian Paravas and Muslim Maraikkayars. Finally, small number of divers and boat owners were drawn from other low-caste coastal communities, such as the Kadaiyars, Karaiyars, and ‘Palvelijs’ [?].50 During the off-season between the fisheries, the campannottis provided the divers with interest-free credit. In exchange, they acquired preferential rights

Table 11 Religious background of the divers in the pearl fisheries of Tuticorin and Arippu/ Mannaar of 1667, 1668, 1669, and 1690 (in diving stones)

Year Total Christian Muslim Hindu number (percentage) (percentage) (percentage)

1667 4,003 2,632.5 (65.76) 1,149 (28.70) 221.5 (5.53) 1668 4,842 3,172 (65.51) 1,444.5 (29.83) 225.5 (4.66) 1669 5,115.5 3,317.5 (64.85) 1,574 (30.77) 224 (4.38) 1690 2,587.5 1,429 (55.23) 1,040.5 (40.21) 118 (4.56)

Sources: voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 521r, Rapp. Vosch, De Vogel en Pijl der Aripose of Manaerse parelvisserij, 27.5.1667; Idem, f. 499r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1667; voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1152r, Rapp. Van Rheede, De Vogel en Pijl betr. de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure, 27.6.1668; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 941r–943r, Rapp. Van Rheede, Pijl en De Vogel van de parelvisserij op de banken voor Tuticurijn, 22.6.1669; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 561v, and 565v, Dgl. aantekening Alebos en De Theil van het voorgevallene in de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure, 20.6.1690.

50 voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1151r, Rapp. Van Rheede, De Vogel en Pijl betr. de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure, 27.6.1668. See also: Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, IV, pp. 198–205 (Labbais); V, pp. 1–5 (Maraikkayar); and: VI, pp. 140–155 (Paravas). Kadaiyars (‘last, lowest’), a subdividion of the Pallars, are described as being lime (shell) gatherers and burners of Rameswaram and vicinity, from whose ranks the pearl divers are in part recruited. On the coasts of Madurai and Tirunelveli they are mainly Christians. See: Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, III, p. 6. Karaiyars, a name for Tamil sea fishermen, who live on the coast (karai). The fishing section of the Pallas is known as Palle Kariyalu. See: Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, III, p. 250. The term ‘Palveli’ is possibly derived from pallavi, ‘low, base person’.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 237 to purchase the pearls caught by the diver at a 20 percent rebate, one day’s catch every eight days (vali), plus two nets of pearl oysters a day. A 1690 list of the campannottis or boat owners provides a virtual ‘who’s who?’ of the coastal communities of Madurai, Ramnad, Jaffna, and Mannaar. The list includes such notables as Dom Xavier Pires, the Parava pattangattim-mór of the Seven Ports, Prabhu Nayinar, the Muslim ‘lord’ of Kayalpatnam, the ‘portfolio capitalist’ the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, and António de Melo, the Kadaiyar pattangattim- mór of Mannaar.51 In the 1667, 1668, and 1669 Tuticorin fisheries, Christians accounted for 65 percent of the diving stones, Muslims made up 30 percent, while Hindus filled the remaining 5 percent. Twenty years later, in the Tuticorin fishery of 1690, despite Dutch discriminatory measures the scales had tilted somewhat in favour of the Muslims. The Christian share had declined to 55 percent, whereas the Muslim share rose concomittantly to 40 percent, the Hindu share remaining unchanged at about 5 percent (see Table 11). In accordance with the principle of territoriality or spatial separation, there was a close relationship between ports dominated by these two leading communities and the pearl fishery. Table 12 shows clearly that Tuticorin was the ‘primate pearling city’ as far as Christian Parava-based operations were concerned with several significant secondary centres at Punnaikayal, Manappad, Vaippar, Mannaar, Jaffna, and the Travancore Coast. Kayalpatnam and Kilakkarai were the ‘dual capitals’ as far as Muslim activities were concerned, with important supporting roles for secondary settlements such as Vedalai and Attangarai. Inspection of the pearl banks took place in October by specially appointed Dutch officials or commissioners assisted by ‘native informants’, usually some Parava pattangattins. If the value of 1,000 sample oysters exceeded 5 fanams (considered to bring cira or ‘Elysium’, ‘wealth and abundance’), the fishery was publicly announced under the beating of the drum at Tuticorin and all other places under Company jurisdiction, at Mannaar, Jaffnapatnam, Nagapatnam, Quilon, and elsewhere. The traditional duration of the fishery itself was three valis or 24 days, but some ‘seasons’ could be significantly shorter or longer. Each kuliyal or diver was assisted by 2 mantakkams, who would haul the oysters and diving stones aboard. Each thoni held about 30 persons on average, two out of every seven on board being divers. During a full working day (from 3 to 4 in the morning till noon at the latest) one able-bodied man could make 10–12 dives in water 9–12 fathoms deep. In case the pearl banks proved to be bountiful, he could collect

51 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 552r–556r, Lijste der vaartuijgen, personen, duijckers en stenen in de Tuticurijnse parelvisserij, 19–23.3.1690.

300854 238 chapter 3 3 6 0 0 9 7 1 0 0 0 0 1669 69 23 13 26 0 4 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 23 12 18 57 Hindu stones 1668 14.5 4 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 10 26 41 1669 423 60.5 130 715 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 13 37 131 291 47.5 Muslim stones 1668 657.5 8 0 0 37 42 58 29 133 102 451 134 105 194 233 1,148.5 1669 6 0 12 0 47 92 40 41 107 84 119 222 179 400 Christian stones 1668 1,177.5 0 112 132 553 793 385 455 655 367 450 406 1,573 1,837 4,109 2,633 1669 0 135 135 601 533 754 307 390 405 288 400 1,116 1,366 4,091 2,398 Men 1668 3 0 4 13 13 15 10 19 12 81 23 76 20 54 135 1669 6 9 9 0 3 35 10 43 18 16 15 66 10 19 1668 Boats 123 Place of origins and religious background of boats and men in the Tuticorin pearl fisheries of fisheries pearl stones) of 1668 and 1669 (in diving ofPlace Tuticorin background boats and men in the and religious origins

Table 12 II. Ramnad Kilakkarai I. Madurai Tuticorin Othiyatur Punnaikayal Vedalai Vaippar Periyapatnam Kayalpatnam Pattanamaradur Palaiyakkayal Virapandiyapatnam Manappad Vembar Kombuthurai Rajakamangalam

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1 0 0 6 0 0 0 16 20 24 224 0 0 0 0 0 10 30 28 34 34 225.5 7 2 0 0 6 0 8 71 20 44 1,574 0 0 0 1 2 26 45.5 18 14 108 1,444.5 0 0 8 0 0 11 18 63 223 320 3,317.5 0 5 0 0 35 13 10 49 321 2,12.5 3,172 0 72 28 82 61 37 155 218 1,306 1,116 17,530 93 17 47 74 90 45 595 167 1,298 1,014 16,359 2 0 3 2 1 4 1 42 32 10 555 1 2 2 2 5 4 2 41 14 28 483 1669, f. 1158v, Monture der thonijs, stenen en personen de 15en maart 1668 in de parelvisserij van Tuticurin opgenomen, 27.6.1668; 27.6.1668; opgenomen, Tuticurin van en personen de 15en maart 1668 in parelvisserij stenen der thonijs, Monture obp 1669, f. 1158v, 1268, voc 1670, f. 942v, Monture der thonijs, stenen en personen den…maart 1669 in de parelvisserij van Tuticurin opgenomen, 16.7.1669. opgenomen, Tuticurin van en personen den…maart 1669 in de parelvisserij stenen der thonijs, Monture f. 942v, obp 1670, 1270, voc also be can a similar ‘census’ However, of1694 list the pearl fishery’. the census on calls erroneously Dutch ‘the first and divers men boats, Subrahmanyam ofvessels, comparison: the 1666 Mannaar fishery consisted 270 148. For p. the Sea’, From Harvest ‘Noble See: Subrahmanyam, for the 1690 fishery. reconstructed for the localities is available information regarding Ceylon. No Ramnad Coast, and 15 from the from 70 Tuticorin, from were of which majority’ ’the reportedly fishery. 1667 Kottaippatnam Sources: Pamban Attangarai Mukkaiyur Tondi III. Ceylon Mannaar Jaffnapatnam Galle IV. Others IV. Travancore Tanjore Total

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200–250 oysters, which might contain as much as 45 fanams worth of pearls. Due to the credit system, the divers were held to bury their oysters in holes (alai, ‘hole in the ground’, kal, ‘pearl’) inside fenced compounds behind the hut of their respective campannotti. Here, the organic matters of the pearl oyster would quickly decompose in about 6 days. These holes could subsequently be sold to others, who during the off-season would sift the sand for seed pearls and stamp pearls. The profits of the pearls were divided between the two mantakkams or assistants (1/3) and the kuliyal or diver (2/3). If not indebted, the diver would be free to sell to anybody. As soon as the fishery was over, the divers had eight days to open the oysters and select and sift the pearls after which they had to pay the tax on the diving stones. These had to be collected instantaneously for all participants were eager to leave the site as soon as possible due to the intolerable stench of putre- fication and the ‘locally prevailing virulent diseases’, such as cholera.52

Chanks or Conch Shells: The Less Than Noble Harvest?

Although considered less glamorous than the pearl oyster, chanks or conch shells (Lat., Turbinella rapa) were universally prized by Hindus. The canku or ‘kinck- hoorn’ was used for religious purposes, such as offering libations and serving as an instrument to blow at temples, and also for cutting into armlets, rings, and other polished ornaments. Unlike the pearl oysters, setting themselves on ‘dirty and stony’ surfaces, the chank prefers clean, sandy soils lying between low-tide level and 12 fathoms as its natural habitat where they live on sea worms of various species. Joan Nieuhoff, the Dutch chief of the Madurai Coast between 1664 and 1665 ignominiously discharged, amongst others, for private trade in chanks, reported:

These horns are shaped like trumpets, thick, and white as a sheet. They are used to make armlets and thum-rings, the latter of which are used when shooting arrows. They are much better and more beautiful than those made from ivory…A large trade in these chanks is conducted at Bengal, where they are bought by the inhabitants to be turned into armlets and other ornaments. Moreover, they are polished so neat and smooth and white that no ivory can even come close….53

52 voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 60v–61r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; Subrahmanyam, ‘Noble Harvest From the Sea’, pp. 137–138. 53 Nieuhoff, Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en Landreize, pp. 191–192; J. Hornell, ‘The Chank Shell in Ancient Indian Life and Religion’, The Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society 4, 4 (1913), pp. 157–164.

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A special case was formed by the so-called ‘conch of Vishnu’ (valampuri canku) or ‘royal conch’ (Portuguese, chanco del rei; Dutch, conincxhoorns) whose spirals, contrary to ordinary chanks, turn to the right, which was considered auspicous. As Governor Pijl of Ceylon, Nieuhoff’s replacement as chief of the Madurai Coast between 1665 and 1672, instructed his successor Thomas van Rhee:

The spirals of chanks normally turn with the sun. When a chank is found whose spirals turn against the sun, it is called a royal chank and is extremely valuable, worth their weight and size in pearls. The cabeça [the largest variety of chanks] cannot be purchased for less than 3,000–4,000 rixdollars. As a result, they are seldom seen and are always concealed by the divers, being quietly and underhandedly exported and sold. The Gentile kings and the Brahmins in their temples treat them with great superstition, which is the reason why they are so highly esteemed.54

As a result, not a single ‘royal conch’ was received by the Company during this entire period, though after 1685 efforts were made to procure one or two chanco del reis for King Narai of Siam (r. 1656–1688) at Ayuthya in an attempt to thwart the French ‘grand designs and intrigues’ centred around the mahatthai or prime minister, the Greek adventurer Constance Phaulkon (1647–1688). Although the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and the Tevar were reportedly in the possession of one or several ‘conincxhoorns’, the Company efforts were partly unsuccessful because Batavia was unwilling to pay more than 250–300 rixdollars, despite information that none were to be purchased at Tuticorin for less than 800–1,000 rixdollars.55

54 voc 1491, obp 1692, ff. 514v–515r, Instr. Pijl voor gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 28.1.1692. 55 voc 912, bub 1685, f. 184, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 30.4.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 83r–83v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; voc 912, bub 1685, f. 718, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.9.1685; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 36v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.2.1686; voc 914, bub 1687, ff. 771–772, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 23.9.1687; voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 206v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; voc 1445, obp 1688, f. 23v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; voc 915, bub 1688, f. 806, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 23.9.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 438r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.11.1688; Idem, f. 121v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.12.1688. For modern monographs on the events in Siam or Thailand: J. van Goor, ‘Merchant in Royal Service: Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya, 1683–1688’, in: Disney (ed.), Historiography of Europeans in Africa and Asia, 1450–1800, pp. 265–287; D.K. Wyatt, Thailand: A Short History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982), pp. 107–117; Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth-Century Thailand, pp. 41–46; D. na Pombejra,

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The logistics of the chank fishery bore a close resemblance to that of the pearl fishery. Both were seasonal occupations dictated by the rhythm of the monsoon regime and executed by the same actors. The harvest season would start in November with the onset of the northeast monsoon and end in mid- May with the coming of the southwest monsoon. During the six months interval, the poor kuliyals or divers, either low-caste, kamarakkarar Christian Paravas or Muslim Labbais, were forced to borrow money from their wealthy mejaikarar and Maraikkayar counterparts, who constituted the merchants c.q. campannottis or boat owners, against at least 24 percent interest per annum. The actual diving was considered ‘extremely sad and arduous’ labour. The divers would leave in the early morning aboard their respective thoni with a flat stone tied around their waist in order to stay under water more easily, for as long as they could keep their breath. Sometimes they could stay out the whole day without catching anything, while those who would catch 1/2 fanam worth a day considered themselves lucky. They would return with their daily catch to the beach and the bazaar in the evening. The divers were held to sell the chanks to the campannottis or owners of the vessels, who had advanced money to them ‘almost in the same manner as to the pearl divers’. The chanks would subsequently be buried in the ground in order to let the organic materials decompose until about mid-May when the time of the fishery was over. Thereupon, the Company had the chanks delivered at a fixed place. Since collection of the chanks by the Company could not occur before the onset of the southwest monsoon, they could not be exported before late July or early August.56 Traditionally 1 cour or 120 pieces of assorted chanks or sortiados consisted (in descending size and value) of 40 ps. cabeça (Portuguese, lit. ‘head’), 40 ps. barriga (Portuguese, lit. ‘stomach’), and 40 ps. pé (Portuguese, lit. ‘foot’). However, because fewer large chanks were caught, in 1679 the cour sortiados was changed to 30 ps. cabeça, 30 ps. barriga, 30 pé, and 30 ps. fourth variety.

‘Ayuthya at the End of the Seventeenth Century: Was There a Shift to Isolation?’ in: Reid (ed.), Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era, pp. 250–272; Idem, Court, Company and Campong: Essays on the Dutch Presence in Ayutthaya (Aytthaya: Ayuthhaya Historical Study Centre, 1992); Idem, ‘Crown Trade and Court Politics in Ayyuthaya During the Reign of King Narai (1656–88)’, in: J. Kathirithamby-Wells and J. Villiers (eds), The Southeast Asian Port and Polity: Rise and Demise (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990), pp. 127–142. 56 voc 1243, obp 1664, ff. 1247–1248, Rapp. De Haze van tgene in desen jaarse Tutucorijnse parelvisserij voorgevallen is, 20.6.1663; voc 1251, obp 1660, ff. 770–771, Rapp. Van Rheede van zijn verrichtingen in de landen van Trevancore en Madure, 7.10.1665; voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 440r–440v, Consideratiën Pijl en Van Galisse wegens de memorie van Van der Dussen, 25.10.1666; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 45v–46r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 316r–316v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 92v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.12.1688.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 243

Moreover, if there were more fourth variety chanks than allowed for in sortiados, they could be delivered seperately at a special, lower price. In order to prevent deceit, in the wake of the Nieuhoff affair of 1665 the chanks had to be delivered in accordance with certain forms ‘similar to bullet moulds’ with fixed diameter and circumference made at the instigation of Chief Laurens Pijl of Tuticorin. The Portuguese and subsequently the Dutch levied a duty or brokerage fee on chanks called taraga or taraku of 2 ps. per cour or 2 fanams per 10 cours, plus an additional 4 1/2 fanams per 10 cours, together 6 1/2 fanams per 10 cours. In addition, the Company was not obliged to pay the supervisor or taragador and the counters of the chanks. Around 1679, the office of taragador (tarakan) was subsumed under that of the meirinho or bailiff. Assisted by two or three lascorins, this offical’s duty was to inspect all incoming vessels in order to prevent the theft of pearls and ensure the delivery of all chanks to the Company.57 Bengal was the primary export market for chanks. Local market conditions in Bengal were characterised by a slump in the 1660s, followed by a temporary recovery (1669–1672) resulting from the pearl fisheries of 1668 and 1669 when no chanks were harvested for two consecutive years. The market was depressed again in the mid-1670s, picked up at the end of the decade and improved sharply after 1685 due to rapidly decreasing supplies. The reasons for these diminishing returns were both natural and human, either structural or incidental. These included the overexploitation of the fishing grounds in the protracted absence of a pearl fishery (1669–1689),58 the occasional presence of sharks (curas),59 the prevalence of stormy weather or unseasonal winds in the period of the northeast monsoon,60 the repeated

57 voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 762, Rapp. Van Rheede, 7.10.1665; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 121v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679; voc 1505, obp 1683, ff. 363r–366r, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 46r–46v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 105r–105v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.9.1685; voc 1419, obp 1687, ff. 1571v– 1573v, Miss. commr. Lesage en raad van Gale aan Batavia, 20.9.1685; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 413v–414r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin, 16.8.1688; voc 1491, obp 1692, ff. 514v–515r, Instr. Pijl voor gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 28.1.1692. 58 voc 1387, obp 1684, f. 1752r, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 241r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.9–2.10.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 134v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683; Idem, ff. 316r–316v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684. 59 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 351r–351v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688. 60 voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 364v, Memorie Van Rheede voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682.

300854 244 chapter 3 occurrence of war and communal violence along the coast,61 the impoverishment of the kuliyals or divers and the concomittant decline in the number of thonis,62 a heavier fiscal burden imposed by a financially-strapped aranmanai,63 and restrictive measures and regulations by the authorities. These government policies included all-out prohibitions of the chank fishery or shortening of the harvest season,64 measures to protect the pearl reefs against ‘robbery’ and damage by anchors,65 caps on the maximum amount to be fished or varieties

61 voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 364r–364v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 91v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 20r–20v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 22.6.1683; Idem, f. 241r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.9–2.10.1683; voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 60v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; Idem, f. 107r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.9.1685; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 18r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.2.1686. 62 voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 46r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; Idem, ff. 173v–174r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 4.1.1683; voc 1383, obp 1683, f. 92r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; Idem, f. 20v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 22.6.1683; Idem, f. 241r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.9–2.10.1683; Idem, ff. 134r–134v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683; Idem, f. 316r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684; voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 131v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 8.1.1686; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 20r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.2.1686. 63 voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 134v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683; Idem, f. 316r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684. 64 voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 166r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 20.1.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 18r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1677; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 50v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 17.10.1678. 65 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 326v, Rapp. Huijsman van den presenten toestandt der saecken op de custe van Madure, 5.12.1675; voc 1333r, obp 1679, ff. 119r–119v, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 26.12.1678; Idem, f. 441v, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 3.1.1679; voc 903, bub 1679, ff. 1005–1106, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.9.1679; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 365r–365v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1416, obp 1686, f. 1344v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuti curin, 31.10.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 131v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 8.1.1686; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 16v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; Idem, f. 351v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688; Idem, f. 251r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1689; voc 1459, obp 1690, f. 865v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 26.1.1690.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 245 to be received in view of current market conditions in Bengal.66 As a result, two contemporary estimates of late 1683 and early 1684 put the number of vessels and people currently employed in the chank fishery at one-third to one-fourth of previous levels.67 The Dutch exported chanks to Bengal, directly and indirectly, via three distinct distribution channels: the trade networks of freeburghers or private European settler-traders, the Company itself, and Bengali Muslim merchants. First, in the 1660s and early 1670s, chanks were sold at the Madurai Coast and Ceylon directly to private merchants and Ceylon freeburghers, such as Hercules Lindeborn, Jan Christiaenss., and Jan Jansz. This policy was part of the imperialist effort to develop a viable settlement colony at Ceylon, while it also freed cargo space in Company vessels and saved the hulls from being tainted by the smell of any decomposing organic waste from the chanks. The major disadvantage, however, was that this option was conducive to promot- ing smuggling and illegal trade by Company servants. Joan Nieuhoff (1618– 1671), for instance, chief of Tuticorin between 1664–1665 and author of the much-celebrated Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en Landreize (‘Memorable Sea- and Land Journey’) of 1682, was fined and dishonourably discharged from Company service after having been found guilty of overcharging the Company and engaging in private trade in chanks. Nieuhoff was sentenced to reimburse 6,162 rixdollars, fined 2,180 rixdollars, and deported to Europe in disgrace. Not surprisingly, neither Nieuhoff himself nor the introductory laudatory poem to

66 voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 392v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Huijsman te Tuticurin, 1.12.1676; Idem, f. 193r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 15.12.1676; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 18r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 45v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.6.1677; Idem, f. 130r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 25v–26r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.6.1678; voc 902, bub 1678, f. 1019, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.9.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 51r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 17.10.1678; Idem, f. 194v, Miss. Huijsman en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 8.11.1678; Idem, f. 224r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan koopman Fauconnier en raad te Tuticurin, 15.11.1678; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 117r, Rapp. Van Rhee van den jegenwoordigen toestant ter custe Madure, 19.10.1679; Idem, f. 121v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679; Idem, f. 293r, Miss. provl. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.1.1680; voc 1361, obp 1681, f. 387v, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticurin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680; voc 908, bub 1682, f. 1428r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.12.1682. 67 voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 134v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683; Idem, f. 316r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684.

300854 246 chapter 3 his ‘memorable’ travelogue by the Amsterdam playwright-poet Jan Jansz. Vos (1612–1667) dedicated to the ‘heroic’ chief ‘decorated with splendour’ made no reference to this embarrassing episode (see Figure 3). The temporary improvement of the Bengal market and a new scandal involving the freeburgher Jan Christiaenss., accused of transporting 724 cours of chanks to Porto Novo on behalf of, or merely using the name of, the Tevar of Ramnad, led to the final discrediting of the freeburgher option. The second option, also used during the same period and in the late 1680s, was to carry the chanks aboard Company ships to Bengal. Though this option was considered an uneconomic and ‘unsavoury’ business by some Company servants, others asserted that the vessels sailing to Bengal had plenty of empty cargo space (symbolic of the ‘bullion for goods’ model) available anyway, while the smell could be easily prevented by having the organic matter decompose properly. In addition, the Company would reap the middleman’s profits itself and be independent from the Bengal traders, while the sale at Bengal could provide it with some useful leverage with local Mughal officials. The third option, introduced after 1670 and the most popular in the 1680s, was to sell the chanks at the Ceylon port of Galle to Bengali Muslims (see Table 14). The advantages of this method were that the large Bengal vessels would sell rice to and purchase elephants from the Dutch at Ceylon, whereas no cargo space in Company vessels had to be used. Moreover, the sale of chanks to these Bengali ‘Moors’ would buy the Company goodwill with the owners of these ships, including leading Mughal officials such as the Nawab Shaistah Khan, subahdar or viceroy of Bengal between 1664 and 1688 (except for 1678– 1679) and the maternal uncle of Aurangzeb, and his successor, Prince Muhammad Azam (subahdar between 1678–1679 and 1688–1701), the third son of Aurangzeb. In June 1686, for instance, specific instructions were issued to caress the nakuta or ship’s captain of Prince Muhammad Azam, ‘since his master is a man, who can prohibit all trade of the Hon. Company in Bengal with a single word’. In May 1690, however, Governor Pijl of Ceylon argued that the trade of the Bengali Muslims at Galle could be easily foregone. Rice could be obtained elsewhere from Tanjore and the Coromandel Coast, while the elephant trade at Galle was of little consequence and the animals could be simply brought to Jaffna where they would fetch higher prices. No additional ships would be necessary since many of the Company vessels already sailed to Bengal with largely empty hulls, which could be used to carry chanks. More textiles from the Madurai Coast could be sold in the district of Galle, in particular ‘Negro cloth’, if the Bengal Muslims were to stay away. Not only would the Company be freed from smuggling and troubles with the haughty nakutas or ship captains, but the chanks would also fetch higher prices in Bengal. As Anglo-Mughal

300854 Table 13 Quantity and invoice value of chanks purchased by the Company on the Madurai Coast, 1667/68–1689/90 (in cours and guilders*)

Financial Total Cabeça Barriga Pé Fourth Invoice year chanks variety value (cours)** (guilders)

1667–68 1,000 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 2,100*** 1668–69 0**** 0 0 0 0 0 1669–70 0**** 0 0 0 0 0 1670–71 634 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 1,331 1671–72 7,401 1,513 5/8 1,247 5/8 2,314 1/2 2,325 1/4 10,865 1672–73 6,485 1,091 1/2 1,265 2,361 1/2 1,766 1/2 9,369 1673–74 4,357 1/4 917 3/4 857 1/2 1,505 1,077 6,755 1674–75 4,261 1/4 708 3/4 730 1/4 1,640 1,182 1/4 6,021 1675–76 9,623 1/2 1,668 1/4 1,900 3/4 3,287 2,767 1/2 16,172 1676–77 6,623 3/4 980 1/4 1,249 3/4 2,225 1/2 2,168 1/4 10,175 1677–78 1,230 334 366 530 0***** 2,717 1678–79 3,234 1/2 1,083 3/4 913 1/2 1,237 1/4 0***** 7,579 1679–80 5,010 3/4 953 1/4 705 1/2 933 1/4 2,436 3/4 8,185 1680–81 3,588 1,606 882 1/4 1,099 3/4 0***** 11,497 1681–82 4,511 3/4 915 640 3/4 1,019 1,937 7,792 1682–83 1,972 3/4 457 3/4 278 1/2 588 1/4 648 1/4 4,029 1683–84 2,312 558 3/4 334 1/2 675 1/2 743 1/4 4,980 1684–85 1,998 1/2 404 337 610 647 1/2 4,130 1685–86 1,797 525 1/2 364 481 1/2 426 4,763 1686–87 4,037 3/4 926 758 3/4 1,277 1,076 9,718 1687–88 4,404 1/4 742 1/4 768 1/2 1,586 1,307 3/4 9,525 1688–89 3,284 1/2 577 1/4 522 3/4 1,066 1/4 1,088 1/4 7,038 1689–90 2,095 1/2 418 3/4 424 1/4 618 1/2 634 4,810

* Sale prices in voc sources are listed in fanams, which were valued at 6 stuivers or 0.30 guilders until 1679, and 6 3/4 stuivers or 0.3375 guilders afterwards. ** 1 cour = 120 pieces. *** All numbers in italics are close approximations based on the actual sale prices of that year. **** No chanks were caught because of the pearl fisheries of 1668 and 1669. ***** No fourth variety was purchased by Company in 1677–1678, 1678–1679, and 1680–1681 due to the glutting of and low market prices in Bengal. Sources: voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1993r, 1997v, 2000v, and 2005v, Aanwijsinge wat kwant. van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht, 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; voc 1419, obp 1687, ff. 1572r–1573v, Miss. commr. Salomon Lesage en raad van Gale aan Batavia, 20.9.1685; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmans., die tot Tuticurin, Manapaar, en Alvatt.rij. voor rekening van de generale Comp. zijn ingekocht, 1670/71–1689/90; Idem, ff. 644r–645v, Memorie der chiancos die ten comptoire Tutucorijn zijn versameld met nette aenwijsinge hoe veel deselve d’E Compe. comen te costen, 1670/1–1689/90.

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hostilities in the late 1680s kept Bengal traders from sailing to Galle, the Company was forced to fill the void left by the Bengal traders and employ its own ships in order to carry the chanks to Bengal.68 Contemporary observers believed the overall quantity of chanks to be harvested along the Madurai Coast to be somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 cours, whereas estimates of the number of chanks fished along the Ramnad Coast alone ranged from 1,000–2,000 to 2,500–3,000 cours. The best and largest chanks reportedly were to be found near Vaippar and Pattanamaradur, while those from the Ramnad Coast in general were smaller and considered less valuable. The actual amounts received by the Company, which did not try to monopolise this commodity until the 1670s, peaked at almost 10,000 cours in 1675–1676 in the immediate aftermath of the ‘advantageous contract’ with the Tevar of September 1674, and declined sharply thereafter to less than 2,000 cours per year in the 1680s. Between 1670–1671 and 1689–1690, a total of 78,862 ¾ cours were collected with an invoice value of 463,173 fanams, an average of 3,903 cours for 23,158 fanams per year (see Table 13).69

68 For references to the use of private merchants and freeburghers: voc 887, bub 1663, ff. 308–309, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 29.8.1663; voc 1246, obp 1665, f. 841, Miss. gouvr. Hustaart en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1664; voc 888, bub 1664, ff. 418, and 426–427, Memorie GG en R voor Van Goens gaande voor gouvr. naar Ceijlon, 5.9.1664. For the pros and cons of using Company vessels: voc 884, bub 1660, f. 383, Miss. GG en R aan comms. Van Goens te Colombo, 21.8.1660; voc 1233, obp 1661, ff. A173v-A174r, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 22.11.1660; voc 895, bub 1671, ff. 877–878, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.11.1671; voc 1280, obp 1672, f. 295r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 14r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.4.1687; voc 914, bub 1687, f. 1135, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 26.11.1687; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 29r–30v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1690. For the pros and cons of the trade of Bengal Muslims at Galle: voc 1364, obp 1682, f. 62r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; voc 908, bub 1682, f. 1428r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.12.1682; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 108v–110r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede en dir. Schagen en raad van Bengalen, 12.6.1686; Idem, ff. 366v–367r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.6.1686; Idem, ff. 117v–118r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede en dir. Schagen van Bengalen, 30.7.1686; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 29r–31r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1690. 69 For estimates of the quantity of chanks to be caught along the Madurai Coast: voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 441v, Rapp. koopman Ooms, 4.4.1659; voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 1248, Rapp. De Haze van tgene in desen jaarse Tutucorijnse parelvisserij voorgevallen is, 20.6.1663; voc 1306, obp 1676, f. 286r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.12.1675; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 121v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679. For estimates of the annual number of chanks fished along the

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Table 14 Quantity and value of Dutch sales of chanks from the Madurai Coast to Bengali Muslims at the port of Galle, Ceylon, 1670/71–1685/86 (in cours and guilders*)

Financial Total Sortiados Sale Fourth Sale Sale year chanks cours price variety price value cours guilders cours guilders guilders

1670–71** 634 634 n.a. 0 n.a. 1671–72 n.a. n.a. 9 0 n.a. 1672–73 n.a. n.a. 12 0 n.a. 1673–74 3,022 3,022 12 0 36,300*** 1674–75 4,348 4,348 15 0 65,100 1675–76 n.a. n.a. 13 1/2 0 n.a. 1676–77 n.a. n.a. 13 1/2 0 n.a. 1677–78 1,256 3/4 1,256 3/4 n.a. 0 18,000 1678–79 1,111 1/2 1,111 1/2 n.a. 0 16,500 1679–80 3,778 2,638 n.a. 1,140 n.a. 46,500 1680–81 3,450 3,450 n.a. 0 51,000 1681–82 2,025 1,830 17 1/4 195 6 32,738 1682–83 1,568 1,413 17 1/4 155 6 25,304 1683–84 2,047 1/2 1,713 1/2 17 1/4 334 6 31,562 1684–85 1,843 1,408 17 1/4 435 6 26,898 1685–86**** 4,143 3/4 3,989 19 1/2–21 154 3/4 6 80,948

* Sale prices in voc sources are listed in rixdollars, which were valued at 10 fanams or 3 guilders. ** Before 1670–1671 no chanks were sold by the Company at Galle. *** All numbers in italics are close approximations based on the actual sale prices of that year. **** Due to differences between the English and the Mughal government no Bengal ships called at Galle after 1685–1686. All chanks were subsequently dispatched directly to Bengal aboard Company vessels. Sources: voc 895, bub 1671, ff. 877–878, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.11.1671; voc 1419, obp 1687, ff. 1571v–1573v, Miss. commr. Salamon Lesage en raad van Gale aan Batavia, 20.9.1685; voc 1408, obp 1686, ff. 1027v–1028r, Extract uit de memorien van koopmans. die in de jaren 1684 en 1685 op Gale aan de Bengaalse Moren verkocht zoveel de chancos aan- gaat, 26.10.1685; Idem, ff. 1037–1040, Extract uit de Gaalse negotieboeken van anno 1681 tot ao. 1685 waarbij blijkt hoedanig de chiancos van jaar tot jaar zijn verkocht; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 492, Corte aanwijsinge van ‘t verhandelde met de Moorse coopluijden op Gale, 1.8.1686.

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Various calculations can be used to assess the value of this trade depending on the price tag one wishes to attach to the chanks. The Company paid the Parava divers 6–9 fanams (1.80–2.70 guilders) per cour sortiados. The sale price at Galle rose sharply from 3 rixdollars (9 guilders) per cour sortiados in the early 1670s to almost 7 rixdollars (21 guilders) by the late 1680s. While the Tevar offered to hand over the chanks from his coast, which were smaller and less valuable than those from the Fishery Coast, to the Dutch at 18–19 fanams (5.40– 5.70 guilders), the actual price paid by their Asian and European rivals was 1 Porto Novo pagoda (4.50 guilders). In Bengal, chanks from the Fishery Coast on average sold for 12–14 rupees (18–21 guilders), but prices could vary widely from 4 rupees (6 guilders) to 30 rupees (45 guilders). The smaller conch shells from the Ramnad Coast merely fetched 4 rupees (6 guilders) per cour sortiados.70

Ramnad Coast: voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 344r, Ola Huijsman aan de vrijheer Teuver, 22.7.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 392v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Huijsman te Tuticurin, 1.12.1676; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 121v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 66v–67r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1682; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 560r, Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtinge aan het hof van de vrijheer Teuver, 1.7.1683. 70 For the prices paid to the Parava divers at Tuticorin: voc 1251, obp 1666, ff. 770–771, Rapp. Van Rheede, 7.10.1665; voc 895, bub 1671, ff. 894–895, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 16.7.1671; voc 1313, obp 1676, f. 319r, Concept instr. superintendent Van Goens voor commt. Huijsman, 13.1.1675; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 117r, Rapp. Van Rhee van den jegenwoordigen toestant ter custe Madure, 19.10.1679; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 293r, Miss. provl. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.1.1680; voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 363v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 41v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon an Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 908, bub 1682, f. 1436r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.12.1682; voc 1387, obp 1684, ff. 1752r–1752v, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1382, obp 1684, f. 200r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 15.4.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 440v, Sommarium der winsten, lasten, en verkoop als het bedragen van de inkoop der koopmans. op de Madurese kust, 13.11.1683; voc 911, bub 1684, ff. 526r–526v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.11.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 432, Aanwijzinge wat koopmans. op de Madurese kust zijn omgezet, 4.1.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 68r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; voc 912, bub 1685, f. 715, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.9.1685; voc 1408, obp 1686, ff. 1027v–1029r, Extracten uit de memorien van koopmans. op Gale aan de Beng. Moren verkocht, 26.10.1685; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 333r–333v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.8.1688; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 425r–425v, Rekest der parruas en chancosduijkers aan gouvr. Van Rhee van Ceijlon tot verhoging van de prijs der chiancos, 1.6.1692; voc 1506, obp 1693, f. 1130r, Kort relaas opperh. Bergaigne der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter kuste Madure, 30.11.1692. For the price of chanks along the

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Taking 10,000 cours as the maximum quantity that could be caught along the Madurai Coast, the invoice value of the 9,623 cours of chanks at Tuticorin in 1675–1676 was 53,907 fanams or 16,172 guilders. The sale value at Galle would have been 45,000 rixdollars or 135,000 guilders. At Bengal, where prices at that time hovered around 12 rupees per cour, the same quantity would have fetched 120,000 rupees or 180,000 guilders. Not surprisingly, contemporary observers compared the regular revenues of the chank fishery, normally a subsidiary activity of divers, favourably with the unpredictable proceeds of pearl fishing, its allegedly more illustrious, but also more erratic, counterpart. Thus, the profits from chanks, styled ‘that noble sea harvest’ (a term usually reserved for the pearls), was deemed to be worth ‘half a pearl fishery’ and considered ‘the most important and surest source of income of the Paravas’ and ‘the most reliable source of revenue [of the Company] in Madurai, excepting the trade in cloth’. Indeed, Chief Thomas van Rhee of the Madurai Coast reported in January 1682:

It is a great and secure advantage, which the Hon. Company derives from this sea harvest, compared to which the pearl fishery, depite the fact that opinions and hopes of it are much higher, pales into significance. Since the conquest of this coast [1658], the Hon. Company has derived six times as much profit from the chank than from the pearl fishery because the

Ramnad Coast: voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 343v, Ola Huijsman aan de vrijheer Teuver, 22.7.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 294r, Miss. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 8.12.1676; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 127r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.11.1680; Idem, f. 73v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII; voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 367r, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682. For the value of chanks in Bengal: voc 895, bub 1671, ff. 877–878, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.11.1671; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 121v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679; voc 1354, obp 1681, f. 911r, Notitie van de areca omgezet in Coromandel, Suratte, en Bengalen, 1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 73v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1681; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 6r–6v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1682; voc 1505, obp 1682, ff. 364v–365r, Memorie Van Rhee voor de Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 79v, and 91v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 164r–164v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.1.1686. Prakash merely mentions that due to the glutting of the market in the 1660s, the average price of chanks in Bengal dropped from 7 rupees (1661–1662) to 4 rupees (1666–1667). Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, p. 167.

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first has taken place annually whereas the latter has not occurred for 13 years.71

Food Crops: The ‘Rice Granary’ of Ceylon

Not surprisingly, the cultivation of rice, millets, and other food crops formed the mainstay of the Madurai economy. During the period of Vijayanagara- Nayaka rule (1300–1750), the Tirunelveli region’s agrarian landscape was dramatically transformed by the development of irrigation technology, including a series of tanks (eris), permanent stone dams (anaikkattu), and long winding channels, and an enormous array of crops, including New World plants (maize, chillies, groundnut, tobacco,72 etc.), seed varieties, and cropping techniques. Due to the ensuing expansion of the agricultural frontier, the Tirunelveli region attained its full human settlement pattern by the seventeenth century. By 1800, the Tamil vocabulary had formed a basic contrast between dry farmland (kadarambam = kadu [dry land] + arambam [tract]) and wet farmland (nirarambam = nir [water] + arambam), and thus between dry cultivation (punsey, puncey, punjai) and irrigated agriculture (nansey, nancey, nanjai). As a general rule, farmers planted nel or rice (Lat., Oryza sativa) wherever and whenever they had sufficient access to drainage water. Its greater caloric productivity per

71 voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 365v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682. See also: voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 16r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1847r, Consideratiën Van Rhee en Van Vliet, 23.4.1681; voc 911, bub 1684, f. 526v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.11.1684; Pieters (ed.), Memoir of Rijckloff van Goens Jr., p. 8. 72 In the north, on the Cauvery watershed, the tobacco area around Dindigul is limited in extent, but produces the most famous cheroots (curuttu) in India. Tobacco (Lat., Nicotiana tabacum) had been introduced in Gujarat and Coromandel at the end of the sixteenth century. Tobacco (pukaiyilai) is usually sown in October or November, transplanted in December or January, and gathered in February or March. Except for the earliest phase of the encounter in the 1640s, the Dutch left the trade in ‘smoking leaves’ to the Mappila Maraikkayar Muslims, and other local traders. For isolated references to tobacco: voc 1164, obp 1646, ff. 710r, Miss. koopman Dirck Schoorl int schip Maastricht liggende voor Coulang, 19.11.1646; Idem, f. 715v, Miss. Pieter van Barth van Cayelpatam aan Van der Meijden en Crackouw, 15.1.1647; Idem, ff. 700v, and 703r, Miss. gouvr. Heussen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 5.3.1647; Idem, ff. 683r–683v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 2.8.1647.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 253 acre and high symbolic value as a dietary staple gave rice a paramount place in peasant productive decision-making.73 Outside the lower Cauvery/Coleroon, Tambraparni, and other favoured river valleys and regions, such as portions of the Palar, Ponnaiyar, and Vaigai basins, more than one rice crop per year was extremely rare, and in many years, the rain-fed tanks on the plains could not support even this. If the monsoon seemed not too promising by planting time, applying the strategy of ‘dry crops on wet lands’ (nanjai-mel-punjai), farmers would plant high-quality specialty ‘garden crops’, usually ragi or iraki finger millet (Lat., Eleusine Coracana) or cholam sorghum (Lat., Holcus sorghum), under tank irrigation. If the season looked good, they could plant rice and millets alternately on the same field. Where drainage from the hills provided more secure water supplies, rice prevailed. Nowhere could it prevail to the extent possible in the wet-zone of the Cauvery/Coleroon and Tambraparni valleys, an unbroken stretch of actual or potential nanjai (‘irrigated fields or crops’) cultivation. Throughout the region, when a rice crop could be raised it would be sown under the first showers of the northeast monsoon, and harvested three to four months later from January to April. This long season from October to April, called pisanam or picanam, produced the bulk of the rice (nelli pessane in Dutch sources) grown in any agricultural year. When a second crop could be grown, it was planted as southwest monsoon rains ran down from the hills in June, and harvested from September to November, in time to plant a pisanam crop. This second kar paddy crop (nelli carre in Dutch sources) depended almost wholly on drainage from the Western Ghats, so it was much smaller in size and scope, and highly prized. The Dutch considered the ‘small or summer crop’ of nelli carre, ‘that perishable grain’ inferior to the ‘large harvest’ of nelli pessane though the latter was deemed ‘harder in substance and thus more durable’. When the harvesting and sowing seasons of these two crops over- lapped, as they often did in the wet zone, irrigation work and tending to rice

73 In addition to the Dutch sources mentioned in the footnotes, the following is largely based on: Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 16, 19–20, 52, 54–55, 56–58, 60–62, and 78–79; Idem, Peasant History in South India; Idem, An Agrarian History of South Asia; B. Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980), passim; Raychaudhuri and Habib (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of India, I, pp. 203–213, and 226–234; R. Krishnaswami Aiyar, Madras District Gazetteers: Tinnevelly. Statistical Abstracts (Madras: Government Press, 1934); Pate, Madras District Gazetteers: Tinnevelly; Stuart, A Manual of the Tinnevelly District; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part I, pp. 98–102, and passim.

300854 254 chapter 3 cultivation went on virtually year-round, with only a brief slack time at the height of the summer, in May.74 Where rice could not thrive, communities based their diets on millets, and specific varieties became dominant according to local soil and moisture conditions. Samai or little millet (Lat., Panicum miliaceum) and kampu or bullrush millet (Lat., Holcus spicatus) were the most popular millets, each dominating a distinct terrain. Kampu (kambu), the richer of the two, drains the soils of nutrients, and flourished in the red- and black loam areas. It became so preferred as food for black soil (regur) farmers that they grew cholam or sorghum mostly for fodder, to strengthen the bulls that plowed the heavy earth. Kampu would normally be rotated with pulses, or planted on land left fallow for one year, unless the field could be given heavy doses of manure, a practice that distinguished the most productive land of the best farmers. Sown during the northeast monsoon, in November and December, kampu would be ready to harvest in three to four months. Unlike kampu, samai (camai) or little millet demands little of either nutrients or moisture and can grow almost anywhere in the region at almost any time of the year. It thus became a favourite crop on the poorest soils, often intercultivated with other millets as a buffer against famine, should the rains fail. Though less popular, another drought-resistant millet, varaku or kodo millet (Lat., Paspalum frumentaceum), also yielded well in poor soil and was grown in parts of the region. Non-grain crops, providing important supplements to the diet and many useful products, were concentrated in different parts of the region, such as pulses in the sandy south, along with oil seeds, especially el or sesame (Lat., Sesamum Indicum) and amanakku or castor (Lat., Ricinus communis) and kottam (kottamalli) or coriander (Lat., Coriandrum sativum) in the black soil areas. Garden crops were grown in the wet zone and zones of well irrigation, including milakay or chillies (Lat., Capsicum) and varai or plantains (Lat., Musa paradisiaca). Among the agricultural population, four distinct patterns of dominance or what has been called ‘peasant ecotypes’ based on the control of water and land resources, gradually came into existence between the mid-sixteenth and late

74 voc 1292, obp 1674, f. 173r, Miss. Van der Meersche en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 28.1.1674; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 218r, Consideratiën Huijsman rakende de handel op de kust van Madure, 8.12.1676; voc 1433, obp 1679, f. 420v, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad te Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 26.12.1678; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 87r–87v, Miss. Verwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 12.7.1679; Idem, f. 168r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 7.9.1679; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 406v–407r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.10.1686.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 255 eighteenth centuries, each in a specific agricultural zone.75 The oldest was based on a caste alliance, established during the Pandyan era, tying together Brahmin and Vellala landowners, and subordinate peasant jatis, principally Pallas, Pariahs, and Vanniyas (Pallis). As the social basis for irrigated agriculture, the Vellala-Brahmin dominant caste alliance, established firm control of the wet zone, and of many localities in the mixed zone near the Western Ghats.76 Another, much later, dominant-caste domain was built during the Nayaka period by Telugu- and Kannada-speaking Vaduga (‘northerner’) warrior- cultivators, Kammas, Reddis (Kapus), and Kambalattars (Tottiyars, Tottiyans), on the black ‘cotton soils’ of the dry zone, who had the strongest bulls and the richest granaries, though some Telugus spread westward to settle closer to the hills. These migrant bands were part of complete Telugu colonies transplanted in the Tamil land of opportunity, including military men, merchants, farmers, priests, artisans, accountants, and administrators.77 A third, much smaller and poorer, domain emerged from Shanar concentration in the southern dry zone with tracts full of the worst sandy soils, home to the palmyra palm, a multipurpose tree providing fruit, drink, timber, leaves, and material for rope, baskets, mats, and myriad other uses. The Malayalam- speaking Shanars, divided between superior merchant Shanars called Nadars and low-status, tree-climbing Shanars, probably originated from southern Kerala settling into the ‘southern palmyra forest’ along two main routes, one running north-northeast, the other north. Shanars are a highly mobile cultivating and trading jati, and their mobility has encouraged occupational diversification in response to new agricultural and commercial opportunities.78

75 B. Stein, ‘South India: Some General Considerations of the Region and Its Early History’, in: Habib and Raychaudhuri (eds), The Cambridge History of India, I, pp. 24–32; Idem, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, pp. 25–29; Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, p. 67. 76 Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, I, pp. 267–393 (Brahmins); VII, pp. 361–389 (Vellalas); V, pp. 472–486 (Pallas); VI, pp. 77–139 (Pariahs); VI, pp. 1–28; and VII, p. 321 (Vanniyas); Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 24–26, 36, and 81–96; Idem, An Agrarian History of South Asia, pp. 152–153; E. Wolf, Peasants (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), pp. 18 et seq. 77 Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, III, pp. 94–105 (Kammas); III, pp. 222–249 (Reddis); and: VII, pp. 183–197 (Kambalattars); Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 42–45, and 50–52. 78 Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, VI, pp. 363–378 (Shanars); Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, pp. 145, and 152; Idem, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 46–49; R. Caldwell, The Tinnevelly Shanars: A Sketch of Their Religion and Their Moral Condition and Characteristics (Madras: Christian Knowledge Society’s

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By 1800, the wet and dry zones had thus become relatively stable, both agriculturally and ethnically; and each had relatively uniform configurations of dominance and independence. By contrast, the mixed zone, an agricultural patchwork, became highly mixed ethnically. Sprinkled throughout were Vellala/Brahmin-dominated irrigated communities. Tamil-speaking Maravas from Ramnad settled heavily near the Western Ghats, in the poor red-soiled northern mixed zone with its rain-fed tank (eri) irrigation, especially between Rajapalaiyam and the Chittar River where they became the subregional dominant caste by the sixteenth century, but they also moved south and east to become specialists in the sale of protection (kaval) both locally and subre- gionally. Even the northern mixed zone, however, comprised many mini- domains of relative independence for non-Marava castes, such as Vellalas, Vadugas (Kammas, Reddis, and Kambalattars), and Pariahs.79 A risky region agriculturally and unpredictable from year to year, the mixed zone historically became a risky place to live politically as well, because no clear-cut lines of caste subordination and superiority could be drawn within domains of community interaction.80 Apart from short-distance trade with pockets of deficit areas along the vast coast between Masulipatnam and Cape Comorin, which always imported rice, rice was exported over greater distances from eastern India to Ceylon, the Malabar Coast, the Maldive Islands, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and Southeast Asia. A number of factors contributed to the rapid expansion of trade in food grains in the seventeenth century. First, the growth of shipping all along the coast and the construction of larger ships facilitated cheaper transport of grain overseas. Second, the densely populated coastal and inland districts of central Carnatic and southwestern Ceylon became rice-deficit areas due to protracted periods of warfare in these regions. Third, the expanding trade itself generated the growth of ports of the Bay of Bengal into urban centres of considerable size with an increasing population depending on imports of food grains. Fourth, the increase of European shipping in the region, both

Press, 1849); R.L. Hardgrave Jr., The Nadars of Tamil Nadu: The Political Culture of a Community in Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). 79 Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, V, pp. 22–48 (Maravas); Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 49–50; Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas. 80 Ludden, Peasant History in South India, pp. 59–67; Idem, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 36–37; Idem, An Agararian History of South Asia, pp. 149–153; Stuart, A Manual of the Tinnevelly District, pp. 2–27.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 257 merchant and naval fleets, and their coastal settlements and personnel required provisioning of food supplies.81 The overland trade included the segmented network of Tamil-speaking grain-trading Nadars utilising local residence-cum-business sites called pettai. By the late seventeenth century six towns in northern Tirunelveli and adjacent terrain—today in Madurai and Ramanathapuram districts—became renowned as centres of Shanar commercial activity: Sivakasi, Virudhunagar, Tirumangalam, Sattangudi, Palayampatti, and Aruppukottai.82 The bulk of the maritime export was carried out in small boat traffic between the ports of south Coromandel and the inner Madura Bay and the ports of northern, western, and southern Ceylon. These boats were between 20 and 50 tons burthen and were of the South India thoni type of vessel of between one and three masts. In 1686, the Company issued no less than 260 safe conducts for Jaffnapatnam alone, while the boatsmen or barqueiros from Madurai and southern Coromandel purchased 160,878 guilders (53,626 rixdollars) worth of Ceylon arecanuts in exchange for grains and cash. At a sale price of 57–60 guilders (19–20 rixdollars) per last of rice (1 last = 3,000 Amsterdam pounds of 0.494 kilograms each = 1.482 tons), imports in Ceylon would have been between 2,681 and 2,822 lasts (3,973 tons) of rice at the most. Three years later, in 1689, one Dutch observer calculated the annual value of rice imports in Jaffnapatnam to be 164,250 guilders (54,750 rixdollars) or ca. 2,737 lasts (4,056 tons) of rice. During the northeastern monsoon of 1700, a total of 108 vessels arrived in the ports of Colombo and Galle alone importing 2,651 tons of rice and paddy. The short-distance, small boat Indo-Ceylon traffic was supplemented by long-distance trade in larger vessels from northern Coromandel, Bengal, and Orissa ports to the Ceylon ports of Colombo, Galle, and Jaffna.83 In addition to the private trade in rice, the Company sought to supplement supplies to Ceylon by shipping rice in its own ships or in Indian freighted vessels. Beginning with about 500 tons in the 1650s, purchases were stepped up over the succeeding decades to 1,500 to 1,800 tons per annum to feed the growing

81 S. Arasaratnam, ‘The Rice Trade in Eastern India, 1650–1740’, Modern Asian Studies 22, 3 (1980), pp. 533–536. 82 Hardgrave Jr., The Nadars of Tamilnad, pp. 95–97; Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 48, and 231, n. 31. 83 voc 1429, obp 1687, f. 1257v, Miss. commr. Van der Duijn en raad van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 8.5.1686; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 56v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.5.1686; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 39r–39v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 23.12.1689; Arasaratnam, ‘The Rice Trade in Eastern India’, p. 537. Other sources of supply to Ceylon were northern Coromandel, Bengal, and Orissa, and, to a much lesser extent, the Kanara Coast.

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Dutch establishment in Ceylon and the urban communities dependent on the Dutch. The Company was particularly interested in buying rice at Bimilipatnam, Sadraspatnam, in the Tanjore delta, Madurai, and, occasionally, the Kanara Coast. Nel (nellu, neli) or unhusked rice, though more durable, was deemed a nuisance. Not only did it take up twice as much valuable cargo space as husked rice, but the Company servants and slaves, who received it as part of their rations, also complained about the heavy work involved in removing the husks. Little or no interest was shown for some of the other locally produced food grains. Between 1658–1659 and 1668–1669, the Dutch on average only exported about 300–400 lasts (445–593 tons) of rice from Madurai at 160–180 fanams per last or an annual average of some 15,300 guilders.84 Grain purchases were largest in the 1670s as part of the imperialist plan to make the Ceylon government self-sufficient, peaking at 646.3 lasts (957.8 tons) of rice and 10 lasts (14.8 tons) of nel for 33,000 guilders in 1671–1672, 859.8 lasts (1,274.2 tons) of rice and 4.2 lasts (6.2 tons) of nel for about 40,000 guilders in 1672–1673, and 38 lasts (56.3 tons) of rice and 617.7 lasts (915.4 tons) of nel for 25,000 guilders in 1677–1678. The failure of this autarchic scheme, epitomised in the return of Nagapatnam (the supposed ‘rice granary for Ceylon’) to the jurisdiction of Coromandel in 1680, was followed by a steep decline of Dutch activities on the grain markets in the region. On this occasion, the mercantile faction smugly reflected that the agricultural concept of the Van Goenses initiated 20 years previously had been overambitious and contrary to the opinion of ‘other people of intelligence and experience’.85 Dutch activities on the Madurai grain markets picked up again only in the late 1680s following the arrival of Commissioner General Van Rheede, reaching 264.7 lasts (392.3 tons) of rice and 262.5 lasts (389 tons) of nel in 1687–1688 for some 36,000 guilders. Between 1658–1659 and 1689–1690, the Dutch altogether purchased some 7,000 lasts (10,374 tons) of rice, and (in the absence of comprehensive data) at least 1,035.7 lasts (1,534.9 tons) of nel, and 5.5 lasts (8.2 tons) of wheat or kotumai (Lat., Triticum vulgare) and other ‘assorted grains’. Between 1658–1659 and 1689–1690, on average the Company bought 216.2 lasts (320.4 tons) of rice for some 13,400 guilders per year, and (for the period between 1670–1671 and 1689–1690 alone) at least 51.85 lasts (76.8 tons) of nel, and 0.275 lasts (0.41 tons) of wheat and other food grains for about 2,000 guilders per annum (see Table 15).

84 voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 96r–96v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.9.1687. 85 voc 904, bub 1680, unfoliated, Miss. GG en R aan presiderent commr. en provl. oppergeza- ghebber Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 21.11.1680.

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Table 15 Quantity and value of Dutch purchases of food grains (rice, nel, and other food grains) on the Madurai Coast, 1658/59–1689/90 (in lasts and guilders*)

Financial Rice Price per Total Nel lasts Price per Total Other year lasts last value last value food fanams guilders fanams guilders grains lasts

1658–69 300** 160–180 15,300 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 1669–70 300 350 31,500 n.a. 183 n.a. n.a. 1670–71 336.5 225 22,714 0 n.a. 0 0 1671–72 646.3 165–175 32,961 10 75 225 1.2 1672–73 859.8 140–170 39,981 4.2 n.a. n.a. 0 1673–74 253.6 250 19,020 7.7 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1674–75 188.7 210–240 12,737 0 n.a. 0 0 1675–76 212.5 210–250 14,663 22.6 110–140 848 0 1676–77 31.9 240–50 2,345 19.2 120–145 763 0 1677–78 38 250 2,850 617.7 120 22,237 0 1678–79 371 175–200 20,869 6 81–94 158 0 1679–80 5 150–175 274 8.2 75–84 220 0.5 1680–81 5 185 312 0 n.a. 0 0 1681–82 41.5 218 3,053 6 90 182 0 1682–83 33 187 2,083 12 92.5 375 0 1683–84 27 180 1,640 30 82.6 836 0 1684–85 42.5 134 1,922 28 79.5 751 0 1685–86 19 250 1,603 1.6 112.5 61 0 1686–87 64.5 306 6,661 0 0 0 0 1687–88 264.7 276 24,657 262.5 124 10,986 0 1688–89 195.5 253 16,693 0 0 0 0 1689–90 66 200 4,455 0 0 0 3 Total 7,002 415,993 1,035.7 37,642 5.5

* The last of 3,000 (Amsterdam) pounds of 0.494 kilogram (1.482 tons) is the standard measuring unit used in voc sources. Sale prices in voc sources are listed in fanams, which were valued at 6 stuivers or 0.30 guilders until 1679, and 6 3/4 stuivers or 0.3375 guilders afterwards. ** All numbers in italics are close approximations based on the actual sale prices of that year. The 300 lasts represent the annual average for the period 1658–1669. Sources: voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 441v, Rapp. koopman Ooms van de Madurese overkust, 4.4.1659; voc 1242, obp 1664, f. 972r, Memorie Van Goens voor gouvr. Hustaart van Ceijlon, 26.12.1663; voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 20v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1670; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmansz. tot Tuturin, Manapaar, en Alvatt.rij. voor rekening van de generale Comp. zijn ingekocht, 1670/71–1689/90; Idem, ff. 649r–652v, Corte aanteekeningh tegen wat prijse de voornaemste coopmansz. …ter kuste Madure, 1669/70–1689/90.

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Through the collection of the government’s share (melvaram) in rice production, regional and local officials of the aranmanai became some of the region’s principal grain dealers. In 1675, for instance, the Dutch contracted with the Tirunelveli governor and pradhani Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya for the supply of 200 lasts (296.4 tons) of rice at 25 rixdollars (75 guilders) per last or a total value of 5,000 rixdollars (15,000 guilders). In 1677, another contract was entered into with Chidambaranatha Pillai, the regent of Kallidaikurichi, near Ambasamudram in the upper Tambraparni valley, to deliver 280 lasts (415 tons) of rice at 18–19 rixdollars (54–57 guilders) and 280 lasts (415 tons) of nel at 8 rixdollars and 7 fanams (24 7/20 guilders) per last or a total contracted value of 7,476–7,756 rixdollars (22,428–23,268 guilders).86 These contacts are one of many instances pointing to the tangled politico-economic web of cross- cultural interaction along with the complex of intersecting state and market interests and the symbiotic relationship between statecraft (imârat) and trade (tijârat) or the ‘commercialisation of royal power’ and ‘royalisation of mercantile wealth’ inextricably bound up with manifestations of what has been called alternately the ‘first pulse of globalisation’, ‘first globalisation’, and ‘archaic’ or ‘early modern globalisation’ (see Chapter 1). Access to melvaram grain in turn invited market speculation, counting on the predictable rise of prices between the pisanam (January to April) and kar (September to November) harvests. Profits would be especially high when a poor kar harvest would follow a good pisanam season, which would accelerate price hikes after September. Any average year, however, would provide bountiful returns on speculative investments due to the seasonal trends in the rice prices. Not everybody, however, could afford to wait for the ‘cheap season’ or find alternative supplies elsewhere as could the Dutch.87 As part of the ‘agricultural concept’ of the Van Goenses, local Company officials in the 1670s were continuously eagerly watching the Madurai skies for the timely arrival of the rains, dutifully reporting the vagaries of the regional weather regime to their patron. As a result of the failure of the pisanam harvest due to drought in early 1673, the price of rice in Madurai rose to 50, 60, and

86 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 141v, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 13.10.1675; Idem, f. 146v, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 20.10.1675; voc 1329, obp 1678, f. 1270r, Rapp. Caperman, 13.5.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 130v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677. Unfortunately, Chidambaranatha Pillai was arrested and the money paid in advance, 2,000 rixdollars in all, confiscated. voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 152v–153r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.12.1677. 87 Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, p. 24; Idem, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 73, and 76–79.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 261 ultimately 70 rixdollars (210 guilders) per last. Timely supplies from Malabar and the arrival of eagerly awaited rains in late 1673 prevented a general famine, with prices falling to 25 rixdollars (75 guilders) and less. The pisanam crop of early 1674 was fairly successful with moderate prices of 18–19 rixdollars (54–57 guilders) per last. Heavy rains accompanied by local flooding of the Coleroon River near Trichinopoly and the breaking of the banks of several tanks in late 1674 prevented prices from dropping below 20 rixdollars (60 guilders). The years 1675–1678 were relatively uneventful with sufficient rains at the proper times to ensure satisfactory pisanam and kar crops. Heavy thunderstorms and torrential rains in November 1679, however, caused the Tambraparni River to flood and dikes to collapse. Several villages were swallowed and the kar rice on the fields was destroyed by the rushing waters, the overall damage being estimated at 30,000 rixdollars (90,000 guilders).88 The main activities of the Dutch on the South Indian grain market were in Tanjore, in particular the Tanjore delta and the upper reaches of the Cauvery River and its tributaries. According to one optimistic assessment of the Company’s imperialist faction, Tanjore was not only comparable with biblical

88 voc 1292, obp 1674, f. 209v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 29.5.1673; voc 879, bub 1673, f. 817, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 30.9.1673; voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 321r–321v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 22.1.1674; voc 1304, obp 1675, f. 321r, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der saecken op de custe van Madure, 29.3.1674; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 723v–724r, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.11.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 283r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 290v, Miss. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 1.12.1676; Idem, f. 218r, Consideratiën Huijsman rakende de handel op de kust van Madure, 8.12.1676; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 136r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 153v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 16.12.1677; Idem, f. 174r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 23.12.1677; voc 1433, obp 1679, f. 420v, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge, 26.12.1678; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 283v, Miss. provl. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.12.1679; Idem, f. 292r, Miss. provl. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.1.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 29v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680; Ludden, Peasant History in South India, pp. 79–81. In a letter of 1676, the Jesuit João de Britto reported a ‘general famine’, especially in Madurai and Ramnad (the drought of 1673?) wreaking havoc among the local population. Two years later, in 1678, Father André Freire commented on the extensive floodings in the Satyamangalam, Trichinopoly, and Tanjore regions, swallowing entire villages and their inhabitants. In: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, pp. 248 and 276–277.

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Egypt, but together with Madurai could be literally considered the promised land or cornucopia for the much-beloved Ceylon, ‘being oversupplied with rice and all sorts of provisions, butter, honey, and milk’.89 Between 1675 and 1712 rice production in Tanjore had reportedly been 32 million kalams (911,278 tons) of paddy. An estimate of 1744 put the amount of rice exported from Tanjore at 96,600 tons or 16.99 percent of Tanjore total production of 20 million kalams (568,660 tons) of paddy.90 Although we do not have comparable comprehensive data for all of Madurai, we have some information regarding certain interior districts along the Western Ghats. In 1677, for instance, one Dutch observer estimated the amount of nel sown around Panagudi at 24,000–30,000 parras (0.96–1.2 million pounds), near Tirukkurungudi at 1,600 kottais or 8,000 parras (0.32 million pounds), around Kalakkad (Kalakkudu) at 7,000 kottais or 35,000 parras (1.4 million pounds) twice a year, near Viravanallur at 100,000 parras or (4 million pounds), and around Alvar Kurichi at 20,000 kottais or 100,000 parras (4 million pounds). Panagudi had to pay 12,000 rixdollars in taxes (2–2.5 parras per rixdollar), Kalakkad, with a double crop, was assessed at 12,000 rixdollars (5.8 parras per rixdollar), while Viravanallur, which had been given in perpetuity to a Brahmin family, was exempted from its payment of 25,000 rixdollars (4 parras per rixdollar). Total fiscal revenues of Madurai’s six provinces in 1677 reportedly were 1.2 million pardaus or rixdollars (3.6 million guilders): Tirunelveli was farmed out for 420,000, Madurai for 120,000, Dindigul for 190,000, Trichinopoly for 230,000, Vijayapuram for 160,000, and Tiripattur for 80,000 pardaus. At the same time, the annual revenues of the two provinces of Satyamangalam and Dharapuram, recently lost to Mysore, were estimated to be 800,000 pardaus for a total of 2 million pardaus. Nevertheless, we still lack sufficient data regarding the share of land tax and the respective food crops in total state revenues, the amount of tax-free (inam) lands, the actual size of the government’s share (melvaram) of the various crops, and so forth, to even come to the roughest approximation of the size of rice production in Madurai.91 However, at a sale

89 voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 330v, Nader advijs dir. genl. Van Goens raeckende het bestier der saacken opt eijlandt Ceijlon, 7.11.1676. 90 Arasaratnam, ‘The Rice Trade in Eastern India’, pp. 540–541; Subrahmanyam, ‘The Politics of Fiscal Decline’, p. 197. In 1743, the revenues derived by the raja of Travancore from the small principality of Nanjinad beyond Kayamkalum was put at 300,000 Travancore fanams or ca. 360,000 guilders. See: A. Galletti, A.J. van der Burg, and P. Groot (eds), The Dutch in Malabar, Selections from the Records of the Madras Government, Dutch Records 13 (Madras: Government Press, 1911), p. 54. 91 voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1265r–1271v, Rapp. Caperman, 13.5.1677; Bassingh, ff. 67–68, ‘Eenige beschrijvinge…’. In 1790 at the village of Settur, Tirunelveli, the government’s share of the

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 263 price of 20 rixdollars per last, 1.2 million pardaus would constitute 60,000 lasts or 88,920 tons of rice, somewhat less than one-tenth of Tanjore’s rice production during that time period, while 2.0 million pardaus would constitute 100,000 lasts or 148,200 tons of rice, or almost one-sixth of the size of Tanjore’s rice production. Assuming that Madurai exported as much as Tanjore (16.99 percent of total production), which is more than likely an overestimate, Madurai rice exports in 1677 amounted to somewhere between 15,107.5 and 25,179.2 tons. Regardless, although Dutch exports had some limited local impact, they were small change compared with the value of overall food production and exports from the region. Indeed, Tanjore had a much better claim to the title of ‘rice granary’ of Ceylon than did Madurai. In 1677–1678, 1,308 lasts (1,938.5 tons) of rice and 1,041 lasts (1,542.8 tons) of nel were exported by the Dutch from Tanjore via Nagapatnam alone. Between October 1689 and February 1691, during a severe drought in Madurai, no less than 2,788 lasts (4,131.8 tons) of rice and 11,029 lasts (16,345 tons) of nel were collected at and shipped from Nagapatnam, Karaikal, Trimelevas, Point Calimere, and Adirampatnam to Ceylon and Tuticorin to be used as a strategic reserve in anticipation of a potential Kandyan attack from the island’s interior. Exports from Madurai paled in comparison with these figures. In fact, Madurai could be a rice-deficit area in years of drought and warfare. In the 1660s, Dutch observers estimated that Madurai could supply them annually with 300–400 lasts (444.6–1592.8 tons) of rice at 16–18 rixdollars per last. Inflated projections of Madurai’s agricultural potential in the fertile imagination of members of the Company’s imperialist faction in the 1670s ranged from 500 to ‘thousands’ of lasts, unrealistically placing Madurai in the same category as Tanjore regarding its agricultural potential.92

rice crop was half of the net produce or 43.5 percent. See: Ludden, Peasant History in South India, p. 78. 92 For the Tanjore figures: voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 67r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 11.6.1677; Idem, f. 221r, Miss. Verwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 14.9.1677; Idem, f. 158v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 11.11.1677; voc 1340, obp 1679, f. 1211v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.2.1678; voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 96v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.9.1687; voc 1473, obp 1691, f. 92r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Cor omandel aan H. XVII, 15.2.1691; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1677, p. 386. For Madurai estimates: voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 441v, Rapp. koopman Ooms, 4.4.1659; voc 1242, obp 1664, f. 972r, Memorie Van Goens voor gouvr. Hustaart van Ceijlon, 26.12.1663; voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 20v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1670; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 830r, Relaas Huijsman wegens de nuttigheden die de Cie. int huren der Madurese zeehavens zou komen te genieten, 11.4.1676; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 44v,

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Salt: The Spice of Life

Like rice and millets, salt (uppu) is a staple and basic necessity of the human diet and was an important high-volume, low-value bulk commodity in the Madurai economy. The ‘salty grain’ was harvested in salterns located in the numerous natural salt marshes (uppalam) and lagoons (kayals) stretching along the Ramnad and Fishery Coasts. Three basic requirements for the successful solar evaporation of salt were readily available: a warm climate with a prolonged dry period and some amount of wind; accessibility and close proximity to the sea for the controlled supply of the raw material, that is, sea water or brine; and clayey soils for the saltpans, preferably located slightly in the interior or behind the sandy belt though slight modifications could make the beds readily suitable.93 A number of modern and contemporary data provide some insights in the actual volume of regional salt production and trade. In 1865–1866, seven Ramnad saltpans (alams) combined produced 405,913 man or 3,247 lasts (9,741 tons) of salt. In 1803–1804, the salt revenue of the Ramnad zamindari amounted to 3,500 star pagodas or 12,250 rupees. In 1876, six saltpans along the Fishery Coast produced 609,759 man or 4,878 lasts (14,634 tons) of salt. In 1805, the salt revenue of Tirunelveli district amounted to 10,341 rupees. These figures are not inconsistent with scattered seventeenth-century data. In 1688, the Dutch were told that 300 lasts or 444.6 tons of salt had been collected along the Ramnad Coast, while the quantity allegedly could be easily increased to 1,000 lasts or 1,482 tons. The same year, they were informed that annually 600 lasts or 889.2 tons could be shipped by indigenous vessels between September and April to the ports of Galle and Colombo.94 Salterns along the Fishery Coast were located, among other places, in the vicinity of Attur/Punnaikayal and Tuticorin. One (high) estimate of 1677 put the annual production of the Punnaikayal saltpans alone at 1,500 lasts or 2,223 tons, which could be acquired for less than 1 rixdollar per last or 3,000 pounds. In 1684, the Dutch had 200 lasts or 296.4 tons of salt waiting for them to be

Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.6.1677; Reimers (ed.), Memoirs of Ryckloff van Goens, p. 236. 93 G. Thambyahpillay, ‘The Salt Industry of Ceylon: A Geographical Appraisal’, The Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies 7, 1 (1964), pp. 73–87, esp. 73–74. 94 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 341v–342r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.8.1688; Idem, f. 354r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688; Stuart, A Manual of the Tinnevelly District, pp. 77, 103, 107, 113, and 143–145; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part I, p. 21; Part IV, p. 131; Part V, pp. 40–42; Appendix C, pp. 146, and 150; Appendix E, p. 164.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 265 picked up at Punnaikayal. In the ‘contract of alliance’ of 1690 with the aranmanai, the Dutch agreed to lease the revenues of the saltpans near Tuticorin for 1,500 pardaus. Considering the current sale value of salt, 18 fanams or 1.8 pardau per last, the saltpans had to produce at least 833 1/3 lasts or 1,235 tons of salt before the Dutch would start making a profit. Two years earlier, in 1688, 270 lasts or 400.1 tons of salt had been purchased at Tuticorin.95 Between 1670–1671 and 1689–1690, the Company exported 8,714 lasts or more than 26 million pounds of salt worth almost 140,000 guilders or an average of 435.7 lasts or 1.3 million pounds worth some 7,000 guilders per year (see Table 16). Apart from local consumption and regional trade overland, the bulk of Dutch (and probably Indian) overseas exports of salt from the Madurai Coast was shipped to Ceylon despite the island’s own natural reserves at Hambantota, Puttalam, the Jaffnapatnam Peninsula, and elsewhere. The amount depended on natural and human factors, such as the quantity of precipitation on Ceylon during the southwest monsoon (June-September). The excessive rainfall associated with depressions and cyclones during this season could literally melt away the salt deposits on the island, while hostile relations between the Dutch and the interior kingdom of Kandy affected demand in the lowlands of Ceylon. Thus, the smallest amount of salt, 75.5 lasts or 111.9 tons, was exported in 1670– 1671 during what one contemporary observer called the ‘greatest war that happened between them [the Dutch and Kandyans] in my time’. In contrast, the Dutch salt trade with Ceylon peaked in 1688–1689 at 760 lasts or 1,126.3 tons following the accession of Vimala Dharma Surya II and the subsequent détente in Dutch-Kandyan relations (see Table 16).96

95 voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 108v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 387v–388r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1684; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 341v–342r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.8.1688. 96 voc 1491, obp 1692, f. 458r, Instr. Pijl aan gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 28.1.1692; R. Knox, An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon, in the East-Indies (London: R. Chiswell, 1681), p. 181. For observations on the saltpans and salt trade on Ceylon: voc 1266, obp 1669, f. 603r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1669; voc 1280, obp 1672, f. 299v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 42v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; voc 1323, obp 1678, f. 666r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.1.1678; voc 906, bub 1681, ff. 926–927, Miss. raden van India aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.10.1681; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 270r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 21.2.1691; Reimers (ed.), Memoirs of Ryckloff van Goens, p. 29; Valentijn, Oud- en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, p. 226.

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Table 16 Quantity and value of Dutch exports of salt from the Madurai Coast, 1669/70–1689/90 (in pounds and guilders)

Financial Quantity Quantity Price per last Total value year (in lasts) (in pounds) (in fanams) (in guilders)

1669–70 n.a. n.a. 18 n.a. 1670–71 75 1/2 226,500 18 1,359 1671–72 337 3/8 1,012,100 18–25 2,176* 1672–73 278 834,000 18 5,004 1673–74 123 369,000 18 2,214 1674–75 514 1,542,000 18 9,252 1675–76 436 1,308,000 18 7,848 1676–77 412 1,236,000 18 7,416 1677–78 527 1,581,000 9 4,743 1678–79 547 1,641,000 9 4,923 1679–80 591 1,773,000 9–18 9,841 1680–81 424 1,272,000 18 7,632 1681–82 589 3/4 1,769,250 18 10,615 1682–83 640 1/4 1,920,750 18 11,524 1683–84 405 1,215,000 18 7,290 1684–85 472 1,416,000 12 5,664 1685–86 173 519,000 18 3,114 1686–87 165 1/2 496,500 18 2,979 1687–88 574 1,722,000 18 10,332 1688–89 760 2,228,000 18 13,680 1689–90 669 9/10 2,009,700 18 12,048 Total 8,714 11/40 26,142,825 139,654*

* All numbers in italics are close approximations based on the actual sale prices of that year. Sources: voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1993r, 1997r, 2000v, and 2005v, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht…, 1.3.1667–30.2.1681; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmans. tot Tuticurin, Manapaar en Alvatt.rij. ingekocht, 1670/71–1689/90; Idem, ff. 649r–652v, Corte aanteekeningh tegen wat prijse de voornaemste coopmansz. hier ter kuste Madure zijn ingekogt, 1669/70–1689/90.

Salt was extracted in various steps by local salt manufacturers (uppalavars or alavars). Each manufacturer owned a number of beds and worked them every day by means of kuli labour. The mineral was harvested between January and October before the onset of the rains with the wet monsoon in September. It subsequently had to be handed over to local officials since salt production was a strictly-guarded and highly lucrative government monopoly, farmed out to

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 267 large and small ‘portfolio capitalists’, adding another strand to the complex intertwining of state and market interests and the symbiotic relationship between statecraft (imârat) and trade (tijârat) in the pre-modern period (see Chapter 1). Thus, salt trade along the Ramnad Coast from the 1670s onward was monopolised by the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, while trade at Punnaikayal and Tuticorin was controlled by local maniyakkarars, such as the Hindu political merchants Karuppa Chitti and Aranga Pillai.97 Salt was shipped by sea as high- volume, low-value ballast, or transported overland by the so-called boieiros or herdsmen and their pack-oxen along with small-scale itinerant salt traders, such as the Nakarattars (nakaram, ‘market town’) from the northern part of present-day Ramnad district, trading salt for items such as wheat, cotton, rice, dry grain, tamarind, cumin seeds, and long peppers. In the seventeenth century, Nakarattar trade expanded rapidly in the wake of the settlement of Kumarappan, a Nakarattar salt trader from Neman village, at the pilgrimage- market town of Palani, and his association with the palaiyakkarar of Vijayagiri and the local Saivite sectarian leader.98

Ray- or Rockfish Skins: Political Barometer I

Though relatively insignificant commodities in a commercial sense, both rayskins and chaya roots were of great symbolic importance in the encounter. In the wake of an exclusive agreement with the Tevar of Ramnad, the so-called ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 (see Chapter 4), the relative degree of its

97 voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 722r, Miss. opperk. Huijsman aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge, 16.11.1674; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 345v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.7.1684; Idem, ff. 387v–388r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1684; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 341v–342r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.8.1688; Idem, f. 437r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.11.1688; voc 1479, obp 1691, f. 406r, Contract van alliantie met de vorst van Madure, 29.7.1690; Idem, f. 418v, Rapp. Hoet, Oosterhoff, en Zwaardecroon wegens de uitstaande schulden ter kuste Madure, 9.12.1690; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 1476–1477, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan koopman Urselings en raad van Tuticurin, 13.8.1691. 98 D.W. Rudner, Caste and Capitalism in Colonial India: The Natturkottai Chettiars (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press, 1994), esp. pp. 55–57; Idem, ‘Religious Gifting and Inland Commerce in Seventeenth-Century South India’, Journal of Asian Studies 46, 2 (1987), pp. 361–379, esp. 363, 365, and 368; M.V.G. Krishna Rao, ‘Salt Industry in the Circars: From 1776–1805’, Journal of the Andhra Historical Society 29, 3/4 (1964), pp. 71–82; Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, V, pp. 249–271.

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observation and the (non-)delivery of these products (along with the chanks) by the Marava ruler to the Company acted as prominent ‘political barometers’ measuring the warming or cooling of current Dutch-Ramnad relations. Living in coastal tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific with sandy bottoms among rocks, ray- or rockfish (Lat., Trygon seption; Trygon sephen; Pastinchus sephen) are closely related to sharks, belonging to the various marine fishes of the order Rajiformes or Batoidei, having cartaliginous skeletons, horizon- tally flattened bodies, and narrow tails. The ‘roggevel’ or skin (tirukkaittol) of the cowtail stingray (tirukkai) was dried and cleaned and subsequently exported to Japan and China, where it was used by furniture makers to polish wood. In Japan it was considered a curiosity to which great powers were attributed and was also used to make shagreen or rough untanned skin for hilts of traditional swords (nihonto) worn by samurai to prevent slipperiness. Apart from the coastal regions of the Gulf of Siam, the prime source of rayskins for the lucrative Japan trade was the east coast of India south of São Tomé and north of Vaippar. Limited quantities were also caught along the Fishery Coast.99 In 1663, it was estimated that Sadraspatnam alone could annually export 2,000–3,000 skins, Tegenampatnam merely a very small quantity, while Naga patnam could provide 4,000–5,000 skins. One year later, in 1664, the Madurai Coast was thought to be able to produce 5,000 skins at 3 3/10 rixdollars per 100 skins. In 1665, another estimate claimed that within two or three years, southern Coromandel could export 15,000–20,000 skins and projected even larger quantities in the more distant future.100 Despite these earlier optimistic assessments, any serious Dutch effort to participate in this trade along the Ramnad and Fishery Coasts had to await the conclusion of an exclusive agreement with the Tevar of Ramnad in 1674. In 1675, exports ‘took off ’ at Nagapatnam in the form of 10 parcels or 3,000 skins worth 500 guilders between March and mid-September, reaching 51 parcels or 15,300 skins with a value of 3,060 guilders in the first eight months following a

99 Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth-Century Thailand, pp. 48, 52, 55–66, and 150. Both Arasaratnam and Raychaudhuri are virtually silent on this item of export. See: Arasaratanam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, p. 103; Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, pp. 176–177. 100 voc 1242, obp 1664, ff. 797r–798v, Memorie Pit aan gouvr. Speelman van Coromandel, 25.6.1663; voc 1246, obp 1665, ff. 839–840, Miss. gouvr. Hustaart en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1664; voc 1254, obp 1666, f. 541, Nadere memorie Speelman voor opperh. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam, 12.5.1665.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 269 price increase in 1678, and 46 parcels or 13,800 skins worth 3,162 guilders in the financial year of 1680–1681.101 During the 15 years between 1675–1676 and 1689–1690, Dutch exports from the Madurai Coast amounted to about 74,540 skins or 248 1/2 parcels with a total value of 50,185 fanams or 16,898 guilders. The annual average amounted to 4,969 skins or 16 1/2 parcels worth 3,345 2/3 fanams or 1,113 guilders. Apart from natural causes, the size of the trade was a function of both political and commercial factors. Not surprisingly, despite a further raise in the price in 1680, exports plummeted during the First Dutch-Ramnad War in 1685 and peaked in its immediate aftermath at 29,400 pieces or 98 parcels valued at 21,168 fanams or 7,064:16 guilders in 1686–1687. Higher prices in the 1680s, however, did lead to overall increasing level of exports (see Table 17). The exclusive agreement with the Tevar notwithstanding, Indian merchants continued to export rockfish skins from the Ramnad Coast to Tegenampatnam and Porto Novo, where prices were higher, and hence to Siam. The sellers’ market allowed for a relatively strong bargaining position of the merchant-middlemen. In 1680, for instance, the Company intimated to these traders that it would only accept skins larger than 1 1/4 cobido or cubit. The suppliers considered this measure an unacceptable innovation, threatening to export all the skins to the north ‘where there was no lack of buyers willing to accept them’. The plan was quickly abandoned.102 The rockfish were caught after January by highly specialised groups of fishermen along the Ramnad and Fishery Coasts, such as the low-caste kamarakkarar Christian Parava and Muslim Labbai communities, referred to in Dutch correspondence with an ill-disguised mixture of compassion and contempt as

101 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 299r, Rapp. Vorwer wegens de toestand van sComps. zaken tot Nagapatnam, 20.12.1675; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 70r–70v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 2.6.1679; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 132v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1680; voc 1369, obp 1682, f. 1426v, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 9.4.1681. 102 voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 141v, Miss. Verwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 18.12.1674; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 211v–212r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 70r–70v, Miss. Verwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 2.6.1679; Idem, ff. 117r–117v, Rapp. Van Rhee van den jegenwoordigen toestant ter custe Madure, 19.10.1679; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 212r–212v, Rapp. Van Rhee van den presenten toestant ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680; Idem, ff. 136v–138r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1680; Idem, ff. 126r–126v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.11.1680; Idem, f. 159v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon 19.12.1680; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 375v–376r, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682.

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Table 17 Quantity and value of rayskins exported by the Dutch from the Madurai Coast, 1674/75–1689/90 (in pieces and guilders)

Financial year Number of skins Price per parcel* Total value (in fanams) (in guilders)

1674–75 n.a. 75 n.a. 1675–76 707 75 15/77 53 1676–77 1,550 66 102 1677–78 900 66 59 1678–79 1,593 62 99 1679–80 300 51 17 1680–81 590 100 66 1681–82 600** 180 122 1682–83 900 145 147 1683–84 6,200 205 1,430 1684–85 14,400 216 3,499 1685–86 1,800*** 130 263 1686–87 29,400 216 7,144 1687–88 9,000 222 2,248 1688–89 1,800 222 450 1689–90 4,800 222 1,199 Total 74,540** 16,898

* 1 parcel = 300 pieces. ** All numbers in italics are close approximations. *** This small number was the direct result of the First Dutch-Ramnad War of 1685. Sources: voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1990r–2006r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht…, 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmans. tot Tuticurin, Manapaar en Alvatt.rij. zijn ingekocht, 30.7.1690; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 649r–652v, Corte aanteekeningh tegen wat prijse de voornaemste coopmansz. hier ter kuste Madure zijn ingekogt, 1669/70–1689/90.

‘poor small folk’. A 1688 report distinguished, apart from the pearl and chank fisheries, the following fisheries at Tuticorin: ‘kalavai [reef cod, grouper, esp. spinycheek grouper, Lat., Epinephelus diacanthus]103 and vellai vavval [white pomfret, Lat., Pampus argenteus] by thonis outside the islands’, ‘thonis who sail for the fishery called nakkumin’ [Indian sole, Lat., Pleuronectidae solea, or spiny

103 An alternate meaning suggested by Abirami Pillai for kalavai is ‘a body of running water moving to a lower level in a channel on land where one can fish and at certain times catch amazing fishes’. Personal email communication 3 August 2012.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 271 turbot, Lat., Psettodes erumie], ‘nets which are hauled on shore’, ‘fishing with kattumarans’, ‘manchuas in the fishery called kalankatti’ [a type of fishing net used in shallow waters], and ‘fishers of porpoises [probably including both various species of turtles and one species of porpoise, the sea cow, Lat. Dugong dugon]’.104 In 1674, a Dutch observer commented that the number of rockfish nets (Dutch, roggenetten; Tamil, tirukkai valai) around Nagapatnam had declined from 100 during the Portuguese period (until 1658) to 30 at present, while reportedly ‘many fishermen’ living off the rockfish were residing along the coast between Point Calimere and Rameswaram. Four pattangattins or headmen were subsequently appointed to collect the skins from these fishermen.105 Collection along the Ramnad Coast was left to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, who had farmed the local monopoly of rayskins from the 1670s onward. In July 1683, the Periya Tambi offered to deliver 50 parcels of cleaned and dried rockfish skins from Adirampatnam at Nagapatnam at 12 pagodas or 24 rixdollars, while promising that another 40 parcels would be ready by January 1684. Two years later, in 1685, the offer was repeated by two of his brothers, Abd al-Qadr and Mirza Pillai Maraikkayar, informing the Dutch 30 parcels were ready for pickup at Vedalai and another 20 at Tondi. In 1688, the Kayalpatnam Muslim Mahmud Nayinar Pillai, a close business associate of the Periya Tambi, agreed to deliver all rockfish skins between Adirampatnam and the Coleroon River up to 50–150 parcels. Rockfish skins along the Madurai Coast were collected via the Company’s indigenous merchants, such as Adam Pillai and Sulayman Mahmet at Kayalpatnam.106

104 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 318r–318v, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.9.1684; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 399r–399v, Notitie van de gereghtigheden die wegens de magauri en het hospitael op Tutucurijn bij de E. Comp. voor verpagting wert getrocken…, 11.12.1688. See also: Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, pp. 67–68. See: A.K. Kumaraguru, V. Edwin Joseph, N. Marimuthu, and J. Jerald Wilson, ‘Scientific Information on Gulf of Mannar—A Bibiliography’, Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere Reserve Trust, Ramanathapuram, and Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, 2006, http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/6766/1/ Bibliography.pdf (accessed: 31 May 2015). 105 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 650r–650v, Instr. superint. Van Goens aan opperh. Verwer en Van Rhee tot Nagapatnam, 30.9.1674; Idem, ff. 404r–404v, Miss. Verwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 12.11.1674. 106 voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 565v–566r, Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtinge aan het hof van den vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683; voc 1384, obp 1684, f. 162r, Miss. gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 16.9.1683; voc 1396, obp 1685,

300854 272 chapter 3

Chaya or Dye Roots: Political Barometer II

Like the rayskin, the chaya root (Lat., Oldenlandia umbellata) may have been pocket money in an economic sense. Nevertheless, it did figure prominently in the relations between the Dutch and the Tevar of Ramnad in the wake of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674. A member of the family of Cinchonaceae, the hardy plant grows on calcareous soils or ‘sandy dunes’ along the water line. The root of the plant (shayaver, ‘colour root’) produces a red dye, which was used in dyeing locally produced textiles, such as muris and beathilhas.107 Exhibiting the same horticultural-scientific interests displayed in the botanic epic Hortus Malabaricus (published between 1678 and 1693), Commissioner General Van Rheede in 1688 provided a detailed description of the plant and the production of red paint from its roots:

The colours used to paint or dye the cotton textiles are red, blue, green, purple, and black, which are derived from numerous roots and barks. The most beautiful is called shayaver, a bush as large as the common heather with small, elongated leaves divided into many small branches. It bears tiny purplewhite flowers with four pointy petals whose small calyxes enclose numerous small, elongated flatround seeds. They grow along the east and north coast of the island of Ceylon, all along Madurai and the

f. 318v, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.9.1684; voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1351v–1352r, Notulen gehouden door Welter op Killekare, 5.10.1685; voc 1454, obp 1689, f. 1011r, Miss. commt. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.8.1688; voc 1479, obp 1691, f. 422r, Ordonn. comms. Van Rheede tot het exami- neren van de Moorse Seliman en de gewezen admin. Caperman rakende de inkoop der roggevellen, 5.1.1691; Idem, ff. 423r–423v, Rapp. Hoet, Van der Duijn en Zwaardecroon aan comms. Van Rheede wegens den inkoop der roggevellen ter custe Madure, 6.1.1691. 107 The following is almost completely based on Company sources. For descriptions of dyeing techniques involving chaya roots: voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 480r–481r, Kort vertoog Van Dielen vant gebruijck der saijewortelen in de roodververij, 1684; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 110v et seq., Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 1.12.1688; voc 1524, obp 1694, ff. 1111r–1112r, Korte aanwijzing commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam van de zaijewortelen die int commandement Jaffnapatnam vallen, 12.11.1693; S. Anthonisz (ed.), Memoir of Thomas van Rhee, Governor and Director of Ceylon: For His Successor Gerrit de Heere, 1697 (Colombo: H.C. Cottle, Government Printer, 1915), pp. 15–18, and 37. See also: Van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oost-Indische Compagnie, II, ii, pp. 205–210; D. Havart, Op- en Ondergang van Coromandel, 3 parts (Amsterdam: J. ten Hoorn, 1693), III, pp. 13–14; J.H. Hofenk de Graaff, ‘De Techniek van Sits en Katoendruk’, in: Hartkamp-Jonxis (ed.), Sits, pp. 23–29. For an illustration of the plant, see: Le Gobien (ed.), Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses, 14, p. 164.

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offshore islands, and also on Coromandel, though those of Mannaar are the best. Only the roots of this small plant, again not unlike that of the roots of heather, are used.108

As a dye, it competed with the ruinas root (tunkamuttu, tungamuste, muttakacu), the root of a grass (Lat., Cyperus juncifolius) from western India, Persia, and Arabia. Probably a member of the Rubia (madder) family, the ruinas root was imported overland via Surat, the lands of the Zamorin of Calicut and Bangalore to southern Coromandel. Inferior substitutes used in the ‘red painting’, reportedly ‘more suited to ruin the good dye and to swindle the people’, were sappanwood (‘a kind of Brasilwood’), Kalatore or red sandalwood, and the bark of the ‘Pattasjaja’ tree. Sappanwood (shappu, ‘red wood’, cappanki; Lat., Caesalpina sappan) came from Malabar, the Deccan, and the Malay Peninsula; Kalatore or red sandalwood (kucantanam, calliyam, ciwappuccantanam; Lat., Pterocarpus santalinus) from the Coromandel Coast, most notably southern Andhra Pradesh; and the bark of the bark cloth or ‘Pattasjaja’ tree (pattai, ‘bark of a tree’; shaya, chaya ‘colour’; Lat., Antiaris toxicaria), a tree in the mulberry and fig family widely distributed throughout tropical Asia and elsewhere, the bark of which contains a high concentration of tannins used in traditional clothes dyeing and paints, ‘without redeeming quality and lacking durability’.109 Dutch Company officials divided the local chaya roots into three qualities: the best ‘dye roots’ were to be found on the islands of Karai Tivu (Amsterdam) and Nedun Tivu (Delft) off the Jaffna Peninsula. The middling variety grew on the island of Mannaar itself, various places on the islands, and in the Wanni (Vanni) south of the Jaffna Peninsula in northern Ceylon.110 The poorest chaya

108 voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 110v–11r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 1.12.1688. 109 voc 1254, obp 1666, f. 594r, Advies van de raadspersonen tot Nagapatnam betr. de negotie en mesnagie aldaar voorgesteld, 7.4.1665; voc 1361, obp 1681, f. 359r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.2.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 148r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1680; voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 505v, Miss. gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 26.9.1682; Idem, ff. 549r, and 558v, Miss. gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 15.10.1682; voc 1384, obp 1684, ff. 257r–258r, Miss. gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 10.10.1683; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 17r–17v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 110v–112r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 1.12.1688. 110 The Wanni (Vanni) chieftaincies of the north-central and eastern parts of the dry zone of Ceylon ruled by tributary feudal chiefs called Vanniyar emerged in the fourteenth century and were located between the kingdoms of Jaffna and Kotte. See: K. Indrapala, ‘The Origin of the Tamil Vanni Chieftaincies of Ceylon’, Ceylon Journal of the Humanities 1, 2 (1970),

300854 274 chapter 3 was gathered in the district of Jaffnapatnam (‘provincial chaya’ or provin- tiezaaije) and on the twenty-one small islands off the Fishery and Ramnad Coasts between Tuticorin and Rameswaram divided into four groups, namely Tuticorin, Vembar, Kilakkarai, and Mandapam, due to the proximity of islands to these locations. The 1699 Toorzee map printed in this volume (see Map 4) has 24 named islands between Tuticorin and Ramnad. The current twenty-one islands can be divided into four clusters consisting of the Tuticorin group (4 islands): Van Tivu (Island), Koswari Tivu or Kasuwar Island, Karia Shuli Tivu or Karaichalli Island, and Vilangu Shuli Tivu or Vilanguchalli Island; the Vembar group (3 islands): Uppu Tanni Tivu or Salt Water Island, Puluvunnichalli Tivu or Pulvinichalli Island, and Nalla Tanni Tivu or Fresh Water Island; the Kilakkarai group (7 islands): Anaipar Tivu (Island), Vallimunai Tivu or Palliyarmunai Island, Poovarasanpatti Tivu (Island), Appa Tivu (Island), Thalaiyari Tivu or Talairi Island, Valai Tivu (Island), and Mulli Tivu (Island); and: the Mandapam group (7 islands): Muyal Tivu or Hare Island, Manoli Tivu (Island), Manoliputti Tivu (Island), Poomarichan Tivu or Pumorichan Island, Pullivasal Tivu or Mosque Island, Krusadai Tivu or Kurusadai Island, and Shingle Tivu (Island).111 In October 1690, for instance, during an inspection by local voc personnel of Nalla Tanni Tevu or Fresh Water Island (Verswatereiland), the second-largest (272 acres or 110 hectares) and only offshore island with permanent fresh water supplies 6 miles from Vembar, it was reported that ‘on the southeastern side of the island is a sizable plain covered for the greater part with an abundance of chaya roots ready to be harvested, while the east side of this island appears to be somewhat fertile as well’.112

pp. 111–140; S. Pathmanathan, ‘Feudal Polity in Medieval Ceylon: An Examination of the Chieftaincies of the Vanni’, Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies, n.s., 11, 2 (1972), pp. 118–130; K.M. de Silva, A History of Sri Lanka (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1981), pp. 63, 64, 82, 84–85, 87–88, 99, 145, 172–173, 183, 213, 408, and 470. 111 A number of useful studies were done in the wake of the creation of the Gulf of Mannar Marine Biosphere Reserve (gommbre), India’s first marine biosphere reserve, by the government of India and the state of Tamil Nadu in 1989. See: T. Usha et al., ‘Resources Information System for Gulf of Mannar (India)’, Government of India, Department of Ocean Development, Integrated Coastal and Marine Area Management Project Directorate, Chennai, April 2001, www.icmam,gov.in/GOM/PDF(accessed: 31 May 2015). 112 voc 1479, obp 1691, f. 427r, Rapp. Van Buren, Pluijmert, en Karstens wegens de situatie van het Verswatereiland, 23.10.1690. See also: voc 1254, obp 1666, f. 594, Advies van de raadspersonen tot Nagapatnam betr. de negotie, 7.4.1665; Idem, ff. 1135, 1139, and 1154, Memorie commr. Paviljoen van Jaffnapatnam aan Jorefaes Vosch, 19.9.1665; voc 1364, obp 1682, f. 63r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; voc 1478, obp 1691, f. 1495,

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If not the highest quality, Mannaar provided the greatest quantity of chaya roots. In 1665, for instance, it was estimated that Mannaar alone could annually produce more than 150,000 pounds (310 bahar) of chaya roots. In the financial year 1678–1679, 64 bahar (30,720 pounds) of Jaffnapatnam chaya was sold locally at Jaffna. In 1686, Commander Cornelis van der Duijn of Jaffnapatnam observed that merely 450 bahar (216,000 pounds) of Mannaar and Jaffna chaya had been delivered to the Company due to the laziness of the diggers. Based on a four-hour-workday, he calculated that in three months they should have been able to collect 558 bahar (267,840 pounds). Governor Pijl of Ceylon, however, reprimanded Van der Duijn and rejected his calculations, considering them ‘as useful as the fifth wheel on the wagon’. The Ceylon governor blamed the great drought and subsequent lack of chaya roots as the main cause of the current shortage. In 1689, 114 3/4 bahar (55,080 pounds) of chaya were sent to Coromandel. In 1690, however, no more than 35 bahar of 600 pounds or a total of 21,000 pounds was harvested at Mannaar. In 1693, a total of 87 1/2 bahar or 42,000 pounds was collected at Mannaar and Jaffnapatnam, while in 1697 the average quantity of roots delivered to the Company reportedly was between 80 and 90 bahar or 38,400–43,200 pounds.113 Smaller quantities of third-grade chaya roots were collected on the islands along the Madurai Coast. In the first decade following the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674, granting the Company the exclusive right to harvest roots from the Ramnad Coast with the exception of Rameswaram, quantities collected by the Dutch ranged between 2,300 pounds or 4.8 bahar (1678–1679) and 13,580 pounds or 28.3 bahar (1682–1683). The bulk of the chaya during this period was gathered on the islands along the Fishery Coast since the chaya from the islands along the Ramnad Coast, such as Musal Tivu and Valai Tivu, was

Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 22.8.1691; voc 1491, obp 1692, ff. 393r–393v, and 396v–397v, Instr. Pijl aan gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 28.1.1692; voc 1524, obp 1694, ff. 1111r–1112r, Korte aanwijzing commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam van de zaijewortelen, 12.11.1693. 113 voc 1252, obp 1666, f. 1121, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 29.6.1665; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 180r, Extract uijt de Ceijlonse negotieboeken, 1.3.1678– 30.2.1679; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 460r–466v, Rapp. commr. Van der Duijn en 1ste onderk. Schaets van sijne bevindinge in de gedane visite van Mannaar, 3.12.1686; Idem, ff. 148v–152r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687; voc 1477, obp 1691, f. 37v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 23.12.1689; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 434r, Rapp. commr. Blom van Jaffnapatnam aan comms. Van Rheede, 21.12.1690; Idem, f. 219v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 21.2.1691; voc 1524, obp 1694, f. 1111r, Korte aanwijzing commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam van de zaijewortelen die int commandement vallen, 12.11.1693; Anthonisz (ed.), Memoir of Thomas van Rhee, p. 16.

300854 276 chapter 3 illegally harvested and carried away in violation of the treaty. No figures are available for 1684–1685 and 1685–1686, but the quantities collected must have been very limited due to the First Dutch-Ramnad War of 1685. Efforts to collect the chaya roots along the Madurai Coast were resumed in the late 1680s (20,112 pounds in 1688–1689 and 25,436 pounds in 1689–1690) in the wake of the arrival of the Dutch Commissioner General Van Rheede and a number of poor harvests on Jaffna and Mannaar, though the Second Dutch-Ramnad War of 1690 must have had a negative effect on the amount of chaya roots collected in 1690–1691.114 Between 1676–1677 and 1693–1694, for the years that we have data available, the Dutch exported a total of 112,264 pounds of chaya roots from the Madurai Coast, including 53,955 pounds of purchased and 58,309 pounds of received roots. The annual average of 6,237 pounds consisted of 2,998 pounds of purchased and 3,239 pounds of received chaya. The total value of purchased chaya roots was about 151,775 guilders or 8,432 guilders per annum (see Table 18). Various steps were taken in order to guarantee a sufficient ‘crop’ of dye roots. First, since the plant was not cultivated, arable lands where the chaya was growing could not be ploughed before its roots had been gathered. Second, the roots were not be harvested before the month of June when the seeds of the plant had ripened. Third, taking into consideration the prevailing winds during a particular monsoon, the chaya roots growing on the north side of the sandy dunes were to be collected before the onset of the southwest monsoon would bury them with blowing sand. These measures notwithstanding, local soil and weather conditions determined the actual harvest time and crop volume. On Mannaar, the roots were harvested between January, after most of the rains had fallen, and September or as long as roots could be found. Roots were to be retrieved first from loamy and clayey soils softened by precipitation before the subsequent dry period would make them hard as brick. Only then were their counterparts on sandy soils to be harvested. In the district of Jaffnapatnam, roots were gathered between September or October, following the first rains, and the month of December.115

114 voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 367v–368r, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1396, obp 1405, f. 159r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.3.1684; Idem, f. 16v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684. 115 voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 65r–65v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; voc 912, bub 1685, f. 716, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.9.1685; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 150r–150v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 435v, Rapp. Blom aan comms. Van Rhee, 21.12.1690; voc 1491, obp 1692, ff. 393r–394r, Instr. Pijl aan gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 28.1.1692; voc 1524, obp

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Table 18 Quantity and value of chaya roots received and purchased by the Dutch on the Madurai Coast, 1676/77–1693/94 (in pounds and guilders)

Financial Purchased Price per Value Received** Total quantity year chaya roots man* fanams purchased chaya roots (pounds) (pounds) (guilders) (pounds)

1676–77 1,344 6.5*** 2,621*** 2,502 3,846 1677–78 1,392 6.5 2,714 1,392 2,784 1678–79 1,150 7 2,415 1,150 2,300 1679–80 1,635 8 4,415 1,635 3,270 1680–81 2,700 10 9,113 2,700 5,400 1681–82 3,477 8 9,388 6,673 10,150 1682–83 6,740 8 18,198 6,740 13,480 1683–84 3,000 10 10,125 3,000 6,000 1684–85 n.a. 10 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1685–86 n.a. 10 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1686–87 5,040 10 17,010 5,040 10,080 1687–88 n.a. 10 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1688–89 10,056 8 27,151 10,056 20,112 1689–90 12,718 8 34,339 12,718 25,436 1690–91 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 1691–92 n.a. 10 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1692–93 2,843 9 8,636 2,843 5,686 1693–94 1,860 9 5,650 1,860 3,720 Total 53,955 151,775 58,309 112,264

* 1 man = 24 pounds. ** Until 1679 the Company received three-fifths of the chaya harvest gratis from the low-caste Kadaiyar diggers as a servitude; after 1679 the Company’s share was reduced to one-half by Chief Van Rhee of Tuticorin. For some years only the total quantity received and purchased by the Company is available. Since the 50–50 formula was still in place in 1692–1693, it has been inferred that half of the total quantity in these years was received gratis and the other half purchased from the diggers. *** All numbers in italics are close approximations. Sources: voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 368r, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmans. tot Tuticurin, Manapaar, en Alvatt.rij. ingekocht, 30.7.1690; Idem, ff. 649r–652v, Corte aanteekeningh tegen wat prijse de voornaemste coopmansz. hier ter kuste Madure zijn ingekogt, 1669/70–1689/90; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 1465–1466, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan koopman Urselings en raad van Tuticurin, 13.8.1691; voc 1506, obp 1693, f. 853v, Dagreg. gouvr. Van Rhee op de voijagie naar Tuticurin, 12.8–8.9.1692; voc 1525, obp 1694, f. 1177r, Kort relaas Bergaigne der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter kuste Madure, 30.11.1693.

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The practice of cleaning, drying, and packing of the roots for shipment was the task of the low-caste Kadaiyars, a Christian subdivision of the Pallars living along the Ramnad and Madurai Coasts and at Mannaar.116 The Mannaar Kadaiyars performed these services for eight months of the year as a servitude (uriyam service) to the Company. Contemporary Dutch officials described the Kadaiyars as ‘those poor people, who are considered slaves by the Hon. Company, merely enjoying a meagre compensation for their labour’ or ‘the poorest of all the inhabitants’, eager to escape their obligations and flee to the Wanni. As a result, the male population of Kadaiyars at Mannaar decreased gradually from 186 in 1686 and 163 in 1690 to 137 in 1693. At the Madurai Coast, the chaya diggers until 1679 had to hand over three-fifths of the quantity of roots harvested gratis to the Company, while the other half was at their disposal (though in general purchased from them by the Dutch). In order to increase the amount collected, the Kadaiyar share was increased in 1679 to one-half and the price paid for the other half raised simultaneously. This arrangement was still in place at the end of our period.117

Livestock: Cows, Horses, Oxen, and Sheep

Cattle were raised in large numbers in the wet zone areas with extensive rice fields around Trichinopoly and Madurai, and on the semi-arid marginal lands of Tamil Nadu with abundant pastures, such as Kongunad (the dry tracts of modern Salem and Coimbatore districts), the Kallar-dominated Pudukkottai tract, which formed a frontier between Madurai and Tanjore, the Marava plains country of Ramnad and Sivagangai to the north of the Tambraparni, and the

1694, ff. 1101r–1103v, Sommier Commr. Blom wegens de saijegraverij opt eiland Mannaar, 25.4.1693; Anthonisz (ed.), Memoir of Thomas van Rhee, p. 16. 116 Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, III, p. 6. 117 voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 368r, Memorie Van Rhee voor de Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 24v–25r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.2.1686; Idem, ff. 460r–463v, and 466r–466v, Rapp. Van der Duijn en Schaets in de gedane visitie van Mannaar, 3.12.1686; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 426v–427r, and 434r–437r, Rapp. Blom aan comms. Van Rheede, 21.12.1690; Idem, ff. 219v–220r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 21.2.1691; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 1391–1392, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan provl. opperk. Urselings en raad van Tuticurin, 7.3.1691; voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 835v, and 837r–837v, Dagreg. gouvr. Van Rhee van Ceijlon, 12.8–8.9.1692; voc 1524, obp 1694, f. 1106r, Sommier Blom wegens de saijegraverij opt eiland Mannaar, 25.4.1693; Anthonisz (ed.), Memoir of Thomas van Rhee, p. 37.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 279 sandy teri tracts along the coast.118 Scrub skirting the paddy fields provided some grazing for goats, cattle, and water buffalo in the wet zone. Natural vegetation on the sandy, rocky ground of the dry zone must have been scarce in the seventeenth century. In addition to fodder grains grown on high ground outside the reach of irrigation, paddy cultivation produced low-quality straw in large quantities for cattle, and goats grazed on field stubble after every harvest, dropping manure as they moved along.119 As we have seen in the previous chapter, these cattle-keeping plainsmen enjoyed an ambiguous reputation of ‘bandits’ and ‘kings’ among the peoples of the settled wet-zone agriculture. The ancient Tamil poem, the Kalittokai (4th– 6th c. c.e.), depicts the ‘blood-thirsty Maravas’ as a people with ‘strong limbs and hardy frames and fierce-looking like tigers, wearing long and curled locks of hair,…, armed with the bow bound with leather, ever ready to injure others, shoot their arrows at poor and helpless travellers, from whom they can rob nothing…’. One Dutch observer painted a strikingly similar picture many centuries later in 1675, calling the Maravas ‘a rough, robust, and uncivilised people, more inclined toward robbery than toward labour and the promotion of the cultivation of their own lands and places’.120 The local livestock consisted of the Indian ox or large zebu (Lat., Bos Indicus), distinguished by its prominent hump and large dewlap, the domestic buffalo (Lat., Bos Bubalus domesticus), the ordinary domestic goat (Lat., Capra Hircus), the common hairy South Indian sheep, and domesticated pigs. In Tamil Nadu there was a great diversity of great, secondary, and local races with differing physical characteristics and economic value evolving naturally through adaptation to agro-ecological conditions, though to a limited extent there has been selection for specific needs. A large proportion of livestock, therefore, were of non-descript or mixed breeds.121 Oxen and buffaloes were used in agriculture

118 E. Adiceam, ‘Le Cheptel Bovin du Tamilnad et Son Utilisation’, Bulletin de l’École Française d’Etrême-Orient 61 (1974), 77–124; F.J. Richards, ‘Cattle Breeding in the Salem District’, Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society 4, 3 (1913), pp. 103–108. On the Kallars and Maravas, two members of the ‘family of three’ (mukkulattar), see: L. Dumont, Une Sous-Caste de l’Inde du Sud: Organisation et Religion des Pramalai Kallar (Paris and The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1957), pp. 5–7; Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 72–73, 256–268, and passim. 119 Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, p. 61. 120 V. Kanakasabhai, The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago (Tinnevelly: Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society, 1965), pp. 42–43; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 322v, Rapp. opperk. Verwer wegens de toestand van sComps zaken tot Nagapatnam, 20.12.1675. 121 Regional sheep breeds include Mecheri in Coimbatore district; Kilakarsal in Ramanatha puram, Madurai, and Thanjavur districts; Coimbatore in Coimbatore and Madurai districts and bordering areas of Kerala and Karnataka; Nilgiri in Nilgiri Hills; Ramnad White

300854 280 chapter 3 and for transportation, and raised for alimentation (meat and milk) and industrial purposes (leather, skins, and other secondary products).122 Horses, used exclusively for military purposes, could also be found in the region, though only sparingly and they tended to be small and weak, derogato- rily described in Dutch sources as ‘small horses’, preference being given to their equistrine counterparts imported from Aceh and Persia. Indeed, with some notable exceptions, the overall quality of livestock was poor, due to the local climate, deficient pasture, and absence of systematic breeding or selection of stock techniques. Combined with local conditions, these factors accounted for the endemic nature of epizootic diseases or murrain (adappam), which could ravage herds and flocks, particularly in the hot season between April and June. In the nineteenth century, the British distinguished no less than seventeen forms of various highly infectious and malignant diseases among Madurai cattle, and four among local sheep. Mortality rates among livestock were, therefore, very high. In 1667, for instance, more than 200 of the 2,000 oxen bought and bartered by the Company at the Ramnad Coast died before even reaching Negombo and Colombo. Two years later, in 1669, an endemic disease decimated the livestock population of Mannaar, killing more than 1,100 buffaloes along with smaller cattle. Finally, of the first 500 oxen delivered at Adirampatnam by the Tevar in 1676 allegedly hardly 100 survived. These rampant diseases and the overall poor quality of livestock fed Dutch suspicions that they were supplied by the Maravas with inferior animals. In 1683, the Company’s kanakkapillai or indigenous bookkeeper at Adirampatnam was therefore instructed that if the animals received from the Tevar were of poor quality and little value, they should be politely refused and the Marava ruler duly informed ‘that these animals were useless and that we would rather receive none whatsoever since we would be unable to perform our necessary tasks with them’.123

in Ramnad district and adjoining areas of Tirunelveli district; Tiruchy Black in Tiruchy district, South Arcot, Salem, North Arcot, and Dharampuri districts. See: R.M. Acharya, Sheep and Goat Breeds of India (Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 1982). See: http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/X6532E/X6532E00.htm#TOC (accessed: 28 June 2012). 122 For an elaborate discussion of the great, secondary, and local races of oxen and buffaloes in Tamil Nadu, see: Adiceam, ‘Le Cheptel Bovin du Tamilnad’, pp. 84–90. 123 voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 22v–23r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 17.1.1667; voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 498v, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1667; voc 1265, obp 1668, f. 907v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.8.1667; voc 891, bub 1667, ff. 579–580, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.9.1667; voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 42v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van

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Although there are no reliable contemporary data regarding the actual number of cattle and livestock raised in the region, in 1844–1845 Madurai district had 125,866 draught cattle, 171,567 cows, 54,399 she-buffaloes, and 414,760 sheep, while in 1876–1877 Tirunelveli district had 303,157 draught cattle, 186,183 cows, 83,414 she-buffaloes, and 1.14 million heads of sheep.124 Livestock was traded by the thousands at local weekly markets (cantai, santhai) and during regional annual fairs, coinciding normally with religious festivals attracting large crowds of people. The largest cattle fairs were at Madurai during the twelve-day festival of Cittirai (Chaitra) linked with the Saivite Minaksi-Sundaresvarar Temple in mid-April/mid-May and at Sankarankovil near Tirunelveli during the twelve-day fair of Ati (Adi) Thavasu associated with the Saivite Gomathi Ambal Temple in mid-July/mid-August. Cattle merchants transported the animals along organised circuits, originating in the great centres of production and breeding, such as Kangayam in Kongunad country in western Tamil Nadu.125 In addition to the nineteenth-century figures presented above, we do have some contemporary data on Madurai livestock exported overseas to Ceylon. Exports to Dutch-controlled coastal areas were associated with the so-called ‘agricultural plan’ of the imperialist faction under Van Goens Senior aimed in the 1660s and early 1670s at making the Ceylon government a self-sufficient settlement colony. At the same time, livestock exports to the interior kingdom of Kandy continued as an integral part of the ‘traditional’ Indo-Ceylon trade. There were three ways of exporting cattle (especially cows, plough oxen, and pack bullocks) from Madurai to the Dutch-controlled Ceylon littoral and

Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1670; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 489v, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 19.11.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 495r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon aan provl. opperh. Van Rhee van Nagapatnam, 12.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 47r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 870r, Notulen van de onderhandelingen tussen commt. Huijsman en Teuvers gezant Maniapulle Aijen, 4.7.1676; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part I, pp. 97–100; Part II, pp. 91–92. 124 Nelson, The Madura Country, Appendix C, p. 140; Stuart, A Manual of the Tinnevelly District, App. 6 and 7, pp. 177–178. Madurai district consisted of the Tirumanagalam, Madurai, Melur, Periyakulam, Dindigul, and Palani taluks, and the Ramnad, Sivagangai, and Sitthanenthal zamindaris; Tirunelveli district consisted of Srivilliputtur, Sankaran koyil, Tenkasi, Ambasamudram, Nanguneri, Ottapidaram, Tenkarai, Sattur, and Tinnevelly taluks. For comprehensive figures of the bovine population of Tamil Nadu in 1996: Adiceam, ‘Le Cheptel Bovin du Tamilnad’, p. 81. 125 For a discussion of the cattle markets and circuits, see: Adiceam, ‘Le Cheptel Bovin du Tamilnad’, pp. 91–93. Adiceam provides extensive lists of the principal cattle markets and cattle fairs in Tamil Nadu.

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Kandyan uplands. The first, via incidental, high-profile transactions, was part of Ramnad-Dutch diplomatic relations. The so-called ‘fraternal friendship’ was accompanied and solidified by the large-scale reciprocal ‘gifting’ of cattle, partly against cash (3–4 rixdollars per head) and partly in barter for tusked elephants and Persian horses. In 1661–1662, for instance, the Dutch purchased 1,000 oxen from the Marava ruler through the intercession of the mudaliyar of Negombo, Salvador Pereira. The attempt to acquire another 1,000 head in exchange for a tusked elephant failed since the envoys of the Tevar insisted on a larger animal than the Company was prepared to offer. Five years later, in 1666–1667, Pereira once more travelled to Ramnad, buying 1,000 oxen for 3–4 rixdollars each, while the Tevar agreed to deliver another 1,000 in exchange for a tusked elephant and a Persian horse. As a byproduct of the ‘advantageous contract’ of September 1674, the Company in 1675–1676 negotiated to receive 2,000 oxen in exchange for a tusked elephant, a Persian horse, and a loan of 6,300 rixdollars.126 Second, Ramnad livestock were regularly exported via the Madurai Coast having been purchased by local Company personnel as part of routine business operations. Between 1670–1671 and 1689–1690 the Dutch exported 5,357 sheep, 797 cows and oxen, 84 pigs, and 18 horses from the Madurai Coast (see Table 19). As mentioned before, Dutch interest in the cattle trade flourished in the 1660s (for which unfortunately no data are available) and early 1670s. The

126 voc 1234, obp 1662, ff. 124v–125v, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 5.4.1661; voc 1239, obp 1663, f. 1187r, Resol. comms. Van Goens, gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon, 19.10.1662; voc 1244, obp 1664, f. 2152r, Dagreg. van Colombo, 2.2.1663; Idem, ff. 2160v–2161r, Dagreg. van Colombo, 3.3.1663; voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 500v–501r, Rapp. Van der Dussen en De Saint-Martin wegens de visite tot Jaffnapatnam, 4.10.1666; Idem, f. 166v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.11.1666; Idem, ff. 22v–23r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 17.1.1667; voc 1261, obp 1668, f. 540v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 10.6.1667; voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 498v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1667; voc 1265, obp 1668, f. 907v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.8.1667; voc 891, bub 1667, ff. 579–580, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.9.1667; voc 1313, obp 1676, f. 356v, Miss. Verwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 30.4.1675; voc 899, bub 1675, f. 475, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 4.11.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 489v, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 19.11.1675; Idem, f. 495r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan provl. opperh. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam, 14.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 47r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 870r, Notulen van de onderhandelingen tussen Huijsman en Maniapulle Aijen, 4.7.1676; Idem, f. 310r, Miss. Verwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 3.11.1676.

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Table 19 Quantity of livestock (cows, oxen, horses, pigs, and sheep) exported by the Dutch from the Madurai Coast, 1670/71–1689/90

Financial Cows Oxen Horses Pigs Sheep year

1670–71 40 6 1 0 0 1671–72 0 167 8 84 0 1672–73 12 124 2 0 5,357 1673–74 0 332 1 0 0 1674–75 0 0 0 0 0 1675–76 0 0 2 0 0 1676–77 0 0 0 0 0 1677–78 0 12 0 0 0 1678–79 0 0 0 0 0 1679–80 0 0 0 0 0 1680–81 0 0 0 0 0 1681–82 67* 0 0 0 0 1682–83 37* 0 0 0 0 1683–84 0 0 0 0 0 1684–85 0 0 0 0 0 1685–86 0 0 1 0 0 1686–87 0 0 3 0 0 1687–88 0 0 0 0 0 1688–89 0 0 0 0 0 1689–90 0 0 0 0 0 Total 156 641 18 84 5,357

* Cows and oxen (ossen- en coebeesten) combined. Source: voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmans. tot Tuticurin, Manapaar, Alvatt.rij. ingekocht, 1670/1671–1689/1690. largest numbers of cattle and other livestock traded at the Madurai Coast were 40 cows (1670–1671), 84 pigs and 8 horses (1671–1672), 5,357 sheep (1672–1673), and 332 oxen (1673–1674). The local breed of small horses was deemed inferior and unfit to be of service on Ceylon. Efforts in the 1690s to breed horses on the Jaffnapatnam islands proved equally unsuccessful.127

127 voc 1162, obp 1647, f. 271v, Miss. gouvr. Maetsuijcker van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1647; voc 1165, obp 1648, ff. 88r–88v, Miss. gouvr. Maetsuijcker van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.4.1647; Anthonisz (ed.), Memoir of Thomas van Rhee, p. 15.

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The third and most significant way of exporting cattle was via the Indo- Ceylon trade from Ramnad ports, such as Adirampatnam and Tondi, to various Ceylon destinations on the east and west coast. In 1665, Adirampatnam, Tondi, and other Ramnad ports reportedly exported nothing of importance except for a ‘number of cows’ and some coarse textiles to Ceylon ports, such as Puttalam, Kalpitiya, Mannaar, Jaffna, Kottiyar, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa. In 1672, however, imperialist Company assessments were more positive, observing that a ‘large multitude of plough-oxen, cows, sheep, and many other necessities’ were exported from the lands of the Tevar to Ceylon. The most insightful com- ment on the size of the Indo-Ceylon livestock trade was made in the wake of the establishment of a Dutch factory at Adirampatnam (a by-product of the ‘advantageous contract’) in 1674. Commander Pieter Vorwer of Nagapatnam could report the next year in 1675: ‘These lands [the bay north of Adam’s Bridge to Adirampatnam] are abundant and full of horned cattle, at least 2, 3, and 4,000 of which are annually exported by the people of the Tevar to Kalpitiya on Ceylon in exchange for arecanuts from the upland Ceylonese’.128 Unfortunately, the collapse of the imperialist ‘agricultural concept’ in the mid-1670s led to a concomittant decline of interest in the livestock trade in general. The failure of the scheme was the result of natural and human conditions, such as the variability of rainfall in Ceylon along the northwest coast and the Jaffna Peninsula (both part of the lowland dry zone) and even in the southwest (the so-called wet zone) and the havoc wreaked by endemic cattle diseases, combined with the devastating Dutch-Kandyan wars of the 1670s, the Company’s oppressive labour system, the prohibition of the Indo-Ceylon trade, and the irregular supply of cattle and slaves from India.129

People: Slaves, Regular and Extraordinary Levies

People, in the form of slaves, regular salaried personnel, and extraordinary temporary levies of indigenous employees, were an important export commodity of the Madurai Coast. Participating in the ‘world’s oldest trade’ in the ‘oldest of seas

128 voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 31r, Miss. superint. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674. See also: voc 1254, obp 1666, f. 583, Advies van de raadspersonen tot Nagapatnam betr. de negotie aldaar, 7.4.1665; voc 1280, obp 1672, f. 288v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 321r–321v, Rapp. Vorwer wegens de toestand van sComps. zaken tot Nagapatnam, 20.12.1675. 129 Spate and Learmont, India and Pakistan, pp. 791–795, 810–814, and 817–819; Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 31 et seq.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 285 in history’,130 the Dutch periodically exported large numbers of slaves, preferably between 8 and 20 years of age, from southern Coromandel to a small number of urban centres where they exercised political authority, especially Ceylon, Malacca, Batavia, and the Spice Islands of Eastern Indonesia to serve as general labourers used in a wide variety of occupations in the Dutch slave societies scattered across the Indian Ocean basin. Slavery was a defining component of Dutch colonial settlements throughout the Indian Ocean, grafted on the pre-existing open system of slavery in commercialised, cosmopolitan cities in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. All of these urban centres and their surroundings were true slave societies, in which slaves played an important part in both luxury and productive capacities, empowering particular groups of elites, deeply influenced cultural developments, and formed a high proportion (over 20–40%) of the total population (see Table 20). Specialisation among private and Company slaves occurred in accordance with the size of the individual slave household and the particular position the settlement occupied within the Company’s overall trade network. In the 1660s and early 1670s, when the Company tried to achieve self-sufficiency on Ceylon, 10,000 slaves, including 2,000 Company and 8,000 private slaves, worked the fields around Galle and Colombo in the southwest of the island, growing rice, ragi or finger millet, cotton, tobacco, potatoes, and other crops. Due to poor conditions, manumission, and budgetary measures of the late 1670s the number of slaves on the island decreased rapidly thereafter. Between 1677 and 1679, the number of Company slaves at Ceylon was slashed almost in half from 3,932 to approximately 2,000, respectively. Some old slaves were manumitted against payment, while the rest were sent to Batavia and Malacca. By 1688, only 1,502 Company slaves were left on the island out of a total of about 4,000.131 My ‘tentative census’ of 1688 estimates that there were about 4,000 Company slaves and perhaps 66,000 total Dutch slaves in the various settlements spread out across the Indian Ocean basin. To replenish or increase these numbers, 200–400 Company slaves and 3,730–6,430 total Dutch slaves had to be imported each year.

130 See: M.P.M. Vink, ‘“The World’s Oldest Trade”: The Dutch Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Seventeenth Century’, Journal of World History 14, 2 (2003), pp. 131–177. The term ‘world’s oldest trade’ in turn can be found in Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost- Indiën, II, p. 46; M.N. Pearson, The Indian Ocean (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 3. 131 voc 1234, obp 1662, ff. 125r–125v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens aan H. XVII, 5.4.1661; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 121r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 191r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.3.1679; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 164, 226, 294, 354, 367, and 370; Van Dam, Beschrijvinge, pp. 297 and 344–350; Pieters (ed.), Memoir of Rijcklof van Goens Jun., pp. 5–6 and 11; Gaastra, De Geschiedenis van de voc, pp. 84–85, and 94.

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Assuming average mortality rates en route of circa 20 percent on slaving voyages, 240–480 Company and 4,476–7,716 total Dutch slaves were exported annually from their respective catchment area or possibly a total of at least 660,000– 1,135,000 over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.132 The Dutch acquired the majority of their slaves indirectly through purchase from indigenous suppliers. Other routes to slavery included armed conflicts with indigenous societies, subdued ‘rebellious’ peoples forced to sign treaties with tributary slave clauses, natural offspring from female slaves, and judicial punishment. There existed no institutional obstacles against the sale of slaves on a massive scale once a strong external demand made itself felt along with the spread of a money economy in the absence of a strong state. All strong indigenous powers prohibited the export of slaves as an intolerable loss of the country’s most precious resource and a violation of the collective moral code of society. Like their Mughal and Maratha counterparts, local officials of the Nayaka states, for a mixture of worldly and moral considerations, were usually hostile to the export of slaves. In 1643, for instance, the Gingee talavay Tuppaki Krishnappa Nayaka refused to grant permission for the annual export of 800–1,000 slaves from Gingee, arguing ‘that the sale of people was not only disgraceful to the world, but was also considered one of the greatest sins by our gods’. In 1677, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar, the governor of Tirunelveli, reportedly created problems in the procurement of slaves along the Madurai Coast by prohibiting the trade. Following the expansion of Maratha power in the eastern Carnatic in the 1670s, Shivaji Bhonsle issued an edict in 1678 strictly prohibiting the transport of slaves by Europeans. In practice, however, these seventeenth-century states of the Coromandel region were generally so preoccupied with wars and internal disputes that they by and large turned a blind eye to the slave traffic, while local officials could often be bribed to condone the not so ‘peculiar trade’.133

132 Vink, ‘ “The World’s Oldest Trade” ’, pp. 165–168; M. van Rossum, Kleurrijke Tragiek: De Geschiedenis van Slavernij Onder de VOC (Hilversum: Verloren, 2015), pp. 24–26. 133 For problems with Mughal authorities: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, pp. 624, 718, and 791; III, pp. 32, 132, and 497; IV, p. 352; Arasaratnam, ‘Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean’, pp. 195–199; Idem, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 104–105, and 210–211. For problems with the Marathas: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, p. 291; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii, p. 114; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 65, and 125; S. Arasaratnam, ‘The Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century’, pp. 195– 199; Idem, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 104–105, and 210–211. For objections from the Nayaka rulers: voc 1151, obp 1645, f. 764r, Miss. gouvr. Gardenijs van Coromandel aan Batavia, 3.4.1643; voc 1324, obp 1677, f. 12r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1677. See also: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, I, pp. 185–186, 196, 199, and 201. For Mataram and Makassar: Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, I, p. 133.

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Table 20 Total population and slave population of various central places in the Dutch Indian Ocean World in the late seventeenth century

Urban settlements Year Total Slave Percentage population population

Batavia (Java) 1673 27,068 13,278 49.05 1679 32,124 16,695 51.97 1699 21,966 12,505 56.93 Cape Town (Cape Colony) 1731 3,157 1,333 42.22 Cochin (Malabar) 1686 1,749 621 35.51 1687 1,845 649 35.18 1697 2,216 938 42.33 1701 1,943 696 35.82 Colombo (Ceylon) 1694 3,300 1,761 53.36 Kotah Ambon (Ambon) 1694 5,487 2,870 52.31 Malacca (Malacca) 1678 5,379 1,962 36.48 1680 4,486 1,134 25.28 1682 4,624 1,853 40.07 Vlaardingen (Makassar) 1676 1,384 921 66.55

Sources: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 138, 438, 554, and 676–677; M.J. Bremner and C.O. Blagden, ‘Report of Governor Bort on Malacca 1678’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 5, 1 (1927), pp. 39–44; N. Tarling (ed.), Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. Volume I: From Early Times to c. 1800 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 371; H.K. s’Jacob, ‘De voc en de Malabarkust in de 17de Eeuw’, in: Meilink- Roelofsz (ed.), De voc in Azië, p. 88; Idem (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. lii, liv, and 189; R.J. Barendse, The Arabian Seas, 1640–1700 (Leiden: Research School cnws, Leiden University, 1998), pp. 59, and 70; G.J. Knaap, ‘A City of Migrants: Kota Ambon at the End of the Seventeenth Century’, Indonesia 51 (1991), pp. 105–132; Idem, ‘Europeans, Mestizos and Slaves’, p. 88; N. Worden, E. van Heyningen, and V. Bickford-Smith, Cape Town: The Making of a City (Hilversum: Verloren Publishers, 1998), p. 50.

The polemics between the majority of mainstream apologists and minority of radical opponents of Dutch slavery and slave trade occurred in two geographically distinct spheres.134 While in the Dutch Republic, the intellectual, theoretical argument, involving Calvinist ministers and jurist-officials, was largely couched in Christian humanist terms typical of the Late Northern

134 See: Vink, ‘Freedom and Slavery’.

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Renaissance, in the Indian Ocean World, slavery found virtually universal acceptance among self-righteous civil, military, and religious officials of the Dutch East India Company using various reasons of state or pragmatic politics to defend the trade. Company servants here rather opportunistically resorted to a variety of ad hoc arguments in an unsystematic manner: Christian humanitarian compassion, saving the body and soul of the slave; the right of war and conquest or bellum iustum; the inferior, uncivilised nature of ‘servile’ indigenous peoples; the need to establish and populate settlement colonies, supplemented by servile labour; natural, contractual law or the inviolability of contractual agreements with tributary slave clauses based on the principle of pacta sunt servanda; and financial-budgetary considerations favouring forced over free labour.135 During the ‘famine-slave’ cycle of 1659–1661, for instance, local Dutch Company officials eagerly portrayed themselves in the role of God-fearing com passionate saviours, providing these people, voluntarily selling themselves or their immediate relatives, with home, family, and employment. In other words, slavery was presented as some form of ‘Asian Poor Law’. Governor Laurens Pit (1652–1663) and Council of Coromandel intimated to the Company Directors in 1660: ‘It is indisputable that the purchase of these poor people is a work of compassion since they would otherwise perish, as happens to those who are turned down’. Elaborating on the same Christian humanitarian theme, Governor General Joan Maetsuycker and the Council of the Indies insisted a few months later that all such people should be purchased indiscriminately in order to keep families together:

Our intention is that the purchase [of slaves] will occur indiscriminately of both the elderly and the young, especially when they are members of a single family as is often the case. If we only accepted the young and turned down the old, the latter would perish, which we understand has already occurred often. This would not conform with Christian compassion, for to accept the children and leaving the parents to die in their presence, or to accept the men and turn down the women, would be harsh and, we fear, unacceptable to the Lord God.

In another variation on the Divine Providence theme used by the imperialist, ‘Ceylon-centric’ faction, Governor van Goens Senior of Ceylon, while complaining about the large share of ‘old and decrepit people’ among the Coromandel

135 Vink, ‘Freedom and Slavery’.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 289 slaves, piously argued that the arrival of the human cargo at Colombo was part and parcel of ‘God’s hidden plan’ to repopulate the island.136 The Indian subcontinent (Malabar, Coromandel, and the Bengal/Arakan coast) formed one of three interlocking and overlapping circuits or subregions of the Dutch Indian Ocean slave system and remained the most important source of forced labour until the 1660s.137 In contrast with other areas of the Indian subcontinent, such as Arakan/Bengal and Malabar, where the stream of forced labour dried up to a trickle after the 1660s,138 Coromandel remained the centre of a spasmodic slave trade throughout the seventeenth century. In various short-lived booms, accompanying natural and human-induced calamities, the Dutch exported thousands of slaves from the east coast of India. Though there had been an earlier boom in slave exports from central Coromandel resulting from a prolonged period of drought in the early 1620s, the first short-lived boom in the Coromandel exports of slaves during our period occurred during the famine in the wake of the revolt of the Southern Nayakas against Vijayanagara overlordship (1645) and the subsequent devastation of the Tanjore countryside by the Bijapur army. According to indigenous informants, more than 150,000 people were taken by the invading Deccani

136 voc 1232, obp 1661, ff. 382v–383r, Miss. gouvr. Laurens Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 9.8.1660; voc 884, bub 1660, f. 703, Miss, GG en R aan comms. Van Goens te Colombo, 4.11.1660; voc 1236, obp 1662, f. 226, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 11.2.1661; voc 1234, obp 1662, f. 125v, Miss. comms. Van Goens te Colombo aan Batavia, 5.4.1661. For a sharp moral condemnation of the Dutch slave trade at Nagapatnam during this famine by the Jesuit Fathers of the Madurai Mission: Letter of Antonio de Proenza, missionary of Madurai, to R.P. Paul Oliva, general of the Company of Jesus, Trichinopoly, 1662, in: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, pp. 124–125. 137 During the first thirty years of Batavia’s existence, Indian and Arakanese slaves provided the main labour force of the Company’s Asian headquarters. For instance, of the 211 manumitted slaves in Batavia between 1646 and 1649, 126 (59.71 percent) came from South Asia, including 86 (40.76 percent) from Bengal. R. Raben, ‘Batavia and Colombo’, p. 121. 138 Slave raids into the Bengal estuaries were conducted by Magh pirates using armed vessels (galias), joining hands with unscrupulous Portuguese traders (chatins) operating from Chittagong outside the jurisdiction and patronage of the Estado da India. These raids occurred with the active connivance of the Taung-ngu (Toungoo) rulers of Arakan. The eastward expansion of the Mughal Empire, completed with the conquest of Chittagong (renamed Islamabad) in 1666, cut off the traditional supplies from Arakan and Bengal. Until the Dutch seizure of the Portuguese settlements on the Malabar Coast (1658–1663), large numbers of slaves were also captured and sent from India’s west coast to Batavia, Ceylon, and elsewhere. After 1663, however, the stream of forced labour from Cochin dried up to a mere trickle of ca. 50–100 and 80–120 slaves per year to Batavia and Ceylon, respectively. See: Vink, ‘The World’s Oldest Trade’.

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Muslim armies as slaves to Bijapur and Golconda. In 1646, 2,118 slaves were exported to Batavia, the overwhelming majority purchased for 3/4 pagodas or 4 1/2 guilders each in southern Coromandel. Some slaves were also acquired further south at Tondi, Adirampatnam, and Kayalpatnam.139 A second short-lived slaving boom took place between 1659 and 1661 due to the devastation of Tanjore resulting from another series of successive Bijapuri raids, creating the usual ‘famine-slave cycle’. At Nagapatnam almost 6,000 slaves were purchased for 1 rixdollar or 3 guilders each, the bulk of whom were sent to Ceylon while a small contingent was shipped to Batavia and Malacca.140 A third boom, consisting of two spurts (1673–1675; 1676–1677), was initiated by a prolonged drought in Madurai and southern Coromandel starting in 1673, exacerbated by the protracted Madurai-Maratha struggle over Tanjore and resulting oppressive fiscal practices. Between 1673 and 1677, 1,839 slaves were exported from the Madurai Coast alone. At its peak in 1676–1677, 1,109 slaves

139 voc 1161, obp 1647, f. 935v, Journaal Kasteel Geldria, 19.2.1646; Idem, f. 857v, Resol. fort Geldria, 24.2.1646; Idem, f. 804v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 30.2.1646; Idem, f. 941v, Journaal Kasteel Geldria, 9.3.1646; Ibidem, Journaal Kasteel Geldria, 16.3.1646; Idem, ff. 943v–944r, Journaal Kasteel Geldria, 29.3.1646; Idem, f. 952v, Journaal Kasteel Geldria, 23.4.1646; Idem, ff. 952v–953r, Journaal Kasteel Geldria, 1.5.1646; Idem, f. 826r, Miss. gouvr. Heussens van Coromandel aan Batavia, 3.5.1646; Idem, f. 956r, Journaal kasteel Geldria, 19.5.1646; Idem, f. 868r, Resol. fort Geldria, 5.6.1646; Idem, f. 962r, Journaal kasteel Geldria, 6.6.1646; Idem, ff. 795r, 798r, and 799r, Miss. gouvr. Heussens van Coromandel aan Batavia, 9.6.1646; Idem, f. 963r, Journaal kasteel Geldria, 9.6.1646; Idem, f. 965v, Journaal kasteel Geldria, 10.6.1646; Idem, f. 971r, Journaal kasteel Geldria, 26.7.1646; Idem, f. 873r, Resol. fort Geldria, 13.8.1646; Idem, f. 984v, Miss. gouvr. Heussens van Coro mandel aan Batavia, 16.8.1646; voc 1164, obp 1648, f. 716r, Miss. onderk. Van Barth van Kayalpatnam aan Van der Meijden en Crackouw, 24.1.1647; voc 1165, obp 1648, f. 88r, Miss. gouvr. Maetsuijcker van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.4.1647; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, p. 166. 140 voc 1230, obp 1660, f. 279r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 27.11.1659; voc 1233, obp 1661, ff. 2v, and 5v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 10.1.1660; voc 1230, obp 1660, ff. 282v–283r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 11.1.1660; Idem, f. 320v, Miss. adml. Van Goens aan H. XVII, 8.2.1660; voc 1233, obp 1661, f. 41r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 14.7.1660; voc 1232, obp 1661, ff. 382v–383r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 9.8.1660; voc 1233, obp 1661, f. A173r, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 22.11.1660; voc 1236, obp 1662, ff. 80–81, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 6.1.1661; voc 1232, obp 1661, f. 415r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 19.1.1661; voc 1236, obp 1661, f. 226, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 11.2.1661; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 166–167.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 291 were exported from the Madurai Coast for 11–13 rixdollars or 33–39 guilders each (see Table 21).141 A fourth boom occurred in 1688 caused by a combination of poor harvests and the Mughal advance into the Carnatic. Reportedly, thousands of people from Tanjore, mostly girls and little boys, were sold into slavery and exported by Asian traders from Nagapatnam to Aceh, Johor, and other slave markets. In September 1687, 665 slaves were exported by the English from Fort St. George, Madras. The Dutch decision to participate was belated for the boom ended as abruptly as it had started as a result of the abundant pisanam rice harvest of early 1689. Finally, in 1694–1696, when warfare once more ravaged South India, a total of 3,859 slaves were shipped from Coromandel by private individuals to Ceylon.142 Apart from slave labour, the Dutch also tapped into the vast pool of low-cost salaried workers available at the Madurai Coast. Thus, they maintained several hundred regular Asian servants on the Company’s pay roll and occasionally raised extraordinary levies to meet certain exigencies and other special circumstances. The bulk of the Company’s Asian personnel on the Madurai Coast

141 voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 209v and 213r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 29.5.1673; voc 897, bub 1673, ff. 817–818, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 30.9.1673; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 723v–724r, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.11.1674; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 106 and 118r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1676; voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 351r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.7.1676; voc 900, bub 1676, ff. 515–516, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 18.10.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 286r, Miss. commt. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.11.1676; Idem, f. 286v, Miss. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 19.11.1676; Idem, f. 291v, Miss. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 1.12.1676; Idem, ff. 298r–298v, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 17.12.1676; Idem, f. 305v, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 7.1.1677; voc 1324, obp 1677, ff. 11v–12r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1677; Idem, f. 77v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677; voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1993v, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmansch. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht…, 1.3.1677– 30.2.1678; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1678, pp. 54 and 74. 142 voc 1454, obp 1689, f. 1010r, Miss. commt. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.8.1688; voc 1448, obp 1689, f. 298v, Miss. commr. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan H. XVII, 20.12.1688; voc 1463, obp 1690, ff. 128v–129r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 10.4.1689; Arasaratnam, Ceylon and the Dutch, 1600–1800, XI, p. 387; XIV, p. 19; Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, I, pp. 545–546.

300854 Table 21 Number of slaves and regular and extraordinary levies exported by the Dutch from the Madurai Coast, 1670/71–1689/90

Financial year Slaves Regular Asian Extraordinary levy personnel

1670–71 0 n.a. 0 1671–72 0 n.a. 0 1672–73 0 n.a. 0 1673–74 399 n.a. 500 1674–75 329 299 0 1675–76 5 264 0 1676–77 1,109 168 0 1677–78 0 170* 0 1678–79 0 133 0 1679–80 0 130 0 1680–81 0 183 0 1681–82 0 188 0 1682–83 0 186 0 1683–84 0 190* 0 1684–85 0 198 0 1685–86 0 190 0 1686–87 0 190 0 1687–88 0 n.a. 0 1688–89 0 n.a. 0 1689–90 0 320 1,503 Total 1,742 2,003

* All numbers in italics are close approximations. Sources: voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 315v–316r, Concept instr. Van Goens voor commt. Huijsman, 13.1.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 335r–335v, Rapp. Huijsman van den presenten toestandt op de custe van Madure, 5.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 162r–162v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 20.1.1677; voc 1351, obp 1680, ff. 2514v–2515r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 20.9.1678; voc 1340, obp 1679, ff. 1418v–1419r, Lijste der sterkte van alle inl. dienaren onder het Ceijlons gouvt., 11.10.1678; voc 1351, obp 1680, f. 2529r, Lijste der sterkte van alle inl. dienaren onder het Ceijlons gouvt., 30.2.1679; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 119r–119v, Rapp. Van Rhee van den jegenwoordigen toestant ter custe Madure, 19.10.1679; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 231v–214r, Rapp. Van Rhee van den presenten toestant ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1851r–1851v, Consideratiën Van Rhee en Van Vliet van des E. Comps. negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 379v–380v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682; voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 492, Sommarium der Europese en inl. dienaren onder ‘t gouvt. Ceijlon, 30.2.1685; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 616, Sommarium der Europese en inl. dienaren onder ‘t gouvt. Ceijlon, 30.2.1686; Idem, ff. 384r–386r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 1–5.7.1686; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmansz. tot Tuticurin, Manapaar en Alvatt.rij ingekocht, 1670/71–1689/90; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 412r–413r, Memorie van alle Comps. dienaren ten comptoire Tuticurin bevonden, 31.12.1690; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, passim; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 166–167; Arasaratnam, ‘Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean’.

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(ca. 80 percent) were comprised of military, common lascorins, arachchi officers, and a head peon as commander. This elaborate military apparatus was used to perform a wide variety of tasks: to guard the Dutch settlements, to escort cash and commodity shipments, protect the Company washermen and servants while travelling inland, deliver letters and olais, accompany Company ambassadors, and so forth. A special case was formed by the arachchi- and lascorin ‘reformados’, members of the Nayaka army who had ‘converted’ or defected to the Company during the Tuticorin War of 1669 (see Chapter 5). The officer corps was recruited from high-caste Tamil and Telugu communities, and included such individuals as the head peon Mukkapa Nayaka, and the arachchis Velappa, Chinappa Mudaliyar, and Sivanandiappa Pillai. The Company’s Asian civil apparatus (ca. 20 percent) consisted of interpreters and clerks drawn largely from the local Christian Parava community, with names such as Ignatio Mendes, Nicola Sequeira, and Sebastião Pereira. Pariahs and other members of low-caste groups performed a multitude of miscellaneous services, acting as sweepers, water-drawers, coolies, domestic servants, torch- bearers, grooms, grass-collectors, shield-bearers, sailors, quitasol- or umbrella- bearers, musicians, washermen, and cooks.143 Apart from the employment of a few hundred regular Indian servants at the Dutch factories along the Madurai Coast, the Dutch occasionally decided to raise extraordinary levies during times of emergency or other special circumstances. In 1667, for instance, as the Dutch were expanding their control over Ceylon, abortive negotiations were held with the Tevar to hire 1,000–1,200 Marava musketeers, considered experts in forest warfare, against the upland Sinhalese of the kingdom of Kandy.144 These plans were revived in the wake of the outbreak of the Holland War (1672–1678), but no Marava contingent could be raised due to current Ramnad- Madurai hostilities. Instead, 500 Parava coolies were hired in 1673 for 1 1/2 rixdollars and 1 parra of rice per mensum in order to help strengthen the Ceylon fortifications against a rumoured English (or French) attack.145

143 See: sources mentioned under Table 21. 144 voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 498v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1667; voc 891, bub 1667, f. 580, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.9.1667. 145 For the plans to hire 1,000–1,200 Marava soldiers: voc 896, bub 1672, ff. 634–635, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 27.7.1672; voc 1292, obp 1674, f. 540r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan H. XVII, 10.2.1674. For the 500 Parava coolies: voc 1292, obp 1674, f. 213r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 29.5.1673; voc 897, bub 1673, ff. 819–820, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 30.9.1673; voc 1298, obp 1675,

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In 1676, the head peon Mukkapa Nayaka, two arachchis, and fifty lascorins with firelocks, earning 15 fanams or 1 1/2 rixdollars per month, were sent to Jaffnapatnam as part of a budgetary ruse by Governor Van Goens Junior to ‘diminish’ the burden of expenses of indigenous servants at the Madurai Coast and deflect some of the growing pressure from the mercantile or ‘Batavia- centric’ faction to economise. The ploy and makeshift experiment, however, proved to be unsatisfactory as the lascorins were considered expensive, obstinate, and lazy.146 This negative experience turned out to be a portent of things to come. In 1689, the Dutch decided to hire 1,500 Marava and other Hindu ‘Opposite Coast warriors’ at 1 pagoda per mensum to protect the Company possessions in the lowlands of Ceylon against an anticipated uprising of the Sinhalese (‘that treacherous nation’) in support of the new Kandyan ruler Vimala Dharma Surya II (r. 1687–1707). Subsequently, 416 lascorins, including 34 horsemen, were sent from Nagapatnam to Jaffnapatnam and another 1,087 from Tuticorin to Colombo. Despite the support of the captain vigiador Rama Nayaka of Nagapatnam and head peon Mukkapa Nayaka of Tuticorin, problems ensued regarding Hindu notions of pollution resulting from overseas travel, contact with Parangi commanders (who therefore had to be replaced by high-caste Hindus!), and sharing rations with the Parangi rank and file. In the face of this ‘wanton behaviour’, it was decided to send the recalcitrant peons back to Madurai while retaining only a few of the ‘most reasonable’ indigenous soldiers.147

f. 358r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1674; Idem, ff. 458v–458v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan superint. Van Goens, 23.6.1674; Idem, f. 385v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.8.1674; Idem, f. 723v, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.11.1674; Idem, ff. 415v–416r, Resol. superint. Van Goens gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 3–26.11.1674. 146 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 357v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 6.12.1675; Idem, f. 508r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 24.12.1675; voc 1307, obp 1676, f. 681r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 1.2.1676; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 832r, Relaas Huijsman wegens de nuttigheden die de Cie. int huren der Madurese zeehavens zou komen te genieten, 11.4.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 106r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1676; Idem, f. 293v, Miss. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 8.12.1676. 147 voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 130r–130v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 30.6.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 97r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 16.8.1689; Idem, f. 113v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 10.9.1689; Idem, ff. 117v–118r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.9.1689;

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 295

Coral Stone and Lime: The Brick and Mortar of Mercantilism

Coral stone (cilli, ‘small broken pieces of stone’) and lime (kummayan or man) were, like salt, high-volume, low-value products used, inter alia, as ballast to stabilise vessels. These bulky building materials were available in abundant supplies at the slightly submerged coral formations and on the islands along the Madurai Coast, consisting of coral reefs killed by uplift and consolidated into coral rock. In 1690, Dutch visitors to Nalla Tanni Tivu or Fresh Water Island observed:

On this island there is ample opportunity to burn lime since an abundance of cilli or coral is easily available, which merely needs to be picked up and carried to a suitable place where the ovens will be constructed. Moreover, the island of Puluvunni Challi or Palvinichalli is less than a mile [1 Dutch mile = 4.7 English miles] distant, consisting (as its name indicates) of nothing but coral rock or cilli, which can be conveniently transported with thonis from there. On the mainland, merely ¾ hours from the Fresh Water Island, is a large forest, mostly consisting of thorny trees. It is three miles long, stretching from the cape of Valinokkam to Mariyur, and, according to reports, is more than half an hour wide. The felled trees can be readily shipped by thoni to this island where wood, stone, and [fresh] water for the burning of lime will then all be at hand.148

voc 1463, obp 1690, ff. 382r–382v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 20.9.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 158v–1659r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 11.10.1689; Idem, f. 125r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 22.10.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 140v–141r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 40r–40v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan H. XVII, 23.12.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 165r–165v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 24.1.1690; voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 869r–869v, and 890r–890v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690; Idem, f. 936r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 6.2.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 85v–86r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 27.6.1690; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 687–688, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.7.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 90r–90v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 11.7.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, f. 961v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 8.2.1691; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 205r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 21.2.1691. 148 voc 1479, obp 1691, f. 428r, Rapp. Lambert van Buren, Adam Pluijmert, en Pieter Karstens wegens de situatie van het Verswatereiland, 23.10.1690.

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Another, more limited, non-renewable supply was provided by the debris of pearl- and chank fisheries of times past. In 1700, for instance, Punnaikayal was found to be ‘not lacking in suitable pieces of coral stone mixed with many pearl oysters, shells, and chanks, which apparently have been lying there for hundreds of years’. According to a rough estimate about 1,000 lasts or 3 million pounds of lime could be collected locally.149 Cutting stone and chopping wood for lime burning were sideline occupations for agricultural labourers during the agricultural off-season. The best time for breaking the stone and cutting wood were the months of February, March, and April, and during the southwest monsoon. During the rainy season the part-time stone cutters (cirpacaris, cirpams, or karkottis) and lumberjacks (katuvettis, virakuvettis) returned to ploughing and sowing their fields, while it was considered too cold to harvest any rock on the slightly submerged coral formations along the coast. Coral stone or brick was divided between dressed or hewn stone and rough, unpolished pieces. The stone cutters charged 5 fanams per 300 pieces brought ashore, while polishing them cost another 8 fanams per 1,000 stones or 24 2/3–25 fanams combined per 1,000 hewn stones. Having been stored at the Company’s shed near the Tuticorin factory, the hewn stones and unprocessed pieces were subsequently shipped aboard thonis and sent to Ceylon (or Nagapatnam) to be used at the local fortifications. One thoni could carry some 700–800 pieces of hewn stone or 270–300 unprocessed pieces, freight charges being 5 fanams per thoni. Burning lime or mortar required large amounts of firewood, which, despite the optimistic assessment mentioned before, was a constant source of apprehension along the sparsely vegetated coastal and teri regions. Repeated Com pany requests to obtain permission from the aranmanai for the cutting of wood and burning of lime ‘for the construction of warehouses and residences suitable for such a large volume of trade’ were consistently turned down based on the argument that the Nayaka rather ‘wished to have all woods grow to fortify his lands’. In keeping with their ‘open door’ policy, the Madurai authorities staunchly opposed the construction of a Dutch fortification on the coast challenging their authority. To the frustration of the Company, the only permission granted was ‘to cut wood where there are no trees or draw water from an empty well’.150 In fact, during the early 1680s the Dutch complained repeatedly about the lack of firewood at Tuticorin and attempts were made to access alternative supplies of lime on the Ramnad Coast.

149 voc 1632, obp 1701, ff. 736v–737r, Dgl. aantekeninge Caperman in de visite der Madurese zuidercomptoiren, 21.1–3.2.1700. 150 Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 153, 158, 159, 220, 222, 223, and 309.

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Lime was burned at the cost of 1.5 fanams per last in large ovens with a capacity of about 60 lasts or 18,000 pounds. Slaking (nirru) required fresh water since salt water tended to produce an inferior-quality lime. The organisation of burning lime and the supply were tightly controlled by local merchants and maniyakkarars, such as the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar at Kilakkarai and Mahmud Nayinar Pillai Maraikkayar at Punnaikayal.151 Between 1670–1671 and 1689–1690 Dutch total exports of lime from the Madurai Coast amounted to some 29,025 lasts or 87 million pounds worth 84,709 guilders, an annual average of 1,450 lasts or 4.35 million pounds worth 4,235 guilders (see Table 22). The export of lime was a bulk trade, especially in the 1670s, since the Company’s imperialist, ‘Ceylon-centric’ faction considered the construction of fortifications the brick and mortar of its overall mercantilist policy of forced trade. Lime exports peaked at 2,154 lasts or 6.46 million pounds valued at some 6,000 guilders in 1674–1675 and 2,327 lasts or 6.98 million pounds valued at about 6,600 guilders in 1676–1677. Under the direction of the mercantile, ‘Batavia-centric’ faction, exports in the 1680s were cut almost in half to ca. 3 million pounds, bottoming out at 819 lasts or 2.45 million pounds worth 2,600 guilders in 1683–1684 and 862.5 lasts or 2.58 million pounds worth 2,765 guilders in 1685–1686. Dutch interests in the lime trade picked up again in the late 1680s following Commissioner General Van Rheede’s fateful decision to build a massive fort, the ‘castle with the golden walls’, at Nagapatnam, the new seat of the Dutch governor and council of Coromandel. In 1689–1690 no less than 2,239 lasts or 6.71 million pounds worth 7,180 guilders were shipped from the Madurai Coast. The figures, however, are incomplete since a substantial amount of lime was

151 voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 52r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 366r–366v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 24.9.1684; voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 202r–203r, 207r, and 221v–222r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 391v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688; voc 1615, obp 1700, ff. 492r–492v, Dgl. aantekeningen gouvr. De Heere, 2.10.1699; voc 1632, obp 1701, ff. 736v–737r and 741v–742r, Dgl. aantekeninge commr. Caperman, 21.1–3.2.1700. For complaints about the lack of firewood at Tuticorin: voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 45r–45v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 1379, obp 1683, f. 2289v, Memorie gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon voor de hoofdadmin. Van Rhee en verdere leden van de pol. raad tot Colombo, 23.8.1682; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 555r, Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtinge an het hof van de vrijheer Teuver, 1.7.1683; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 67r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, f. 351v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 28.7.1684; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 334v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 12.4.1686.

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Table 22 Quantity and value of Dutch exports of lime from the Madurai Coast, 1670/71–1689/90 (in pounds and guilders)

Financial Quantity Quantity Price per last Total value year (in lasts) (in pounds) (in fanams) (in guilders)

1670–71 313.6 940,800 7.5 706 1671–72 826.8 2,480,400 7.5 1,860 1672–73 1,979 5,937,000 7.5 4,453 1673–74 2,121 6,363,000 8.75 5,568 1674–75 2,154 6,462,000 8.75–10 6,058* 1675–76 1,449 4,347,000 10 4,347 1676–77 2,327 6,981,000 9–10 6,632 1677–78 2,121 6,363,000 9 5,727 1678–79 1,726 5,178,000 9 4,460 1679–80 1,421.5 4,264,500 9–9.5 4,550 1680–81 1,023 3,069,000 9.5 3,280 1681–82 1,641 4,923,000 9.5 5,261 1682–83 1,261.5 3,784,500 9.5 4,045 1683–84 819 2,457,000 9.5 2,626 1684–85 994 2,982,000 9.5 3,187 1685–86 862.5 2,587,500 9.5 2,765 1686–87 1,696 5,088,000 9.5 5,438 1687–88 943 2,829,000 9.5 3,023 1688–89 1,105 3,315,000 9.5 3,543 1689–90 2,239.5 6,718,500 9.5 7,180 Total 29,025.4 87,076,200 84,709*

* All numbers in italics are close approximations based on the actual sale prices. Sources: voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 611r–627v, Specificatie van allerhande koopmans. tot Tutucurin, Manapaar en Alvatt.rij. voor rekening van de generale Comp. ingekocht, 1670/71–1689/90; Idem, ff. 649r–652v, Corte aanteekeningh tegen wat prijse de voornaemste coopmansz. hier ter kuste Madure zijn ingekogt, 1669/70–1689/90. supplied directly from the Ramnad Coast to Nagapatnam by the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. In August 1688, for instance, the Periya Tambi reportedly had delivered 200 lasts or 600,000 pounds of lime during the present monsoon, promising to deliver another 200 lasts.152

152 voc 1454, obp 1689, ff. 1012r–1012v, Miss. commt. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.8.1688; voc 1448, obp 1689, ff. 300r–300v, Miss. commr. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan H. XVII, 20.12.1688.

300854 Treasure For Textiles: The Export Trade 299

Whereas the mental structures described in the first chapter defined the cultural and intellectual parameters, the natural and human geography of Madurai clearly circumscribed the material ‘limits of the possible’. Until well into the eighteenth century, European trade in Asia by and large conformed to the ‘bullion for goods’ model, and, in the case of India, ‘treasure for textiles’ model. European commerce in the early modern Indian Ocean World was export-oriented with the limited revenues of the import trade supplemented by significant amounts of precious metals. A vital role in the exchange was played by indigenous go-betweens, initially individual merchants, but subsequently grouped in joint-stock ‘associations’ in order to control prices and quality of the products, reduce internal competition, and avoid the danger of large irrecuperable ‘bad debts’. The role of Dutch activities in the regional economy was both stimulating and restrictive, fitting into and changing existing ‘traditional’ patterns. On the one hand, the import of precious metals stimulated production (especially cotton piece goods), facilitated the ongoing monetisation of the Madurai economy and land revenue demand, and promoted the increasing recourse to the system of revenue farming. On the other hand, the abortive attempt to corner the pepper and arecanut markets in the 1670s and 1680s had a negative impact albeit only temporarily. The failure of both schemes point to the persistence and continued viability and global competitiveness of ‘traditional’ Asian commercial networks in the seventeenth century in the face of ‘innovative’ European merchant empires. The relative share of the Company in the regional economy was both significant in some commodities and marginal in others. The Dutch supervised the trade in pearls, chanks, and Ceylon arecanuts, and played a certain role in the export of textiles, salt, coral stone, and lime, and the import of precious metals and Japanese copper. They played a marginal role in the import of pepper, Malabar arecanuts, non-precious metals (except for copper) and in the export of livestock, provisions (rice, millets, and other food grains), other agricultural produce (sugar, indigo, tamarind, tobacco, coconuts, and so forth), forest products (timber, rattan, honey, wax), and extracted produce (saltpetre, iron, and steel). By and large, Madurai’s ‘econoscape’ was clearly defined and limited by the long-term interaction of its geographical, cultural, technological, and social power structures. Looking back, Van Imhoff could observe that ‘experience and common sense has taught indisputedly, that all those who value it higher will fare badly and take wrong stock’. However, he was quick to add that, despite these obvious limitations, ‘this small piece of land is not to be

300854 300 chapter 3 despised for it will still reward the efforts of those who settle on its borders’. The realisation of this basic truth would initiate the cross-cultural encounter between representatives of the Nayaka state of Madurai and the Dutch East India Company played out in four acts against the scenery of the Madurai stage.

300854 Figures

Figure 1 Portrait of Joan Maetsuycker (1606–1678), governor of Ceylon, head of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649, and governor general of the Dutch East Indies Oil on panel by Jacob Coeman, c. 1663–1676. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

300854 Figure 2 Portrait of Rijckloff van Goens Senior (1619–1682), governor of Ceylon, and governor general of the Dutch East Indies Oil on panel attributed to Martin Palin, c. 1680. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

300854 Figure 3 Portrait of Joan Nieuhoff (1618–1672), chief of the Madurai Coast Engraving by D. Singelbach, poem by Jan Jansz. Vos from Joan Nieuhof, Gedenk weerdige Brasiliaense Zee- en Lant-Reize (Amsterdam: Wed. Jacob van Meurs, 1682). Universiteitsbibliotheek/University Library, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

300854 Figure 4 Portrait of Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede (1636–1691), ambassador to the Nayaka of Madurai, commander of Malabar, and commissioner general of the Dutch East Indies Copper engraving attributed to Pieter Stevensz. van der Gunst from Johannes Casearius, Arnoldus Syen, et al. eds., Hortus Malabaricus Indicus…per Henricum van Rhede tot Drakenstein (Amsterdam: Johannes van Someren and Johannes van Dyck, 1686). Wikimedia Commons

300854 Figure 5 Portrait of Johann von der Behr (c. 1620–1680), common soldier and member of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649 Engraving by F.G.S.L.M. From Johann von der Behr, Diarium, oder Tagebuch über Dasjenige, So sich Zeit einer neun-jährige Reise zu Wasser und Lande, meistentheils in Dienst der Vereinigten Geoctroyrten Niederländischen Ost-Indianischen Com pagnie, besonders in denselbigen Ländern täglich begeben und zugetragen (Breslau: Urban Spaltholtz, 1668). James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis

Figure 6 Portrait of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai (d. 1675), pradhani of Madurai Mural painting by Sri Ganesan Kalaikkoodam. Photo provided by Patrick Harrigan. Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam, Tiruchendur

300854 Figure 7 ‘Bird’s-eye view of Tuticorin from the sea’, 1672 Anonymous copper engraving from Philippus Baldaeus (1632–1672), Naauwkeurige Beschryvinge van Malabar en Choromandel (Amsterdam: Johannes Jansonius van Waesbergen and Johannes van Someren, 1672). Koninklijke Bibliotheek/National Library of The Netherlands, The Hague

300854 Figure 8 The pearl fishery off the Madurai Coast, 1676 Anonymous copper engraving from Wouter Schouten (1638–1704), Oost-Indische Voyagie (Amsterdam: Jacob Meurs and Johannes van Someren, 1676). James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis

300854 Figure 9 voc officials, pearl fishermen, and traders at Tuticorin (detail), 1676 Anonymous copper engraving from Wouter Schouten (1638–1704), Oost-Indische Voyagie (Amsterdam: Jacob Meurs and Johannes van Someren, 1676). James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis

300854 Figure 10 ‘Hindu temple [Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam] at Tiruchendur’, 1805 Watercolour by Elisha Trapaud. British Library, London

Figure 11 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: skirmishes between the Dutch and Nayaka troops at Tiruchendur Mural painting by Sri Ganesan Kalaikkoodam. Photo provided by Patrick Harrigan. Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam, Tiruchendur

300854 Figure 12 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: the Dutch carry away images of Murugan Mural painting by Sri Ganesan Kalaikkoodam. Photo provided by Patrick Harrigan. Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam, Tiruchendur

Figure 13 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: the Dutch throw the images in the sea Mural painting by Sri Ganesan Kalaikkoodam. Photo provided by Patrick Harrigan. Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam, Tiruchendur

300854 Figure 14 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: Vadamalaiyappa Pillai retrieves the images Mural painting by Sri Ganesan Kalaikkoodam. Photo provided by Patrick Harrigan. Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam, Tiruchendur

Figure 15 Images of the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649: Vadamalaiyappa Pillai has the images reconsecrated Mural painting by Sri Ganesan Kalaikkoodam. Photo provided by Patrick Harrigan. Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam, Tiruchendur

300854 Figure 16 View of the Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameswaram, 1804 Pen-and-ink and wash drawing by Henry Salt. British Library, London

Figure 17 View of Madurai with the Sri Minaksi-Sundaresvarar Temple and Tirumalai Nayaka Palace, c. 1783 Pen-and-ink drawing by George Waight. British Library, London

300854 Figure 18 View of the rock of Trichinopoly, 1772–1773 Oil on canvas by Colonel Francis Swain Ward. British Library, London

300854 chapter 4 First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657

They [the Sinhalese] would also see that their own welfare depended on their friendship with the Company, and that they had gained in material prosperity. So, for reasons of self-interest, they would endeavour to preserve and establish the friendship on both sides on a better foundation if not for their capricious nature and deceitful character (as one of their own prov- erbs has it: ‘Their words must be considered as written on water’), their covetousness, and one might say impudence, in always asking for more, their absolutely despotic government, in which no care is taken whether the subjects are ruined or not; and, lastly, the proneness of the king to give ear to all tale-bearers from the low country and from the Opposite Coast… Memoir left by Governor gustaaf-willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon to his successor Willem Maurits Bruynink, 17401

Although reflecting on the negative characteristics of the Sinhalese people and their ruler Raja Sinha II of Kandy (r. 1629–1687) on the island of Ceylon, Van Imhoff’s proto-Orientalist musings could easily be transposed across the Gulf of Mannaar to the ‘Opposite Coast’ to the inhabitants of Madurai under Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623–1659) during the first phase of cross-cultural encounters with the Dutch. The period both started and ended with the issue of a written qaul (Arabic, ‘promise, agreement’) granted by the Nayaka authorities, only to be violated in the aftermath, leading time and again to Dutch comments about the ‘capricious nature and deceitful character’ of the indigenous rulers and populations of Asia. To the Company, which claimed to abide by the rigid Roman-Dutch legalistic formula of pacta sunt servanda, any contract was set in stone and not, as Van Imhoff wryly observed, ‘written on water’.2

1 Memoir Left by Gustaaf-Willem Baron van Imhoff, p. 12. 2 The classical account on this subject is: C.H. Alexandrowicz, ‘Treaty and Diplomatic Relations Between European and South Asian Powers in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International de la Haye 100 (1960), pp. 203–221. For more recent works: P. Borschberg, Hugo Grotius, the Portuguese and ‘Free Trade’ in the East Indies (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2011); M.J. van Ittersum, ‘The Long Goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ Justification of Dutch Expansion Overseas, 1615–1645’, History of European Ideas 36, 4 (2010), pp. 386–411; H. Grotius, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty, M.J. van Ittersum (ed.), G.L. Williams transl. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006); E.M. Wilson, The Savage Republic: ‘De Indis’ of Hugo Grotius, Republicanism and Dutch Hegemony

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 315

In spite of these later misgivings, the first encounter on the ‘Opposite Coast’ started auspiciously. Guided by the similar principles of pragmatic politics, both sides initially set out, in Van Imhoff’s words, ‘to preserve and establish the friendship on both sides on a better foundation’. Though both the aranmanai and the Dutch were distracted by more general commitments elsewhere, each side had some special interests in establishing and maintaining contact with the ‘other’. On the one hand, Madurai’s attention was focused on the north where the final disintegration of Vijayanagara was the key event in the political history of southern India in this period, creating challenges to and opportunities for both ‘insiders’, such as the Southern Nayakas of Gingee, Tanjore, and Madurai, and ‘outsiders’, such as the Deccan sultanates of Golconda and Bijapur. And yet, the admission of the Dutch would be in conformity with the aranmanai’s traditional ‘open door’ policy in order to retain influence over the coastal areas and generate revenue and income to the state and its inhabitants. On the other hand, the Company or ‘merchant-warrior’, as a politico-commercial enterprise typical of the ‘age of mercantilism’, used war and trade indiscriminately. Adhering to prevailing mercantilist thought (as formulated in the so- called ‘Coen doctrine’), the voc was drawn into numerous conflicts with European and Asian rivals elsewhere in Asia. And yet, the protracted struggle with the Portuguese for the control of Ceylon, the chief source of cinnamon production, and the commercial expansion of its settlements on the Coromandel Coast, clearly argued for a presence on the Madurai Coast. For the time being, these special interests predominated. Following the implementation of the Ten Years’ Truce between the Dutch Republic and Portugal in Asia (1645–1652), a qaul issued in June 1645 led to the establishment

within the Early Modern World System c. 1600–1619 (Boston and Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2008); J. Fisch, Hollands Ruhm in Asien: François Valentijns Vision des Niederländischen Imperiums im 18. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1986); R.R.F. Habiboe, Tot Verheffing Mijner Natie: Het Leven en Werk van François Valentijn (1666–1727) (Franeker: Van Wijnen, 2004). Too much has been made of this alleged Huntingtonian ‘clash of civilisations’ with a legal twist. Though the naturalist doctrine of the inviolability of contractual agreements was an article of faith in Company correspondence, the voc, like their Indian counterparts, was guided by the ‘principle’ of self-interest, and often did not practice what it preached, applying double standards when necessary, either obstructing international agreements (Coen’s famous response in defiance of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of Defence of 1619), delaying their implementation (the Ten Years’ Truce of 1642–1652 and the Treaty of The Hague of 1661 with Portugal), not ratifying or at least considering not ratifying agreements or rejecting agreements reached by local officers (the 1653 ‘disadvantageous contract’ with the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan), and intentionally mistranslating or incompletely copying agreements made with indigenous rulers (the Westerwolt Treaty of 1638 with Raja Sinha II of Kandy).

316 chapter 4 of a trading factory at Kayalpatnam six months later in December 1645. Seemingly successful in its policy of checking the power of the Tevar of Ramnad, the aranmanai in turn attempted to forge a powerful alliance between the Dutch and the local Tamil Muslim Maraikkayars, eager to protect their commercial freedom and their share in the pearl fishery, as a counterweight against the influence of the Portuguese-Parava Christian combination on the Fishery Coast. A crucial turn in the events to the north, however, leading to the siege of Gingee by Golconda and, subsequently, by Bijapuri troops, combined with dis- appointment in the commercial and political usefulness of their new-found allies, forced the Nayaka authorities for reasons of state to acknowledge the continued strength of the Portuguese and their Parava allies on the coast. This realisation led to the so-called ‘forced departure’ of the Dutch from Kayalpatnam in June 1648. An inconclusive ‘punitive expedition’ or ‘exploit of revenge’ of February– March 1649 left behind several loose ends with the Portuguese, Paravas, and Hindus on the Madurai Coast. Following the breakdown of negotiations with the Nayaka authorities and the impending renewal of hostilities with the Portuguese at the end of the Ten Years’ Truce in Asia (1645–1652), the Company, facing the problem of imperial ‘overstretch’, decided, at least for the time being, not to re-establish a foothold on the Madurai Coast. Nevertheless, the Company after 1652 gradually strengthened its commercial and political ties with the Tevar of Ramnad, whose alliance with the Dutch was in line with his policy of consolidating his grip over the Ramnad lands during this period. Partly as a result of the cooperation between the Dutch and the Tevar, the net around the Portuguese was closing rapidly. By 1657, events seemed to have gone full circle with the grant of another qaul by the Nayaka authorities and the subsequent re-establishment of a trading factory cum listening post at Kayalpatnam. Although the promise again proved to be ‘written on water’, the situation was fundamentally different from that of the beginning of the period: the distraction from the north was temporarily receding with the final disappearance of Vijayanagara and the diminishing threat from the Deccan sultanates. Moreover, by this time the balance of power on the Madurai Coast had changed dramatically in favour of the Tevar and the Dutch. A new period in cross-cultural encounters was about to begin.

General Framework: Dutch

The first encounter started auspiciously as both the Dutch and the Nayaka authorities were eager to establish relations with the other. Yet, the Company,

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 317 as an all-Asian enterprise, had important commitments elsewhere diverting resources time and again away from its Ceylon and Coromandel administrations. During this period, war with the Portuguese was renewed following the expiration of the Ten Years’ Truce in 1652, while politico-commercial rivalries with the English led to the outbreak of the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654). At the same time, the Company was at loggerheads with a number of Asian states. The prohibition of all Muslim (‘Moorish’) trade with Aceh and the Malaysian tin districts in June 1647 led to hostilities with the Mughal governor or mutasaddi Mir Musa at Surat (1648–1649), and massacres of local Company personnel at Perak (1651), Kedah (1652, 1658), and Ujang Selang (1658). These actions were followed by protracted, albeit rather ineffective, naval blockades of the tin quarters and the northern Sumatran port of Aceh (1656–1659). In Eastern Indonesia, full-scale war broke out in the southern Moluccas (Maluku) around the island of Hoamoal following the restoration of Sultan Mandarsyah of Ternate (r. 1648–1675) by the Company between 1652 and 1656. On Java, mounting tensions with Susuhunan Amangkurat I (r. 1646–1677), ruler of the interior state of Mataram, led to occasional prohibitions of the export of rice and timber and the closure of the northern Javanese pasisir ports (1652–1657, 1660–1661), while open war erupted with Batavia’s powerful neighbor to the west, Bantam, under Sultan Ageng (r. 1651–1683) between 1656 and 1659.3 While trade and war in contemporary mercantilist thought (in the case of the Company exemplified by the so-called ‘Coen doctrine’)4 were held to

3 Ch. Wilson, Profit and Power: A Study of England and the Dutch Wars (London: Longmans, 1957); H.J. de Graaf (ed.), De Vijf Gezantschapsreizen van Rijklof van Goens Naar het Hof van Mataram, 1648–1654, Werken Uitgegeven door de Linschoten-Vereeniging 59 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1956); G.J. Knaap, Kruidnagelen en Christenen: de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie en de Bevolking van Ambon, 1656–1696, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 125 (Dordrecht and Providence: Foris Publications, 1987); H.J. de Graaf, De Geschiedenis van Ambon en de Zuid Molukken (Franeker: Wever, 1977); P. Borschberg, The Singapore and Melaka Straits: Violence, Security and Diplomacy in the 17th Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010); D. Lewis, Jan Compagnie in the Straits of Malacca, 1641–1795, Monographs in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series 96 (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1995). Lewis is a very superficial study based almost exclusively on secondary materials focused on the eighteenth century. Much better are the various works of Leonard Andaya and Barbara Andaya Watson on early modern Malaysian history and: Hoffman, ‘Early Policies in the Malacca Jurisdiction of the United East India Company’; Irwin, ‘The Dutch and the Tin Trade of Malaya in the Seventeenth Century’; Van Santen, voc-Dienaar in India; Idem, De Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan; M.P.M. Vink, ‘Passes and Protection Rights’. 4 In December 1614, Governor General Jan Pietersz. Coen wrote to the Gentlemen Seventeen: ‘By experience [you] should be well aware that in the Indies trade has to be pursued and

318 chapter 4 be interchangeable, these all-Asian commitments also carried with them the inherent danger of overextension. Paul Kennedy has defined ‘imperial overstretch’ as a situation in which a state (in this case a state-sanctioned organisation) overextends itself strategically by the conquest of extensive territories or the waging of costly wars, running the risk that the potential benefits from external expansion may be outweighed by the expenses incurred.5 In fact, the role of the so-called overhead costs or internalisation of protection costs in the history of European overseas expansion has been one of the major bones of contention in colonial historiography ever since the Steensgaard-Meilink-Roelofsz controversy. Moreover, it also spawned a protracted soul-searching debate between the imperialists and mercantile faction within leading Company circles (see Chapter 1).6 Within the Company’s all-Asian perspective, a trading settlement on the Madurai Coast was considered desirable, especially from the viewpoints of the Company’s Ceylon and Coromandel administrations. In the 1630s the Company’s attention shifted from the spice producing areas east of Malacca (the so-called ‘Oosterkwartieren’) to the core region of Portuguese Asia (the Estado da India) on the west coast of India and Ceylon. This shift was marked by the dispatch of annual fleets to the Straits of Malacca, starting in 1633, and the beginning of the yearly blockade of Goa, seat of the Portuguese viceroy and Council, in 1636. As part of the Spanish Habsburg Empire during the period of the so-called ‘Babylonian Captivity’ between 1580 and 1640, Portugal, through the ‘Madrid connection’, became involved in the protracted struggle for independence of the Northern Netherlands against Philip II (r. 1556–1598) and his successors. The Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) provided the Dutch with a convenient excuse to attack the Portuguese overseas possessions in Brazil, West Africa, and Asia. Even when Spain and the newly emergent Dutch Republic concluded peace in 1648, Luso-Dutch hostilities would continue until the

maintained under the protection of one’s own arms and that the weapons must be financed through the profits so earned by trade. In short, trade without war or war without trade cannot be maintained’. Cited in: C.R. Boxer, Jan Compagnie in Oorlog en Vrede: Beknopte Geschiedenis van de voc (Bussum: DeBoer Maritiem, 1977), p. 20. 5 P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), pp. xv–xvi. 6 Steensgaard, Carracks, Caravans and Companies. Republished as: Idem, The Asian Trade Revo lution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Company and the Decline of the Caravan Trade (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1974); Meilink-Roelofsz, ‘The Structures of Trade in Asia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’. For a succinct discussion: Vink, ‘Between Profit and Power’.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 319

capture of the Portuguese settlements on the Malabar Coast in 1663, although the terms of peace were not finally settled until six years later.7 Within this framework of the global Luso-Dutch conflict, the 1638 Wester wold Treaty with Raja Sinha II (r. 1629–1687), the ruler of the interior kingdom of Kandy, provided the basis for the Dutch conquest of Portuguese Ceylon, the single source of cinnamon production. Between 1638 and 1658 the Portuguese fortified settlements were gradually taken in a systematic campaign, starting with the conquest of Galle 1640 and Negombo 1640/1644. At a time when a Ten Years’ Truce became effective in Asia (1645–1652), the ‘Opposite Coast’ of Madurai was ideally situated to provide provisions and other necessities to the Company garrisons at Galle and Negombo.8 While the Company was battling its way into Portuguese Ceylon, the voc government of Coromandel was expanding its commercial operations southwards into the territories of the Nayakas of Gingee, Tanjore, and Madurai. In the 1640s and 1650s, as the Company’s intra-Asiatic trade paid increasing revenues, a steady flow of capital from all over Asia (in particular Japan) enabled the Coromandel governors Arnold Heussen (1643–1650) and Laurens Pit (1650–1651; 1651–1663) to consolidate the Company’s position and increase the volume of return cargo from the coast (see Table 23). The disorders in central and northern Coromandel resulting from internal warfare forced the

7 Vink, ‘Mare Liberum and Dominium Maris’; J.I. Israel, The Dutch and the Hispanic world, 1606–1661 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); C.R. Boxer, ‘Portuguese and Dutch Colonial Rivalry, 1641–1661’, Studia 2 (1958), pp. 7–42. 8 The classical accounts of the Dutch involvement in Ceylon during the first half of the seventeenth century are: P.E. Pieris, Ceylon and the Portuguese, 1505–1658, second edn. (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1986); K.W. Goonewardena, The Foundation of Dutch Power in Ceylon 1638–1658 (Amsterdam: Djambatan, 1958); Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon; W. van Geer, De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag over Ceilon (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1895). For the Portuguese side of the story: G.D. Winius, The Fatal History of Portuguese Ceylon: Transition to Dutch Rule (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971); O.M. da Silva Cosme, Fidalgos in the Kingdom of Kotte, Sri Lanka, 1505–1656: The Portuguese in Sri Lanka (Colombo: Harwoods Publishers, 1990); P.E. Pieris, Ceylon: The Portuguese Era. Being a History of the Island for the Period 1505–1658, 2 vols. (Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries Co., 1913–1914); J. Ribeiro, The Historic Tragedy of the Island of Ceilão Dedicated to His Most Serene Majesty Dom Pedro the Second, King of Portugal, Our Lord Written by Captain João Ribeiro, P.E. Pieris transl., fourth edn. (Colombo: Colombo Daily News Press, 1948); De Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon. For the full texts of the Ten Years’ Truce (June 1642) and the Goa Treaty of November 1644, see: J.F.J. Biker (ed.), Collecçao de Tratados e Concertos de Pazes que o Estado da India Portugueza fez com os Reis e Senhores com Quem Teve Relações nas Partes da Asia e Africa Oriental Desde o Principio da Conquista até ao Fim do Século XVIII (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1882), II, pp. 108–135, and 138–155.

320 chapter 4

Table 23 Capital imports, value of return cargoes, and financial results of the Dutch government of Coromandel, 1640/41–1649/50 (in guilders)

Financial Capital Value Gross Expenditures Net profit Net year imports exports profit loss

1640–41 468,000 na na na 185,913 1641–42 1,210,118 923,183 272,660 83,183 189,477 1642–43 1,194,471 959,165 217,940 97,871 120,069 1643–44 1,005,010 930,144 219,104 99,024 120,080 1644–45 1,575,744 733,241 186,884 114,872 72,012 1645–46 1,625,241 1,542,061 195,168 146,011 49,157 1646–47 1,876,667 1,868,710 151,767 125,647 26,119 1647–48 1,856,974 1,631,113 58,416 126,309 67,983 1648–49 2,194,080 1,449,189 na na na 1649–50 2,540,725 1,948,321 302,049 na na

Source: Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, 1605–1690, pp. 133 n. 249, 140 n. 259, 141 n. 260, and 219.

Coromandel governors to look for alternative centres of activity in the comparatively peaceful regions further south, leading to the establishment of new trading settlements along the coast, such as at Tegenampatnam in Gingee, Trimelevas, and Karaikal in Tanjore, and Kayalpatnam in Madurai.9

General Framework: Madurai

The determining factor shaping the course of political events in South India in this period was the final disintegration of the Vijayanagara state, succumbing to the combined pressure from internal dissension and external invasions. By the end of the 1650s (or arguably as early as 1647) Vijayanagara had turned into a shadow state under a nominal emperor, fittingly nicknamed ‘Tirukuli’ or beggar, who had become a puppet in the hands of designing ‘vassals’, such as the Nayakas of Gingee, Tanjore, and Madurai, and ambitious outsiders, such as the Deccan Sultanates of Golconda and Bijapur.10

9 Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 45–58, 132–134, and 139–141; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies, and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast, pp. 66–82. 10 Much of the dating of the final demise of the Vijayanagara state depends on one’s interpretation and assessment of Sri Ranga Raya III’s repeated ‘comeback’ attempts in 1653,

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 321

The ambitions of Sri Ranga Raya III (r. 1642–1652) to revive the fortunes of the tottering state incited the so-called revolt of the Southern Nayakas of Gingee, Tanjore, and Madurai, culminating in the battle of Velur (December 1645) in which the Vijayanagara forces suffered a crushing defeat.11 Moreover, Tirumalai Nayaka of Madurai, alarmed by the ambitious projects of his nominal suzerain, had invited the Deccan sultanates of Golconda and Bijapur to attack the Vijayanagara possessions. Having come to terms with the Mughals in 1636, the Bijapur’s ‘push to the East’ was further facilitated by Tirumalai’s invitation and Golconda’s ‘march to the South’. Muhammad Adil Shah of Bijapur (r. 1627–1656) and Abdullah Qutb Shah of Golconda (r. 1626–1672), however, proved themselves unreliable allies and in the so-called ‘Carnatic Partition Agreement’ of March–April 1646 decided to divide the remaining territories of the Vijayanagara state between themselves into two spheres of influence with the Pennar River serving roughly as the line of demarcation. Though the division did not prevent the occasional outbreak of hostilities between the two Deccan sultanates, Madurai was subjected to two successive Bijapuri incursions under Muzaffar al-Din Khan-i-Khanan (d. 1657) in 1649 and 1655, respectively.12

1656–1659, and the early 1660s, respectively. The common label attached to Sri Ranga Raya III in Company correspondence is ‘that disastrous king’ (dien rampsaligen koning). 11 For a detailed account of the political events regarding Vijayanagara as seen from the Madurai lands: ‘Annual Relation of the Mission of Madurai from October 1644 to October 1646 [by Fr. Balthasar da Costa] for Father Franciso Barreto Procurator General in Rome for the South’, in: Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, pp. 89–105; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 45 (1916), pp. 185–188, and 196–200; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 118, and 127–133; Idem (Sathianathaier), Tamilaham in the 17th century, pp. 31–58. In the latter work, Sathyanatha Aiyar describes the conflict between Tirumalai Nayaka and Sri Ranga Raya III as a ‘tragic tug of war’. Proença, in terminology reminiscent of the Company, calls him ‘that unfortunate prince’. See: A. Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, Journal of Indian History 44, 1 (1966), p. 169. 12 M.A. Nayeem, External Relations of the Bijapur Kingdom (1489–1686 ad): A Study in Diplomatic History (Hyderabad: Bright Publishers, 1974), pp. 118–144; Verma, History of Bijapur, pp. 113–148; Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shahi Dynasty, pp. 431–462; C.S. Srinivasachari, A History of Gingee and its Rulers (Annamalainagar: The University, 1943), pp. 152–188; V. Vriddhagirisan, The Nayaks of Tanjore (Annamalainagar: The University, 1942), pp. 125–138; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madurai, pp. 118 n. 27, 130–131, 134–135, and 152–153; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 45 (1916), pp. 185–188, and 196–200; Idem, 46 (1917), pp. 37–39; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 133–138; Ramaswami (ed.), Tamil Nadu District Gazetteers. Volume 6: Ramanathapuram, p. 83; Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, Journal of Indian History 44, 1 (1966), pp. 169–171, and 175–179.

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Tirumalai Nayaka’s invitation to the Bijapuri forces to attack Mysore, which was supporting the cause of Sri Ranga Raya III, also invoked another bloody episode in Madurai’s prolonged history of hostilities with the Wodeyar (Udaiyar) Rajas of Mysore. In March 1654, Mysorean forces under Linge-Gauda, talavay of Kanthirava Narasa (r. 1638–1659), descended the Gajelhutti Pass and conquered the provinces of Satyamangalam and neighbouring Danayakankottai from Venkatadri Nayaka, brother of Tirumalai Nayaka. In 1656 a subsequent Mysorean invasion led by talavay Hamparajaiya (Hampaiya) initiated the Second Mysore War or the so-called ‘Hunt for the Noses’ (1656–1659).13 Within this general political framework, the central authorities of Madurai had some special interests in the coastal areas under their control. Profiting from a complex succession struggle in the ‘little kingdom’ of Ramnad starting in the late 1630s, Tirumalai Nayaka by the mid-1640s seemed to have successfully countered the Setupati’s threat by a tripartite division of the Marava lands among the rival claimants Bhatta Nayaka or Tambi (‘younger brother’), the illegitimate son of Kuttan Setupati (r. 1621–1635), Raghunatha Tevar, the adopted son of Sadaikka Tevar II (r. 1636–1645), and Tanakka Tevar, the brother of Raghunatha. The division, however, was anything but the final solution of the ‘Marava question’, as both Tanakka Tevar and Tambi died shortly thereafter, giving Raghunatha Tevar (r. 1645–1673) the chance to extend and consolidate his power over all of the Ramnad territories.14

13 C. Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore (1399–1799 ad): Incorporating the Latest Epigraphical, Literary and Historical Researches (Bangalore: Superintendent of the Government Press, 1943), I, pp. 112–157, esp. 148–154; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 135–137; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 45 (1916), pp. 200–202; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 136–138; Ramaswami (ed.), Tamil Nadu District Gazetteers. Volume 6: Ramanathapuram, pp. 82–83; Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, Journal of Indian History 44, 1 (1966), pp. 169–175. 14 In April 1665, Captain Van Rheede received a distorted, but nonetheless tantalising, account of these events from Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai (d. 1668), talavay of Madurai and the son (or son-in-law) of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, as the document basically served as an apologia for the aranmanai’s war with Raghunatha Tevar (1664–1665). Bhatta Nayaka or Tambi is here the brother’s son of Sadaikka Tevar II or Talavay Setupati (r. 1635–1645). Following a series of events, including the famous expedition of the Madurai talavay Rammapayyan to the island of Rameswaram, the Ramnad principality is finally divided among three nephews of Talavay Setupati called Devakottai Tevar, Adi Narayana Tevar, and Raghunatha Tevar. See: voc 1251, obp 1666, ff. 743–746, Rapp. Capptn. Hendrick van Rhede van zijne verrichtingen in de landen van Trevancor en Madure aen Rijkloff van Goens, ordinarij raet van India, superintendent, admirael, veltoverste en gouvr. des eijlants Ceijlon ende de cust Malebaer, etc., 7.10.1665.

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During this time period, however, the Marava ruler rendered faithful service to the Nayaka of Madurai for which he was amply rewarded. For the repulsion of the Bijapuri (1655) and Mysorean (1656–1659) invasions and the crushing of a palaiyakkarar rebellion in Tirunelveli led by the Nayaka of Ettayapuram (1657), the Ramnad ruler was accorded the honourific titles ‘Tirumalai Setupati’ and ‘Defender of the Kingdom’, the perpetual remission of tribute (carvaman- yam) and a share in the pearl fishery, some lands near Mannarkovil, the right to celebrate the Navaratri or Nine Nights’ Festival and the iraniyakarppa sacrifice on the same scale as at Madurai, and use the lion-face palanquin peculiar to the royal house of Madurai.15 Having previously employed the Portuguese in order to check the ambitions of Sadaikka Tevar II or Talavay Setupati, Tirumalai Nayaka in the 1640s subsequently attempted to forge a viable Dutch-Maraikkayar combination at Kayalpatnam as a politico-commercial tool to upset the Portuguese-Parava alliance on the Fishery Coast. Following the incorporation of the services of the élite Shafi’i Muslim community of maritime traders through the creation of the office of Mudaliyar Pillai Maraikkayar, Tirumalai Nayaka’s qaul to the Company of June 1645, violating a promise his talavay Ramappaiyan had made earlier to the Portuguese viceroy at Goa in August 1639 not to admit the Dutch in his territories, now intended to include the Company in his patronage network as well.16

15 Ramaswami (ed.), Tamil Nadu District Gazetteers. Volume 6: Ramanathapuram, pp. 80–84; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 122–126; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 45 (1916), pp. 169–171, 178–185, and 201– 202; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 128–130, and 137–138; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 276. The exploits of the Madurai talavay Ramappaiyan in the war against Sadaikka Tevar II or Talavay Setupati are the topic of the heroic ballad Ramappayyan Ammanai. There are two versions available: an abridged Tanjore and a complete Madras version. See: Sathyanatha Aiyar (Sathianathaier), Tamilaham in the Seventeenth Century, p. 37; K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, Further Sources of Vijyanagara History (Madras: University of Madras, 1946), II, pp. 443–448; III, pp. 328–329. See: C.M. Ramachandran Chettiar (ed.), Ramaiyan Ammanai (Ramappayan) (Tanjore: S. Gopalan, 1950); S. Vaiyapuri Pillai (ed.), Ramappaiyan Ammanai (A Historical Ballad) (Madras: University of Madras, 1951); Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 45 (1916), p. 169 n. 5. 16 Sathyanatha Aiyar (Sathianathaier), Tamilaham in the 17th century, pp. 37–38; F.C. Danvers, Report to the Secretary of State for India in Council on the Portuguese Records Relating to the East Indies, Contained in the Archivo da Torre do Tombo, and the Public Libraries of Lisbon and Evora (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1892), pp. 43–44; Idem, The Portuguese in India: Being a History of the Rise and Decline of their Eastern Empire (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1894), II, p. 268; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik kingdom of Madurai’, Indian Antiquary 45

324 chapter 4

Settlement and ‘Forced Departure’, 1645–1648

Even before the establishment of a trading presence on the Madurai Coast, the Company had already attempted, albeit with little success, to gain footholds in the territories of the other Southern Nayakas of Gingee and Tanjore. In March 1643, the Company predikant, Carolus de la Dossa, and the Brahmin merchant Padmanabha succeeded in obtaining a qaul from Tuppaki Krishnappa Nayaka, the Gingee talavay, who gave permission to establish a factory at Tegenampatnam and promised free trade in the Gingee province. In November 1643, a second qaul was obtained from the Gingee commander-in-chief by the Company Junior Merchant Govert Crackouw, allowing for the employment of local inhabitants from Porto Novo, Pondichéry, and Tegenampatnam in Company service. In June 1644, further qauls were issued by Venkatappa Nayaka, the ruler of Gingee (r. 1625–1645), and his talavay, granting permission for the establishment of a factory at Porto Novo, the remission of all import and export duties, and half the tolls in the interior.17 In spite of all these promises, Company trade in the Gingee province did not experience a Rostowian ‘take off’ due to the untimely death of Venkatappa Nayaka in March 1645, the ‘continual wars, robberies, and confusions’, and the machinations of the ‘portfolio capitalist’ Chinanna Chitti (d. 1659) and his brother’s son, Koneri Chitti, with whom the Company had recently fallen out. Commenting on the ‘fickleness, irresoluteness, and extremely miserly desires’ of the indigenous rulers, Governor Heussen of Coromandel in October 1643 observed: ‘As experience has shown, . . ., the advantageous qauls and great promises of this nation cannot be trusted, since these people only look after their own advantage. We ought not imagine or deceive ourselves to expect anything else as long as they are masters of the lands, which we have to frequent’.18

(1916), pp. 180–183; P.S.S. Pissurlencar (ed.), Assentos do Conselho do Estado: Documentos Coordenados e Anotados, 5 vols. (Bastorá-Goa: Rangel, 1953–1957), II, pp. 555–556. 17 voc 1151, obp 1645, f. 764r, Miss. gouvr. Arend Gardenijs van Coromandel aan Batavia, 3.4.1643; voc 1147, obp 1645, f. 536r, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 19.1.1644; voc 1158, obp 1646, ff. 188v–189r, Verbael bijeengestelt wt de papieren ende geschriften concer- nerende ‘s Comps. negotie ende affairen op de Custe Choromandel in de jaren 44 ende 1645, January 1645; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, I, pp. 395–400; Idem, pp. 417–419, and 424–426. 18 voc 1151, obp 1645, ff. 798r–798v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 3.10.1643; voc 1156, obp 1646, f. 278r, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 5.10.1644; voc 1158, obp 1646, f. 188v, Verbaal van Coromandel, January 1645; voc 1156, obp 1646, f. 341v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 27.3.1645; Idem, f. 249v, Miss. gouvr.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 325

The Company was experiencing similar problems in Tanjore, where sometime in 1644 a Company factory was established at Shiyali near Trimelevas. In January 1645, an embassy under the Company Merchant Van der Meijden was sent, along with proper gifts, to its ruler, the ‘philosopher-king’ Vijayaraghava Nayaka (r. 1634–1673), ‘in order to expand the Company’s trade to places where it is most profitable’. Having been plied with compliments and promises of a favourable qaul by the Tanjore ruler, Van der Meijden nevertheless was forced to return empty-handed. While the Company suspected the intrigues of Chinanna Chitti and his brother’s son, Koneri Chitti, it seems that negotiations broke down on the issues of Tanjore’s rights to Company vessels stranded on the coast (the jus naufragii or right of shipwreck) and Vijayaraghava’s request for Dutch military assistance against the Portuguese, English, and Danes.19 With trading prospects in Gingee and Tanjore looking rather bleak, Governor Heussen in March 1645 intimated to the Batavian government that he intended to have the lands of Madurai visited shortly thereafter in order to commence trade in the region, ‘being animated by our own desire and being summoned by its Nayaka via an offer of a special ambassador’. Heussen believed that the ‘extraordinary profits’ of the Madurai trade should not be left to the Portuguese and other rival traders, portraying it as a promising market for the sale of all kinds of commodities and the export of great quantities of textiles, saltpetre, and slaves at lower prices than in the lands of Gingee and Tanjore. Moreover, it was an excellent opportunity to circumvent the schemes of Chinanna and his creatures with whom the Company had fallen out at the time.20 In early April 1645, Van der Meijden was dispatched from Pulicat aboard the yacht ‘Grijpskercke’ with a cargo valued at 42,000 guilders to Porto Novo. From there Van der Meijden was to embark on the galiot ‘Bracq’ and sail via Pamban Channel and Karaikal to Kayalpatnam. Thence he was to proceed overland to the Nayaka of Madurai along with his ambassador ‘in order to

Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 18.5.1645. Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, p. 54. 19 voc 1156, obp 1646, ff. 341r–341v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 27.3.1645; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1644–1645, p. 339. In April 1645, the Company was forced to give up its factory at Shiyali for which Chinanna was blamed. voc 1158, obp 1646, f. 210v, Verbaal van Coromandel, August 1645; Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, pp. 55–56. 20 voc 1156, obp 1646, ff. 341v–342r, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 27.3.1645; voc 1158, obp 1646, f. 203v, Verbaal van Coromandel, Mei 1645; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1644–1645, p. 339.

326 chapter 4 request confirmation of the trade offered in the forms of a sound qaul along with an appropriate place of residence’.21 Almost three months later, at the end of July 1645, Van der Meijden returned to Pulicat with the flute ‘Heemskerk’ and galiot ‘Bracq’, carrying over 25,000 guilders in textiles, saltpetre, indigo, rockfish skins, slaves, chanks, and cowries, and, more importantly, a qaul from Tirumalai Nayaka. The Madurai ruler granted the Company permission to trade freely in his territories; allowed for the remission of half the import duties, while gold, silver, precious stones, silk textiles and gifts were completely exempt; promised exemption from three- quarters of the export duties and half of the tolls in the interior; accorded preferential rights in the collection of arrears from local merchants; pledged assistance in salvaging wrecked Company vessels on his coast; vowed not to increase the customary chungam or customs; and promised not to force the Company to provide him with assistance against the Portuguese, English, Danes, or any other nation.22 Pointing to the vested interests of the Portuguese in the area, both Van der Meijden and Heussen considered an ‘honest gratuity and present’ to the Nayakas and other regents imperative in order to counter the schemes (‘con- tramines’) of their European rivals and their underlings. Van der Meijden also recommended Kayalpatnam as the proper site for a Company settlement, as it could be conveniently serviced either by small craft from Tondi or larger vessels from Ceylon. Situated at the mouth of the Tambraparni River on the Gulf of Mannaar, it would be ideally located to provision the Company garrisons at Galle and Negombo with rice and textiles, participate in the overland trade with Malabar exchanging local commodities, such as rice and coarse textiles, for pepper, and would provide the Company with textile varieties (among others, kachchais, chiavonys, and beatilhas), popular both in Europe and Asia, and available at cheaper rates than elsewhere on the Coromandel Coast.23 Although Van der Meijden failed to mention the presence of the Muslim Maraikkayar traders at Kayalpatnam, Governor Heussen and Council were duly impressed by his report. In spite of some reservations regarding the strong

21 voc 1156, obp 1646, ff. 254r–254v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 2.5.1645; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1644–1645, p. 345. 22 voc 1158, obp 1646, ff. 219r–220v, Transl. caul Neijck van Madré aen de Compe., June 1645; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, I, pp. 455–457; Van der Chijs et al. (eds.), Dagh-Register 1644–1645, pp. 351–354; Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, p. 57. 23 voc 1156, obp 1646, ff. 233r et seq., Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 16.8.1645; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1644–1645, pp. 351–354; voc 1158, obp 1646, ff. 220v–221r, Verbaal van Coromandel, September 1645.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 327 position of the Portuguese in the region, the conditions of the qaul were deemed too favourable and the commercial advantages too profitable not to establish a presence in Madurai. In September 1645 Van der Meijden left Pulicat via Ceylon for Kayalpatnam with a cargo of lead, tin, nutmeg, cloves, mace, and so forth, valued over 40,000 guilders, required for trade in the lands of Madurai, in order to establish a local trading settlement.24 Arriving at Kayalpatnam on 11 December 1645, the founding father of the Company’s trade at Madurai was presented with the following view:

[Kayalpatnam is] on the sea shore about 5 to 6 [Dutch] miles [1 Dutch mile = 4.7 English miles] north of Tuticorin. Formerly it was a town of great importance, extraordinary confluence and concourse both by sea and over land of many foreign and indigenous merchants, weavers, and painters. However, due to the oppression and unbearable inconveniences of the governors its trade has declined considerably and the majority of the merchants has moved to other places…25

In spite of its relative decline, Kayalpatnam by any standards was still a sizeable town and one of the most important ports on the Madurai Coast. In 1665, for instance, Captain Hendrick van Rheede estimated the number of inhabitants at Kayalpatnam, all held to be ‘Moors’, at about 10,000, and the number of locally owned vessels at 102, while in the pearl fisheries of 1668 and 1669 Kayalpatnam was well-represented as well with 66 vessels (2,398 persons) and 81 vessels (2,633) participating. Van Rheede further provided the following description of this regional trade centre:

The Moorish village of Kayalpatnam . . . is an open settlement stretching for over half a mile along the coast about one long sling throw in the interior, filled with small olais and straw huts and open on all sides. However, the sea somewhat pounds the coast, which is rather flat. Many coming and going vessels are mooring there continuously in order to trade, exporting chanks, pearl-grit (albeit of poor quality), large quantities of textiles, and rice. Here, at Punnaikayal, and at other places, the Portuguese, topazes [Indo-Portuguese Christians], Moors, and Gentiles from Porto Novo come

24 voc 1161, obp 1647, f. 888v, Journaal Kasteel Geldria, 27.9.1645; voc 1158, obp 1646, f. 225r, Verbaal van Coromandel, November 1645; voc 1159, obp 1647, f. 536r, Miss. Joan Thijsz. van Gale aan Batavia, 18.12.1645; voc 1167, obp 1647, f. 803v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 30.2.1646. 25 voc 1156, obp 1646, f. 234v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 16.8.1645.

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with Company, English, and Danish passes. These traders push up the price of textiles, moving from there into the interior to the weavers and painters. They order large quantities of textiles, and stay there until these have been finished, which they then ship off via Pamban Channel.26

As mentioned earlier, the local Muslim population was governed by a Mudaliyar Pillai Maraikkayar supported by four ambalakkarars or revenue officers. In February 1650, for instance, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, the governor of Tirunelveli, wrote an olai to a certain Narayana Mudaliyar, who styled himself the adhikari (lit. ‘one possessing authority’) of Kayalpatnam.27 During this period, the Kayalpatnam Maraikkayars were willing partners of the Company as part of a marriage of convenience in which they hoped to find a counterweight against the Portuguese-Parava combination, increasingly threatening their commercial freedom and share in the pearl fishery. In February 1646, for instance, ‘at the request of the Moors’, an attempt was made to inspect the pearl banks in front of Kayalpatnam with 10 small thonis, the first logical step toward a pearl fishery. The attempt, however, was nipped in the bud by the Portuguese resident at Tuticorin.28 Dutch-Muslim contacts on the Madurai Coast were not limited to the Maraikkayar community of Kayalpatnam alone. In January 1647, one Yusuf Muhammad was employed by Pieter van Bart, the Company resident at Kayalpatnam, to collect chanks and rockfish skins from the ‘Moorish’ fishermen at Vedalai, a small coastal settlement housing 1,600 residents and 20 vessels in the mid-1660s, to whom the Company had advanced money against the delivery of these commodities.29

26 voc 1251, obp 1666, ff. 782–784, Rapp. Van Rheede aen Rijkloff van Goens, ordinarij raet van India, superintendent, admirael, veltoverste en gouvr. des eijlants Ceijlon ende de cust Malabaer, 7.10.1665. It is not known how the Company factory itself actually looked like, apart from the fact that it was a two-story building. However, it may have been resembling the one at Karaikal, which in August 1651 was described as ‘a secure, large warehouse with two upper rooms and, in the centre, a massive hall made of lime and stone, where the painting of textiles and cotton yarn are now taking place’. See: voc 1177, obp 1651, f. 421r, Translaet brieff van den adigaer van Cailpatnam aen de gouvr. Joan Maetsuijcker, 14.1.1650; voc 1184, obp 1652, f. 178v, Miss. commissaris Dircq Steur van Pulicat aan Batavia, 18.8.1651. 27 voc 1177, obp 1651, f. 421r, Translaet brieff van den adigaer van Cailpatnam aen de gouvr. Joan Maetsuijcker, 14.1.1650; Idem, fl. 384r, Translaet ola Waddemaleijappair, twede persoon van den neijcq van Madure, aen Nareijne Modliaer, gouvernr. van Cailpatnam, 11.2.1650. 28 voc 1161, obp 1647, f. 952v, Journaal van het Kasteel Geldria, 23.4.1646. 29 voc 1164, obp 1648, f. 715r, Miss. Van Bart van Cayelpatam aan Van der Meijde en Govert Crackouw, 15.1.1647.

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Cordial relations were not interrupted by the ‘forced departure’ from Kayalpatnam and the subsequent ‘punitive expedition’ of February–March 1649. On the contrary, the Company troops received a friendly reception, ‘calling and blessing us, wishing us good luck’. In April 1651, moreover, Van der Meijden reported that on his departure from Kayalpatnam, ‘the common people had professed, that…their only wish was to live under Company jurisdiction’. Although statements as these need to be taken with more than the proverbial grain of salt, they do point out the mutual eagerness toward cooperation and preserving the relationship. Illustrative of this desire is the fact that, even after the ‘forced departure’ from Kayalpatnam and the subsequent abortive efforts to reestablish a trading settlement on the Madurai Coast, all contacts between the local Maraikkayars and the Dutch were not severed as one Ulagan Nayanar continued to act as an indigenous servant of the Company at Kayalpatnam.30 Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to gauge the exact size of the Company trade at Kayalpatnam during this period. For one thing, the commercial accounts of Karaikal, from which the three voc settlements in southern Coromandel (Karaikal, Trimelevas, and Kayalpatnam) at this time were directed, are no longer extant. For another, in the Company correspondence, now incomplete, no clear distinction is consistently made between the destination and origins of cash and commodities. Repeatedly, one comes across references to ‘the south’ or ‘the southern districts of Coromandel’. Nevertheless, based on the (partial) reconstruction of the shipping lists of the three southern Company factories during this period and some later references in the Company archives we can arrive at a fairly close approximation of the limited importance of the Company’s trade at Kayalpatnam.31 A reconstruction of the shipping lists of 1645–1648 (with those of 1645–1646 being almost complete) seem to suggest that the annual imports and exports from southern Coromandel hovered around 200,000 guilders. These figures are

30 voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 513v, and 524r–524v, Extract dagreg. Johan de Vogel, secrets. van Joan Maetsuijcker, gouvr. op Ceijlon en raad ord. van India gedurende de expeditie van Tuticorin op de kust van India, 31.1–1.3.1649; voc 1185, obp 1652, ff. 413r–413v, Miss. president Van Kittensteijn van Gale aan Batavia, 5.4.1651. See also: voc 1184, obp 1652, f. 272v, Miss. president Pit van Coromandel aan Batavia, 18.4.1651; voc 1210, obp 1656, f. 674r, Miss. koopman Van Nieuwlandt van Trangebar aan de ‘s Comps. residenten op Tegenepatnam, 31.12.1655; voc 1214, obp 1656, f. 269r, Miss. koopman Van Nieuwlandt van Trangebare aan Batavia, 21.7.1656. 31 In January 1682, Chief Thomas van Rhee of Tuticorin, while discussing the ‘limited success’ of the Company trade at Kayalpatnam during this period, referred for specific information to the commercial accounts of Karaikal, ‘presently deposited at Nagapatnam’. voc 1505, obp 1683, f. 359v, Memorie Van Rhee voor opperk. en geeligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust Rutgaart de Heijde, 31.1.1682.

330 chapter 4 corroborated by contemporary statements of Company officials. In August 1646, for instance, Governor Heussen of Coromandel estimated that the total exports of Karaikal, Trimelevas, and Kayalpatnam since the beginning of August 1645 had amounted to more than 200,000 guilders. Heussen’s successor, Governor Laurens Pit, stated in September 1657 that the factories in southern Coromandel were unable to export more than 300,000 guilders a year and ‘that in previous times when the sales at Batavia were opulent, the demands from Europe were unlimited, and, in the absence of local obstacles, the south had never exported much more than two tons of gold [200,000 guilders]’.32 In addition to the total value of the Company’s trade in southern Coromandel, we also have several references to the size of the trade at the individual factories. In 1650–1651, for instance, the total value of exports from Karaikal, including 480 parcels of textiles, amounted to 113,005 guilders, while in 1656–1657 total exports from Karaikal and Tegenampatnam (the ‘successor factory’ of Trimelevas) were more than 130,000 guilders. These figures suggest that the annual turnover of the Kayalpatnam factory between 1645 and 1648 was approximately 70,000 guilders.33 From its inception, the Company’s trade in Madurai and their alliance with the Kayalpatnam Maraikkayars was opposed and obstructed by the Portuguese- Parava combination. As early as August 1645, at the order of the Portuguese Viceroy at Goa, Dom Felipe Mascarenhas (1645–1651), the Portuguese captain- major (capitão-mór) of Saõ Tomé, Dom Luís de Melo, sent a protest letter to governor Heussen at Pulicat. De Melo objected to the admission of the Company to the Fishery Coast, which, he argued, had been granted to the Portuguese by contract for a hundred years. De Melo, therefore, requested Heussen to abandon the project and instead invited him to establish the Company’s trade in Madurai at Tuticorin under Portuguese auspices. Heussen, not impressed by the protest, replied that the Nayaka himself had granted the voc free trade in his lands, and that he would study the offer of trading at Tuticorin. The Coromandel governor, however, wearily informed Batavia that ‘in order to frustrate them, the Company should not fail to give a honest recognition to the Nayaka and the regents (something the Portuguese would not abstain from) until we are well-established’.34

32 voc 1161, obp 1647, f. 985r, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 16.8.1646; voc 1221, obp 1658, f. 584v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 12.9.1657. See also: Idem, f. 671r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 19.11.1657. 33 voc 1184, obp 1652, ff. 177v–178v, Miss. comms. Dirck Steur van Pulicat aan Batavia, 18.8.1651; voc 1221, obp 1658, f. 670v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 19.11.1657. 34 voc 1158, obp 1646, ff. 218r–218v, Verbaal van Coromandel, September 1645; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1644–1645, pp. 351–352.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 331

As mentioned earlier, Van der Meijden ‘at the request of the Moors’ in February 1646 allowed the Kayalpatnam divers to investigate the local pearl banks with 10 small thonis, provided they would pay the ordinary dues to the Nayaka and the Company (one day’s catch each). The Portuguese, however, argued that the Madurai Coast did not belong to the Nayaka and had been under the jurisdiction of the king of Portugal for more than 120 years. Referring to the stipulations of the Ten Years’ Truce and the negotiations held with the previous and present Nayakas, they vowed ‘not to allow our inhabitants (mora- dores) to investigate the pearl fishery in the roadstead, claiming, moreover, that the sea in front of Kayalpatnam and the adjacent places were theirs’.35 In May 1646, the Portuguese captured a thoni from Karaikal near Quilon provided with a Company safe conduct and a cargo of tobacco valued at 1,075 reals or 3,125 guilders, ‘not only to diminish the reputation of the Company, but also in violation of the articles of confederation [the Ten Years’ Truce]’. In response, the voc intercepted the Portuguese yacht ‘Madre de Deos’ with a cargo of rice valued at 539 reals (1,617 guilders) near Kayalpatnam in order to recompense the owners of the thoni.36 Besides these direct and rather minor provocations back and forth, more serious business was going elsewhere as both sides realised that the key to forcing the issue was the relationship with the Nayaka authorities. We have already seen that from the very beginning, the Company was aware of the fact that in order to maintain the friendship of the aranmanai and to counter the efforts of the Portuguese ‘honest recognition and gifts’ to the Madurai authorities were indispensable. Portuguese efforts in this context received an extra stimulus in February 1646 when King Dom João IV of Portugal (r. 1640–1656) sent unam- biguous instructions to his Viceroy Dom Felipe Mascarenhas at Goa, that while the Ten Years’ Truce was in force the Estado da India should try to use proxy war tactics encouraging Asian rulers to fight against the Dutch.37

35 voc 1161, obp 1647, f. 952v, Journaal van het kasteel Geldria, 23.4.1646; Idem, f. 825v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 3.5.1646. For the conditions of the Ten Years’ Truce, concluded at The Hague in 1641 and ratified in 1642, see: Biker (ed.), Collecção de Tratados, II, pp. 108–135; NA, Archief van de Staten-Generaal 1.01.08, inv. nr. 12590-1a, Traktaat van het tienjarig bestand tussen de Republiek en Portugal in den Haag gesloten, 12.6.1641. 36 voc 1161, obp 1647, ff. 798r–798v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 9.6.1646; voc 1164, obp 1648 l, ff. 756r–756v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel aan Batavia, 27.6.1647. 37 Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p. 138. Sathyanatha Aiyar based his account on Danvers, Report on the Portuguese Records, pp. 48–50; Idem, The Portuguese in India, II, pp. 293–294.

332 chapter 4

In late 1646 one Vithoji employed by the Portuguese captain of Tuticorin Dom João Garcia Sarmento, and several Parava headmen, including Dom Henrique da Cruz, traveled to Sivanandiappa Pillai at Palaiyamkottai and subsequently to Tirumalai Nayaka at Madurai. Vithoji and his Parava associates cleverly worked on the desire for personal gain of the ‘Great Nayaka’ and his governor at Palaiyamkottai arguing that the Company had not kept its promise to shower them with annual gifts, including elephants. Requesting the expulsion of the Dutch, they promised in their turn 3,000 reals (9,000 guilders) to Sivanandiappa Pillai and another 5,000 reals (15,000 guilders) to Tirumalai Nayaka.38 It does not appear that this particular effort to dislodge the Company from the Madurai Coast was immediately successful, but a similar attempt the next year certainly was. In two later Company surveys of the relations with the Nayaka of Madurai during this period, it was reported that the governor of Tirunelveli, the Brahmin Deva Chatira Ayya (d. 1668) had accepted a bribe of 3,000 reals, not only allowing the Paravas to attack the Company residents at Kayalpatnam, but also giving them active support in the effort ‘moved by deception and in hopes of plunder and gain’.39 The Company’s explanation for the aranmanai and its representatives’ receptiveness to the Portuguese requests as the mere result of bribery is somewhat simplistic and one-sided. It seems very likely that the Nayaka authorities

38 voc 1164, obp 1648, f. 715v, Miss. van Barth van Kayelpatnam aan Van der Meijden en Crackouw te Karaikal, 15.1.1647. In 1640, a certain ‘Sivandiapa Pullei’ (the ‘Segundipa Nayaka’ in the Company sources?) was described as being ‘in charge of the execution of orders from Trichinopoly’. See: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, II, p. 312. During the ‘punitive expedition’ of February 1649, despite an agreement with Captain Francisco Malhero and the leading Jesuit priests of Tuticorin for the payment of a fire tax, it was decided to burn the residences of the refugee Captain Sermento and Da Cruz for their part in the expulsion of the Company servants from Kayalpatnam, ‘being the most beautiful buildings inside Tuticorin except for the churches and the monastery’. voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 515r, and 520v–521r, Extract dagreg. gehouden bij Johan de Vogel, secretaris van Joan Maetsuijcker, gouvr. van Ceijlon en ords. raad van India, gedurende de expeditie van Tuticorin op de kust van India, 31.1–1.3.1649; voc 1185, obp 1652, f. 538v, Corte verantwoordinge vanwege de voc die gedaan werd opt relaes bij de Portugese ambassadeur aan haar Ho. Mo. afgegeven over het gepasseerde in Tuticorin ao. 1649. 39 voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1170r, Rapport Captn. Van Rheede aan Rijckloff van Goens, 2.7.1668; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 155v–156r, Redenen en oorsaecken over het begin en vervolgh des Maduresen oorloghs, 19.12.1669. Goonewardena argues that: ‘The Viceroy [Dom Felipe Mascarenhas] himself caused much harm to the Dutch by successfully inciting the Nayaka of Madura to expel them from Kayalpatnam’. See: Goonewardena, The Foundation of Dutch Power in Ceylon, p. 132.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 333 by this time had also become utterly disappointed in the commercial and political usefulness of their newfound allies. A trading settlement with a few Company servants, an annual turnover of 70,000 guilders, and no embassies forthcoming with valuable presents for the court officials can only have made a poor impression on the Madurai authorities. Instead, they must have come to realise that, at least for the moment, they could ill-afford to ignore the strength of the Portuguese and their Parava allies on the coast. With the internal affairs of Ramnad settling down under Raghunatha Tevar or Tirumalai Setupati (r. 1645–1673), who, because of the death of his two rivals, had become the sole ruler of the Ramnad principality, there was also less opportunity for fishing in troubled waters, at least for the time being. Moreover, at this juncture events in the north took a crucial turn when Golconda troops under Muhammad Sayyid Ardistani or Mir Jumla com- menced the siege of Gingee. In order to fend off the Golconda threat, Tirumalai Nayaka allied himself with Mustafa Khan Ardistani (d. November 9, 1648). The Bijapuri general promised to supply some 17,000 cavalry, whereupon Tirumalai himself marched to the relief of the Gingee hill-fortress at the head of 30,000 infantry.40 Thus, in June 1648 the yacht ‘Lillo’ unexpectedly arrived at Galle from Malabar with the Company residents and movable property from Kayalpatnam, ‘from where they have been expelled ignominiously by the rabble-rousing and evil practices of the Portuguese and their creatures [the Paravas]’. For a detailed account of the events, Governor Maetsuycker of Ceylon (unfortunately for us) referred to the oral report of one of the Kayalpatnam residents, the Company Merchant Cornelis van Quaalbergen, who for that purpose was specifically sent to Batavia. It is clear, however, that only the fortunate arrival of the yacht ‘Lillo’, in need for water while returning from Malabar en route to Batavia, saved the local personnel from certain death. No sooner had the servants escaped on board the vessel than the Company factory was plundered and demolished. The total damage of the so-called ‘forced departure’ from Kayalpatnam, including the money advanced to local merchants, painters, weavers, and coolies, and various unfinished textiles and commodities, was

40 Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shahi Dynasty, pp. 452–453; Verma, History of Bijapur, pp. 145–146; Nayeem, External Relations of the Bijapur Kingdom, pp. 104–105, 129–130, and 142–143; Srinivasachari, A History of Gingee and its Rulers, pp. 169–173; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p. 129; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 45 (1916), p. 197; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 134; Letter Antonio de Proença, missionary of Madurai, to Fr. Goswin Nickel, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Candelur, 20.9.1656, in: Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, Journal of Indian History 44, 1 (1966), pp. 166–167.

334 chapter 4 fixed at 27,888 guilders, while privately the local Company servants claimed to have lost another 884 3/5 reals or 2,123 guilders.41

The ‘Punitive Expedition’ of 1649

Thirsty for revenge and eager to jump on the opportunity for personal material gain, Governor Maetsuycker of Ceylon (see Figure 1) pointed to the need for a speedy and adequate response, fearing for the decline of the Honourable Company’s reputation and the subsequent danger posed to other Dutch factories in the region. Despite his zeal to exact retribution, Maetsuycker still had some of his priorities straight. He suggested postponing the ‘punitive expedition’ to the coming season after the completion of the cinnamon harvest and elephant hunt on Ceylon when the field armies would go into winter quarters and the Company could afford to dispatch 200–250 European soldiers along with 100 or more lascorins for a period of four to six weeks. These troops, preferably to be supplemented from Batavia, Maetsuycker deemed sufficient ‘to ransack the coast, conclude an advantageous contract with the Nayaka of Madurai, restore the Company’s reputation, and recover the damage and loss of interests incurred’.42 Batavia’s initial knee-jerk reaction to the ‘forced departure’ from Kayal patnam understandably enough was to look for a scapegoat, for which it believed Governor Heussen of Coromandel was the obvious choice. In August 1648, the High Government had accused Heussen of having spread the Company investments in Coromandel too thinly, and ordered the abandon- ment of the trade in the ‘South’, which from then on should be left to Chinanna Chitti, a politically ambitious Balija merchant from the Pulicat region and chief broker of the VOC in Coromandel. According to Batavia, Heussen’s policy had exposed the voc to unnecessary risks and had produced little or no

41 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1161r, and 1170r, Rapport Captn. Van Rheede aan Rijckloff van Goens, 2.7.1668; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 155v–156r, Redenen en oorsaecken over het begin en vervolgh des Maduresen oorloghs, 19.12.1669; M.A.P. Roelofsz (later Meilink-Roelofsz), De Vestiging der Nederlanders ter Kuste Malabar (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1943), pp. 125–126; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, pp. 503–504; voc 1168, obp 1649, f. 458v, Miss. gouvr. Heussen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 6.10.1648. In later accounts, the losses in the attack were estimated to be 25,657 guilders. In September 1654, Governor Laurens Pit finally requested Batavia for permission to write off the sum as a non-recoverable ‘bad debt’. See: voc 1188, obp 1652, f. 236r, Miss. gouvr. Pit van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 21.1.1652; voc 1203, obp 1655, f. 461r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 23.9.1654. 42 voc 1168, obp 1649, f. 548r, Miss. gouvr. Maetsuijcker van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.6.1648.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 335

revenues. Moreover, excluding the English, Danes, Portuguese, and Muslims from the ‘southern districts’ was considered impossible in view of the commercial opportunities in the area in general and the abundant supplies of textiles in particular.43 In an apologia of October 1648 Governor Heussen admitted that he might have overextended Company resources somewhat and taken too many risks. However, Heussen vehemently defended his decision to establish the Company’s trade in Gingee, Tanjore, and Madurai. The Coromandel governor argued that he had merely done so in the hopes of providing the Company with plentiful and cheap textiles, obstructing its competitors, and becoming less dependent on the chicaneries of Chinanna Chitti. These plans, Heussen averred ‘to his great sadness and regret’, had only been frustrated because of external causes out of his control, such as the chaotic administration and confused political conditions of the country, combined with dearth, famine, and starvation.44 Having satisfied its primary emotions, the High Government at Batavia decided it was time for more constructive decisions and in September 1648 agreed with Governor Maetsuycker that a forceful response was required. For that purpose, 150 soldiers were embarked in the ship ‘Nassouw’, who were to be supplemented with as many soldiers as possible from the Galle and Negombo garrisons ‘in order to execute that work with reputation and pay these scoundrels back, if possible, double the disgrace, damages suffered, and expenses, which the Company will incur under condition of a conclusive and advantageous contract…so that, with God’s help, we can achieve our goal honourably and profitably and make that evil race feel that they were deceived by the Portuguese and will have to respect us in the future’.45 On February 3, 1649, a fleet of ten vessels (3 flutes, 1 yacht, 1 galiot, 3 long- boats or sloops, and 2 Sinhalese vessels) carrying eight companies or 436 soldiers and 170–180 lascorins set sail from Galle under the command of Governor

43 voc 872, bub 1648, ff. 259–261, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Heussen en raad van Coromandel, 19.8.1648. 44 voc 1168, obp 1649, ff. 456v–457r, Miss. gouvr. Heussen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 6.10.1648. For a similar defense of Heussen’s actions by his successor, Governor Laurens Pit, see: voc 1188, obp 1652, ff. 233r–233v, Miss. gouvr. Pit van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 21.1.1652. 45 voc 872, bub 1648, f. 302, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Maetsuijcker van Ceijlon, 16.9.1648. See also: Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1648, 17.9.1648; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, p. 345; Roelofsz, De Vestiging der Nederlanders ter Kuste Malabar, pp. 125–126.

336 chapter 4

Maetsuycker.46 Landing six days later, on February 9, halfway between Vira pandiyapatnam and Tiruchendur, the expeditionary force quickly established a base of operation at the shore temple of Tiruchendur, 24 miles south of Tuticorin (see Figure 10). The soldier Johann von der Behr from Leipzig (c. 1620–1680), one of the authors of two eyewitness accounts of the so-called ‘punitive expedition’ or ‘exploit of revenge’ along with the junior merchant and secretary Johan de Vogel (d. 1674), described the local scenery as follows:

The temple itself is situated on a small elevated stone rock. In front of it is a raised altar resting on six stone pillars under which the Malabarese [Tamils] have their merchandise for sale every day. The building’s interior is completely made of stone with only a little woodwork, such as the doors and the floors of the tower [gopuram], and many horrible stone idols fixed to lofty pillars. Inside there is also a smaller temple, which is their shrine [the karppakkirukam], where many strange gods can be observed. All ends and places are covered by burning lamps made of silver (of which the leading officers made a handsome take). The Malabarese are said to come here from 10, 15, to 20 miles around, and sacrifice twice a year, everyone being left to his own sentiment.47

Proceeding next to Tuticorin, ‘the root of all evil’, the Dutch leadership received an olai from the governor of Tirunelveli, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, promising to restore the property lost in the attack, provided the pagoda of Tiruchendur was evacuated first. The same day (February 11) a letter was received from Dom João Garcia Sarmento, the Portuguese captain of Tuticorin, warning the Dutch not to molest the Paravas, subjects of the king of Portugal, and hence endanger the Ten Years’ Truce. Both epistles received a cool reception and failed to make an impression on the Dutch, bent on revenge and eager for plunder.

46 The best accounts of the expedition are provided by two of its participants, the soldier Johann von der Behr and the junior merchant and secretary Johan (Jean) de Vogel. Also: voc 1173, obp 1650, ff. 446r–449v, Resolutiën gedurende het exploict op de Madurese kust, 10, 11, 12, 21, and 28.2.1649; N. Macleod, De Oost-Indische Compagnie als Zeemogendheid in Azië 1602–1650, 2 vols. with atlas (Rijswijk: Blanckwaardt & Schoonhoven, 1927), II, pp. 377–382; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, pp. 380–381, and 503–505; Roelofsz (later Meilink-Roelofsz), De Vestiging der Nederlanders ter Kuste Malabar, pp. 126–127; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 508–513. 47 L’Honoré-Naber, Reisebeschreibungen, IV, pp. 115–116. In his discussion of the events surrounding the ‘punitive expedition’ of 1649, Nilakanta Sastri failed to consult this source. See: K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, ‘Tirumala Naik, the Portuguese and the Dutch’, Indian Historical Records Commission, Proceedings of Meetings 16 (1940), pp. 33–40.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 337

At Tuticorin, however, it was discovered that Sarmento and most of the wealthy Portuguese had already fled to the interior along with all the Parava headmen, leaving only a few priests, some Portuguese rank and file, and the poorest inhabitants behind. Nevertheless, on February 12, a contract was drawn up with Francisco Malhero, the new-elected captain of Tuticorin, Father António Carvalho de Mesquita, vicar of Tuticorin, Father Didaco Cardoso, rector of the College of Tuticorin, and Father João de São Joseph. This makeshift leadership of the Portuguese natio promised to cough up a fire tax of 40,000 reals or 120,000 guilders within three days.48 While Nayaka troops were gathering at Melur (‘the upper or Heathen Tuticorin’) one-quarter of a mile in the interior from Tuticorin (‘the lower or Christian Tuticorin’), Cardoso was only able to come up with 5,463 reals. Thereupon, the town was ransacked by the Company soldiery with Maetsuycker and Council turning a blind eye (though not their hands by taking their ‘fair’ share of the loot). With the first skirmishes erupting with Nayaka troops at Melur (see Figure 11), a second treaty was entered into with Malhero cum sociis on February 18. Instead of payment within three days, which was recognised as being too short notice, it was agreed that the remainder of the 40,000 reals, namely, 31,000 reals, was to be paid in three months by the end of May. In return, Tuticorin would be spared from being put to the torch, except for the two houses of the Parava pattangattins, including ‘the greatest scoundrel’ Henrique da Cruz, who had visited the Nayaka court and had effectuated the expulsion of the Company from Kayalpatnam. In case of non-payment, the Company would have recourse to the right of war.49 On February 22, a deputation from Kayalpatnam, whose Mudaliyar Pillai Maraikkayar exercised certain rights over the Tiruchendur temple, intervened on behalf of the Nayaka of Madurai. The Kayalpatnam delegates promised the restitution of the stolen commodities and the building of a new Company lodge, provided the pagoda was evacuated beforehand ‘since the entire country was saddened about its occupation and many people had neither eaten nor drunk since the day we had occupied it’. However, Governor Maetsuycker and

48 voc 1173, obp 1650, ff. 444r–444v, Transl. contract met de Portugese natie van Tuticorin, 11.2.1649; voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 515v–516r, Extract dagreg. De Vogel gedurende de expeditie van Tuticorin, 31.1–1.3.1649; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 510–511. 49 voc 1173, obp 1650, ff. 450r–450v, Transl. contract uit het Latijn nopende die van Tuticorin, 18.2.1649; voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 522r–522v, Extract dagreg. De Vogel, 31.1–1.3.1649; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 512–513. Nilakanta Sastri characterised these two contracts as ‘paper agreements’. See: Nilakanta Sastri, ‘Tirumala Naik, the Portuguese and the Dutch’, p. 37.

338 chapter 4 the other leaders of the expedition replied that ‘this was not the song to which the bride would dance’. Demanding 100,000 reals for damages and expenses incurred, they insisted on a speedy payment, ‘so that the poor people would eat again and be rid of us’.50 In a surprise attack against Melur on February 25 following the breakdown of negotiations, 40 to 50 Nayaka soldiers were killed, and the local houses and pagodas put to the torch. As De Vogel observed in a self-congratulatory manner: ‘This harsh wake-up call will not be lost on the enemy and will cause no little alarm across the entire country. We trust they will already have lost their desire somewhat to provoke the Dutch arms so boldly’.51 Sharing the opinion of his secretary, Maetsuycker pontifically declared the expedition a success and on February 28 dispatched an olai to Tirumalai Nayaka. In it, the Ceylon governor defended the Company’s recent actions and expressed his willingness to evacuate the Tiruchendur pagoda and reestablish a trading factory in the Madurai lands on the payment of ‘all reasonable satisfaction and contentment’. The next day, Maetsuycker and part of the expeditionary force left the Madurai Coast allegedly, according to Portuguese reports, with 20 thonis, 4 sloops, and 2 ships filled with booty.52 Despite its commitments in the north, the aranmanai obviously was in no mood to settle on these terms. Beginning on March 8, for more than two weeks daily skirmishes took place between the remaining Company force (including Von der Behr) and the Nayaka troops around the Tiruchendur pagoda. While events seemed to be building towards a final showdown, the whole episode ended in an anticlimax. On March 23, the Nayaka army precipitously withdrew from the temple precincts. According to Von der Behr, they had received information that their ‘Nayaka or Count’ had been captured and one of their chiefs killed by the ‘Moors’. Two days later, on March 25, the remaining Company forces were shipped back to Ceylon, taking with them some stone images (mula murtti or permanent immovable stone images), including that of the warrior-god Murugan (Subrahmanya), from the temple’s main shrine as security for the amounts due to them (see Figure 12). The total costs of the

50 voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 524r–524v, Extract dagreg. De Vogel, 31.1–1.3.1649. 51 Idem, f. 527v, Extract dagreg. De Vogel, 31.1–1.3.1649. 52 voc 1173, obp 1650, ff. 445r–445v, Miss. gouvr. Maetsuijcker aan de neik van Madure, 28.2.1649; voc 1187, obp 1652, ff. 529v–531v, Extract dagreg. De Vogel, 31.1–1.3.1649; voc 1185, obp 1652, f. 539v, Verhael van de incomste der Hollanders binnen Tutucurin, gegouverneert bij de gouvernr. van Gale, Joan Maetsuijcker, van den 7 totten 20 February 1649. The occurrence of widespread plunder during the expedition is corroborated by Von der Behr. See: L’Honoré-Naber, Reisebeschreibungen, IV, pp. 109, 111, and 116.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 339 expedition amounted to 12,289 guilders, while the official booty was valued at 23,093 guilders, hence recovering 10,804 guilders of the losses of 27,888 guilders.53 Though the news of the capture of Tirumalai Nayaka proved to be unfounded, the sudden withdrawal of the Nayaka troops from Tiruchendur was clearly connected with the fall of Gingee in December 1648. Betraying his erstwhile Madurai allies, the Bijapuri general Mustafa Khan Ardistani had made common cause with Mir Jumla and subsequently forced the Golconda troops to withdraw. Although Mustafa Khan himself had died in November 1648, his successor, Muzaffar al-Din Khan-i-Khanan, succeeded in conquering Gingee, ‘one of the finest fortresses in the East’, the following month due to internal dissensions among its defenders. Tirumalai Nayaka, who was in the fortress of Gingee along with the Madurai contingent, barely escaped capture and hastily retreated to the relative safety of Madurai.54 The cup of bitterness had not been entirely emptied as yet for the Southern Nayakas. Following the conquest of Gingee, the Khan-i-Khanan in 1649 forced

53 L’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen, IV, p. 114. According to a popular local tradition, the Dutch carried away the image of Shanmukha or Aramakanperumal, located in one of the two main shrines of the Sri Murugan Temple. See: Somasundaram Pillai, Tiruchendur, pp. 19–20; Padmanabhan, Tiruchendur, p. 6; Gurusamy, Lord Muruga of Tiruchendur, pp. 21, and 27–28. Temple service centres around the worship of images, either permanent immovable stone images (mula murtti) or mobile festival images made of metal (urcavam murtti), which are held to be repositories of divine power with the deity thought to be in the image. The permanent immovable images in the temple sanctum sanctorum (karppak kirukam) are only to be touched by the officiating temple priests. Upon installation the stone figure of a particular deity is vivified in a ceremony known as piranapiratistai in which the breath (piranan) of life is infused into the figure to give it sustenance and nurturance as the permanent immovable centre of the temple. This state of vivification is permanent unless the deity is dishonoured (i.e. an inappropriate person touches it, the ritual process is halted, and so forth), in which cases the deity is thought to leave the figure. If so, worship in the temple is liable to become ineffectual and special renewal ceremonies (samprokshanam) have to be performed to re-invite the deity to reside in the stone figure. For a summary discussion of the entire episode: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 53–54. 54 Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shahi Dynasty, pp. 452–453; Verma, History of Bijapur, pp. 145–146; Nayeem, External Relations of the Bijapur Kingdom, pp. 104–105, 129–130, and 142–143; Srinivasachari, A History of Gingee and its Rulers, pp. 166–187; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p. 129; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 45 (1916), p. 197; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 134– 135; Letter Antonio de Proença, missionary of Madurai, to Fr. Goswin Nickel, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Candelur, 20.9.1656, in: Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, Journal of Indian History 44, 1 (1966), pp. 166–168.

340 chapter 4 the rulers of Tanjore and Madurai, Vijayaraghava and Tirumalai Nayaka, to recognise Bijapuri suzerainty, requiring payment of a heavy tribute said to have been 1,500,000 reals (patacas). In 1650 the Bijapuri governor of Gingee, Mirza Murad Ali Beg, even promised Governor Heussen not only free trade in the lands under his jurisdiction, but also to make sure that the same would be granted in the lands of Madurai and Tanjore. Although a farman was indeed forthcoming in March 1651, the Company rightly recognised that Murad Ali Beg wielded no effective power over Vijayaraghava and Tirumalai Nayaka and that the farman only held valid for the area under direct Bijapuri control, that is, Gingee proper.55

Tying Up Loose Ends, 1649–1652

While the ‘punitive expedition’ was indecisive in many ways and ended in disengagement, not all Company ties with the region were severed as it also left some unfinished business with the Portuguese, the Paravas, and the Madurai authorities, respectively. First, the Portuguese lodged an official protest against the violation of their jurisdiction proclaimed over the Paravas of the Madurai Coast. Second, in the Company’s opinion the Paravas themselves were still held to pay the remaining 31,000 reals of the fire tax. Third, the Tiruchendur images were used as (rather cumbersome) bargaining chips in inducing the Madurai authorities, either the aranmanai or the local temple priests, to pay 100,000 reals for damages and expenses incurred. In 1649 the Portuguese viceroy Dom Felipe Mascarenhas submitted a protest memorandum called ‘Account of the Dutch Entry into Tuticorin Under the Governor of Galle, Joan Maetsuycker’ to the High Government at Batavia. In the Portuguese account or Relação, the Company was accused of having violated the terms of the Ten Years’ Truce as the Fishery Coast and the Paravas fell under the protection and patronage of the Portuguese Crown. Moreover, the Portuguese strongly condemned the subsequent looting and burning of Tuticorin by the Company soldiery, including the plunder of the Franciscan church and the desecration of graves at the local cemetery.56

55 Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, pp. 409, and 560–561; Van der Chijs (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 8–9; Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, pp. 134–135; Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayakas’, Journal of Indian History 44, 1 (1966), p. 168. 56 voc 1185, obp 1652, ff. 532r–540r, Verhael van de incomste der hollanders binnen Tuticorin, gegouverneert bij de gouvernr. van Gale Joan Maetsuijcker van den 7 totten 20 februarij

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 341

Having received no hearing from the Batavian authorities, Mascarenhas in November 1649 subsequently informed King Dom João IV from Goa on affairs in Ceylon ‘where in the beginnings of the year the Dutch committed a hostile act and did not heed the Treaty at all, especially at Tuticorin, as can be seen from the account enclosed’.57 Unfortunately, the records of the two subsequent Portuguese ambassadors in the Dutch Republic at this time are of no immediate use. Both the published correspondence of Francisco de Sousa Coutinho (1643–1650) and the sources regarding the mission of António de Sousa de Macedo (1650–1651) only provide information regarding the three main the- aters of the global Luso-Dutch conflict, that is, Brazil, Angola and Ceylon, and contain no references to the ‘punitive expedition’ to the Madurai Coast. However, it does seem more than likely that De Sousa de Macedo was the one handing over the Portuguese protest to the Dutch States General sometime after September 1650. Whatever the particulars of De Sousa’s mission, the outcome was utter failure. In March 1651, the Portuguese ambassador was forced to return to Portugal heavily indebted and totally discredited following the breakdown in the Luso-Dutch negotiations for a ‘general and ever-lasting peace, both in Europe, Asia, and everywhere else’. In a devastating letter of advice dated March 25, 1651, the States of Holland urged the members of the States General, Their High Mightinesses, to consider means to finance the equipment of a new offensive fleet to Brazil in support of the West India Company, and advised ‘to deny him [Sousa de Macedo] from now onward all further meetings; [and] that he should be merely considered a private person and individual’.58

des jegenwoordigen jaers 1649. The Portuguese version of the Relação can be found in the Arquivo Nacional da Torre de Tombo, Lisbon, Documentos Remettidos da India, Livro 58, fls. 66–68. 57 Letter Viceroy Felipe de Mascarenhas from Goa to the King, 30.11.1649, in: Pissurlencar (ed.), Assentos do Conselho do Estado, III, pp. 515–516. There are two references in the meetings of the Council of State at Goa to the ‘punitive expedition’ of February–March 1649. In April 1649, there is a short reference to ‘the excesses (exorbitançias) they [the Dutch] committed at Tuticorin’, while in January 1650 it was noted ‘how last year the Dutch sacked and ravaged (saqueara e assolara) the settlement of Tuticorin under the terms of the truce’. See: Idem, Assentos do Conselho do Estado, III, pp. 126, and 135. 58 Resolutien van de Staten van Hollandt ende West-Vrieslandt, p. 159. See also: E. Prestage, P.M. Laranja Coelho, and P. de Azevedo (eds), Correspondência Diplomática de Francisco de Sousa Coutinho durante a sua Embaixada em Holanda, 3 vols. (Coimbra and Lisbon: Impr. da Universidade, 1920–1955); Idem, The Diplomatic Relations of Portugal with France, England, and Holland from 1640–1668 (Watford: Voss & Michael, 1925). In the published series The Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal. Nieuwe reeks, 1610–1670, Rijks Geschiedkundige

342 chapter 4

In fact, in view of the outbreak of hostilities in Brazil between the Portuguese settlers and the Dutch West India Company, the so-called ‘War of Divine Liberty’ (1645–1654), the Portuguese protest never stood much of a chance. As Governor Jacob van Kittensteijn and the Council of Ceylon observed in February 1652:

We have had the account which the Portuguese have delivered to Their High Mightinesses regarding the expedition to the coast of Madurai and Tuticorin here for a long time. We believe that they will have accomplished little and rather have been ridiculed openly, especially while, we gather, they will compare it with or put it against the evil work of Brazil. These two matters differ greatly from each other, which can be understood easily by any common sense person.59

Van Kittensteijn’s assessment proved to be not far from the mark. In a ‘Short Justification on Behalf of the United East India Company’, the States General categorically refuted all Portuguese accusations. Thus, Their High Mightinesses argued that the Paravas (‘an extremely vile and despised people among those [Indian] nations’) did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Portuguese Crown, but rather were ‘direct subordinates and subjects’ of the Nayaka of Madurai. And, even if the Madurai Coast were under Portuguese protection, something the representatives doubted seriously, the Company was free to pursue its own rights without being hindered by the stipulations of the Ten Years’ Truce. Finally, the plunder of Tuticorin by the Company rank and file was considered inevitable and the inhabitants had themselves to blame, ‘having fled and deserted their houses without reason’.60 The second loose end left behind by the ‘punitive expedition’ was the collection of the remaining 31,000 reals of the fire tax imposed on the Paravas. On the expiration of the three month deadline in May 1649, Cornelis van Quaalbergen

Publicatiën, Grote Serie 135, 151, 152, 176, 187, 208, and 223 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971-[ongoing]) edited by A.Th. van Deursen, J. Roelevink, and J.G. Smit only 7 volumes have appeared so far covering the period until 1626. The resolutions between 1626 and 1630 have been made available online since by the Huygens Institute of Netherlandish History (ING) under the auspices of Ida Nijenhuijs. See: http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/ Projecten/BesluitenStaten-generaal1626-1651/inleiding (accessed: 15 May 2012). 59 voc 1195, obp 1653, ff. 576r–576v, Miss. gouvr. Van Kittensteijn en raad van Gale aan Batavia, 28.2.1652. 60 voc 1185, obp 1652, ff. 532r–540r, Corte verantwoordinge vanwege de voc die gedaan werd opt relaes bij de Portugese ambassadeur aan haar Ho. Mo. afgegeven over het gepasseerde in Tuticorin ao. 1649. See also: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, pp. 503–505.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 343 was sent back to Tuticorin, but the Company merchant subsequently returned empty-handed. In January 1650, therefore, a new effort was undertaken when the galiot ‘Hazewind’, carrying the Company Merchant Sijbrandt Groes and Ensign Christoffel Eggers, was dispatched to Tuticorin in order to collect the remainder of the 40,000 reals. However, Governor Maetsuycker’s written protest handed over to the pattangattins met with a defiant response from both the Parava headmen and the resident Portuguese. The pattangattins replied that the Company had violated the terms of the peace with the king of Portugal and, having fled into the interior, that they were not bound by the contract as they were not its signatories. Moreover, they boldly met the Company’s demands with a counterclaim, estimating the damage inflicted by the Company’s ‘punitive expedition’ at 200,000 reals. They therefore concluded, ‘that in conscience you are held before God to compensate us for the money stolen and the damage you have inflicted yourself’.61 Talks with Portuguese mediators went along similar lines and also proved abortive. The two Portuguese low-level envoys, the soldiers Francisco Alvares and António Mendes, argued that the Paravas were simple poor fishermen, and that the Dutch should content themselves with the substantially much greater damage they had inflicted the previous year. Clearly there was no basis for a negotiated settlement. In response, the self-righteous Dutch delegates hoisted the red flag and declared war in the name of Governor General and Council of the Indies, ‘proclaiming before God and all the world that we are innocent of the damage, destruction, bloodshed, and further disasters, which would result from this…’62 The third and last loose end of the ‘punitive expedition’ was the issue of the payment of 100,000 reals by the aranmanai and/or the local temple priests associated with the restitution of a group of images taken from the Tiruchendur pagoda, including the ‘stone idol’ or mula murtti of Murugan (Subrahmanya). It was rumoured that upon its restitution the ‘Gentiles’ were willing to pay the image’s weight (about 200 pounds) in gold, ‘because of its age and the many

61 voc 1177, obp 1651, ff. 420r–420v, Transl. brieff van de patangatins ofte overheden der stadt Tutucurin aen de gouvernr. van Gale, 9.1.1650; Idem, ff. 422r–424v, Dagreg. koopman Isebrant Groes gedurende de Toutecourijnse voijagie, 13–24.1.1650. See also: Idem, f. 349r, Miss. gouvr. Kittensteijn van Gale aan gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel, 1.5.1650; voc 1179, obp 1651, f. 47r, Generale missive, 10.12.1650. 62 voc 1177, obp 1651, ff. 422r–424v, Dagreg. koopman Isebrant Groes gedurende de Toutecourijnse voijagie, 13–24.1.1650. See also: Idem, f. 349r, Miss. gouvr. Kittensteijn van Gale aan gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel, 1.5.1650; voc 1179, obp 1651, f. 47r, Generale missive, 10.12.1650.

344 chapter 4 miracles it had performed’.63 Indeed, in January 1650, during the Groes-Eggers mission, a mixed Muslim-Hindu delegation sent by the chiefs (the Mudaliyar Pillai Maraikkayar and ambalakkarars?) of Kayalpatnam appeared before the Dutch envoys with an olai to Van der Meijden, asking for the restitution of ‘Lord Subrahmanya’ (Subrahmanya Cuvami) of Tiruchendur. These Kayalpatnam representatives were subsequently provided with safe conducts in order to travel to Negombo and Galle.64 However, the Madurai temporal and spiritual authorities were not the only ones interested in the stone images of the Tiruchendur pagoda. In early 1650, the annual ships sent by the Company from Batavia to the Malabar Coast (the so-called Malabarvaerders) visited the raja of Travancore Ravi Varma VI (r. 1610– 1662). Upon departure from Travancore in March 1650, the Venad ruler—who may have visited Tiruchendur during his pilgrimage to Rameswaram in 1620— secretly expressed his interest in the idol of Subrahmanya taken from the Tiruchendur pagoda to Senior Merchant Dirck Schoorl. Knowing, however, that his superiors had other, potentially more lucrative plans for the image, Schoorl politely turned down the offer.65 Initially, Schoorl’s rejection seemed to have been a wise decision. In April 1650, a vessel from Kilakkarai arrived at Negombo carrying the interpreter Mutta Mudaliyar and two trusted servants sent by the ‘principal heads of the Tiruchendur pagoda and the neighboring places’. The Madurai representatives carried olais from Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, pradhani and ‘second- in-command’ after the Nayaka of Madurai, Narayana Mudaliyar, adhikari or governor of Kayalpatnam, the Brahmin heads (stalattars or hereditary managers) of the Tiruchendur pagoda, and one Andagala, vice-governor of Kayalpatnam. In return for the restitution of ‘Lord Subrahmanya’, Narayana Mudaliyar and Andagala promised to provide the Company with a ‘house with a double floor similar to the previous one’ at Kayalpatnam, free and undisturbed trade, and the Nayaka’s assurance of good treatment and proper assistance.66

63 Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, pp. 380–381. 64 voc 1177, obp 1651, ff. 424r–424v, Dagreg. koopman Groes, 13–24.1.1650; Macleod, De Oost- Indische Compagnie als Zeemogendheid in Azië, II, p. 406. 65 voc 1177, obp 1651, f. 49r, Dagreg. opperk. Dirck Schoorl in de Malabarse voijagie, 7.1– 6.3.1650; Roelofsz (later Meilink-Roelofsz), De Vestiging der Nederlanders ter Kuste Malabar, p. 137. 66 voc 1177, obp 1651, f. 421r, Transl. brieff van den adigaer van Cailpatnam aen de gouvernr. Joan Maetsuijcker, 14.1.1650; Idem, f. 384r, Translaet ola bij Waddamaleijappair, twede persoon van den neijcq van Madure, aen Nareijne Modliaer, gouvernr. van Caijlpatnam, 11.2.1650; Idem, ff. 384r–384v, Transl. ole Waddamaleijapper aen de tolcq Mouta, 11.2.1650; Idem, ff. 385r–385v, Transl. ola bij de dienaers der pagode Tritsenadour aen den tolcq

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 345

Having been referred to Galle, the Madurai mediators were provided with a letter from Governor Van Kittensteijn to the ‘Chief’ (Prabhu) of Kayalpatnam, Narayana Mudaliyar, requesting 100,000 reals ‘for the damages, insults, and further expenses which we have incurred as a result from the outrageous despoil- ment of our factory and the violence committed’. The payment would serve as a precondition for further negotiations with the Nayaka in order to re-establish free trade in his lands. In case of refusal, Van Kittensteijn threatened, the Company would have recourse to the law of nations and seek compensation through all means available.67 By this time, Van Kittensteijn already had serious doubts whether the full payment of 100,000 reals would ever be obtained and asked for instructions from Batavia as to what to do if only partial satisfaction were offered in order to re-establish trade in the Nayaka lands. Moreover, he also raised some ethical questions regarding the restitution of the stone image to the ‘Gentiles’, though wishfully concluding nevertheless that ‘considering how much these blinded heathens value this image, something beneficial may be obtained by the Company’. Van Kittensteijn’s concerns and objections were shared by some of the Dutch Reformed Batavian Councillors, who believed the return of the images to be ‘a matter touching the conscience to the utmost’ as it would ‘double the idolatry of those blind people, while the said pagoda of Tiruchendur nowadays stands deserted and is visited by nobody’. These Protestant ethico- religious reservations notwithstanding, Mammon prevailed over God and Van Kittensteijn was authorised to sell the ‘stone idol and its dependencies’ for the price that could be agreed upon, along with a contract establishing a free and unlimited trade in the Madurai lands.68 Despite the easing of the sale conditions, buyers for the Tiruchendur images were now hard to find. In September 1650, Senior Merchant Van der Meijden reported from Negombo that four persons had arrived with several olais, including a no longer extant letter from Tirumalai Nayaka. Van Kittensteijn, however, had valid reasons to suspect the authenticity of the Nayaka’s olai for its contents were not in accordance with the issues raised by the letter the

Mouta, undated [ca. 2.1650]; Idem, Transl. ola bij Andagala, vice gouvr. van Caijlpatnam aen Mouta Modliar, 1.3.1650; Idem, ff. 353v–354r, Miss. gouvr. Van Kittensteijn van Gale aan gouvr. Heussen van Coromandel, 1.5.1650; Idem, ff. 330r–330v, Miss. gouvr. Van Kittensteijn van Gale aan Batavia, 10.5.1650. 67 voc 1177, obp 1651, f. 382r, Miss. gouvr. Van Kittensteijn van Ceijlon aent opperhooft van Caijlpatnam, 29.4.1650. 68 voc 1177, obp 1651, ff. 330r–330v, Miss. gouvr. Van Kittensteijn van Gale aan Batavia, 10.5.1650; voc 1179, obp 1651, ff. 47v–48r, Generale missive, 10.12.1650; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, p. 406; voc 1185, obp 1652, f. 380v, Miss prest. Van Kittensteijn van Gale aan Batavia, 20.1.1651.

346 chapter 4

Ceylon governor had sent to the Madurai ruler some months earlier in May 1650. Therefore, it was decided to inform the new arrivals that they would only receive a response if they reacted properly to the earlier communication. Van Kittensteijn, nevertheless, optimistically observed that the inhabitants were eager to have us re-establish our trade in their lands, ‘which we hope will happen at some point in the future’.69 In spite of Van Kittensteijn’s optimism no further embassies were forthcoming. An ultimate attempt to cash in on the stone image was undertaken in February 1651, when Senior Merchant Van der Meijden was sent with the images aboard the flute ‘Post’ and galiot ‘Hazewind’ to Kayalpatnam in order to load a cargo of rice and re-establish a factory, on condition of the payment of 25,000–30,000 reals for the stone images.70 In early March of 1651, however, Van der Meijden unexpectedly returned to Galle with the images, a mere 1,577 parra or 37,848 pounds of nel, and no recompense from the Nayaka authorities. According to Van der Meijden, the common people had professed ‘teary-eyed, that they were willing to satisfy the Company demands and that they had but one wish, that is, to live under Company jurisdiction’. Indeed, the failure of his mission was blamed solely on the provocations of the Paravas and the Portuguese. The offer of the Nayaka authorities to allow the Dutch to re-establish themselves at an adequate house free of charge was turned down, since it was believed to create disrespect for the Company to drop the highly publicised demands so easily. Upon his departure, Van der Meijden issued a formal protest and threatened that the Company would seek its surety ‘by the means God will accord to us’.71 Having been informed of its outcome, Batavia reacted somewhat cynical and acquiescent to the news of the abortive mission. Observing that Van der Meijden had not succeeded in finding any buyers for ‘the big idol of Tiruchendur’, the High Government wryly commented that ‘apparently the initial zeal has already cooled down’.72 This remark, however, was far from the mark. The governor of Tirunelveli, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai (see Figure 6), in particular had a personal stake in the recovery of the Tiruchendur image along with the Kayalpatnam Mudaliyar

69 voc 1176, obp 1651, ff. 666v–667r, Miss. gouvr. Van Kittensteijn van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.11.1650. 70 voc 1185, obp 1652, f. 406r, Miss. president Van Kittensteijn in Negombo aan de raad in Gale, 29.1.1651, f. 406r; Idem, f. 389r, Miss. raad in Gale aan Batavia, 5.2.1651. 71 voc 1185, obp 1652, ff. 413r–413v, Miss. president Van Kittensteijn van Gale aan Batavia, 5.4.1651. See also: voc 1184, obp 1652, f. 272v, Miss. president Pit van Coromandel aan Batavia, 18.4.1651. It seems that the Company fell victim to is own mentality, in particular to its sensitivity and concerns regarding its reputation. 72 Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, p. 505.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 347

Pillai Maraikkayar and the stalattars of the Tiruchendur pagoda. The Tirunelveli governor descended from a family belonging to the Karkattar sect of Vellalas from Kavanur, a small village near Tirupparamkunram, a famous hinterland hill shrine and one of three famous South Indian shrines dedicated to Subrahmanya, along with Palani and the shore temple of Tiruchendur.73 While the Company records are silent on the ultimate fate of the Tiruchendur images, an inscription in the mandapam (mantapam) or ceremonial hall at Tiruchendur dated 1653 (Kollam Age 829) states that both Tirumalai Nayaka and Vadamalaiyappa Pillai were present for the worship of Lord Murugan (Subrahmanya) in order to celebrate the installation and subsequent ‘revivifi- cation’ of the recovered image of Tiruchendur as part of the special renewal ceremonies known as samprokshanam. The recovery of the image was also the occasion for Venrimalai Kavirayar (1624–1682), a Mukkani priest of the Sri Murugan Temple and composer of the Tiruchendur stalapuranam, to write the first kirttanam or psalm in Tamil. Finally, the retrieval of the image of Subrahmanya served as the source for a local oral tradition, recorded in the twentieth century and rendered into a wonderful set of paintings ‘narrating’ the previous colourful series of events at the Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam at Tiruchendur (see Figures 6, and 11–15):

About three hundred years ago a race of sea-faring men called Usilampadi [lampati, ‘wandering caste’?] descended on the place and took away the temple idol, thinking it was made of gold. Vadamalaiyappa Pillaiyan, the local renter of the Nayaka ruler, acting under the advice conveyed to him in a dream by the God [Subrahmanya], put out to sea and following His instructions recovered the image. In memory of this deed the Vada malaiyappa mantapam [pillared outdoor hall or pavilion], to which the God is taken in times of festival, was erected.74

Toward Reestablishment, 1652–1657

Apart from the loose ends left by the ‘punitive expedition’ or ‘exploit of revenge’, the main question following the ‘forced departure’ from Kayalpatnam was

73 Desikar, ‘Viceroys of the Nayaks of Madurai’, pp. 175–177; Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, pp. 44, 80, and 323–324. 74 N. Rajagopalan, Another Garland (Biographical Dictionary of Carnatic Composers and Musicians) (Madras: Carnatic Classicals, 1992), p. 332. See also: Desikar, ‘Viceroys of the Nayaks of Madurai’, pp. 175–177; Rajaram, History of Thirumalai Nayak, pp. 69–70. For the set of paintings, see: http://tiruchendur.org/dutch.htm (accessed: May 15, 2012).

348 chapter 4 whether or not to re-open direct trading relations with Madurai, especially in light of the impending renewal of hostilities with the Portuguese on the expiration of the Ten Years’ Truce (1645–1652). In January 1651, for instance, President Van Kittensteijn of Ceylon expressed his doubts concerning the reestablishment of a factory in Madurai in view of the strong Portuguese presence in the region, ‘because in case of war we would be very vulnerable and both the Company servants and our goods would be at great risk’.75 Three months later, in April 1651, having consulted with Van der Meijden following his return from Kayalpatnam, Van Kittensteijn (temporarily at least) had made a complete about-face. Presenting his case to Batavia, the Ceylon president now argued for a direct attack against Tuticorin. According to Van Kittensteijn (read: Van der Meijden), a small force of about 1,000 men and several Company yachts would suffice to capture Tuticorin without difficulty. The possession of Tuticorin was presented as being of great commercial and military advantage to the Company. Not only was it an ‘excellent place of commerce’, providing textiles and provisions which would in a short time make up double for the expenses incurred, but the inhabitants were eager to escape the oppression of their rulers and come under the jurisdiction of the Company: ‘Thus, we would greatly discomfit both Madurai and the Portuguese in Colombo since Tuticorin and the circumventing places is their only food pan- try’. In case Batavia would consider itself unable to attack Colombo in the first year following the renewal of hostilities, Van Kittensteijn requested two or three yachts and sloops to at least invest the Madurai ports, which would produce the same outcome of inconveniencing both Madurai and the Portuguese.76 Drawing up the balance sheet of the pros and cons of reestablishment, the High Government in December 1651 agreed with Van Kittensteijn (or rather Van der Meijden) that a factory at Kayalpatnam would indeed be advantageous, both with regard of the commercial advantages and the possibility of embarrassing the Company’s competitors. However, expecting orders from the Directors to resume hostilities with Portugal as the Ten Years’ Truce had almost expired, the High Government decided, at least for the time being, to postpone the venture.77 In the wake of the renewal of hostilities with the Portuguese in June 1652, plans to make a forceful re-entry into the Madurai trade at the expense of the Portuguese resurfaced time and again in leading Company circles. One of the moving spirits behind these aggressive plans (along with the rising star Rijckloff van Goens Senior) was the Senior Merchant Van der Meijden, the founding

75 voc 1185, obp 1652, f. 388r, Miss. president Van Kittensteijn van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.1.1651. 76 Idem, ff. 413r–414r, Miss. president Van Kittensteijn van Gale aan Batavia, 5.4.1651. 77 Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, p. 505.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 349 father of the Madurai trade. Between 1652 and 1656, while the Company was completing the conquest of Portuguese-held Ceylon, Van der Meijden repeatedly pressed Batavia and the Company Directors to take Tuticorin and build ‘a small but adequate fort’ in order to sever the life-line of Portuguese Colombo with Jaffnapatnam, Mannaar, Nagapatnam, and São Tomé.78 While Van der Meijden was one of the leading proponents of a warlike policy, Van Kittensteijn, returning to his initial oppositional stance, served as a mouthpiece for the adherents of a more cautious approach. Fearing overextension of Company resources, Van Kittensteijn argued against the diversion of part of the Dutch forces on Ceylon to the Madurai Coast, pointing to the Company’s lack of men, if not of war yachts, and giving credence to occasional strong rumours of a Portuguese relief expedition from Goa and the Portuguese settlements along the Malabar Coast.79 Van Kittensteijn’s reservations struck a sympathetic cord with the Batavian authorities, who faced the same problem of ‘overstretch’ on an all-Asian scale. As mentioned earlier, besides the war against the Portuguese and the English, the Company was also involved in hostilities with a number of Asian states. As a result, even as late as September 1656, in the wake of the conquest of Colombo, the High Government decided to postpone any exploit against the coast of Madurai. Although Governor General Maetsuycker and Council were ‘arrided and enamoured with the notion’ and the commercial and strategic advantages involved, it was considered unwise, at least for the time being, to spread the Company’s power even thinner in view of the current war with Bantam and tensions with Sultan Amangkurat I of Mataram, who had temporarily closed the northern Javanese pasisir ports.80 Reestablishment or not, following the renewal of hostilities with the Portuguese in 1652, the Company did strengthen its commercial and political ties with Raghunatha Tevar alias Tirumalai Setupati. The Marava ruler was more than willing to assist the Dutch against the Portuguese, with whom he

78 voc 1195, obp 1653, f. 627r, Miss. Van der Meijden uit Bentot aan Batavia, 2.11.1652; voc 1203, obp 1655, f. 679r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.8.1654; voc 1214, obp 1657, ff. 462r–462v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 31.5.1656; voc 1214, obp 1657, ff. 58v–59r, Generale missive, 4.12.1656; voc 1215, obp 1657, ff. 907r–907v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.2.1657. 79 voc 1201, obp 1654, ff. 491r, and 292r, Miss. gouvr. Van Kittensteijn van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1653. 80 voc 880, bub 1656, f. 360, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon, 7.9.1656. The subsequent end of the war with Bantam and the receding Mataram threat incited Van der Meijden to argue once more for a fortified settlement at Tuticorin and the lease of the other ports on the Fishery Coast. See: voc 1215, obp 1657, f. 935r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.11.1656.

350 chapter 4 still had a bone to pick for having assisted the aranmanai in the war with his predecessor, Kuttan Setupati. Moreover, an alliance with the Dutch was in line with Raghunatha’s policy of consolidating his grip over Ramnad. Besides countering the Company negotiations with Madurai, his overtures towards the Dutch also served as a politico-diplomatic tool against the Portuguese presence in the area as his territories were hemmed in between Nagapatnam and the Fishery Coast. At the same time the Company was trying to ally itself with Raghunatha Tevar, he was also courted by Raja Sinha II, ruler of the kingdom of Kandy in the interior of Ceylon, for the very same purpose of expelling the Portuguese from the island. In October 1655, for instance, the Portuguese captain-general of Ceylon, António de Sousa Coutinho, reported that Raja Sinha was deeply immersed in negotiations with the Tevar, ‘Lord of the Castle of Utiar’, showering him with elephants and other presents in order to block Pamban Channel to Portuguese relief expeditions. These Portuguese reports of Ramnad-Kandy rapprochement are corroborated by Company correspondence. In February 1656, for instance, Gerard Hulft, the commander-in-chief of the Dutch forces besieging Colombo, reported that the Kandyan ruler had requested Raghunatha Tevar (‘a Nayaka on the Opposite Coast’) for assistance against the Portuguese at Mannaar and Jaffnapatnam in exchange for the actual possession of the two districts.81 These overtures did not go unheeded. In early 1653, Raghunatha Tevar, described as ‘den serck deuvere van Pambanaer’ (after Sadaikka Tevar II, who had died in 1645), offered his assistance to the Company in the form of 2,000 peons (from Port. pião or footsoldier) and 40 thonis to Governor Pit of Coromandel and Governor Van Kittensteijn of Ceylon, respectively, in order to oust the Portuguese from Mannaar, Jaffnapatnam, and Tuticorin. Although the offer was turned down at the time for the very same reasons an exploit against the Madurai Coast was deemed inopportune, it was observed that ‘these people could render the Company excellent service in the future’.82 The Company’s assessment of the potential usefulness of the Marava ruler was not wholly unfounded. In April 1653, Raghunatha Tevar informed the Company residents at Karaikal of the arrival of 12 Portuguese frigates and 2 barques carrying rice, probably from Nagapatnam and São Tomé, for the relief

81 Letter Captain-General Antonio de Souza Coutinho of Ceylon to Goa, 6.10.1655, in: Pissurlencar (ed.), Assentos do Conselho do Estado, III, p. 408; voc 1210, obp 1656, f. 869v, Miss. Gerard Hulft int schip Ter Goes voor de stad Colombo aan H. XVII, 5.2.1656. 82 voc 1200, obp 1654, f. 301v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 28.3.1653; voc 1202, obp 1654, f. 508v, Miss. gouvr. Van Kittensteijn van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1653; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, p. 712.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 351 of Colombo at the entrance of Pamban Channel and requested to have one or two Company yachts sent in order to destroy them. This hoped-for cooperative effort came to naught, however, as the two vessels dispatched, the ‘Dromedaris’ and ‘Nazareth’, were forced to return to Nagapatnam due to contrary winds and strong currents.83 In May 1653 the Portuguese relief expedition, in the absence of the Company’s blockading fleet, safely entered the harbour of Colombo, much to the dismay of Governor Van der Meijden of Ceylon, who expressed some suspicions about the Tevar’s assurance not to let any Portuguese frigates pass Pamban Channel.84 Events in 1655, however, showed that Dutch suspicions about Raghunatha Tevar’s reliability were unfounded. A Portuguese relief expedition from the Madurai Coast (armada e cáfila da outra costa) destined for Colombo was held up for 33 days near the entry of Pamban Channel in spite of the Tevar’s earlier promise to let all Portuguese ships pass on the payment of tolls. Only the arrival of four navios or ships of the ‘armada do Cabo [Comorin]’ under Manuel de Magelhães Coutinho allowed the Portuguese to force their way through in August 1655 and hence sail to Ceylon.85 Nevertheless, Van der Meijden’s suspicions about the reliability of ‘Rangenado Deuver’, typical of prevalent proto-Orientalist sentiments and a paranoid ʻsiege mentality,’ were shared by other Company servants such as Adriaen van Nieuwlandt. In July 1656, the Company merchant at Tranquebar reported the arrival of 23 Portuguese frigates before Pamban Channel en route to Jaffnapatnam. In spite of the Tevar’s promise, Van Nieuwlandt feared that the Marava ruler would have himself bribed, in accordance with the ‘innate character of the heathen nation’. In the eyes of the Dutch, these prejudices were confirmed

83 In a subsequent attempt, the Company merchant Pieter van Bart embarked on the two yachts along with 16 soldiers and sailed to the islands of Jaffnapatnam. Here, they encountered three Portuguese frigates, but in a disastrous landing near Paruthiturrai (‘Cotton Harbour’) or Point Pedro, the northernmost town on the Jaffna Peninsula on Palk Strait, both the ships’ captains, Mattheus Leverij and Jan Hoochsaet, and at least two soldiers were killed and 14 wounded. voc 1200, obp 1654, fls. 329r–330v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 3.9.1653; voc 1201, obp 1654, f. 549v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden van Gale aan Batavia, 10.10.1653. 84 voc 1203, obp 1655, f. 486v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Gale aan gouvr. Pit van Coromandel, 26.5.1654; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, II, pp. 712–713, and 724–725. 85 Letter Captain-General Antonio de Souza Coutinho of Ceylon to Goa, 6.10.1655, in: Pissurlencar (ed.), Assentos do Conselho do Estado, III, pp. 405, and 408.

352 chapter 4 when, in early August 1656, they received information that the Portuguese frigates had managed to slip safely through the channel without being attacked.86 Basic cordial relations, with a slight but distinct undertone of tension, also characterised the Company’s commercial dealings with Raghunatha Tevar. In 1653 a Company sampan from Masulipatnam ran aground near Tondi. Having been provisionally repaired by the Tevar’s men, it was sent from Kilakkarai along with several vessels loaded with salt. While the salt vessels arrived safely at Galle, the sampan was forced to return to Kilakkarai, allegedly leaking badly. The claim did raise the eyebrows of some Company officials, who questioned whether the sampan would ever be returned at all.87 Whatever his true intentions, the Tevar’s dealings with their archrivals earned him the hostility of the Portuguese. In 1655, the Company servant at Kayalpatnam, Ulagan Nayanar, reported that a certain sampan from Kilakkarai coming from Negombo had been hailed by the Portuguese near Tuticorin. Having learned that the vessel originated from a Dutch-controlled port, five or six ‘important Muslims’, probably Maraikkayars from Kilakkarai, were killed by the Portuguese and subsequently thrown overboard.88 While the Tevar’s commercial dealings with nearby Dutch-controlled ports, such as Negombo, Galle, and (after May 1656) Colombo were actively encouraged, Company servants were specifically instructed not to grant safe conducts for the long-distance trade with Aceh and Bengal. A portent of things to come, the Dutch attempt to dominate the seas via the so-called ‘passes and protection rights’ system would become one of the main bones of contention between the Tevar and the Company for the remainder of the seventeenth century and beyond.89 Partly as a result of the cooperation between Raghunatha Tevar and the Dutch, the net around the Portuguese was closing fast. In the aftermath of the conquest of Colombo in May 1656, Governor Van der Meijden (who else?) in

86 voc 1214, obp 1656, f. 269r, Miss. koopman Van Nieuwlandt van Trangebare aan Batavia, 21.7.1656; voc 1224, obp 1658, ff. 21r–21v, Miss. Jan Croon, Adriaen Roothaes en François Meese van Gale aan Batavia, 18.8.1656; voc 1214, obp 1657, ff. 260v–261r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 19.8.1656. 87 voc 1203, obp 1655, ff. 486r–486v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Gale aan gouvr. Pit van Coromandel, 26.5.1654. The Company sampan probably returned without encountering further difficulties as there are no subsequent references in Company correspondence. 88 voc 1210, obp 1656, f. 674r, Miss. koopman Van Nieuwlandt van Trangebar aan ‘s Comps. residenten op Tegenepatnam, 31.12.1655. 89 voc 1226, obp 1659, f. 880v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan boekhr. Adriaen van der Marckt te Caijelpatam, 21.11.1657.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 353

November 1656 informed Batavia that he thought times were favourable enough to inquire whether the Nayaka of Madurai would be willing to allow the Company to establish a fixed residence at Tuticorin and lease the rest of the ports from his governor of Tirunelveli, ‘just as they have presented [their ports] previously for a peaceful trade’. As long as the Portuguese were holding Jaffnapatnam, Van der Meijden advocated the move of the seat of the Dutch government of Coromandel from Pulicat to Tuticorin, which could be easily taken by 200 men. The Ceylon governor deemed a garrison of 150 men sufficient to protect the settlement against any attack, while the foundations of fortifications were already present. Last but not least, the control of Tuticorin would allow for the domination of trade in the south by the Company.90 Sometime during the first half of 1657, Van der Meijden sent the Company Bookkeeper Adriaen van der Marckt with a small amount of capital to establish a provisional residence at Kayalpatnam at the site of the previous factory. Meanwhile, the Company Secretary Jacob van Rhee was commissioned to Tirumalai Nayaka (‘the great Nayaka’) at Madurai in order to obtain a formal qaul, granting, among other things, free trade, the permission to build a fort at Tuticorin, the exclusion of all other European traders from Madurai, and protection against all potential damage.91 One of the interesting issues which came up during Van Rhee’s negotiations with the central authorities of Madurai was that they expressed their willingness to provide the Company with ‘black warriors’ against the Sinhalese and Portuguese on Ceylon in return for military assistance (2 or 4 metal pieces and some gunners) to quell an internal rebellion. This proposal may probably be linked to a rather short-lived rebellion by a number of Tirunelveli palaiyakkarars headed by the Nayaka of Ettayapuram, whose ‘little kingdom’ was centred around the old fort-mart town of Kamanayakanpatti. The uprising was suppressed within a few months with the help of Raghunatha Tevar, its leader put to death, and the others severely punished. Raghunatha Tevar was subsequently rewarded for his services with a large portion of land near Mannarkovil, and a certain share in the revenues of the pearl fishery.92

90 voc 1215, obp 1657, f. 935r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.11.1656; Leupe, ‘Vertooch Wegens den Presenten Staet van de Generale Nederlantse Geoctroijeerde Oost-Indische Compe.’, pp. 157–158. 91 The instructions to Van Rhee, like the qaul obtained, do no longer exist. The contents of both the instructions and the qaul, however, can be reconstructed by using Company records and Van Dam’s Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, II, ii, pp. 265–266. 92 voc 1224, obp 1658, ff. 5v–6r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1657; Ramaswami (ed.), Tamil Nadu District Gazetteers. Volume 6: Ramanathapuram, p. 83; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 138; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the

354 chapter 4

The aranmanai’s request, however, for assistance may also be a reference to troubles with the Maravas (the forerunners of the rajas of Sokampatti?) around the old Pandya temple town and weaving centre of Tenkasi, the ‘southern Benares’. In November 1657, for instance, it was reported ‘that the Maravas from the Pandyan district of Tenkasi had reoccupied their land…and that in response the Nayaka had dispatched 10,000 infantry and 500 cavalry’. A later account reported that the ‘kingdom’ of Tenkasi, described as being 12 miles long and 8 miles wide and containing 16 villages, had been under independent rulers until it was conquered by Vadamalaiyappa Pillai in 1661 and its queen, Rani Nayana Pandya (‘Neijna Pandare’), led off into captivity to Palaiyamkottai, ‘where she died 647 years old, with which the dynasty became extinct’.93 In fact, this episode points to the continued existence of self-proclaimed miniature Pandya dynasties into the Nayaka period springing up in parts of the realm following the demise of the Pandyas after 1300. The most successful was at Tenkasi, where the Tenkasi Pandyas patronised Visvanathisvaran (‘Ruler of the Universe’, Shiva), establishing brahmateyams or villages granted to and inhabited by Brahmins and issuing inscriptions into the 1500s, apparently lingering on even into the seventeenth century on the subregional level wielding symbols without the substance of power.94 Despite the fact that the Dutch military hardware requested was not forthcoming, Van Rhee did receive a (no longer extant) qaul from Tirumalai Nayaka, allowing the Company free trade in all his lands, protection against any damages and inconveniences, and the exclusion of all European traders except for the Portuguese, ‘which would last…as long as the sun would shine’. However, it soon became apparent that the aranmanai was unwilling to abandon its traditional ʻopen doorʼ policy, though initially Tirumalai Nayaka seemingly had made a partial concession regarding the request for the exclusion of all Europeans by promising to at least keep out the English. It is telling that Tirumalai refused to expel the Portuguese ‘since they had lived in his country

Nayakas of Madura, p. 126; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 45 (1916), p. 202. 93 voc 1226, obp 1659, f. 880v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan boekhr. Van der Marckt te Caijelpatam, 21.11.1657; voc 1329, obp 1678, f. 1271v, Rapport gedaan aan d’E. heer Marten Huijsman, commandant der Madurese custe, door den bouckhr. Krijn Caperman, 13.5.1677. 94 Ludden, Early Capitalism and Local History in South India, pp. 26, 44, and 96; K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, The Pandyan Kingdom: From the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century (Madras: Swathi Publications, 1972); K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyar, Travancore Archaeological Series (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1921), I, no. 6, pp. 43–44, 52, 61–88, 89–94, 106–114, and 133–146.

First Encounter: A False Start, 1645–1657 355 for so long, and he had no reason…to chase them out’. This promise, however, as the Company Advocate Pieter van Dam later observed bitterly, ‘was observed in the same way as Indian rulers in general are used to keep their words and contracts, that is, until they can see more profit by violating the same…’ The following year, in 1658, the English were granted permission to establish a trading factory at Palaiyakkayal (Old Kayal).95 The reasons behind the decision to reestablish a local Dutch settlement were both commercial and military as Kayalpatnam was to serve as a centre of trade and a listening post similar to the Company’s settlement at Wengurla near Portuguese Goa. In November 1657, for instance, the Company Bookkeeper Adriaen van der Marckt was instructed to gather 300 last rice and some tobacco, chanks, textiles, cotton yarn, and coir rope (narkkayiru). At the same time, he was told to inquire after the constitution of the enemy and find out ‘how many armed Portuguese, mestizos, topazes, Sinhalese, and Paravas there still are in and around Jaffnapatnam, Mannaar, and Tuticorin…’96 In October 1657, however, Batavia ordered Governor Van der Meijden not to spend any more money on the Kayalpatnam factory, informing him that they had dispatched a large fleet under Commissioner Rijckloff van Goens Senior (see Figure 2) to the coast of India, ‘for if we can take Tuticorin and Mannaar from the enemy, which we hope God will grant us, the work there [at Kayalpatnam] would assume a completely different character’.97 The widely held belief in Company circles that Tirumalai Nayaka’s qaul was once again ‘written on water’ obviously no longer mattered. A new period of cross-cultural contacts was about to begin.

95 Van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, II, ii, pp. 265–266; voc 1224, obp 1658, ff. 5v–6r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1657; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 166. For the establishment of the English factory at Old Kayal and the warm reception given to the English residents by the local merchants, see: Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1655–1660, pp. 218–220. 96 voc 1226, obp 1659, ff. 880r–880v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan boekhr. Van der Marckt te Caijelpatam, 21.11.1657; Idem, ff. 869r–869v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.2.1658. Van der Marckt subsequently reported dutifully to Governor Pit of Coromandel that there were 100 men at Tuticorin and about 800 more at Mannaar, ‘who suffered greatly, having not received any assistance from Goa in a long time’. voc 1227, obp 1659, f. 6v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 6.1.1658. See also: voc 1221, obp 1658, f. 687v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 27.1.1658. 97 voc 881, bub 1657, f. 512, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon, 25.10.1657.

chapter 5 From Sideshow to Main Theatre of War, 1658–1669

At least initially at the Madurai Coast the situation was basically as follows: the Company still had its hands full in Malabar and elsewhere. The domination, which had only recently been achieved by force of arms [in 1658], was quickly challenged by the constant attacks of the faithless Madurai [regents] against the Company’s subjects [i.e., the Paravas] and its settlements. Due to too much leniency, these [attacks] escalated to such an extent, that the aranmanai authorities, having gained mastery of the former [the Paravas], also aspired to the latter [the Company’s settlements] and set out in earnest to dislodge the Company from the entire coast… It can be understood easily that in this situation trade must have been weak and languid until 1669, when matters came to a formal war [the Tuticorin War, April–December 1669]. The Madurai [authorities], having already committed innumerable insults against the Company (which had attempted to settle affairs peacefully all the time), finally dropped its mask completely. Tuticorin, which had been captured from the Portuguese 11 years before, was attacked and subsequently besieged in order to see whether it could be taken from us…. Considerations of Governor gustaaf willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon regarding the trade of the Dutch East India Company on the Madurai Coast, 1738.1

Reflecting on the course of Company relations with Madurai between 1658 and 1669, Governor Van Imhoff in 1738 rightly observed that by and large contacts during this period tended to be limited and trade ‘weak and languid’. Indeed, in the eleven years between the conquest of Tuticorin and the other Portuguese ports on the Fishery Coast in January 1658 and the conclusion of the Peace of Kayatar between the Company and Madurai in December 1669 following the outbreak of the Tuticorin War, mutual contacts in general took second stage in the eyes of both sides of the encounter. Madurai, on the one hand, was subjected to the last convulsions of Bijapur’s ‘push to the east’ (1659–1663), a situation confounded by a brief succession dispute and usurpation of the Madurai throne by a triumvirate of the aranmanai’s

1 voc 11297, ff. 27–28, Consideratien van den raad ord. en Ceijlons gouvr. Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff over de handel van de Gen. Ned. O.I. Maatsch. op de Madurese Cust, 22.11.1738.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 357 leading officials (1659–1662). The aftermath of this phase consisted of two punitive expeditions, a lightning war against Tanjore for allegedly having given support to Bijapur (1663), and a drawn out guerrilla campaign against the Tevar of Ramnad, the so-called Madurai-Tevar War of 1663–1665, for failing to provide assistance against the Bijapuri invasions. Finally, a new episode in Mysorean- Madurai hostilities (1667–1668/9) erupted with disastrous consequences for Madurai. The Company, on the other hand, was fighting on two major fronts elsewhere in the Indian Ocean World. In Eastern Indonesia, the voc took another step towards completion of its worldwide monopoly in fine spices via the withdrawal of the Spanish from Ternate and Tidore in 1663 and the formal acceptance of voc overlordship by Tidore in 1667. Moreover, the Company finally succeeded in subduing the sultanate of Makassar (Gowa) in South Sulawesi, the last Asian-controlled emporium east of Java (1667; 1668–1669). In addition to the so-called ‘Eastern Districts’ (Oosterkwartieren), the Company was also active in the region west of Malacca on the west coast of India and the island of Ceylon. In the wake of the expulsion of the Portuguese from the Malabar Coast (1658–1663), the Company imposed a series of exclusive agreements on the local rulers (1663–1667). At the same time, a palace revolt against Raja Sinha II of Kandy in December 1664 incited the imperialist Van Goens Senior to pursue a policy of vigorous territorial expansion on the island of Ceylon (1665–1670). Within this broader context, in the first two years (1658–1660) following the expulsion of the Portuguese from the Madurai Coast the Company unfurled a flurry of diplomatic activities, leading to an ‘imperfect agreement’ with the aranmanai and two treaties with the Tevar. This initial period of intense courtship proved to be temporary only and was followed by a lull (1660–1664) during which the map of relations on the Madurai Coast was redrawn dramatically. By the mid-1660s, the process of estrangement between the Dutch and their erstwhile allies, the Muslim Maraikkayars of Kayalpatnam and the other coastal settlements, had been completed as the Company placed more and more restrictions on the Indo-Ceylon trade. In contrast, the rapprochement between the Dutch and their former enemies, the Roman Christian Paravas, led to a modus vivendi by 1664 under which the Paravas, via an impromptu agreement, fell under the dual government of the Company and the aranmanai, while the Paravas’ spiritual administration was left to the Jesuits of the Madurai Mission in the interior. In contrast to this veritable renversement des alliances, relations between the Company and the Tevar in general remained cordial, with the Ramnad ruler becoming increasingly less amenable to the aranmanai’s directives. In

358 chapter 5 fact, the war between the aranmanai and Tevar of 1663–1665 led to a sudden, if short-lived, revival of intensive contacts during which the Company was wooed by both sides. The result was the so-called ʻNagapatnam qaul’ issued by Chokkanatha Nayaka in ca. March 1665 and various significant concessions granted by Raghunatha Tevar in May 1665. The new Dutch-Parava cohabitation and the continuation of the Company alliance with the Tevar, combined with a series of intentional and unintentional Company provocations (rather than Van Imhoff’s ‘innumerable insults’ from the part of Madurai), led to growing resentment on the side of Madurai’s central authorities after 1665. The aranmanai rightly perceived these developments and actions as a serious threat to its authority over the Madurai Coast and an undermining of its traditional ʻopen door’ policy. However, it was not until the failure of a high-profile Company mission under the less than diplomatic Captain Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede (1668) and the conclusion of Madurai’s war with Mysore in late 1668-early 1669, that a series of events culminated into open hostilities during which both sides, in the words of Van Imhoff, ‘finally dropped their mask’. During the Tuticorin War (April–December 1669) the Madurai Coast, from being a mere secondary stage temporarily became the main theatre of war when the Company factory at Tuticorin ‘was attacked and subsequently besieged’. After eight months of hostilities, a peace treaty was concluded in December 1669. The Peace of Kayatar would once again free the hands of both the aranmanai and the Company’s imperialist faction, for what each side deemed more vital areas of expansion, and hence initiated another phase in the cross-cultural encounter.

General Framework: Madurai

For the greater part of this period, relations between the Dutch and the Nayaka authorities took second stage, the Madurai Coast representing a mere sideshow in the eyes of both sides of the encounter. On the one hand, Madurai was subjected to the last convulsions of Bijapur’s ‘push to the east’ between 1659 and 1663. On the accession of Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707), the Mughals renewed their pressure on Bijapur’s northern frontier, while partisan politics or factionalism at the centre and rebellions in the provinces sapped the strength of the Deccan sultanate from within.2

2 The best example of external pressure is the Mughal invasion of Bijapuri territory under Mirza Raja Jai Singh between November 1665 and June 1666. Partisan politics at the Bijapur centre is most clearly represented by the struggle between the Dakhnis or members of the

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 359

Following the death of ‘the great old Madurai ruler’ Tirumalai Nayaka in February 1659, a Bijapuri force under Mulla Ahmad Nawayat (d. 1665) and Shahaji Bhonsle (d. January 1664) invaded Madurai, but was repulsed by Tirumalai’s son and successor Muttu Virappa Nayaka II (r. 1659). Having settled a brief succession dispute with Kumara Muttu Nayaka, either the illegitimate son, brother, or brother’s son of Tirumalai Nayaka, in his favour, Muttu Virappa died in June 1659, leaving the final accommodation with the Bijapuri generals to his heir Chokkanatha Nayaka (r. 1659–1682). In December 1659, the Bijapuri army invested the walls of Trichinopoly, garrisoned by 10,000 troops commanded by Tuppaki Lingama (or Lingappa) Nayaka, the oldest brother of Tuppaki Krishnappa Nayaka, the erstwhile talavay of Gingee. Attempts to take the rock citadel proved to be fruitless and, having been paid a small compensation, in May 1660 the bulk of the Bijapuri army was forced to retreat.3

various factions, such as the Afaqi immigrants from Central and Western Asia and the Habashi immigrants from Abyssinia. The most famous rebellion in the provinces is the one led by the Maratha leader S(h)ivaji Bhonsle. In fact, the Karnatak as a whole became the appanage of various nominally subordinate officials-nobles. See: Verma, History of Bijapur, pp. 148–149, 160, 167, 194 et seq.; Nayeem, The External Relations of Bijapur, p. 34. 3 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 406r–407v, and 409r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en koopman Ooms van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 5.3.1659; Idem, ff. 413r, and 415v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden int jacht Schelvis voor Caijlpatnam aan superint. Van Goens, 29.3.1659; Idem, f. 434v, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 3.4.1659; Idem, f. 445v, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van der Meijden naar Quilon geschreven, 14.4.1659; Idem, f. 440r, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 20.4.1659; Idem, ff. 131r–131v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.5.1659; Idem, ff. 655r–657r, and 661r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 30.6.1659; voc 1229, obp 1660, ff. 884v–886r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 24.7.1659; voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 776r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 6.9.1659; Idem, f. 791r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 5.10.1659; voc 1230, obp 1660, f. 126v, Miss. koopman Valckenburg van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 6.11.1659; Idem, f. 156v, Miss. adml. Van Goens aan Batavia, 12.11.1659; Idem, f. 279r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 27.11.1659; voc 1233, obp 1660, ff. 2v–3v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 10.1.1660; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, pp. 259– 260, 297–298, 335, 337, and 355–356; Antonio de Proenza, missionary of Madurai, to Fr. Paul Oliva, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Trichinopoly, 22.7.1659, in: Saulière, ‘The Revolt of the Southern Nayaks’, Journal of Indian History 44, 1 (1966), pp. 175–177; Proenza to Oliva, Trichinopoly, 9.9.1662, in: Idem, ‘Madurai and Tanjore, 1659–1666’, Journal of Indian History 44 (1966), pp. 777–779; Vriddhagirisan, The Nayaks of Tanjore, pp. 141–144; Nayeem, External Relations of the Bijapur Kingdom, pp. 143–144; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 178–182; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 150–156; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 37–39.

360 chapter 5

In the subsequent counteroffensive, Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, the talavay of Madurai, was sent in June 1660 with an army of 40,000 foot and 2,000 horse against Shahaji, who had remained behind with part of the Bijapuri forces near the Coleroon River in order to extract full payment of the tribute from the Southern Nayakas. The dispatch of the Madurai army under Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka was part of an ambitious scheme of the talavay, pradhani, and rayasam, the three leading officials of Madurai, who had usurped the throne of Chokkanatha Nayaka, in order to restore the old political order, including the Nayakdom of Gingee and the state of Vijayanagara. The entire great enterprise, however, came to naught. In September 1661, Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka made his peace with Shahaji, while the following year (June 1662) Chokkanatha wrested control of the Madurai throne from the triumvirate of court officials, killing the rayasam, blinding the Brahmin pradhani, and forcing Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka to flee. In one of the numerous comebacks of his remarkable career, Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka subsequently joined forces with Shahaji and, supported by Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Tanjore, besieged the fortress of Trichinopoly with 12,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry, but was compelled to retreat to Tanjore empty-handed.4 In early 1663, the last Bijapuri army ever to invade the southern Carnatic crossed the Coleroon River under the command of Bahlul Khan (d. 1665), the governor of Gingee. Repulsed initially by Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, who had entered Tanjore service, the Bijapuri army nevertheless forced Vijayaraghava Nayaka into submission. With the tribute levied from Tanjore, Bahlul Khan in April 1663 subsequently besieged Trichinopoly, but after a few months was bought off by Chokkanatha Nayaka.5

4 voc 1236, obp 1662, f. 568, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 22.7.1661; Idem, f. 594, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 4.8.1661; voc 1234, obp 1662, ff. 132v–133r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 15.9.1661; voc 1236, obp 1662, f. 913, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 7.10.1661; Idem, f. 915, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 25.10.1661; voc 856, bub 1662, f. 296, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel, 25.7.1662; Dagh-Register 1661, pp. 40, 126, 320, and 405–406; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 427; Proenza to Oliva, Trichinopoly, 9.9.1662, in: Saulière, ‘Madurai and Tanjore’, pp. 779–783; Vriddhagirisan, The Nayaks of Tanjore, pp. 144–145: Nayeem, The External Relations of Bijapur, pp. 143–144; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 178, and 182–185; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 150–156; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 41–42. 5 voc 886, bub 1662, f. 337, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel, 14.8.1662; Idem, f. 525, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel, 22.9.1662; voc 1239, obp 1663, ff. 1348v–1349r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 30.11.1662; voc 1243,

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 361

Having warded off the Bijapuri threat, the restless Chokkanatha now had his hands free to deal with what he considered the treacherous behaviour of his neighbour Tanjore and his disloyal ‘adopted son’ (kumara varkkam) and most powerful palaiyakkarar Raghunatha Tevar of Ramnad. In July 1663, the Madurai ruler personally led a brief punitive expedition against Vijayaraghava Nayaka, forcing the Tanjore ruler before the end of the year to give up the fortress of Vallamkottai (‘the key to and vital defence of Tanjore’), pay a huge indemnity, and hand over ‘his’ talavay Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka.6 In fact, the comeback kid Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, once more in favour, participated in the subsequent punitive campaign against Raghunatha Tevar (ca. December 1663-May 1665) again under the personal command of Chokkanatha Nayaka. However, whereas the expedition against Tanjore resembled a lightning war, the campaign in Marava country had all the appearances of a drawn out guerrilla campaign. After a series of initial successes in which Chokkanatha’s troops conquered Tiruppatur, Pudukkottai, Arantangi, Manamadurai, and Kalaiyarkovil, the Madurai army got bogged down in a quagmire, being forced to give up one strategic fortress after another. In May 1665, a compromise was agreed upon, whereby Raghunatha Tevar was allowed to keep all of his ancestral lands, provided he would return all hostages, guns,

obp 1664, f. 186, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 31.1.1663; voc 1244, obp 1664, f. 276, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 20.2.1663; voc 1243, obp 1664, ff. 821–822, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 23.5.1663; Idem, f. 1258, Miss. gouvr. Pit, Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 22.6.1663; Idem, f. 1386, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 20.7.1663; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1663, pp. 109, 147, and 364–365; Proenza to Oliva, Trichinopoly, 14.8.1666, in: Saulière, ‘Madurai and Tanjore, 1659–1666’, pp. 783–785; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 186–187; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p. 158; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 42–43. 6 voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 1707, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 9.10.1663; voc 1242, obp 1664, ff. 668v–670v, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 31.11.1663; voc 1246, obp 1665, ff. 497–498, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 21.2.1664; voc 1245, obp 1665, f. 440v, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 15.12.1664; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1663, pp. 483, and 549; Idem, Dagh-Register 1664, p. 154; Proenza to Oliva, 14.8.1666 in: Saulière, ‘Madurai and Tanjore, 1659–1666’, p. 785; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 187; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 158–159; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 43. Madurai’s hold over Vallamkottai proved to be short-lived as it was subsequently recaptured by Vijayaraghava the next year in 1664, while Chokkanatha Nayaka was engaged in war with the Setupati. See: Vriddhagirisan, The Nayaks of Tanjore, pp. 146–147.

362 chapter 5 cannons, elephants and horses taken from the aranmanai, and pay homage every two years in the form of 120,000 pardaus.7 Reflecting on the ultimate outcome of the war, the Jesuit Father Antão de Proença, member of the Madurai Mission, believed that the Madurai forces had suffered from the dubious loyalty of its ‘foreign’ (read Muslim) captains and regiments and their lack of discipline, along with the physical nature of the densely forested Marava country, where the Vadugas (‘northerners’) or Telugu forces, unfamiliar with guerrilla warfare, were unable to fight or deploy their cavalry. In contrast, the Marava army was not only liberally paid and fiercely loyal, but also highly familiar with the terrain and guerrilla techniques.8 Finally, in early 1667 ongoing skirmishes on the Mysore-Madurai border erupted in another full-scale war. Chokkanatha himself marched towards Erode leading a makeshift confederacy consisting of Vithoji Pandidar and Ananta Pandidar, the Bijapur governor and general of Gingee, respectively, Damarla Aiyappa Nayaka, (d.c. 1668) brother of Damarla Venkatadri, Nayaka, former governor of Wandiwash (Vandavasi), and Sri Ranga Raya III. However, upon receiving news of preparations for a relief expedition at Srirangapatnam,

7 voc 1246, obp 1665, f. 498, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 21.2.1664; Idem, f. 839, Miss. gouvr. Hustaerdt en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1664; voc 1248, obp 1665, f. 1872, Miss. gouvr. Hustaerdt en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 9.6.1664; Idem, ff. 2135–2136, Miss. gouvr. Hustaerdt en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 11.8.1664; Idem, f. 2265, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 17.9.1664: voc 1254, obp 1666, f. 1038, Miss. superint. Van Goens en raad van Cochin aan H. XVII, 17.2.1665; voc 1252, obp 1666, f. 347, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 5.3.1665; voc 1254, obp 1666, ff. 584, and 588, Advies van de raadspersonen van Nagapatnam betr. de negotie en mesnagie aldaar voorgesteld door gouvr. Speelman, 7.4.1665; voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 504–505, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceylon aan Batavia, 30.4.1665; Idem, f. 873, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 12.5.1665; Idem, ff. 828, and 849, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1665; voc 1253, obp 1666, f. 1486, Miss. commr. Paviljoen en raad van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 27.6.1665; voc 1252, obp 1666, f. 1110, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 29.6.1665; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1664, pp. 205, 409, 432, 451, and 576; Idem, Dagh-Register 1665, pp. 145– 146. For a detailed account of the causes and actual course of the hostilities: voc 1251, obp 1666, ff. 745–754, Rapp. Capptn. Van Rheede van zijne verrichtingen in de landen van Trevancoor en Madure overgegeven aen Van Goens, ordin. raet van India, superint., adml., veltoverste en gouvr. des eijlants Ceijlon ende de cust Malabaer etca., 7.10.1665. See also: Proenza to Oliva, 14.8.1666, in: Saulière, ‘Madurai and Tanjore, 1659–1666’ pp. 785–787; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 187–188; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p. 159; Ramaswami (ed.), Tamil Nadu District Gazetteers. Volume 6: Ramanathapuram, p. 84; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), p. 43. 8 Proenza to Oliva, 14.8.1666, in: Saulière, ‘Madurai and Tanjore, 1659–1666’, pp. 786–787.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 363

Chokkanatha hastily retreated to Trichinopoly along with Sri Ranga Raya III, leaving Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka in charge of the Madurai contingent. The remainder of the disheartened confederacy forces was crushed by the Mysorean army under talavay Kumaraiya (Kumara Ayya) Raja in June 1667, who subsequently captured Erode, Dharapuram, and Vamalur and the dependencies of Kamalur and Samalapuram. The Mysorean army even proceeded as far as Trichinopoly, forcing Chokkanatha in January 1669 to submit and extorting the payment of a heavy ransom.9

General Framework: Dutch

While the central authorities of Madurai were engaged in hostilities with Bijapur, Tanjore, Ramnad, and Mysore, the Company was fighting on two major fronts elsewhere in the Indian Ocean World. In Eastern Indonesia, the voc took another step towards completion of the monopoly in fine spices via the withdrawal of the Spanish from Ternate and Tidore in 1663 and the formal acceptance of voc overlordship by Tidore in 1667. Moreover, aided by the Bugi prince Arung Palakka of Bone (1634–1696), the Company finally succeeded in forcing the submission of the sultanate of Makassar (Gowa) in South Sulawesi, by this time the last Asian- controlled spice emporium east of Java in the Indonesian archipelago. After forcing Sultan Hasanuddin (r. 1653–1669) to accept the peace of August–December 1660, the Company needed two additional major campaigns (1667, 1668–1669) to

9 voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 958v, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 13.2.1668; Idem, f. 975v, Miss. Van der Meersche en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 2.3.1668; voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 979r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 20.6.1668; Idem, ff. 1162r, 1166r–1166v, 1174r, 1176v–1177r, 1185r–1186r, and 1190r–1190v, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668; Idem, f. 998r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 4.9.1668; Idem, f. 1006v, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 6.10.1668; voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 431r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 1.2.1669; Idem, f. 437r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 15.2.1669; voc 1273, obp 1670, f. 1638v, Miss. Van der Meersche en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.2.1669; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 646; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, pp. 226–230; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), p. 44; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 161–163. Aiyar, relying heavily on the Jesuit letters (absent for this period), questions the fact whether there was a war with Mysore at all in this period, arguing that ‘It is hard to believe that, soon after a trying period of his reign lasting about six years [1659–1665], Chokkanatha contemplated the ambitious scheme of conquering the whole of Mysore’, adding that ‘no decisive evidence is available for the statement’. See: Idem, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p.161.

364 chapter 5 compel Hasanuddin to sign and abide by the stipulations of the Treaty of Bungaya (1669), effectively breaking the power of Gowa.10 In addition to Eastern Indonesia, the Company was also active in the so- called ‘Western Districts’ (Westerkwartieren) on the west coast of India and the island of Ceylon. Five costly expeditions were required to expel the Portuguese from Quilon, Cranganore, Cochin, and Cannanore (1658–1663), while subsequent exclusive agreements with indigenous rulers (1663–1667) secured the Company, at least on paper, the monopoloy of the export of pepper from Cape Comorin to Cranganore and in the lands of the Kolathiri of Cannanore, the monopoly of the import of opium in the same area, except for the lands of Kayamkulam and Purakkad, plus the monopoly of the export of wild cinnamon for almost the entire coast. This paper monopoly was to be enforced through a series of watch posts on land and cruising fleets along the coast.11 A similar aggressive policy was pursued on the island of Ceylon during the first term of the ‘hawkish’ Governor Van Goens Senior. In the wake of an abortive coup d’état against Raja Sinha II of Kandy in December 1664, unanimously received in leading Company circles as a ‘gift from the heavens’, Governor Van Goens Senior vigorously expanded the territory under direct Company control, including the east coast ports of Trincomalee (1665), Batticaloa and Kottiyar (1668), while further pushing into the interior of the west coast, including the valuable cinnamon forests and fertile rice fields of the Seven Korales, Four Korales, and Sabaragamuwa.12 It comes as no surprise that during this period events on the Madurai Coast played a minor role in the Company’s overall strategy, especially since the voc’s local trade was of little importance. Between 1658 and 1669 the total value of Company

10 L.Y. Andaya, The Heritage of Arung Palakka: A History of South Sulawesi (Celebes) in the Seventeenth Century, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 91 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1981), pp. 44–136; W.P. Cummings, A Chain of Kings: The Makassarese Chronicles of Gowa and Talloq, Bibliotheca Indonesica 33 (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2007); Idem, Making Blood White: Historical Transformations in Early Modern Makassar (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002). The study by Knaap unfortunately focuses on Ambon and the Moluccas proper. See: Knaap, Kruidnagelen en Christenen. 11 s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. xl–li, and lvii–lix; Roelofsz (later Meilink- Roelofsz), De Vestiging der Nederlanders ter Kuste Malabar, pp. 154–157. See also: B.J. Mailaparambil, Lords of the Sea: The Ali Rajas of Cannanore and the Political Economy of Malabar, 1663–1723, tanap Monographs on the History of Asian-European Interaction 14 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012), esp. pp. 81–125. 12 Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 25–52; Idem, ‘De voc in Ceylon en Coromandel in de 17de en 18de eeuw’, in: M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz (ed.), De voc in Azië (Bussum: Fibula-Van Dishoeck, 1976), pp. 22–23.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 365

Table 24 Dutch imports and exports from the Madurai Coast, plus gross revenues, expenditures, and net results, 1658/59–1669/70 (in guilders)

Financial Value Value Gross Expenditures Net year imports exports revenues profits

1658–59 n.a. n.a. 13,080 8,768 4,312 1659–60 69,039 43,625 24,810 18,216 6,594 1660–61 76,984 49,275 21,225 8,650 12,375 1661–62 63,234 55,380 29,436 9,602 19,834 1662–63 80,737 79,527 19,615 12,102 7,513 1663–64 32,052 46,845 30,155 7,239 22,916 1664–65 85,896 83,063 21,516 11,909 9,607 1665–66 64,684 87,561 32,716 15,207 17,509 1666–67 81,485 87,184 43,829 9,433 34,396 1667–68 69,674 73,496 n.a. n.a. 4,844 1668–69 31,378 66,136 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1669–70 63,690 30,741 132,601* 22,448 110,153

* Fl. 13,083:8:1 in trade profits and fl. 119,517:10:9 in duties and other non-commercial revenues, most notably the pearl fishery of 1669. Sources: voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratien over den generalen handel ter Custe Madure 1738. No. 5 Samentreckinge van het geheele beloop der negotie die voor reekeninge van de generale Nederlandsche Compagnie op de Custe van Madure tsedert hare eerste establissementen aldaar gedreven is…tzedert Ao. 1659–60 tot 1737–38; voc 1242, obp 1664, ff. 1049v–1053r, Rekening van onkosten en winsten op Ceijlon, 1655–1663; voc 1245, obp 1665, ff. 326r–326v, Miss. gouvr. Hustaerdt en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 10.6.1664; voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 1293, Lasten en winsten op Ceijlon, 1.3.1664–30.2.1665; voc 1255, obp 1667, f. 266, Generale missive, 25.1.1667; voc 1265, obp 1668, f. 908v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.8.1667; voc 1266, obp 1669, f. 270r, Generale missive, 19.12.1668; voc 1274, obp 1671, f. 533, Notitie van de generale lasten en winsten in het Ceijlonse gouvernement, 1.3.1669–30.2.1670. imports into Madurai averaged between 70,000 and 80,000 guilders a year, while exports peaked at 87,000 guilders in the financial years of 1665–1666 and 1666–1667. In general, gross revenues barely exceeded expenditures with annual profits ranging between 4,000 and 34,000 guilders (see Table 24). No wonder that Tuticorin, seat of the Company chief of the Madurai Coast, was disdainfully referred to as ‘that poor settlement’ (soo sobren comptoir).13 Not until the late 1660s would the special interests of the Madurai Coast on both sides temporarily prevail again over general commitments elsewhere with dramatic results.

13 voc 1252, obp 1666, f. 851, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1665.

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Initial Courtship, 1658–1660

The expulsion of the Portuguese from the Fishery Coast in January 1658 initiated a brief flurry of diplomatic activities, including a cancelled mission to the Madurai court and an embassy and first treaty with Ramnad in February 1658; a partly interrupted high-profile, carefully planned mission destined for the aranmanai but diverted to the governor of Tirunelveli leading to the so-called ‘imperfect agreement’ of March 1659 with Vadamalaiyappa Pillai; and a low- key, ad hoc embassy to the Tevar resulting in a second treaty with the Marava ruler in April 1660. In January 1658, a large Company task force of some 40 vessels (8 yachts, 2 galiots, and about 30 lesser craft), carrying over 1,500 European, Sinhalese, and a few Ambonese troops under Commander Van Goens, descended on the lightly defended Portuguese outposts along the Madurai Coast. As early as September 1657, Van Goens had been instructed by the High Government in Batavia to expel the Portuguese from the area for a combination of strategic (the safety of Ceylon) and commercial (especially textiles) reasons and ordered to erect a ‘proper little fortress’ in order to secure the Dutch settlement and the pearl fishery of Mannaar and Tuticorin.14 The local Portuguese ‘armada’ of five rowing boats under Dom António da Silva and the 80 men of the Portuguese garrison at Tuticorin under Captain Jorge Cabral were no match for the vastly superior Company forces. On January 25, 1658, Tuticorin, the last of the Portuguese-held settlements on the Madurai Coast was forced to capitulate following a brief, rather bloodless struggle in which the Portuguese themselves set fire to three of their frigates lying near the shore. While Da Silva and the remnants of his task force made their way to Jaffnapatnam, Cabral withdrew into the Madurai interior to Palaiyamkottai.15

14 voc 881, bub 1657, f. 418, Instr. voor Rijckloff van Goens, raad-extr. van India, gaande in commissie tot visite der gouvernementen en comptoiren Surat, Wingurla, Malabar, Ceijlon, Cormandel, Bengalen en Malakka, mitsgaders als commr., adml., en veldoverste over de scheeps- en krijgsmacht naar de kust van India en Ceijlon uitgezet, 5.9.1657. 15 voc 1226, obp 1659, f. 908r, Secrete resol. adml. Van Goens, gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon, 7.1.1658; Idem, f. 918r, Memorie adml. en comms. Van Goens voor gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon, 14.1.1658; Idem, ff. 923v–924r, Miss. adml. en comms. Van Goens aan sergt. majoor Van der Laan, 18.1.1658; voc 1227, obp 1659, f. 332r, Resol. adml. en veldoverste Van Goens en raad, 28.1.1658; voc 1226, obp 1659, f. 872r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan opperk. Serooskerken, 9.2.1658; voc 1227, obp 1659, ff. 237r–239r, Miss. adml. Van Goens voor Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 17.3.1658; Idem, f. 260r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1658; voc 1233, obp 1661, f. 208r, Cort vertoog rakende de gantse staat op Ceijlon door Van Goens, raad-extr. en

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 367

An apologetic letter written afterwards by Cabral from Palaiyamkottai provides some interesting details surrounding the expulsion of the Portuguese and the position of the Tevar and the aranmanai. Cabral claimed that he had been initially determined to face the enemy head on, inciting the local Hindu and Parava population to fight, but that he was tricked ‘with deceptive talk’ by Vadamalaiyappa Pillai into retreating to Palaiyamkottai. According to Cabral, the ‘chief regent’ (regedor mór) of Madurai had personally assured him that he would ‘see to it that our [Portuguese] maritime force would beat the Dutch from the coast’.16 No sooner had Tuticorin been taken by force, than Van Goens made all the necessary preparations for a two-front diplomatic offensive: while the Company Senior Merchant Eduard Ooms was to visit Vadamalaiyappa Pillai at Mela puthaneri near Palaiyamkottai and subsequently Chokkanatha Nayaka at Madurai, the Merchant Jacob van Rhee was to negotiate with Raghunatha Tevar at Ramnad. Ooms and Van Rhee were accompanied by the experienced Company Resident of Kayalpatnam Adriaen van der Marckt, a young assistant, and four of the ‘least experienced in war and best mannered’ Company soldiers, along with the indigenous officer or arachchi cum merchant go-between Dom Candia Lappa from Jaffnapatnam and four Sinhalese lascorins.17

gouvr, van Ceijlon, aan GG en R op Batavia overgegeven, 20.9.1660; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii, p. 271; Letter from the governors of India to the king of Portugal, 17.12.1658, in: Pissurlençar (ed.), Assentos do Conselho do Estado, III, pp. 625–626; Ribeiro, The Historic Tragedy of the Island of Ceilão, pp. 211–212. 16 Letter from Jorge Cabral at Paliyamkottai (‘Palião’) to the governors of India, 12.2.1658, in: Pissurlençar (ed.), Assentos do Conselho do Estado, III, p. 625 n. 1. 17 voc 1227, obp 1659, ff. 332r–332v, Resol. adml. en veldoverste Van Goens en raad, 28.1.1658. In order to deal with ambiguous feelings within their host society, the Company would normally employ in its high-profile diplomatic contacts with local rulers indigenous high-caste mediators along with its European servants in view of their ability to converse with members of other high castes, not only because of their superior linguistic skills, but their elevated status as well. Candia Lappa would later betray the trust of the Company: in 1661 he fled to Tengapatnam en route from Pulicat to Ceylon with, amongst others, 1,600–1,800 pagodas in cash and jewelry allegedly as payment for 1,000 amanam of arecanuts stolen from the Company. He appeared under safe conduct at Pulicat, confessed, and was sentenced by Governor Pit and Council at Pulicat. He later acted as a guarantor on behalf of the Company Merchant Jacob van Rhee for the leasing of the voc customs on Ceylon for the sum of 2,483 guilders. See: voc 1233, obp 1661, ff. 170r–170v, Secrete miss. adml. Van Goens van Gale aan Batavia, 27.4.1660; Idem, ff. 191r–191v, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Gale aan Batavia, 15.6.1660; Idem, ff. 45v–46r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 14.7.1660; voc 1236, obp 1662, f. 793, Miss. comms. Van Goens en gouvr. Van

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Ooms was provided with all the appropriate presents, letters, and instructions necessary for his mission. In a letter to Chokkanatha Nayaka, Van Goens requested permission to complete the expulsion of the Portuguese (read: Jesuit) presence from Madurai begun at Tuticorin, ‘in order that we may live in a true, confident, fixed, and secure friendship with Your Highness, for it is impossible that we [and the Portuguese] could reside together in the lands of Your Highness’.18 Ooms, however, was instructed to negotiate first with Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, the Madurai pradhani, who was considered the real power broker of Madurai and the person with whom the Company would have to deal with most anyway. Ooms was to conclude, among other articles, the following points: a fixed friendship with the aranmanai to facilitate trade; a declaration of war against the Portuguese and all their ‘cronies’, excluding the Paravas, and a prohibition of trade with all enemy ports; permission to build a ‘house and fortress’ at Tuticorin ‘as large as would be both necessary and reasonable’; recognition that all Parava headmen (pattangattins) and commoners (kamarakkarar) were under Company protection, provided they would pay the Nayaka their ordinary tribute; acknowledgement of the Company’s authority over the pearl and chank fisheries, on the condition that the customary dues of two per cent would be paid to the aranmanai; the exclusion of all other Europeans from the lands of Madurai; a Company monopoly in the import of pepper and preferential rights in the export of rice; and permission to conduct free trade for the first three years and exemption from all tolls, except for rice for which no more than 2 fanams per 5 kandi or 1 last should be paid. As Van Goens realised, some of these articles would be controversial, but Ooms was ordered not to give in on any point and maintain that he was not allowed to conclude any agreement without full compliance.19 From later events it can be safely argued that this uncompromising stance would have doomed the Ooms mission. However, Ooms’ mission never

der Meijden van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 31.10.1661; voc 888, bub 1664, f. 429, Miss. GG en R voor Van Goens gaande als gouvr. naar Ceijlon, 5.9.1664; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 49; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1661, p. 120. 18 voc 1227, obp 1659, ff. 368r–368v, Brief adml. en veldoverste Van Goens aan de neijck van Madure met de gezant Ooms gezonden, 31.1.1658; J. Aalbers, Rijcklof van Goens, Commis saris en Veldoverste der Oost-Indische Compagnie, en zijn Arbeidsveld, 1653/54 en 1657/58 (Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1916), pp. 216–218. 19 voc 1227, obp 1659, ff. 305r–306r, Instr. voor den koopman Ooms en secrets. Van Rhee gaande van hier als Cies. gezanten aan de neijck van Madre, 31.1.1658. See also: Idem, f. 282r, Miss. adml. en superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 6.7.1658.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 369

materialised since the Company was unable to come up with any elephants from Ceylon and it was reported that the Nayaka of Madurai could not be visited without presenting one of these highly-esteemed animals. Van Goens subsequently suspected that this report was unfounded and had been spread by the inveterate enemy of the Company Henrique da Cruz and other pattangattins of Tuticorin in order to prevent the Company from achieving its goals. However, one decade later, during the fateful 1668 mission of Van Rheede, some servants of Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai reminded the Company Captain, that ‘in case we did not bring any flowers [read: elephants or significant presents], we might better turn back, for without such considerable gifts…we were to encounter little respect’.20 Whereas the visit to the aranmanai was nipped in the bud, the other half of the dual mission, that of Van Rhee to Raghunatha Tevar, proceeded as planned as support of the Ramnad ruler for the Company’s cause was deemed indispensable. Not only did he dominate a substantial portion of the Madurai lands and control the strategic Pamban Channel, but the Company was also dependent on provisions from the Marava territories and the support of his powerful army (including numerous musketeers) in the struggle against the remaining Portuguese strongholds at Mannaar and Jaffnapatnam. Similar to Ooms, Van Rhee was provided with valuable presents and proper instructions, which consisted of five articles: the establishment of a secure friendship in order to enable trade; a declaration of hostility toward the Portuguese and their underlings, excluding the Paravas; a prohibition of the Tevar’s shipping to Portuguese-held ports, such as Mannaar, Jaffna, and Nag apatnam; assistance in the fight against the Portuguese in the form of 5–6 thonis, each supplied with 12–15 men to serve as landing vessels to be paid for by the Company; and protection of the Tevar by the Company against any possible Portuguese counterattack. In case Van Rhee was unable to reach an agreement with Raghunatha Tevar, he was to leave immediately and the island-shrine of Rameswaram was to be seized by Company forces.21 While Van Goens sailed with the fleet from Tuticorin to Kilakkarai, Raghunatha Tevar at Ramnad offered Van Rhee military assistance against the

20 voc 882, bub 1659, ff. 362–363, Miss. GG en R aan adml. en veldoverste Van Goens, 9.8.1658; Idem, f. 380, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon, 9.8.1659; voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1160r, Rapp. Van Reede aan Van Goens, 2.7.1668; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii, p. 275; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 132. 21 voc 1227, obp 1659, ff. 332r–333r, Resol. adml. en veldoverste Van Goens en raad, 28.1.1658; Idem, ff. 303r–304r, Instr. voor den secrets. Van Rhee gaende van hier als sComps gesant aen Raganada Teuver, 31.1.1658.

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Portuguese at Mannaar and Jaffna in the form of 20 thonis and a considerable number of soldiers in return for the complete or partial possession of Mannaar. Unwilling to negotiate on these terms, Van Goens on February 9 threatened to leave with the fleet from Kilakkarai for Mannaar and start the attack without the help of the Tevar. Put on the spot, Raghunatha gave in and the next day, on February 10, signed the proposed alliance with Van Rhee. The Marava ruler consented to all points, but one contentious article was added stipulating that the Company would grant the Tevar the freedom of 7 thonis in the pearl fishery, provided he had enjoyed the same privilege during the time of the Portuguese. Raghunatha Tevar for his part pledged to abide by the agreement, taking a sol- emn oath ‘on the two feet of the Nayaka his lord’.22 In the subsequent attack on the Portuguese at Mannaar the Company was indeed duly assisted by the Tevar with a number of rowing vessels and 2,000 musketeers apparently to the Company’s complete satisfaction. In the following year, the Company even considered borrowing 800–1,000 armed Maravas, to be used at Company expense, in a projected raid against Raja Sinha II on the port of Puttalam situated on the west coast of Ceylon. In conformity, however, with the ʻmentality of the interloper’ and the concomitant paranoid ‘siege mentality’ the project was abandoned out of fear of collusion between the Tevar and the ruler of Kandy.23 Much of 1658 was dedicated to the expulsion of the Portuguese from Mannaar, Jaffna, and Nagapatnam, while a beginning was made with the conquest of the Portuguese fortified settlements along the Malabar Coast. Nevertheless, one issue emerged which was to have far-reaching consequences both for the future course of Company policy and the relations between the voc and other groups on the Madurai Coast. Immediately following the conquest of Tuticorin, Governor Van der Meijden of Ceylon and Superintendent Van Goens pressed hard for building a fort at Tuticorin. Batavia, however, put an end to any such schemes, at least for the moment, fearing heavy expenses on fortification and

22 voc 1227, obp 1659, f. 335r, Resol. adml. en veldoverste Van Goens en raad int schip Ter Goes voor Kilekare, 9.2.1658; Heeres (ed.), Corpus diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 113–114. 23 voc 1227, obp 1659, f. 260r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1658; Idem, ff. 283r–283v, Miss. adml. en veldoverste Van Goens aan Batavia, 6.7.1658; voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 390r, Memorie superint. Van Goens voor gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon, 13.2.1659; Idem, f. 413r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden int jacht Schelvis voor Caijlpatnam aan superint. Van Goens, 29.3.1659; Idem, f. 351r, Rapp. Ooms, koopman en gewezen hoofd van Tuticorin nopende de negotie en handel &a. ter selver plaetsen aan Van Goens, raad-ords., superint., adml., en expresse comms. over de kusten van India en het eild. Ceijlon, 4.4.1659.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 371 garrison and the objections to be expected from the aranmanai. In words which proved to be prophetic, the High Government asserted: ‘We cannot see how the Nayaka would ever agree to this [fort] unless we would force him through an open war…’. In fact, in September 1658 Van Goens reported that upon his arrival from Nagapatnam at Tuticorin, the aranmanai gathered a large body of troops in order to prevent him from building such a fortification.24 In January 1659, a new attempt was undertaken to resolve the differences with the aranmanai and to conclude a ‘closer union and agreement’. At his own instigation, Governor Van der Meijden of Ceylon would be sent directly to Tirumalai Nayaka at Madurai in a conscious effort to effectively bypass Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, now conveniently downplayed as merely an ‘influential servant’ of the Nayaka. The Ceylon governor was to be provided with valuable gifts, including 3 elephants, 2 Persian horses, 4,000 reals or 12,000 guilders in gifts, and a suite of 50 soldiers under Ensign Willem Thomasz. to serve as an escort and protection of the Ceylon Governor. Moreover, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai was warned that if Van der Meijden were to meet any harrassment, the Company would immediately declare war on the aranmanai and effectively blockade all the Madurai ports.25 Although Van der Meijden also argued for obtaining a lease of all the Madurai seaports, his instructions, drawn up by Commissioner Van Goens, were a carbon copy of those given to Ooms one year earlier. Van der Meijden, however, was allowed to improvise and make changes according to time and circumstances, except for four crucial articles without which no agreement was to be made and war declared on the aranmanai. These non-negotiable provisions included the exclusion of all other Europeans from Madurai; the aranmanai’s consent to build a fort (50 fathoms or 300 foot long on each side);

24 voc 1227, obp 1659, ff. 255r–255v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en Raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1658; Idem, f. 268r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1658; Idem, f. 279v, Miss. adml. en veldoverste Van Goens aan Batavia, 6.7.1658; voc 882, bub 1658, f. 372, Miss. GG en R aan adml. en veldoverste Van Goens, 9.8.1658; voc 1227, obp 1659, f. 295r, Miss. adml. en veldoverste Van Goens aan Batavia, 3.9.1658; voc 882, bub 1658, f. 518, Miss. GG en R aan adml. en veldoverste Van Goens, 31.9.1658. 25 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 225–226, Resol. comms. Van Goens, gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon, 15.1.1659 ; Idem, ff. 37, and 79, Miss. adml. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 4.2.1659; Idem, f. 522r, Resol. adml. Van Goens en raad te Colombo, 10.2.1659; Idem, ff. 387r–387v, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan koopman Ooms te Tuticorin, 11.2.1659; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 270; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii, pp. 280–281; Roelofsz (later Meilink-Roelofsz), De Vestiging der Nederlanders ter Kuste Malabar, pp. 188–193.

372 chapter 5 recognition of the Company jurisdiction over the Paravas; and expulsion of the Portuguese priests or ‘papists’ from the interior. Having concluded treaties with Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Tanjore (December 1658) and the Signatti (Desinganadu) of Quilon (January 1659), Van Goens viewed an agreement with the Nayaka of Madurai and the establishment of Company hegemony over the ‘Bay of Tuticorin’ (Gulf of Mannaar) as the logical completion of a regional Pax Neerlandica. Though he believed that the Company lacked neither might nor right to force Tirumalai Nayaka, Van Goens considered it best to pursue ‘the most honest way toward peace by fairness and moderation via a sincere and considerable embassy in order to dispose him to our purpose through reason’.26 Curiously enough, Van der Meijden was provided with a conciliatory letter to Tirumalai Nayaka supposedly written by the Governor General and Council at Batavia and a letter to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, both concocted by Van Goens. In the letter to the ruler of Madurai, Van Goens alleged that he had been reprimanded by Batavia for intending to build a fortress at Tuticorin against the will of the aranmanai. Moreover, he claimed he had given explicit orders not do so, ‘since our intention has never been to undertake any such procedures against Your Highness, whose friendship we value and whom we do not wish to anger by using our weapons, in order that Your Highness can see how much we hold dear and embrace peace everywhere’. Van der Meijden’s embassy to secure the exclusion of all other Europeans and the construction of a small fortress was portrayed as being both necessary for the Company to defend itself against its enemies (‘everything peacefully and with approval of Your Highness’) and highly beneficial to the Madurai ruler and the lands under his administration, ‘whose lands will subsequently flourish’.27 The careful planning of the high-profile mission notwithstanding, Van der Meijden arrived on the Madurai Coast at the worst time possible as the aranmanai’s attention was distracted by both external threats in the form of another Bijapuri invasion and internal dissension in the form of a disputed succession following the death of Tirumalai Nayaka in February 1659. ‘As a result’, Van der Meijden and Chief Eduard Ooms of Tuticorin, reported despondently in March

26 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 388r–390r, Memorie voor Van der Meijden tot voltrekking van de resol. date 10 febr. op Colombo getrokken door superint. Van Goens, 13.2.1659. See also: Idem, ff. 522r–522v, Resol. adml. Van Goens en raad te Colombo, 10.2.1659. 27 voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 391r, Miss. aan de grote neijck van Madure met gouvr. Van der Meijden gezonden zijnde in forme als of dezelve door haar Ed. op Batavia geschreven was, 13.2.1659; Idem, f. 392r, Miss. superint., veldoverste, adml., expres comms. Van Goens aan Barmiliappa Pulle, stadhouder van de grootmachtige neijck van Madure, 13.2.1659.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 373

1659, ‘affairs at the Madurai court are said to be still rather troubled’.28 Forced to improvise on the spot, Van der Meijden decided to delay the embassy and hold on to the presents until the position of the new Madurai ruler, Muttu Virappa Nayaka II (r. February–June 1659), would be more secure. At the request of Vadamalai yappa Pillai, however, the Company Merchant Cornelis Valckenburgh was sent on February 25 from Tuticorin to Melaputhaneri near Palaiyamkottai with a letter from Van der Meijden and the twelve articles drafted by Van Goens.29 Following several weeks of intense negotiations and correspondence, Valckenburgh returned with the rather disappointing response (more form than substance) of the aranmanai (Muttu Virappa Nayaka II and Vadamalaiyappa Pillai) to the twelve articles, accompanied by a letter from Vadamalaiyappa Pillai focusing on the so-called four crucial issues. Regarding the Company’s request to construct a fortress at Tuticorin, Punnaikayal, or Kayalpatnam, the Madurai ruler failed to see the necessity since the Portuguese

28 Excerpts from the letter by Van der Meijden and Ooms shed some light on the confused state of affairs at the Madurai court in early 1659: The great old Nayaka of Madurai [Tirumalai Nayaka] has died at Madurai in early February. However, before his death, he had declared a son of one of his concubines, Muttu Virappa Nayaka [II], between 25 and 30 years of age, as his successor… …[W]e have learned here that a brother’s son of the deceased Nayaka, Kumara Muttu [Nayaka], about 40 years old, is closer to the rightful succession. He has lived for a long time with the Nayaka of Tanjore [Vijayaraghava Nayaka], to whom he is related, and with the dethroned King of Carnatica Sri Ranga Raya III. Now he is said to be en route with some Moorish, Mysorean, and Tanjore forces via Trichinopoly to Madurai, against which the Tevar with 12,000 men and some other nobles [palaiyakkarars] have opposed themselves, who are said to have joined Muttu Virappa Nayaka and are preparing themselves around Madurai… Today we have been informed from Madurai that Muttu Virappa Nayaka, with the approval of Kumara Muttu and Alagiri Nayaka [Alagiri or Alakadri Nayaka, younger brother of Chokkanatha Nayaka] (whose two little daughters have already been engaged to two sons of Muttu in order to be married in due time) and other nobles, has been recognised as Nayaka of Madurai and been accorded customary reverence. Indeed, he has been advised to march to Trichinopoly in person in order to oppose the Moors [Bijapuris]… voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 406r–406v, and 409r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en koopman Ooms van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 5.3.1659. The succession dispute was settled through the mediation of Ranganna Nayaka by giving Kumara Muttu the independent charge of Sivakasi and some other parts in Tirunelveli. See: Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p. 150; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 178. 29 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 406r–407v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en koopman Ooms van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 5.3.1659; Idem, ff. 429r–429v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon van Tuticorin aan Vadamalaiyappa Pulle, de stadhr. van de neijck van Madure, 12.3.1659.

374 chapter 5 had managed to possess these places for 150 years without any fortifications. Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, however, promised to intercede on behalf of the Company during the Nayaka’s visit at the upcoming (Sivaratri?) festival of the Sri Andal Temple at Srivilliputtur upon which, he assured, permission would be forthcoming. In fact, and as we will see, this permission was never given. Second, the Company was granted jurisdiction over the Paravas, provided the customary dues to the aranmanai were paid. The ambiguity of this concession, Company jurisdiction combined with the customary dues to the aranmanai, was confirmed in the concomitant article regarding the mastery of the pearl and chank fisheries along the Madurai Coast. Thus, no pearl fishery was to be held without the joint consent of the Company and the aranmanai, while the chank fishery would be open to everyone, again on the payment of the customary duties to the central authorities of Madurai. This shadowy dual authority and overlapping rights among various ‘co-sharers’ typical of local political systems30 would give occasion to many a conflict in the future. Third, the request for the exclusion of all other Europeans and accompanying commercial privileges on the Madurai Coast was turned down with the argument that ‘in case the seaports are not frequented by all and we prevented others from trading, our inhabitants would be impoverished, which would greatly damage the Nayaka’. Similarly, the aranmanai denied the Company the monopoly of the pepper import, while rice was to be purchased at market price plus transportation costs. The request for exemption from all taxes for three years was met with the reply that the Company was to pay half of the customary duties. Vague and rather empty assurances were meant to sweeten the bitter pill somewhat. Thus, enemies of the Company (such as the Portuguese) would be denied the right to trade at Madurai, while Company allies would not be allowed to establish local trading settlements and no contracts would be made with them, nor would they be invited to visit the Madurai Coast. Vadamalaiyappa Pillai even went on to assure that, when requested by the Company, the aranmanai would even prohibit other Europeans from trading. In fact, this assurance was meaningless in practice and a clever strategem, which the aranmanai knew the voc was unable to enforce, as it would have serious diplomatic repercussions in Europe.31

30 Dirks, The Hollow Crown, p. 155. 31 In fact, diplomatic repercussions in Europe were one of the reasons for the ultimate failure of the voc’s pascedullen-and-protectierechten system, trying to monitor and tax the intra-Asian trade by issuing passes and levying protection rights. See: Vink, ‘Passes and Protection Rights’.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 375

Finally, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai informed Van der Meijden that all Portuguese priests would be banned from Madurai. However, the Paravas would be allowed to keep ‘black papists’ or kattanars from the Syrian Church in order to exercise their freedom of religion. Again, this consent was never implemented. In November 1659, Chief Cornelis Valckenburgh of Tuticorin complained that when protesting to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai against the continued presence of the Jesuit fathers near the Parava settlements on the coast, the priests had simply been relocated to another village nearby.32 The so-called ‘imperfect agreement’33 of March 1659 was completely in accordance with the traditional ʻopen doorʼ policy and maintenance of authority by the aranmanai over the Madurai Coast. A permanent feature of Company policy in the next three decades would be the elusive quest for a more ‘substantive qaul’ or ‘closer union and alliance’ to supplement the 1659 agreement. For the moment at least, the Company was rather understanding of the position of the aranmanai in this respect. Reflecting on the poor fruits of his labour, Van der Meijden observed that the position of the new ruler of Madurai had not been secure enough, that Vadamalaiyappa Pillai had certainly been ‘reasonable enough’, while the exclusion of all other Europeans had been the stumbling block standing in the way of a more satisfying overall agreement.34 Similar to Van der Meijden, Van Goens for his part also had warned that the exclusion of all other European nations would be the most controversial issue, observing that the aranamanai vehemently ‘opposed the Company’s concepts force in order to enjoy the trade of not only all Indian, but especially all European nations as well, from which they derive most of their profits and whose divisions will increase the same [profits]’.35

32 voc 1230, obp 1660, f. 124v, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 6.11.1659. See also: voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 430r–431r, Transl. ola Barmialappa Pulle aan de deurwaarders van Van der Meijden geschreven, 18.3.1659; Idem, ff. 424r–426r, Transl. articulen door den neijck van Madura aen d’E. hr. gouvr. Van der Meijde verleent, [11].3.1659; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 142–149. See also: voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 410v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en koopman Ooms van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 15.3.1659. 33 voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 156v, Redenen Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669. 34 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 413r–413v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden int jacht Schelvis voor Caijlpatnam aan superint. Van Goens, 29.3.1659; Idem, ff. 131r–131v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.5.1659. 35 voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 85, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 13.5.1659. See also: Idem, ff. 395r–395v, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan gouvr. Van der Meijden te Tuticorin, 17.3.1659.

376 chapter 5

Although the principle of divide-and-rule was a crucial part of the aranmanai’s ʻopen doorʼ policy (see Chapter 1),36 the most sensitive issue by far to the central authorities of Madurai in general and the governor of the lowlands in particular was the construction of a fort along the coast. In what was almost a repetition of the events of 1658, five years later, in June 1663, for instance, the Company Bookkeeper Philippus de Hase informed Van Goens that on hearing rumours that the Company was collecting coral stone on the islands along the Madurai Coast for the construction of a fort at Tuticorin, the aranmanai immediately sent reinforcements to Melur from where reconnaissance parties would repeatedly come down to Tuticorin in order to inspect the Company factory.37 Moreover, in his Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en Lantreize (1682), Joan Nieuhoff commented that sometime in 1664 during his brief stint as chief of Tuticorin (ca. January 1664–April 1665) he had started to encircle the Company factory with a stone wall in order to better protect the Company belongings. However, as soon as the ‘Gentiles’ showed their concern for this enterprise, Nieuhoff immediately decided to stop all activities.38 Not surprisingly, the most sympathetic stance was taken by the cost-conscious mercantile faction at Batavia. Repeating the objections of the aranmanai against the construction of a fortress almost verbatim, the High Governor wryly observed ‘though we would rather see things differently, we cannot blame them for doing so’.39 The disappointing outcome of the carefully planned, high-profile mission of Van der Meijden stood in shrill contrast with the success of the ad hoc, low-key embassy of the Junior Merchant François Montanier to Raghunatha Tevar the following year in April 1660. Forced by contrary winds to anchor with the ‘Achilles’ at Kilakkarai, Superintendent Van Goens decided on the spur of the moment to dispatch Montanier to the court of Raghunatha Tevar at Ramnad in order to conclude a new alliance with the Marava ruler, ‘on whose friendship the Company’s affairs at Ceylon highly depend and with whom the Nayaka of Madurai can be kept in check, since the said Tevar holds the Nayaka in little regard’.40

36 Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 18, and 66–71. 37 voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 1249, Rapp. van tgene in desen jaarse Tutucorijnse parelvisserij voorgevallen is en de verdere staat der Madurese overkust gedaan aan de heer superint. en adml. Rijckloff van Goens door de boekhr. Philippus de Haze, 20.6.1663; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1663, p. 577. 38 Nieuhoff, Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en Lantreize, p. 183. 39 voc 883, bub 1659, f. 615, Miss. GG en R aan comms. Van Goens te Colombo, 28.8.1659. 40 voc 1233, obp 1661, f. 149r, Miss. adml. Van Goens van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 15.3.1660. See also: Idem, f. 160v, Miss. adml. Van Goens en gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.4.1660.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 377

In the ensuing treaty, consisting of six articles, both parties promised to maintain an eternal peace. Free trade was permitted between each other’s subjects, lands, and ports along with the free use of the channel of Mannaar, while the subjects of Company (except men-of-war) would pay the customary dues and observe local laws while passing Pamban Channel. A conflict resolution format was agreed upon by which annual ambassadors would be exchanged in order to prevent and settle all ensuing differences. The Tevar was granted five free thonis in the pearl fishery (reputedly the same number as during the time of the Portuguese), while Company passes would be distributed to the Tevar and his subjects to all Company and friendly ports, but not to enemy ports.41 Commenting on the treaty, Van Goens expressed the hope that it would allay the Tevar’s fear of an impending Company attack on the island-shrine of Rameswaram, ‘which he realises we could very easily take from him’. In turn, Batavia approved of the agreement, observing that the Tevar was ‘a rather powerful ruler, whose favours might be needed in the future especially with regard to the Nayaka of Madurai’.42

The Reversal of Alliances, 1660–1665

Although relations between the Company and the Nayaka state were never severed altogether, events on the Madurai Coast after 1660 decidedly began to take second stage in the view of both parties. For the next five years, the Company focused on the completion of its conquest of the Portuguese forts along the Malabar Coast (1658–1663). Hardly, for instance, had the negotiations with the aranmanai been completed, when Van der Meijden, on receiving information of the arrival of strong Portuguese reinforcements at Cochin, in April 1659 rushed to Quilon in an ill-fated attempt to protect the recently conquered fortified city against the expected Portuguese counterattack.43

41 voc 1232, obp 1661, ff. 350r–350v, Vredesverbont gemaeckt ende geslooten tusschen Tiroumale Chedoupaddij Catta Teuver, heere van Ramenacoil…ende d’Ede. Heer Rijckloff van Goens, raed extraord. van India, superint., adml., veldtoverste ende expresse comms. over de custe van India, Chormandel, Ceijlon, Bengale &a. weegens d’Ede. Heeren Gouvr. Genl. en raden van India . . ., 24.4.1660; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii p. 288; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 161–163. 42 voc 1233, obp 1661, f. 183v, Miss. adml. Van Goens te Gale aan Batavia, 19.5.1660; voc 884, bub 1660, f. 692, Miss. GG en R aan comms. Van Goens te Colombo, 4.11.1660. 43 voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 411r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en koopman Ooms van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 15.3.1659; Idem, f. 432r, Miss. koopman Valckenburg van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 3.4.1659. Following the murder of Captain Hendrick Gluwinck

378 chapter 5

During the same period, Madurai was subjected to the last convulsions of Bijapur’s ‘push to the east’ under Shahaji and Mulla Ahmad Nawayat (1659) and Bahlul Khan (1663). The armed confrontation with Bijapur was followed by the retaliatory Blitzkrieg against Tanjore (1663) and a drawn out guerrilla campaign against Ramnad (1663–1665). In July 1663, for instance, when the Company Bookkeeper Philippus de Hase was sent with a ‘proper gift’ to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, among other things, to have the Portuguese priests expelled from Madurai, the Tirunelveli governor was reported absent from the Madurai lowlands having gone on campaign.44 While the attention of both the Company and the aranmanai was diverted elsewhere, a dramatic reversal of alliances took place on the Madurai Coast. By the mid-1660s, the process of estrangement between the Dutch and their erstwhile allies, the Maraikkayars of Kayalpatnam and the other coastal settlements, was complete as the Company began to impose more and more restrictions on maritime trade. In contrast, the rapprochement between the Dutch and their former enemies, the Roman Christian Paravas, by 1664 led to a modus vivendi under which the Paravas, via an impromptu agreement, fell under the dual temporal government of the Company and the aranmanai, while the Paravas’ spiritual administration was left to the Jesuits in the interior of Madurai.45 Gone were the days in which the Maraikkayars had been considered, somewhat opportunistically, as the Company’s natural allies on the Madurai Coast. On the contrary, both the mercantile and imperialist factions regarded the ‘Moors’, if not as religious, as politico-commercial rivals, whose entrepreneur- ial skills were viewed with a mixture of jealous admiration and deep concern. Their commercial activities were seen as diametrically opposed to the Company’s interests based on the principle that ‘no favour can be granted to the Moors but to the disadvantage of the Company’. These widespread concerns were most clearly expressed by Van Goens in rather explicit anti-Semitic, ‘Christo-centric’ terms. Thus, the Ceylon Governor considered the ‘Moors’ ‘a dirty race’, displaying all the same characteristics of the Jews in the Dutch Republic by making

and four other officers during an outing at Quilon, Van der Meijden decided to abandon the fortress on April 10. Four days later, on April 14, the Portuguese reconquered Quilon much to the dismay of Van Goens. This action initiated a bitter feud between Van Goens and Van der Meijden. 44 voc 1242, obp 1664, ff. 999r–999v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.11.1663; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1663, p. 577. 45 For detailed analyses of the gradual Dutch-Parava rapprochement between 1640 and 1700: Vink, ‘Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia’; Idem, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of the Fishery Coast’; Idem, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 379 money out of everything and perverting the morals of both the Company servants and the indigenous population. At the same time, however, these discriminatory and condescending remarks convey a scarcely veiled admiration for the politico-commercial skills of these cross-cultural brokers and their flourishing international trade network.46 The cooling down of the initial warm relationship between the Company and the Maraikkayars is no better exemplified than in the following three issues: the prohibition (though not strictly enforced for the moment) against the export of chanks; the continued imposition, or rather reintroduction, of a fine on the Maraikkayars in the pearl fishery; and the increasing restrictions on the Indo-Ceylon trade between the ports of southern Coromandel and Ceylon after 1663 in the form of discriminatory duties. While claiming the monopoly in chanks, the Company was willing, at least for the time being, to turn a blind eye to the ‘smuggling’ of conch shells by the Maraikkayars due to its own lack of capital and resources and out of fear for riots among the local Parava population. However, the exclusive claim to the chanks from the Madurai Coast was by means abandoned and would become a major bone of contention after 1670.47 A better example of the cooling down of relations between the erstwhile allies was the continued imposition (or rather reintroduction) of a fine in the pearl fishery on top of the ordinary surcharge on diving stones called ‘steengelden’. The fine amounted to 50 fanams per diving stone plus a pearl valued at 5–6 reals and had been levied because of a tradition, tracing back to the murder of two Jesuit priests and three Portuguese fidolgo noblemen by local Maraikkayars during the Portuguese era.48 It goes without saying that the Maraikkayars vigorously objected to the continued imposition of the fine arguing ‘that during the times of the Portuguese

46 voc 1241, obp 1664, f. 603r, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.8.1663; voc 1252, obp 1666, f. 841, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1665; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1665, p. 182. It would be interesting to make a comparative study of early modern European views towards Muslims in Asia and Jews in Europe in general and the positions and roles of Muslim ‘portfolio capitalists’ and ‘court Jews’ in their respective host societies in particular. See: Ph.D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), passim. 47 voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 433r, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 3.4.1659; Idem, f. 401r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan koopman Valckenburgh te Tuticorin, 9.5.1659. 48 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 79–80, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.2.1659; Idem, f. 443v, Miss. superint. Van Goens van Mature aan koopman Valckenburgh te Tuticorin, 4.4.1659.

380 chapter 5 they had rendered great service to the Hon. Company and the reason why the fine had been imposed had been to the advantage and profit of the Company’.49 When a request to abolish the fine was turned down by the Company, the Maraikkayar community retaliated in the form of an almost complete boycott of the pearl fishery of 1659. This action incited Batavia to instruct Van Goens in August 1659 to make appropriate adjustments in the matter according to circumstances. In November 1660, Batavia even permitted Van Goens more explicitly to remit part or all of the fine, since it did not concern the Company: ‘We have to use all means at our disposal to render our administration more popular among the inhabitants and abstain from all measures to the contrary until we have established ourselves on a more secure basis’.50 Although Van Goens refused to give in and insisted on the collection of the fine ‘in order to keep that evil race under control’, it does appear that the fine was not collected again until the 1667 fishery at Mannaar. The Company decided to impose the fine once more the following year in the 1668 fishery at Tuticorin ‘since the said fine is of such great importance and would amount to one-fifth or one-sixth of the total revenues from the fishery’. In response, the Kayalpatnam Maraikkayars in vain appealed to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai. The Tirunelveli governor did make inquiries on behalf of the aranmanai’s client community, but contented himself with the reply of the pattangattim-mór Pedro da Cunha. Sensing an opportunity to best their commercio-religious rivals, the Parava headman informed Vadamalaiyappa Pillai that the fine was a customary levy, which had only recently fallen into disuse. The subsequent collection of the fine brought in 23,358 guilders or 18.5 per cent of the total Dutch returns from the 1668 pearl fishery.51

49 voc 1256, obp 1667, f. 452r, Rapp. der Manaerse parelvisserij door majoor Jan van der Laan als expres gecomm. uit de raad van Ceijlon, Jorephaes Vosch, commr. van Jaffenepatnam als speciale hoofd deser visserij, benevens de koopl. Laurens Pijl, opperh. van Tuticorin en Marten Huijsman, dissave van Jaffnapatnam en opperh., van Manaer, mede opzienders, aan Rijckloff van Goens, 21.5.1666. 50 voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 432v, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 3.4.1659; Idem, f. 445v, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh uit Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van der Meijden naar Quilon geschreven, 14.4.1659; voc 883, bub 1659, f. 616, Miss. GG en R aan comms. Van Goens te Colombo, 28.8.1659; voc 884, bub 1660, f. 691, Miss. GG en R aan comms. Van Goens te Colombo, 4.11.1660; voc 1234, obp 1662, f. 124v, Miss. comms. Van Goens van Colombo aan Batavia, 5.4.1661. As mentioned previously, the Maraikkayar boycott, though effective, was not complete as reportedly about 30 ‘Moorish’ vessels participated in the 1659 fishery. 51 voc 1259, obp 1667, f. 2799, Instr. voor Jan Van der Laen en provl. commr. Jorephaes Vosch, mitsgs. de koopl. Laurents Pijl en Marten Huijsman gesteld tot opzieners der Comps.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 381

The cooling down of Dutch-Maraikkayar relations is best illustrated by the increasing restrictions imposed by the Company on the Indo-Ceylon trade between the ports of southern Coromandel and Ceylon. Unable to compete with Muslim traders on equal terms, the Company decided to abandon its laissez-faire attitude regarding the Indo-Ceylon trade in 1665 with the introduction of differential and discriminatory duties against ‘Moorish’ shipping. The change in Dutch politico-commercial policy was made possible by the territorial expansion on Ceylon in the wake of an abortive coup against Raja Sinha II in December 1664. The increase in the number of ports, lands, and subjects under direct Company control and the domination of the passes into the interior of Ceylon opened up vast supplies of arecanuts and a ready market for textiles, rice, salt, and other daily commodities, all of which the Company was eager to exploit.52 This territorial expansion and the subsequent monopolistic policy was the brainchild of Van Goens Senior. As early as December 1663, Van Goens had recommended strongly that strict measures be taken against a seventeenth- century equivalent of the ‘drain’, that is, the perceived impoverishment of Ceylon by the ‘Moors’ and other ‘foreign’ traders, ‘drawing all the good money from here in exchange for rags and bones’.53 While the mercantile faction agreed with Van Goens’ ends, that is, the monopolisation of the most lucrative commodities of the Indo-Ceylon trade, it rejected Van Goens’ more draconian plans to expel Muslim traders altogether from South India. Nevertheless, discriminatory duties of 5 per cent on textiles, 20 per cent on salt, and 25 reals or 8 amanam per 100 amanams of areca of 24,000 pieces were imposed on Muslim and Hindu merchants in all ports

parelbanken des eilands Manaer, 6.2.1666; voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1151v–1152v, Rapp. kapn. Hk. van Reede, Jean de Vogel, opperk. en hoofd van het eiland Mannaar en secunde van Jaffnapatnam, en opperk. Laurens Pijl, hoofd van Tutecorijn, betr. de parelvisserij op de kust van Madure, 27.6.1668. 52 Arasaratnam, ‘Dutch Commercial Policy in Ceylon’, pp. 109–116; Idem, ‘Trade and Agricultural Economy of the Tamils during the Latter Half of the Seventeenth Century’, Tamil Culture 9, 4 (1961), pp. 1–16; Idem, Dutch power in Ceylon, pp. 158–159: Idem, ‘De voc in Ceylon and Coromandel’, pp. 35–37. 53 voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 525 and 527, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1665. See also: voc 1243, obp 1664, ff. 944–945, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1663; voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 840–841, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1665. The term the ‘drain’ was popularised by the Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and Indian nationalist leader Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917), the ‘Grand Old Man of India’, most notably in his Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901).

382 chapter 5 under Company control. In 1665, these duties were raised to 10 per cent on cloth, 30 per cent on salt, and 50 reals or 16 amanam per 100 amanams of arecanut. The duty on textiles was further increased from 12 1/2 per cent in 1666 to 20 per cent in 1669, while the imports of contraband goods such as iron, steel, sulphur, saltpetre, and gunpowder were completely prohibited.54 As Company-Maraikkayar relations quickly turned sour in the early 1660s, a dramatic improvement occurred in the contacts between the voc and the Parava community.55 By 1665 both parties, for pragmatic reasons, were forced to come to some kind of working agreement, or, as the Company put it in plain nautical terms, both sides figured out ‘to trim their sails according to the prevailing winds’.56 The Paravas came to realise that there was no viable alternative to the Dutch presence on the Madurai Coast. By this time their former protectors, the Portuguese, had been expelled from all bases of operation in the area, including Ceylon, Nagapatnam, and the Malabar Coast. In addition, the English trading settlement at Palaiyakkayal never presented a real option as it was hopelessly underfunded until its capture by the Dutch immediately following the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667). For its part, the Company acknowledged the failure of its effort to convert the Paravas given the ‘stubborness’ of the Paravas and the protection provided by the aranmanai, while the religion of its new client community was perceived less as a threat following the ratification of the 1661 Peace of The Hague with Portugal. Moreover, in the guerre de commerce with the ‘Moors’, the Company was willing to give the Paravas preferential

54 voc 1242, obp 1664, f. 983r, Memorie [Van Goens] voor den E. Heere Jacob Hustaert, raat extraord. van India, gouvr. en dir. over de steeden, casteelen, sterckten en vorstelijcke landen van d’E Compe. geleegen op ‘t vermaerde eijlant Ceijlon, mitsgaders de steeden en landen op de zeekusten van Mallabaer en Madure . . ., 26.12.1663; voc 1246, obp 1665, ff. 701–702, Miss. gouvr. Hustaerdt en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.3.1664; voc 889, bub 1665, f. 461, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1665; voc 1261, obp 1668, ff. 378r–379r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 27.4.1666; voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 209v, and 213r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.9.1666; voc 1261, obp 1668, ff. 474v–475r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 24.12.1666; voc 893, bub 1669, f. 685, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 26.9.1669; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1664, p. 191; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, pp. 507–508 and 695; Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 160–161. 55 See: Vink, ‘Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia’; Idem, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of the Fishery Coast’; Idem, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’. 56 voc 1231, obp 1660, f. 410v, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en koopman Ooms van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 15.3.1659.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 383 treatment similar to the ‘ambivalent semi-tolerance’ enjoyed by members of the dissenting, lesser Churches in the Dutch Republic after 1630.57 Initially, however, the Company for political and religious motivations typical of the age of cuius regio, eius religio initiated a missionary effort in order to convert the Paravas into obedient Protestant subjects and attempted to expel the Jesuit priests from Madurai altogether. Not only were the Roman Catholic fishermen preceived as potential fifth columnists facilitating the possible future return of the Portuguese, but dispelling the presence of the Society of Jesus from the lands of Madurai was also piously presented to be essential in order not to incur God’s wrath. Following the brief reconnaissance missions of the predikanten Philippus Baldaeus and Henricus Bongaerts in March 1659 and February 1660, respectively, the Portuguese Catholic priest-turncoat-Protestant Minister João (Johannes) Ferreira d’Almeida was sent in May 1660 as ‘perpetual predikant’ to the Madurai Coast. Ferreirad’s Almeida’s mission proved to be a complete failure and his appointment anything but perpetual, even rousing the enmity of the Parava community. In September 1662 the hydrophobic minister was recalled to the calmer waters of Batavia. Recognising the failure of the conversion effort, Governor Hustaert and Council of Ceylon in June 1664 intimated to Batavia:

We are gradually losing our faith in bringing the Paravas to the Protestant religion. Their conversion cannot succeed without the expulsion of the papists [Jesuit priests], something to which the Nayaka will be extremely reluctant to consent. Moreover, due to this peace [with Portugal] our hope rather decreases than increases.58

By this time, however, Batavia needed little encouragement to abandon the missionary effort. Recognising the end of the Portuguese threat and the specialised skills of the Paravas, especially their indispensability in the pearl and chank fisheries, Batavia in September 1664 ordered a policy of religious toleration:

To our deep regret we have learned that all our labour has been fuitless because of the curious impression that people have of the Roman religion.

57 Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 676. 58 Dagh-Register 1664, p. 409. The Company also attempted, in vain, to exclude ‘the harmful lot’ of Jesuit priests from the lands of Travancore via treaties with its ruler, Rama Varma (r. 1662–1671), in April 1665 and August 1666. See: Memorie commr. Isbrand Godske voor commr. Lucas van der Dussen, Cochin, 5.1.1668, in: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 58; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 323, and 344.

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To use violence and have the people live without religion is inadvisable… Therefore, we finally deemed it best to turn a blind eye to the presence of the Roman priesthood in the interior, but under no circumstances should they be allowed in the seaports…59

In accordance with the ‘imperfect agreement’ of 1659, Van Goens was urged to convince some kattanars or Syrian Christian priests from Malabar to settle at the Seven Ports, especially since in 1659 the St. Thomas Christians had been removed from Portuguese jurisdiction through the appointment of the Italian Carmelite Fr. Joseph as bishop of Hierapolis in partibus infidelium by Pope Alexander VII, while the Latin Christians of Cochin had sworn an oath of loyalty to the Company in 1663. Almost immediately, however, Batavia questioned the feasibility of its own suggestion, piously commending its success to God and time.60 This concession preceded the formal modus vivendi negotiated with Dutch Catholicism in 1675 by a decade. The regents of Holland and Zeeland favoured Jansenist seculars, mostly Netherlanders, under the Vicars Apostolic in Utrecht showing more deference for the authority of the states, over ultramontanist regulars, chiefly South Netherlanders and foreigners, subject to Provincials in Brussels and Jesuit Generals in Rome.61 By 1665, the Company’s compromising commercial-religious stance combined with the disappearance of any viable alternatives led to the end of all effective opposition among the Paravas. Parava anti-Dutch sentiments closely reflected the internal divisions of its leadership between the factions led by Henrique and his brother João da Cruz, respectively. In 1656 João da Cruz had been replaced by Henrique as jati talaivan at the order of the Portuguese Captain António de Amaral. Similar to its policy elsewhere in Asia, the Company was quick to exploit internal divisions among its adversaries. Following the conquest of the Portuguese settlements along the Madurai Coast by the Dutch in January 1658, João da Cruz was quickly reinstated in his former position.62

59 voc 888, bub 1664, ff. 417–418, Miss. GG en R voor Van Goens gaande als gouvr. naar Ceijlon, 5.9.1664. 60 Ibidem; Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, pp. 11–37 and 92–108; ‘s Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, esp. pp. xxxvii–xxxviii; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, p. 242. 61 Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 649–653. 62 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 419r–420r, Miss. toepas moor Andre de Morais te Punecaijle aan adml. Van Goens, 10.12.1658.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 385

Not suprisingly, Henrique da Cruz became the leader of the initially formidable Parava opposition against the Company, including other Parava headmen, such as the head pattangattim João de Motte, the kanakkapillai-mór or head accountant of the Seven Ports Gonçale Gago, and the ordinary pattangattins Francisco da Cruz, André de Almeida, Manuel da Cruz, Chinna or Henrique da Cruz Junior, and Miguel Vaz. In January 1659, this Parava leadership submitted a petition, representing the core of the mejaikarar’s agenda over the next few decades requesting the admission of Portuguese padres, control over the fisheries and exercise of free trade, and judicial authority in matters regarding ‘our honour and lineage’ along with a safe conduct and general amnesty.63 While maintaining close correspondence with their erstwhile Portuguese patron benefactors at Cochin, the anti-Dutch Parava faction resorted to a wide variety of tactics or ‘weapons of the weak’, such as obstructing the chank and pearl fisheries, committing arson at Tuticorin, issuing threats to Paravas willing to live in the Company’s fold, circulating false reports about the return of the Portuguese, and feeding on the fears prevalent within the aranmanai by spreading rumours about Company designs for the construction of a fort.64 The establishment of an English factory at Palaiyakkayal in late 1659 seemed to pose a serious threat to Company control over the Paravas by providing an alternative base of operation to the anti-Company faction. Indeed, Henrique da Cruz and his followers immediately tried to ally themselves with the new arrives, petitioning for religious and commercial privileges under English protection. As Walter Travers wrote in July 1663 from Alvar Tirunagari to Surat, Da Cruz cum sociis requested ‘that they with their padre…may have their dwellings at Cale Velha, the seate of our factorie, free from violence; and their boates, by virtue of our passeports, to navigate the seas void of all disturbances…’.65

63 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 417r–417v, Brief door de principaalste Paravas aan adml. Van Goens, 23.1.1659. In September 1659 a Parava deputation met with Superintendent Van Goens and Governor Van der Meijden at Colombo, and was promised that they would be allowed to keep non-European teachers or kattanars (‘cassenairos’) in their schools and churches and commercial privileges similar to those enjoyed by the freeburghers. voc 1230, obp 1660, ff. 133r–133v, and 165r, Miss. gouvr. Van der Meijden en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.11.1659. 64 voc 1231, obp 1660, ff. 272r–272v, Miss. koopman Ooms van Tuticorin aan adml. Van Goens, 1.11.1658; Idem, ff. 403r–403v, Miss. koopman Ooms van Tuticorin aan comms. Van Goens, 12.1.1659; Idem, ff. 433r–434r, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens, 3.4.1659; voc 1230, obp 1660, ff. 124r–124v, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 6.11.1659; voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 1249, Rapp. De Haze aan Van Goens, 20.6.1663. 65 Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1661–1664, pp. 254–255.

386 chapter 5

The English, however, were, as we have seen, hopelessly underfunded, while the Company pursued an active policy of containment effectively succeeding in preventing penetration of the English to the Madurai interior.66 As early as March 1660, it was reported that the following of the anti-Dutch faction was dwindling rapidly and that the majority of the Paravas were now residing under the Company aegis at Tuticorin, ‘except for the obstinate Henrique da Cruz and 10 to 12 of his adherents’.67 The mere fact that references to Henrique da Cruz become also less and less frequent in Company correspondence during the 1660s is another indication of this development. Following the Tuticorin War between the Company and the aranmanai (April–December 1669), in one of the last references to Da Cruz in voc documents, it was reported that during the hostilities some stone houses near the Jesuit church at Tuticorin had been torn down. They belonged to Henrique da Cruz, ‘mortal and beaten enemy of the Company and friend of the Portuguese, who, because of his evil acts, has been banned from the area under Company’s jurisdiction and authority for eternity’.68 The reversal of alliances on the Madurai Coast was viewed with alarm by the aranmanai, which vigorously tried to forestall the forging of the Dutch-Parava alliance by allowing the Jesuit priests to continue to operate from the interior of Madurai, effectively turning down several Company requests to have these so-called ‘summer mosquitoes’ or ‘firebrands’ expelled. In August 1663, for instance, the Company Bookkeeper Philippus de Hase, as mentioned, was sent with a proper present to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, among other things, to have the Portuguese priests expelled from Madurai. Taking a census of the Jesuit

66 voc 1230, obp 1660, f. 132v, Miss. adml. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 12.11.1659; voc 888, bub 1664, f. 417, Memorie GG en R voor Van Goens gaande als gouvr. naar Ceijlon, 5.9.1664. English investments at Old Kayal amounted to a mere 2–3,000 pounds in cotton goods. The factory was therefore considered a burden or ‘a deare bought experiment at the Companies cost’. See: Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1655–1660, p. 343; Idem, The English Factories in India, 1661–1664, p. 73; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1663, p. 577. 67 voc 1233, obp 1661, f. 150v, Miss. adml. Van Goens van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 15.3.1660. 68 voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 175v, Redenen Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669. The last reference to Henrique da Cruz and associates in Company correspondence is a footnote by Governor Van Goens the Younger of Ceylon to a report by Commander Huijsman of Tuticorin. Commenting on the ‘extreme hesitations’ of the aranmanai against the farming of the revenues of Tuticorin and Kayalpatnam to the Company, the Ceylon governor in December 1675 observed wryly: ‘The large family of the old Henrique da Cruz, the papists [Jesuit priests] and other Portuguese supporters are undoubtedly the most harmful in this respect, which can be remedied somewhat by means of a contract’. See: voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 560r, Nadere consideratien commt. Huijsman aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 23.12.1675.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 387 Table 25 The Jesuit presence along the Madurai Coast according to the Company Bookkeeper Philippus de Hase, 1663

Name Nationality Villages administered

Manuel Boniface Portuguese Perumanal, Panjal, Idindikarai, Vijayapati, da Costa Talai Kuttankuli, Uvari, Koodutalai Simon Corse Portuguese Manappad Francisco Pães Portuguese? Virapandiyapatnam, Alantalai Pedro Moratte Portuguese? Punnaikayal, Palaiyakkayal, Tuticorin Valeriane Catane Italian Vaippar Manuel Madeira Portuguese Vembar, Mukkaiyur Manuel da Cunha* Portuguese Savarimangalam João Felipe Grande** Portuguese none specifically

* Manuel da Cunha was described by De Hase as the rector of the Jesuit College, residing at Savarimangalam (‘Savaran Gamach’), a village ca. 4 Dutch miles (19 English miles) from Tuticorin in the interior, residing among the lineage (geslacht) of Henrique da Cruz. In 1662, Antão (António) de Proença, Superior of the Madurai Mission, mentioned Father ‘Em. da Cugna’ as ‘rector of Manappad on the Fishery Coast’. See: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 157. ** João Felipe Grande had no specific village under his administration, but traveled from one village to the other in order to assist his fellow Jesuits. He reportedly resided normally at Quilon at the court of the king [Rama Varma] of Travancore. Source: Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1663, p. 578. In 1677, the Madurai Mission, covering the three kingdoms of Madurai, Tanjore, and Gingee, consisted of 9 European Jesuit fathers, 25 indigenous catechists, and more than 60 churches and chapels, servicing roughly 50,000 Christians. Letter Andres Freyre, Superior of the Madurai Mission, to Giovanni Paolo Oliva, Kollai, 8.5.1677, in: S.J. Stephen, Letters of the Portuguese Jesuits from the Tamil Countryside, 1666– 1688 (Pondicherry: iies, 2001), p. 100.

and Parava presence in the coastal lands from Tuticorin to Quilon, De Hase reported that there were 17 Parava villages between Cape Comorin and Mukkaiyur inhabited by 20,000 Roman Catholic fishermen, who were served by eight European Jesuits (see Table 25).69 As Company Merchant Cor nelis Valckenburgh of Tuticorin complained to Batavia in November 1659, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai pursued a classic divide-and-rule strategy, ‘thereby allaying his fear that the Paravas would come to an understanding with us and

69 voc 1243, obp 1664, f. 1243, Attestatie van Philips de Hase te Colombo, 6.11.1663; voc 1242, obp 1664, ff. 999r–999v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.11.1663; Van der Chijs er al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1663, pp. 326–328, 569, and 577–578.

388 chapter 5 conspire to fortify this coast, making the Paravas to become our own subjects and renounce the Nayaka’.70 Following the overall lull in relations between the Company and the aranmanai, contacts were again temporarily reintensified during the Madurai- Tevar War (1663–1665) as the voc was courted by both sides for military assistance. In the aftermath of the outbreak of hostilities with the Tevar, the aranmanai opened a three-pronged diplomatic offensive aimed at the Company, sending ambassadors to Superintendent Van Goens at Cochin and Governor Cornelis Speelman at Pulicat, while Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai, the governor of Tirunelveli and son of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, conducted negotiations with Captain Hendrik van Rheede at Melur. In return for Company assistance and the landing of Dutch troops at the island of Rameswaram and the subsequent defeat of the Tevar, the voc was promised the possession of ‘many fair villages (aldeias)’ valued at 10,000 pardaus annually, permission to build a fort in one of the ports, half of the lands conquered from the Tevar, freedom of tolls for all ships passing Pamban Channel, and the expulsion of all Jesuit priests from the Madurai lands. For his part, Raghunatha Tevar offered the Company all the Nayaka seaports and his unbreakable friendship.71 Although Van Goens viewed these developments as a ‘great opportunity’ to further the interests of the Company, he realised that the military resources at his disposal were too limited to realise these grand designs, especially in view of commitments elsewhere, such as the punitive expedition against the raja of Karamboli (Karthikappalli) of February 1665 and the territorial expansion on Ceylon after December 1664. He therefore requested from Batavia 500–600 soldiers ‘in order to pursue our own right and build a proper fortification at one of the most suitable ports while the Tevar and the Nayaka are fighting each other with such zeal…since neither one of them will prevent us from doing so, fearing that we would choose the other’s side’. Pending instructions from Batavia, Van Goens informed the High Government that he would play for time with

70 voc 1230, obp 1660, ff. 124r–124v, Miss. koopman Valckenburgh van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 6.11.1659. As mentioned earlier, Valckenburgh also reported that after protesting the presence of the Jesuit fathers near the Parava coastal settlements with Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, the priests were simply relocated to another village nearby. 71 voc 1254, obp 1666, f. 1038, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 17.2.1665; voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 505–506, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1665; Idem, f. 873, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 12.5.1665; Rapp. Capptn. Van Rhede van zijne verrichtingen in de landen van Trevancoor en Madure overgegeven aen den Edle. Rijklof van Goens, ordin. raet van India, superint., adml., veldoverste en gouvr. des eijlants Ceijlon ende de cust Malebaer, 7.10.1665; voc 1268, obp 1669 ff. 1174v–1175r, and 1186v, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668; Dagh-Register 1664, p. 432.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 389 the aranmanai, while attempting to gain permission from the Tevar for free passage through Pamban Channel, the monopoly of all the chaya roots growing on the small islands in the Bay of Madurai, and free trade throughout the Ramnad territory.72 As the Tevar was hard-pressed by the aranmanai forces in the early phase of the conflict, the Company assisted him with rice from Jaffnapatnam. In addition to this official Dutch support for political reasons, the Marava ruler also received unauthorised aid from Company sources for reasons of private gain. The Company Merchant and Chief of Tuticorin Joan Nieuhoff, later ignominiously discharged and fined after having been found guilty of private trade, opportunistically dispatched a Parava sampan with kachchai textiles, rice, and other commodities to Rameswaram during the initial stage of the Tevar- aranmanai conflict when grain prices in the area were skyrocketing. This supply of rice to its opponent was taken very seriously by the aranmanai, which at one point even threatened to burn all Parava vessels on the Madurai Coast.73 Reciprocating official and private Dutch support, Raghunatha Tevar in March 1665 issued an olai, granting the Company free passage through Pamban Channel and exemption from all import and export duties in the Ramnad seaports, the monopoly of all the chaya growing on the islands of Agua Doce or ‘Soet Waterseijlanten’ (Nalla Tanni Tivu), punishment of the robbers of the Mannaar pearl banks, and the extradition of a Dutch renegade on the promise of safe conduct. These concessions were not mere ‘signs of gratitude’ as the Company believed, but a conscious move on the part of the Tevar in a bidding war for further Company support and military assistance in the conflict with the aranmanai.74

72 voc 1254, obp 1666, f. 1038, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII: Idem, f. 1063, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 2.3.1665; voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 506–509, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1665. 73 voc 1249, obp 1665, f. 18, Rapp. nopende den staet der Vereenichde Nederlandtsche Oostindische Compe. opt Eijlt. Seijlon, de Cust van Mallebaer ende Madure, overgelevert aen d’Ed. heer Joan Maetsuijcker, Gouvr. Genl., ende d’Ed. heeren raaden van India, door Jacob Hustaerdt, extraord. raad van India ende gewesen gouvr. en dir. der opgemelte plaetsen, te sijne wedercompste tot Batavia, 18.12.1664; voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 504–505, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1665; voc 1254, obp 1666, f. 1175, Rapp. Van Rheede en koopman Pijl aan van Goens overgeleverd rakende de frauduleuse handel van koopman Nijhoff, 20.6.1665; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1665, pp. 145–146. 74 voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 828, and 849, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1665; voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 755, Rapp. Van Rheede, 7.10.1665; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1665, pp. 180, and 358.

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In May 1665, Chokkanatha Nayaka tried to raise the stakes and reacted by issuing a qaul to Governor Cornelis Speelman of Coromandel, then at Nagapatnam. In response to an earlier request for assistance from Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, the Coromandel governor had suggested that the ‘greatly diminished’ market town (pettai) Manachanallur, just north of Trichinopoly, should be restored to its former glory by granting free and secure trade there to the Company merchants. Taking Speelman’s suggestion as a precondition for further negotiations, the aranmanai readily granted the Company freedom from half the tolls for trading at ‘the ancient market town Maneniseneloerpette’ and permission to build a factory in the lands of Madurai.75 While the Tevar granted something substantial, at least on paper, the countermove by Chokkanatha was hardly convincing and the Company rightly considered the so-called ‘Nagapatnam qaul’ to be of potential future value at best: ‘it might stand in good stead to the service of the Company one day and be of more significance than it seems to be at the moment’.76 Only after obtaining these concessions and the end of the Madurai-Tevar War did Van Goens receive his long-awaited instructions from Batavia. In July 1665 Batavia informed Van Goens that the reinforcements requested would not be forthcoming and recommended that he attempt to arbitrate the differences between the two rivals. Fighting the Tevar, the Company’s old ally, was deemed ‘an odious affair’ and would damage the Company’s reputation among neighbouring rulers. Van Goens, however, should seriously attempt to obtain from the Tevar free passage of Pamban Channel, the monopoly of the chaya roots

75 voc 1351, obp 1680, f. 2258v, Transl. caul uijt de Bargase tael door den naijk van Madure genaemt Tsoeckenage aen d’E Comp. verleent, 1664. The date obviously is wrong and should be 1665. 76 voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 1111–1112, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 29.6.1665; voc 1254, obp 1666, ff. 696–697, Memorie Speelman voor gouvr. Anthonij Paviljoen van Coromandel, 17.10.1665; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1665, pp. 274, and 308. The Company did conduct some indirect trade at Manachanal lurpettai in minerals and spices from Nagapatnam through indigenous merchants. See: voc 1258, obp 1667, ff. 2337r–2337v, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 8.2.1666; voc 1258, obp 1667, f. 2362, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 31.8.1666; voc 1265, obp 1668, f. 884v, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 14.10.1667; Idem, ff. 899r–899v, Miss. commr. Jacob van der Meersche en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 20.10.1667; voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 958v–959r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 13.2.1668; Idem, f. 975v, Miss. commr. Van der Meersche en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 2.3.1668; Idem, f. 998r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 4.9.1668; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 608.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 391 growing on the islands, and free trade in the lands of Ramnad. The Nayaka should be persuaded to grant the Company free trade in all of his lands with the exclusion of all other Europeans, while the expulsion of the Jesuits would be a good thing. However, the Ceylon governor did not need to insist too much on getting permission to build a fortress at Tuticorin or elsewhere, since the Company currently has its hands full in Malabar and Ceylon.77

Towards the Tuticorin War, 1665–1669

In the aftermath of the Ramnad-Madurai War, relations between Ramnad and the Company in general remained cordial and arguably became stronger than ever before as the Tevar feared a renewal of hostilities with the aranmanai and a possible Portuguese raid on Rameswaram. While the Portuguese threat may have been the brainchild of Company paranoia, which quickly evaporated in thin air, during the brief interbellum between the Tevar-Madurai (1663–1665) and the Mysore-Madurai wars (1667–1669) the Tevar’s fears of another impending aranmanai attack proved to be well-founded.78 In May 1665, for instance, immediately after the signing of the peace treaty, Chokkanatha Nayaka and Vadamalaiyappa Pillai sent ambassadors with olais to Captain Van Rheede at Tuticorin, asserting ‘that the Nayaka did not hold this treaty in high esteem and was waiting for the proper occasion and with the Company’s help to resume the war, since the Tevar was too powerful…and had

77 voc 889, bub 1665, ff. 238–239, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 11.7.1665. See also: voc 1253, obp 1666, f. 1613, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.10.1665; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1665, pp. 150, and 168–169. The conditions of the peace treaty reportedly were the following: the Tevar and his heirs were to retain their ancestral lands provided they would pay tribute every other year valued at 120,000 pardaus, while the Tevar’s brother was to remain with a large body of soldiers at Trichinopoly. voc 1253, obp 1666, f. 1487, Miss. commr. Paviljoen en raad van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 27.6.1665; voc 1252, obp 1666, f. 1110, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 29.6.1665; voc 889, bub 1665, f. 463, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1665; voc 1251, obp 1666, ff. 753–755, Rapp. Van Rheede, 7.10.1665. 78 For the perceived Portuguese threat against Rameswaram: voc 1248, obp 1665, ff. 3116– 3118, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Cochin aan Batavia, 8.11.1664; voc 889, bub 1665, ff. 463–464, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1665; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1664, p. 571; Idem, Dagh-Register 1665, pp. 262, and 296.

392 chapter 5 inflicted too much dishonour on his master’.79 Therefore, during this period Raghunatha Tevar prudently cultivated the old alliance with the Company. As Governor Van Goens and Council observed in May 1666: ‘We are being caressed by the Tevar, who, as we can see perfectly clear, remains on his guard, relying to a considerable extent on us and imagining that we will not oppose him. We hope that this will never be necessary and that the Nayaka will never prevail over him in order not to become even more formidable than he is at the moment’.80 Thus, the promise of giving free passage to Company vessels sailing through Pamban Channel was strictly observed, while the Ramnad ruler went out of his way in supporting Van Goens’ efforts to make Ceylon self-sufficient (his so- called ‘agricultural concept’) by providing the voc with thousands of plough- oxen and milk-cows in exchange for a few elephants and a Persian horse or simple cash payments. On several occasions, during and after the visit of the Company’s mudaliyar of Negombo Salvador Pereira to Ramnad in November 1666, Raghunatha Tevar even offered to accept Company suzerainity and supply 1,000–1,200 musketeers, held to be experts in guerrilla warfare, to be employed in Ceylon.81 Although the High Government at Batavia considered the Tevar’s offer to accept Company’s protection ‘in no way inopportune’, Batavia was wary of openly offending the aranmanai, ‘[the Tevar] being in fact his vassal or at least his tributary’. Moreover, the High Government believed that keeping out other Europeans from Ramnad on account of Company suzerainity, an argument strongly advocated by Van Goens, could easily result in conflicts, something it considered inadvisable. While the friendship with the Tevar should be cultivated in order not to lose the ‘significant and costly accommodations’ from his lands, Van Goens was therefore ordered to decline the offer ‘in such a manner as Your Honour will deem appropriate according to time and circumstances’.

79 voc 1251, obp 1666, ff. 754–755, Rapp. Van Rheede, 7.10.1665. See also: voc 1252, obp 1666, ff. 828, and 849, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1665. 80 voc 1256, obp 1667, f. 97v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.5.1666. 81 voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 454v–455r, Rapp. der Manaerse parelvisserij door majoor Jan van der Laan…,Jorephaes Vosch, commr. van Jaffnapatnam…,nevens de koopl. Pijl, opperh. van Tuticorin, en Huijsman, dissave van Jaffnapatnam en opperh. van Manaer,…, aan Van Goens, 22.5.1666; Idem, ff. 500v–501r, Rapp. Van der Dussen en Isaack de Saint Martin overgeleverd aan Van Goens wegens de visite tot Jaffnapatnam, 4.10.1666; Idem, f. 166v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.11.1666; Idem, f. 22v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 17.1.1667; voc 1261, obp 1668, f. 540v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 10.6.1667; voc 1264, obp 1668, ff. 498v, and 510v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1667.

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The Ceylon governor, however, was given permission to employ the Tevar’s musketeers in Ceylon, provided he could establish that the expenditures would be justified and that their salaries would be commensurate with services rendered.82 While Company relations with the Paravas and the Tevar improved gradually or remained cordial, relations with the aranmanai became increasingly tense, to reach the boiling-point by early 1669. Following the end of the Mysore- Madurai war, open hostilities erupted in April 1669 after a series of intentional and unintentional provocations. To a great extent, the Tuticorin War (April− December 1669) was the result of a series of Company provocations effectively undermining, knowingly and unknowingly, the traditional ʻopen door’ policy by which the aranmanai tried to maintain control over the coastal region. These actions included the containment policy against the English factory at Palaiyakkayal after 1659 culminating in the arrest of the English resident in July 1665; the refusal to issue passes to local Muslim traders following the ‘robbery’ of the Mannaar pearl banks in the same year and the increasing restrictions placed on the Indo-Ceylon trade thereafter; the quarrel over the number of free thonis of the aranmanai in the pearl fishery of 1666 and the decision to hold a ‘foreign’ pearl fishery under Company jurisdiction at Mannaar in 1667; and the continuing efforts by Van Goens and his underlings to build a fort at Tuticorin or elsewhere along the Madurai Coast. Upon the death of Walter Travers, the English resident of Palaiyakkayal, in April 1665, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai immediately informed the English Agent Sir Edward Winter and the Council at Madras requesting for the dispatch of a substitute, preferably one of the two English factors at Purakkad, either Alexander Grigby or John Harrington. The efforts of Van Goens to send a few Company servants to Palaiyakkayal and forestall the coming of Harington failed, but on receiving information of the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665– 1667), the Company Merchant and Chief of Tuticorin Laurens Pijl had Harrington, the ‘troublemaker and quarreler among the nations’, immediately arrested and the commodities of the local English factory valued at 610 4/5

82 voc 891, bub 1667, ff. 579–580, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.9.1667. See also: voc 1261, obp 1668, f. 788v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 17.11.1667; Idem, ff. 256v–257r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 25.1.1668; voc 892, bub 1668, ff. 627–628, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 7.10.1668; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 592. The Tevar was not taken up on his offer at this point. One generation later in 1690, however, now Commissioner General Van Rheede would hire ca. 1,000 Marava soldiers for service on Ceylon albeit with little success.

394 chapter 5 reals confiscated. In order to forestall the possible return of the English or any other Europeans, all the Seven Ports were secured by Company soldiers and the hoisting of the flag of the Prince of Orange. Governor Van Goens falsely reassured Batavia and the Gentlemen Seventeen that the aranmanai would not take any offense at these actions. In January 1666, the High Government subsequently informed the Company Directors that Vadamalaiyappa Pillai had not opposed the arrest of Harrington and the confiscation of the English commodities.83 Van Goens’ reassurances were soon belied by events on the Madurai Coast. In June 1666, the Ceylon governor and his Council had to inform Batavia that the securing of the ports north of Tuticorin had provoked difficulties with the local maniyakkarars. Again the Ceylon governor was quick to reassure his principals that the ‘dexterity’ of the Company Chief of Tuticorin Pijl combined with a small bribe would suffice to settle the issue and contain the conflict.84 In December 1665, moreover, Van Goens was forced to inform the Directors of new difficulties at Tuticorin with the local maniyakkarars following the refusal to issue passes to the local ‘Moors’ after the ‘robbery’ of the pearl banks near Mannaar. In response, the maniyakkarars, allegedly bribed and set up by the ‘Moors’, issued a temporary ban on the export of rice to Tuticorin, which was only lifted with some difficulty. However, the Company Merchant Pijl and Junior Merchant Andries van Galisse, chief and second-in-command of Tuticorin, respectively, appeared to be closer to the truth when they argued that the Nayaka (and the Tevar) would never allow the prohibition of the Maraikkayar trade as it generated great profits and tax revenues for both treasuries. The

83 voc 1254, obp 1666, ff. 1111–1114, Resol. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 6.7.1665; voc 1253, obp 1666, f. 1790, Miss. commr. Paviljoen en raad van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 17.8.1665; Idem, ff. 1418 and 1420, Miss. gouvr. Speelman en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 21.8.1665; voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 1112, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 8.9.1665; Idem, f. 1192, Memorie der Engelse goederen bekomen op Outkaijl, 20.10.1665; voc 1253, obp 1666, ff. 1635–1636, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.10.1665; voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 961, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.11.1665; voc 1259, obp 1667, f. 2787r, Instr. voor opperk. Van der Dussen gaande naar Tuticorin omt comptoir aldaar te visiteren, 18.1.1666; voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 435r–435v, Rapp. Van der Dussen wegens ‘t verrichten op de Madurese kust door ordre van gouvr. Van Goens, 12.5.1666; Idem, ff. 96v–97r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.5.1666; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1665, pp. 331, 360–361, 364, 366, and 412; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 510; Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1665–1667, pp. 90, 91, and 129–130. 84 voc 1256, obp 1667, f. 140v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.6.1666.

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subsequent imposition of increasing restrictions on the Indo-Ceylon trade after 1665 therefore caused growing resentment among Madurai officials.85 The following year during the pearl fishery of 1666, new frictions arose over the number of free thonis enjoyed by the aranmanai. Whereas the Nayaka’s maniyakkarar claimed exemption for six vessels (83 1/2 ʻMoorishʼ, 3 ʻGentileʼ, and 3 Christian stones valued at 796 1/20 reals), the Company initially was unwilling to grant more than the customary three vessels. When, however, the maniyakkararar proved to be unwilling to compromise and declared ‘that he was unfamiliar with these customs’, the Company commissioners for the fishery reluctantly gave in.86 An even more serious confrontation occurred prior to the pearl fishery of 1667, when the Company decided to hold a fishery under its own jurisdiction at Mannaar instead of Tuticorin. No sooner had the decision come to the attention of the aranmanai, than the local maniyakkarars responded by detaining all the heads of the Paravas. Chokkanatha Nayaka in no uncertain terms let it be known to the Company,

that the pearl fishery could be held also in his own territory and that the foreign fisheries would seriously reduce and diminish his tolls and domains, especially those of his internal pearl market or pettai, because of the impoverishment of his subjects. Those advantages accruing from the extraordinary confluence of people and merchants of all nations from the circumvening countries seeking their profits in these fisheries would now accrue to others. Moreover, in these times he had also issued a general assessment of his inhabitants, fixing everybody’s quotas, based on wealth, to come up with a certain sum to their ruler within a set short period of time.87

85 voc 1251, obp 1666, ff. 559–560, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 28.12.1665; voc 1256, obp 1667, f. 439v, Consideratiën koopman Pijl en onderk. Andries van Galisse wegens de memorie van Van der Dussen rakende de handel van deze kust, 25.10.1666. 86 voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 454r–454v, Rapp. der Manaerse parelvisserij door majoor Van der Laan als Vosch, commr. van Jaffnapatnam als speciaal hoofd dezer visserij, nevens de koopl. Pijl, opperh. van Tuticorin, en Huijsman, dissave van Jaffenapatnam en opperh. v Manaer, mede opzienders, aan Van Goens, 22.5.1666. 87 voc 1264, obp 1668, ff. 518r, and 520r–520v, Rapport commr. Vosch van Jaffnapatnam, opperk. De Vogel, opperh. van Manaer en secunde van Jaffnapatnam, koopman Pijl, opperh. van Tuticorin, der Aripose of Manaerse parelvisserij, 27.5.1667. See also: voc 1261, obp 1667, ff. 507v–509r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 3.3.1667; voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 460v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.3.1667.

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Faced with the uncompromising stance of Van Goens and the prospective loss of all its revenues from the pearl fishery, the aranmanai in March 1667 decided at least for the moment to give in and to release the Paravas and fishermen from custody. However, following the end of the fishery, the maniyakkarar of Melur insisted on having all the merchants come to the Madurai pearl market ‘in order to sell them and pay the tolls and duties there’. When turned down by the Company, the maniyakkarar resorted to threats and intimidation, causing a number of Muslim merchants from Surat and Golconda along with several of their Hindu counterparts to complain to the Company commissioners for the fishery. In the presence of the merchants, the Dutch officials told the maniyakkarar not to molest any foreign traders, though they allowed him a free hand in dealing with his master’s subjects.88 A final bone of contention was formed by the continuous efforts of Van Goens to obtain permission from the aranmanai for the construction of a new fortress at Tuticorin or elsewhere along the Madurai Coast. From the very beginning, these attempts were rebuffed by the aranmanai, while in Company circles the mercantile faction time and again expressed its reservations about these imperious plans. In August 1665, for instance, during negotiations with Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, the Company Bookkeeper Adriaen van der Marckt was told that ‘in case the Company lacked warehouses and residences, there were enough churches available which could be modified for that purpose’.89 Moreover, in September 1666 Batavia portrayed the chance of success to construct a fort at Tuticorin as ‘virtually desperate’. Resorting to violence, the High Government reminded Van Goens, was highly inexpedient as Tuticorin should be held as ‘a trading settlement without any garrison’.90 Failing to see the structural nature of these tensions, Van Goens and his followers reduced the conflict to the personal level by blaming Vadamalaiyappa Pillai as the sole ‘great antagonist of the Company’. Having received (inaccurate) information that the Madurai power broker had died, the Senior Merchant Lucas van der Dussen was dispatched to Tuticorin in January 1666 on a mission

88 voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 475v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.4.1667; Idem, f. 520v, Rapp. der Aripose ofte Manaerse parelvisserij, 27.5.1667. 89 voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 435r–435v, Rapp. koopman Van der Dussen wegens ‘t verrichten op de Madurese kust door ordre van gouvr. Van Goens, 12.5.1666; Idem, f. 96v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.5.1666. 90 voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 206r–206v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1666. See also: Idem, ff. 166r–166v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.11.1666; Idem, ff. 16v–17r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 17.1.1667; voc 1255, obp 1667, ff. 229–230, Generale missive, 25.1.1667; voc 891, bub 1667, ff. 159–160, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 29.3.1667; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, pp. 563, and 609.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 397 of reconnaissance, intended to clear the field for a subsequent high-profile embassy to the court of Madurai.91 In May 1666, however, Van der Dussen produced a disappointing report, stating that, unfortunately, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai was alive and well and still very much in control of court affairs. According to Van der Dussen, there was no real alternative to the Madurai power broker. His son, Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai, for instance, had been appointed governor of Tirunelveli, ‘bound and attached by blood and favours to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, and who would not undertake anything without his knowledge and communication’. The local maniyakkarars in turn were tax farmers ‘with little ability to do good’, who only remained in office until someone else would offer more for the same position. Finally, although Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, brother of the erstwhile talavay of Gingee, was held to be an opponent of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and favourably inclined toward the Company, he had only recently been elevated to the position of regional maniyakkarar of the Madurai lands bordering Tanjore. As Van der Dussen reported, Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka ‘had not yet risen to the same degree of dignity as Vadamalaiyappa Pillai due to the latter’s cunning and the subsequent distrust of the Nayaka [Chokkanatha Nayaka]’.92 In spite of Van der Dussen’s negative assessment, Governor Van Goens and the Council of Ceylon in February 1667 decided, pending approval by the High Government at Batavia, to start preparations for a high-profile mission to the Madurai court at Trichinopoly, in particular to get permission for the fortification of one of the churches at Tuticorin.93 In September 1667, Batavia finally

91 voc 1259, ff. 2786r–2787r, Instr. Van Goens voor opperk. Van der Dussen gaande naar Tuticorin omt comptoir aldaar te visiteren, 18.1.1666. See also: voc 1256, obp 1667, f. 51v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 6.3.1666; Idem, ff. 96v–97r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.5.1666; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 557. 92 voc 1256, obp 1667, ff. 433v–435r, Rapp. koopman Van der Dussen wegens ‘t verrichten op de Madurese kust door ordre van Van Goens, raad ord., superint., adml., gouvr. en vel- doversten over ‘t eijland Ceijlon, kust van Madure, en Malabar, 12.5.1666. For comments and criticisms on Van der Dussen’s report: Idem, ff. 438r–443r, Consideratiën koopman Pijl en onderk. Van Galisse wegens de memorie van Van der Dussen rakende de handel van deze kust, 25.10.1666. 93 voc 1261, obp 1668, ff. 486v–487r, Concept van negotie bij raade tot Colombo tezamen- gesteld op de consideratiën bij de koopman Pijl ingediend waarop de principale handel voortaan tot Tuticorin zal mogen vervolgd en aangelegd worden, 5.2.1667–25.2.1667. A transcript of the February 8 deliberations can be found in: James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos. [ff. 30–52], Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, Nagapatnam 1738. For the subsequent preparations: voc 1264, obp 1668, f. 498r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1667; voc 1265, obp 1668, ff. 906v–907r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.8.1667; voc 1261,

398 chapter 5 gave the long-awaited go-ahead signal to the ‘long-threatened embassy’, deeming a mission to the Madurai court not merely a good thing, but even an absolute necessity.94 Meanwhile, using the spoilation of the Company factory at Tengapatnam in Travancore by Zamorin ‘robbers’ (most likely Muslim Mappila merchants) as a pretext, Van Goens had already dispatched Captain Hendrick van Rheede to fortify the Company factory, the former Franciscan church, at Tuticorin with parapets, while at the same time sending 12 soldiers and one corporal plus a ‘defensive’ yacht with 18–20 pieces to protect the factory supposedly against an anticipated attack by the ‘Moors’.95 In January 1668, while informing the Directors of the impending mission to the Nayaka of Madurai, Van Goens, militant as ever, intimated to the Gentlemen Seventeen that he remained convinced that he could fortify Tuticorin by right of conquest, ‘with or without the consent’ of the aranmanai. In typical military Orientalist fashion (see Chapter 1), the Ceylon governor foresaw no problems in achieving this ‘lawful’ objective, ‘for here we do not have to fear Makassarese, Javanese, Ambonese, not even Nayars [ruling caste in Malabar] or other inveterate enemies or people of a warlike nature, but harmless sheep, which in no way would be able to openly oppose 4 to 500 of our people with 10,000 of their own’. Moreover, in case relations with the aranmanai were to turn sour, Van Goens reassuringly predicted that the Tevar would immediately and automati- cally rush to the support of the Company.96 In February 1668, Captain Hendrik van Rheede, the Junior Merchants Andries van Galisse and Adriaen van der Marckt, the residents of Manappad

obp 1668, ff. 788r–788v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 17.11.1667; Idem, f. 561v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 10.11–27.12.1667; Idem, ff. 253r–254r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 25.1.1668; voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1082v, and 1084r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.2.1668. 94 voc 891, bub 1667, f. 576, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.9.1667; voc 891, bub 1667, f. 763, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 27.10.1667. The term ‘langh gedreijgde besendinge’ is used by Van Goens in a letter to the High Government and seems to imply that the Ceylon Governor may indicate a level of cynicism against Batavia’s initial opposition. See: voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1084r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.2.1668. 95 voc 1264, obp 1668, ff. 495r, 496r, and 497v–498r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.6.1667; voc 1265, obp 1668, f. 907r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.8.1667; voc 891, bub 1667, f. 576, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.9.1667; voc 1261, obp 1668, f. 788r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 17.11.1667. 96 voc 1268, obp 1668, ff. 255v–256r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.1.1668.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 399 and Virapandiyapatnam, and 1 soldier from Tuticorin, set out en route to Trichinopoly along with 2 cornacs or elephant drivers, 1 sword-cutler, 2 arachchis and 50 lascorins, and lavish presents with a total value of more than 13,000 guilders. Van Rheede’s instructions consisted of no less than seventeen points, including the establishment of an eternal alliance and friendship (art. 1), the written confirmation of the Company’s old privileges (art. 2), free and unham- pered trade (arts. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12), permission to construct a fortress at one of the churches of Tuticorin (arts. 13, 14, and 15), the exclusion of all other Europeans (art. 16), and, in case all the articles were granted, the promise of an additional 5 free thonis to the aranmanai in the pearl fishery and the dispatch of an annual present ‘out of reverence and friendship’ (art. 17).97 Van Rheede’s mission was virtually doomed from the beginning. Apart from being headed by the less-than-diplomatic Van Rheede, shortly after his departure from Tuticorin, the elephant, the most substantial and valued gift for Chokkanatha Nayaka, got sick and died, the kavalkarars or toll collectors confiscated the portage from the Company’s coolies; and, while passing through the villages, nobody was willing to lend a hand to the cortege even against payment. Moreover, in the absence of any choultry (cattiram, shattiram) or resting- place for travelers, Van Rheede and his retinue were forced to sleep out in the open.98 Arriving at Trichinopoly, Van Rheede’s bad feelings were confirmed by a sharp exchange between Van der Marckt and Vadamalaiyappa Pillai on March 16. In response to the Company proposals, the Madurai pradhani replied point- edly and in a manner consistent with his earlier position:

that the construction of a fortified place would never be consented by the Nayaka since the Portuguese for 150 years had never managed to acquire this concession under so many predecessors of the current Nayaka. In case we were in need of housing, we could take up residence in the churches at Tuticorin, but we would not be allowed to build any other new one. The cutting of wood for the burning of lime would only be

97 The following account is largely based on Van Rheede’s report of the mission. See: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 125–260. 98 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1159v, and 1161r, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668. Van Rheede’s bearers or coolies belonged to the caste of Siviyars (‘chivias’) or shepherds, lit. ‘palanquin bearers’, an occupational name applied to those employed in that capacity. See: Thurston, Caste and Tribes of Southern India, VI, p. 391; voc 1273, obp 1670, f. 1278v, Dagreg. kapn. Jan Bax gaande van Colombo ter ordre van adml. en gouvr. Van Goens over Tuticorin om de ragias op Malabar uit zijn Ed. naam te bezoeken en zo voort naar Cochin, 16.5.1669.

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permitted at places without forest since the Nayaka wished to have all woods grow to fortify his lands. No strangers would be allowed to trade or live along the seacoast, but they would [be allowed to trade] in the interior. It would be laudable in case the Hon. Company were desirous to assist His Highness the Nayaka in times of distress. If [the voc were to be] exempted from the tolls, what advantage could the Nayaka expect from the Hon. Company’s trade? Instead, the Company would enjoy exemption from half the tolls as before. With regards to the debentures and estates, the Hon. Company would acquire the rights common to all inhabitants without any other advantages. The workers and others employed by the Hon. Company would be taxed according to their means, regardless of their employer. The servants of the Hon. Company would not be hindered without warrant by Nayaka officials. The Hon. Company was free to dispatch its servants and merchandise everywhere in the lands of the Nayaka in order to trade alongside other merchants. We would be allowed to have a resident at the court. It was good that, similar to His Highness’ predecessors, the friendship would be confirmed in the form of a written agreement. It was highly agreeable that not only the Hon. Company was willing to send an annual gift to the Nayaka, but that the Nayaka would be granted more free thonis in the fishery as well. The Nayaka requested at one fell swoop that the Hon. Company would force all the merchants coming to the Mannaar fishery to visit the Punnaikayal market in order to pay the Nayaka’s dues for the pearls sold at Mannaar or elsewhere.99

In case he had not made his point clear enough, Vadamalaiyappa subsequently let it be known that Van Rheede ‘had no other reception to expect from the Nayaka, than to be allowed to cut wood where there would be no trees and to draw water from an empty well’. The Madurai pradhani made it no secret that he considered Van Rheede’s mission in the present form hopeless and suggested that the ambassador would be free to find somebody else to further his cause with the Nayaka.100 In response the haughty Van Rheede ominously informed Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, ‘that he need not have mocked the Hon. Comp. so openly’ and warned him ‘that the Hon. Comp. had not become so despicable as not to be able to secure the places in the same manner as those that had been conquered by force in opposition of the inhabitants. It would be inappropriate to compare

99 voc 1268, obp 1669, f. 1168v, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 158. 100 Idem, f. 1169r; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 160.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 401 the Hon. Comp. with the Portuguese, whom we chased from the country against the will of the Nayaka’.101 As the leader of a powerful court party-faction, Vadamalaiyappa’s hostile stance may be explained by a combination of political and personal motivations. For reasons of state, Vadamalaiyappa vigorously opposed the extension of Company influence, warning Chokkanatha Nayaka ‘that in case the Nayaka would grant the Dutch one foot of land, he could be assured that the entire state of Madurai would be lost’. He made his case by reminding several palace servants or uriyakkarars of the treacherous dealings of the Dutch with other rulers in the region, such as Raja Sinha II of Kandy and the Zamorin of Calicut. ‘It was no small matter,” Vadamalaiyappa pointed out to his audience, ‘to allow a foreign nation to construct forts in the country’. Playing down his own private interests as tax farmer of the lowlands, the Madurai pradhani asserted ‘that all he was doing was for the benefit of the state, which could never be at peace in case permission to settle was given to people whose power was to be feared for good reasons’. If the Company were to be given permission to build a fort, he concluded, ‘the inhabitants of the Madurai Coast would be impoverished, the ports would be closed, and the revenue of the Nayaka lost’.102 To these reasons of state one may add a personal grudge Vadamalaiyappa may have carried against the Company in general and Van Goens in particular. Following the Dutch occupation of Nagapatnam in July 1658, Van Goens ordered a sortie against the besieging forces of Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Tanjore. In the resulting massacre of the unsuspecting Tanjore army, several relatives and friends of Vadamalaiyappa, a native from Kavanur near Tiruppa ramkunram, were reportedly killed.103 Whatever his own ideas about Vadamalaiyappa Pillai’s other counsels, Van Rheede decided to accept Vadamalaiyappa Pillai’s suggestion (or rather challenge) to find a possible replacement to further his cause (which the Madurai power broker considered a fruitless exercise). During the rest of his mission

101 Ibidem; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 159. 102 Idem, ff. 1172r, 1177r–1177v, 1181r, and 1191r; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 166, 177–179, and 206. 103 Idem, f. 1181v; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 187. Johann Jacob Saar (c. 1625–1672) from Nürnberg was one of the members of the 400-men sortie against the 8,000–10,000 Tanjore forces. He wrote, ‘that in one hour we mowed down close to 2,000 men’. In: L’Honoré Naber (ed.), Reisebeschreibungen, VI, p. 165. According to Van Dam, the attack lasted less than half a hour in which 400 Tanjore soldiers were killed and many more would have fallen victim if the Company troops had not been restrained by their own officers. See: Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, pp. 108, and 276–277. See also: Baldaeus, Naauwkeurige Beschryvinge van Malabar ende Chormandel, pp. 155–156.

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Van Rheede vigorously attempted to exploit the existing factionalism and personal animosities within the informal council of ministers. In fact, the diaries of the Company servants such as Van Rheede traveling to the court of Madurai provide one of those rare opportunities to catch a glimpse of the internal wheeling and dealing of the aranmanai. They demonstrate that the aranmanai was far from being a homogenous governing body, but rather the stage for bitter disputes over political and personal issues.104 Although Vadamalaiyappa’s ‘war party-faction’ proved to be dominant, a strong, albeit disunited, opposition existed at the Nayaka court, which for convenience’s sake may be called the ‘peace party-faction’, headed by Chinnatambi Mudaliyar, Kumara Rangappa Nayaka, and Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka.105 Chinnatambi Mudaliyar (d. 1673) had been talavay and one of the leading commanders of the Madurai army, but reportedly had been stripped of his command a few months prior to Van Rheede’s arrival due to a quarrel with Vadamalaiyappa Pillai. However, he was still retained by Chokkanatha Nayaka as a member in his informal council of ministers.106 In an early variation on the late eighteenth-century ‘subsidiary alliance system’, Chinnatambi made a passionate plea for a closer alliance between Madurai and the Company for financial and military reasons. Farming out Tirunelveli province, currently controlled by Vadamalaiyappa’s son Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai (!), to the Dutch (‘a sincere and loyal people’) and allowing them to construct forts in all the seaports, would not only provide the aranmanai with much-needed revenues, but also with 1,000–2,000 soldiers to withstand Bijapuri aggression and ward off all other enemies of Madurai. For this purpose, Chinnatambi also urged Chok kanatha to request some ‘courageous men’ to serve as commanders of the Madurai armed forces, ‘in order to teach the soldiers the discipline of war and the art of war in the world’.107

104 For this point: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 62–65. 105 Van Rheede’s informants were, among others, a certain Chinna Nayaka and Thirukulanthai Mudaliyar, servants of Kumara Rangappa Nayaka and Chinnetambi Mudaliyar, respectively, and Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka, son of Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka. All of them had their own private agenda in dealing with the Company ambassador. Van Rheede repeatedly expressed his frustration for being the plaything of Trichinopoly court politics. See: Vink, Mission to Madurai. 106 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1177v–1178r, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668. In 1666, the Jesuit André Freire, member of the Madurai Mission, called Chinnatambi Mudaliyar ‘Governor General of the kingdom’, in: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 209. On Chinnatambi Mudaliyar: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 64, 69, 166–167, 166–167 n. 130, 171, 177, 180, 184, 190, 195, 196, 227, 231, 236, 237, 238, 241, 242, 246, 251, 252, 256, 298, 298 n. 112, and 349. 107 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1172r, and 1180r–1180v, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 69. Though the ambitious plan did not come to fruition, on occasion embattled

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Whereas Chinnatambi Mudaliyar argued for acceding to Company demands for positive reasons, the Senior Chamberlain Kumara Rangappa Nayaka and another member of Chokkanatha’s informal council of ministers, made the same argument for negative reasons. Pointing to the Tiruchendur expedition of 1649 and the subsequent expulsion of the Portuguese from the Madurai and Malabar coasts, Rangappa considered the Company ‘a powerful ruler’ and certainly not as weak as Vadamalaiyappa would have Chokkanatha believe. While the aranmanai had its hands tied fighting Mysore, the chamberlain warned that refusing the Company’s reasonable demands to protect its trade could lead to another armed conflict, which might prove to be even more difficult to settle than the current war with Mysore.108 However, Chinnatambi Mudaliyar and Kumara Rangappa Nayaka and the ‘appeasement faction’ were unable to effectively counter Vadamalaiyappa’s influence, especially since their potential ally, Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, had once again fallen out of favour, and, having been accused of treason, was forced to flee Trichinopoly with the Maratha general Santoji Ghorpade, (c. 1660–1697) the half- brother of Shivaji, in late April 1668 during Van Rheede’s stay at the Madurai court.109 With Vadamalaiyappa’s ‘hard-line faction’ gaining the upper hand in council, the atmosphere in Trichinopoly turned increasingly hostile to Van Rheede and his following. On April 10, the Company’s residence was attacked ‘without regard to black or white’ by a mob armed with sticks. The core of the assailants was reportedly made up by a score of servants of Chokkanatha’s brother, Muttu Alagiri Nayaka, who was said to be observing the scene closely from a palanquin nearby. Several members of the mission, including one arachchi, were wounded and the Company flag dragged in the mud as an object of scorn and ridicule.110 A subsequent complaint to Chokkanatha Nayaka was met with feigned ignorance of the events and vague promises of punishment of the

Madurai rulers, such as Muttu Linga Nayaka and Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, would request for a small Dutch bodyguard. In November 1677, in the aftermath of the Bassingh mission, for instance, the voc received an official request from Muttu Linga Nayaka for a personal entourage of 20 Company soldiers. In August 1690, Commissioner General Van Rheede provided Muttu Virappa Nayaka III with a bodyguard of 10 Company soldiers (bosschieters) along with some guns. See: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 69, 166–167, and 184–185. 108 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1172r, 1180v–1181r, 1188v, and 1190r, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668. On Kumara Rangappa Nayaka: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 64, 167, 167 n. 131, 185, 185 n. 180, 186, 187, 195, 203, 227, 242, 243, 251, and 257. 109 Idem, f. 1185r; Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 193. 110 For a detailed account of these events, see: voc 1268, obp 1668, ff. 1178r–1178v, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668; and: voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 166v–167r, Redenen Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669; Vink, Mission to Madurai, esp. pp. 180–182.

404 chapter 5 culprits, while the ‘experienced and cautious’ Van Rheede in an olai by Chokkanatha Nayaka was urged not to take ‘things of such small import’ caused by some court servants as an insult.111 By now Van Rheede had not only become convinced that his mission was hopeless, but also that he had no other choice than to leave the Trichinopoly court empty-handed. Drawing up the balance sheet of his mission, Van Rheede, in the true paranoid ʻsiege mentalityʼ of the interloper, believed that he had fallen victim not only to Vadamalaiyappa’s evil influence, but to the Company’s ubiquitous ‘enemies and feigned friends’ in and around the Madurai lands as well. Van Rheede’s incriminatory list included virtually all the inhabitants of the Madurai lands, Jesuits, Muslims, Portuguese, Paravas, and even the Company’s old friend the Tevar.112 Faced with these overwhelming odds, the disgusted and disillusioned ambassador in May 1668 unceremoniously left the Madurai capital without taking his official leave from the aranmanai. Not surprisingly, the news of Van Rheede’s failure met with varying responses among Company ‘hawks’ or hard-liners, such as Van Goens Senior, and advocates of a softer stance or ‘doves’, centred at Batavia. Governor van Goens of Ceylon believed that the time had come to fortify, nolens volens, at least the Company factory or the former Franciscan monastery at Tuticorin. Although claiming to submit himself to explicit orders and awaiting a sufficient number of soldiers from Batavia, the Ceylon governor informed the High Government he had already made preparations by having all the Company capital at Tuticorin (117,804 guilders) sent to Colombo, and reinforcing the local factory with parapets, 12 iron and metal pieces, and 80 soldiers and sailors capable, as he claimed, of withstanding 12,000–15,000 Madurai troops.113 For its part, the High Government observed that the projected fort at Tuticorin could never be established without resort to violence. Batavia considered this line of conduct ‘rather harsh’, arguing that the Company was neither justified in, nor capable of, carrying the additional financial burden of yet another war. In October 1668 Van Goens was ordered, somewhat ambiguously, to abandon the project of a new fortification at least for the moment, but he was urged to gain permission to convert the Franciscan monastery into a

111 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1179r–1179v, Rapp. Van Rheede, 2.7.1668; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 182–184. 112 Idem, esp. 1190v–1191r. Also: Idem, ff. 1182r, 1184r, 1186r, 1186v, and 1189r; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 205–206. 113 voc 1268, obp 1669, ff. 1133r–1134r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.6.1668; Idem, ff. 1192r–1192v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.7.1668; Idem, ff. 1197r, and 1198v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.7.1668; Idem, f. 1209r, Miss. gouvr. van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.8.1668.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 405 fortified residence and warehouse. The High Government also feared that if a fort were built against the will of the aranmanai, trade would be prohibited and supplies blocked, while European nations were not likely to respect the Tuticorin fort and avoid trading on the Madurai Coast.114 Dissatisfied with this reply, Van Goens in January 1669 addressed himself directly to the Gentlemen Seventeen in Europe. In fact, this action foretold another stage in the ongoing soul-searching debate in Company circles on high policy between the imperialist and mercantile factions with the Directors as wavering arbitrators. In a drawn-out exposé, Van Goens pointed out that, contrary to what Batavia would have them believe, the Company had sufficient might, right, and reasons to fortify Tuticorin. Thus, Van Goens asserted that the Portuguese had previously been able to control the sea with only 5–6 oared frigates and 150–200 men. Moreover, the Company was justified in fortifying Tuticorin by right of conquest, giving it complete jurisdiction over the seaports and the Parava community. Fortification, finally, was deemed necessary to forestall any intrusion of other European powers, prevent all possible troubles with the aranmanai, secure Company trade by providing protection to the local weavers and merchants against the cruel oppression of the government, and would even increase the prosperity of the Nayaka of Madurai! Lashing out at Batavia, Van Goens argued that only the people on the spot knew whom the Company was really dealing with, that is, ‘cunning traitors and scoundrels’, who would not hesitate to kill the local voc personnel when given the chance: ‘We, who are closest to the fire, are best situated to feel the heat and know what is in store for us’.115 The long-standing issues between the Company and aranmanai left unresolved, the end of the Mysorean-Madurai war in early 1669 quickly brought matters to a head following Van Goens’ decision to fortify the Company factory at Tuticorin with parapets. Although the new additions to the factory were reportedly no more than ‘a garden with thin stakes, subsequently supported by some earth or clay’, the action was taken as a direct threat and immediately challenged by the aranmanai, who threatened that the new enclosure should be taken down or violence would ensue. Initially, Van Goens was willing to give in to these demands and in November 1668 accordingly sent instructions to the Company Chief Pijl of Tuticorin. However, on receiving information of the ‘for- tuitous death’ of Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai, the governor of Tirunelveli, and

114 voc 892, bub 1668, ff. 626–627, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 7.10.1668; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, pp. 632, and 647. 115 voc 1266, obp 1669, ff. 591v et seq., Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1669.

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(unfounded) rumours that Vadamalaiyappa had been imprisoned, the Ceylon governor decided to retract his orders and raise the stakes.116 These decisions proved to be disastrous and were taken as clear provocations and a direct challenge to the authority of the aranmanai. In December 1669, during subsequent peace negotiations at Kayatar, the two representatives of the aranmanai, Kumara Swami Pillai and Raghuvanna Mudaliyar, both kanakkapillais or secretaries of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, pointed out to the Company mediators ‘that all disputes, indeed the war itself, had started because of an earthen wall, especially since the Nayaka in these times would consider this concession [to build a fort] demeaning’.117 In March 1669, a new pearl fishery was begun, but with more and more Madurai troops and artillery arriving at Melur, increasingly harassing the fishery, the so-called ‘noble harvest from the sea’118 ended in an inglorious flight of the campannottis and kuliyals. In response to the raising of batteries, digging of trenches and walls around the Company factory by the Madurai army (in early April reportedly 3,000 lascorins and 100 horse had already arrived at Melur and more were expected), Van Goens dispatched military reinforcements from Ceylon, being resolved ‘to oppose the unjustifiable violence and to maintain the Company’s reputation, privilege, right, and residence’. Having informed Batavia that ‘it had been impossible to avoid war’, Van Goens was wise enough to attempt covering his back by similarly informing the Company Directors of the inevitability of armed conflict, ‘which we request Your Honours to accept as the truth’. In April 1669, following the failure of a final attempt at mediation, the Tuticorin War became a fact.119

116 voc 1270, obp 1670, f. 168v, Redenen Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669. 117 Idem, f. 190r, Miss. Daniel Goes en Abraham van Renesse te Kaijetaar aan commr. Hk. van Reede, 17.12.1669. 118 A play on: Subrahmanyam, ‘Noble Harvest from the Sea’. 119 voc 1273, obp 1670, ff. 1374v–1375r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1669; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 908r–908v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.7.1169. See also: voc 1273, obp 1670, ff. 1549r–1550v, Resol. gouvr. van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 11.4.1669; Idem, f. 1274r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 28.4.1669; Idem, ff. 1449r–1451v, Rapp. van het voorgevallene in de parelvisserij op de banken voor Tuticorin onder opzicht van Van Reede, sergt. majoor, en de opperkoopl. Pijl, hoofd van Tuticorin, en De Vogel, koopman Laurens Pith de Jonge en kaptn. Mattheus de Meester, 22.6.1669; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 171v–175v, Redenen Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669; Idem, ff. 12 et seq., Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1670. In fact, by resolution of November 29, 1669, Van Goens and Council of Ceylon decided to have Chief Pijl of Tuticorin and Captain Van Rheede compile an

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When warnings to stop siege preparations were met with the raising of the red flag and voc guns proved unable to damage the siege works, in early June 1669 a Company sortie led by Captain Van Rheede killed over 100 Madurai soldiers, while chasing the entire army (3,000 foot and 400–500 horse) with little resistance from their trenches and out of Melur, which was burned in the process. The flight of the Madurai soldiers had been in great disarray and the utmost confusion, leaving their dead unburied, effectively abandoning the area around Tuticorin within a three mile radius. In the aftermath, the churches of St. Peter, Paul, and Francis (the old Company factory) were hastily joined by a half circle of palisades reaching to the beach.120 Batavia was far from pleased with the ‘great warmongering’ of Van Goens, describing his actions as ‘matters which run completely against our sentiment and opinion as they tend to make us extremely odious and hated among Indian peoples everywhere’. In a rather empty gesture the High Government prohibited the Ceylon governor from starting any new wars without its consent, while ordering him to do everything possible to make an equitable peace, even if that implied demolishing the newly-built fortifications. Instead of striving for hegemony on land, Van Goens was reminded to aim at maritime domination, which was considered sufficient to safeguard the local interests of the Company, that is, free trade, the possession of the Seven Ports, and control of the pearl fishery.121 To Batavia’s dismay, however, the successful sortie was anything but the end of the war. Ten days thereafter, the Nayaka army returned in even greater numbers, now consisting of 15,000 foot and 500 horse in all. The siege was subsequently renewed, albeit this time from a greater distance of the Company fortifications, and mainly in the form of an almost continuous cannonade battering the recently enlarged Company residence. In spite of the enemy’s larger numbers and presumably safer distance from the besieged, a second Company sortie on October 31, made possible by fresh reinforcements from Ceylon (1,100 troops in total, including 48 horse, considered ‘the core of the Ceylon militia’) succeeded once more in forcing the enemy troops from their siege works without a single

apologia for the war against accusations from Batavia that the conflict had been deliberately provoked by Van Goens. 120 voc 1273, obp 1670, f. 1375r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1669; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 908r–908v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.7.1669; Idem, f. 179v, Redenen Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 696. 121 voc 893, bub 1669, ff. 661, and 679, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 26.9.1669. See also: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, III, p. 697.

408 chapter 5 casualty. If we may believe Company sources (and we have to be extremely cautious particularly in this instance), the performance of the Madurai forces was anything but impressive. During the seven-month conflict one 90 lb. gun alone reportedly had fired more than 6,000 shots at the Company factory, using at least 120,000 lbs. of powder without inflicting any serious damage, while the Madurai army had suffered more than 1,000 dead and innumerable wounded.122 Some ambiguity exists on the position of the Tevar in the conflict between the Company and the aranmanai. In January 1670, for instance, Van Goens wrote to the Gentlemen Seventeen that Raghunatha Tevar had shown himself to be a loyal ally of the Company during the war by supplying the Dutch forces with provisions and lending several hundred lascorins (‘good indigenous soldiers’), against payment of one rixdollar and 40 lbs. of rice per month, who openly fought the aranmanai. Following the end of the war, more than 1,000 Madurai soldiers (subsequently called ‘reformados’ or ‘reformed’!) remained in Company service recruited from the lascorins of the Tevar along with deserters from both other palaiyakkarars and the aranmanai forces.123 However, a resolution of Captain Van Rheede, Chief Pijl and the Council at Tuticorin of December 23, 1669, makes clear that Raghunatha Tevar probably had more than one string to his bow and attempted to further his own agenda by carefully balancing one party against the other. While hiring out some of his soldiers to the Company, the ruler of Ramnad reportedly had dispatched his son with 7,000 Marava soldiers to the assistance of the aranmanai against the Company. As Van Rheede, Pijl and their associates concluded: ‘For various reasons, it has become apparent that the Lord Tevar considers the successes of the Company arms against his lord the Nayaka unfavourable and contrary to his own and private interests’.124 Following the second rout of the Madurai forces, a new round of peace negotiations was initiated with the sending of a Company delegation to the

122 voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 180r–180v, Redenen Madurese oorlog, 19.12.1669; Idem, ff. 12r, et seq., Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1670. The ship’s surgeon Nicolaus de Graaff (1617–1688), while visiting Kayts (Velanai) or Fort Hammenhiel off the Jaffna Peninsula in August 1669, reported the dispatch of additional reinforcements to Tuticorin against the ‘Nayaka or Lord (Eyck of Heer), who is opposing the Company because of the pearl fishery’. See: Warnsinck (ed.), Reisen van Nicolaus de Graaff, pp. 103–104. 123 voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 15r–15v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1670. See also: voc 1273, obp 1670, ff. 1375r–1375v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.6.1669; Idem, ff. 908v–909r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.7.1669. 124 voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 521r–521v, Resol. getrokken ten comptoire Tutucurin, 23.12.1669.

From Sideshow To Main Theatre Of War, 1658–1669 409 residence of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai at Kayatar in December 1669. The Company commissioners, Junior Merchant Daniel Goes and Provisional Lieutenant Abraham Daniel van Renesse, assisted by two trusted indigenous servants, Kanagaraj Mudaliyar and the arachchi Chinappa or Chinappa Mudaliyar,125 were provided with instructions consisting of three articles. The commissioners were allowed to conclude an eternal peace, provided no Europeans were to be allowed in the lands of Madurai and, if possible, the expulsion of the Jesuits (art. 1); to press for the confirmation of all the traditional privileges and customs previously enjoyed by the Portuguese (art. 2); and to gain permission for the construction of a new Company residence at Tuticorin, covering a square of at least 100 fathom each side (art. 3). In order to make the final point, Goes and Van Renesse were to argue that ‘the Dutch have as little space to conduct their extensive trade at Tuticorin as an elephant would have in a bird cage’.126

125 Kanagaraj Mudaliyar came from Beligal Korale, a district in the Jaffna Peninsula. Following a seven-year-journey through the Mughal Empire, he had just been reinstated as inspec- tor over the shipping of elephants plus appointed supervisor over the weavers and painters in Jaffnapatnam. One of his sons had recently been sent to the Tevar of Ramnad to demand the return of several refugee Wanniyars and the goods salvaged from the small junk ‘Gale’ stranded on the Ramnad Coast. Kanagaraj was described as ‘a man of great skills capable of all forms of diplomacy and highly regarded by the Hon. Company,…being fluent in several languages and intimately acquainted with how to interact with those people’. voc 1273, obp 1670, f. 1262r, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 28.4.1669; voc 893, bub 1669, f. 689, Miss. GG en R aan Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 26.9.1669; voc 1270, obp 1670, ff. 186r–186v, Memorie kaptn. Van Rheede voor de gecommitteerden naar de landbestuurder Barmiliappa Pillai, 10.12.1669; voc 1274, obp 1671, f. 360r, Klachten der modljaars e.a. hoofden van Jaffnapatnam over den Bramine Timmersa, 7.10.1670. Company officials describe ‘our’ Chinappa Mudaliyar as a ‘loyal servant’. As a member of the Vellala, the high peasant-agricultural caste of the Tamil country, he had easy access to the ruling classes and was employed on numerous occasions ‘among the indigenous notables’ or as ‘courtier for embassies to the governor and otherwise’, including the 1677 Bassingh mission. He remained in voc service at least until 1690, when he was listed on the Company payroll as the arachchi ‘Chinappe Moddelij’, earning 20 fanams per month. voc 1274, obp 1671, f. 302v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceylon aan Batavia, 10.1.1671; voc 1280, obp 1672, f. 274v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceylon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 1313, obp 1676, f. 316r, Concept instructie voor opperk. Huijsman en raad over de kust van Madure door superint. Van Goens, 13.1.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 335v, Rapp. opperk. Huijsman van de presente toestand der zaken op de kust van Madure, 5.12.1675; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 412v, Memorie van alle Comps. dienaren ten comptoire Tuticorin, 31.12.1690. 126 Idem, ff. 183r–186v, Memorie kaptn. Van Rheede voor de gecommitteerden Daniel Goes, onderk., en Abram Daniel van Renesse, lieutenant provl., om van hier naar de

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While Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and his team of negotiators, including the two kanakkapillais Kumara Swami Pillai and Raghuvanna Mudaliyar, were willing to grant the first two articles, they were unwilling to concede more than the enlargement of the old Company factory, the Franciscan church at the northern edge of Tuticorin, to a square of 25 to 30 fathoms each side. Although the response was not completely what Van Goens and the Council had hoped for, the offer was accepted for a number of reasons: Vadamalaiyappa Pillai was considered the power broker of Madurai and no better offer would be forthcoming from anybody else; the Company’s reputation was deemed to have been sufficiently established through its ‘victory’ in the war against the aranmanai; if hostilities were to be continued, either the siege would be renewed with greater might or the Madurai army would dig itself in near Tuticorin at a location from where it would be more difficult to dislodge; the danger of hostilities elsewhere in the region, while favourable conditions were being offered now; the impending pearl fishery and the interruption of Company trade; the danger of an exodus of the local population, leaving Madurai depopulated and unprofitable; the uncertainty regarding the attitude of the Tevar; the risk of intrusion by the French or English, eager to fish in troubled water; and, finally, the shortage of medicines. In short, Van Goens decided to make the best of the situation and to accept the offer of the aranmanai. On December 30, 1669, the peace treaty was therefore signed, granting the Company the first two articles asked for and permission to build a factory, a square of 26 fathoms each side.127 The Peace of Kayatar would free the hands of both the aranmanai and the Company, or rather Governor Van Goens, once again for what were deemed more vital areas of interest. In time, the resulting territorial expansion would provoke a powerful backlash. It would shake the very foundations of both the Madurai state and the Company and create difficulties from which they arguably would never fully recover.

landbestuurder Vadamalaiyappa Pillai te gaan, 10.12.1669; Idem, ff. 16v–17r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1670. 127 Idem, ff. 188r–190r, Miss. Goes en Abraham Van Renesse van Kaietar aan commr. Van Rheede, 17.12.1669; Idem, ff. 192r–194r, Miss. Daniel Goes en Abraham van Renesse van Kaietar aan commr. Van Rheede, 18.12.1669; Idem, ff. 521r–523v, Resol. getrokken ten comptoire Tuticorin, 23.12.1669; voc 1277, obp 1671, ff. 1480r–1481r, Vredesartikelen met de Madurese neik gesloten, 30.12.1669.

chapter 6 The Bitter Fruits of War, 1670–1679

The original intention was to make of Ceylon a jewel to the Company by obtaining the entire rule of it; but, because of the extreme measures which this demanded, the object could not possibly be carried out, as the flowers from this garden would have cost the Company as much as the once so famous tulips in Holland.... Memoir left by Governor gustaaf willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon to his successor Willem Maurits Bruynink, 1740.

Were it appropriate to debate such old matters, even nowadays one could argue that the Company should have used that good opportunity [the Tuticorin War of 1669] to state and affirm its claims [on the Madurai Coast] once and for all. Over time, however, wars in general start to become burdensome and the Company had been engaged in war against the Portuguese in this western part of the Indies for so many years, that it seemed to have had second thoughts. Considerations of Governor gustaaf willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon regarding the trade of the Dutch East India Company on the Madurai Coast, 1738.1

While the Dutch Republic was engaged in an epic struggle for survival against the combined forces of France, England, the prince-bishopric of Münster and the electorate of Cologne during the Holland War in Europe (1672–1678), Company affairs in Asia during the 1670s were dominated by an interventionist policy on both Java and Ceylon. At the same time, southern Indian politics centred on the struggle over Tanjore, initiated by the successive incursions of the Tevar and the aranmanai into the lands of their northern neighbour. In the process both sides in the cross-cultural encounter came to realise that the price of war was very high indeed. In the words of Van Imhoff, all parties ‘had second thoughts’ and were subsequently forced, be it temporarily or permanently, to adjust their policy accordingly. Similar to the during speculators aggressive investment strategies of the celebrated ‘tulip craze’ of 1636–1637,

1 voc 11297, f. 29, Consideratien van den raad ord. en Ceijlons gouvr. Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff over de handel van de Gen. Ned. O.I. Maatsch. op de Madurese Cust, 22.11.1738; Memoir Left by Gustaaf-Willem Baron van Imhoff, pp. 84–85. The first citation is an obvious reference to the ‘tulip craze’ of 1636–1637.

412 chapter 6 who were ruined by the collapse of the market, the ‘extreme measures’ of the Company and Madurai in the 1670s ruined the fortunes of their respective imperialist leadership. For the Company, the 1670s marked the dawn of a more competitive phase of ‘profitless growth’ in the intra-Asiatic trade and the long-distance trade between Europe and Asia, characterised by the decreasing importance of monopolistic commodities and monopoly positions and increased European (and Asian) competition in ‘non-traditional products’ on relatively open markets. These profound changes, combined with Dutch military adventurism in Java and Ceylon, led to a changing balance of power among leading Company circles. Both the Company Directors and the ‘Batavia-centric’ faction grew increasingly alarmed by the poor results in Europe and the emerging budget deficits in Asia in general and Ceylon and Malabar in particular, resulting from the ‘extreme measures’ of Rijckloff van Goens Senior and Junior. In the late 1670s the ‘Batavia-centric’ faction gained the ears of the Directors in the Dutch Republic and subsequently managed to impose its vision on the Company affairs under the Ceylon administration. The replacement of Governor Van Goens the Younger of Ceylon in October 1679 by Laurens Pijl ended a 21-year- period in which Company policy in Ceylon had been largely determined by the imperialist faction led by the Gentlemen Van Goens. Military overextension also led to serious problems for both the Tevar of Ramnad and the aranmanai. However, whereas the new Marava ruler Raghunatha Tevar or Kilavan Setupati (r. 1674–1710) managed by the end of this period to put the house of Ramnad back in order, the affairs of the aranmanai under Chokkanatha Nayaka (r. 1659–1682) went from bad to worse, reaching virtual anarchy in the late 1670s. In fact, the ‘abdication’ of Chokkanatha Nayaka in favour of his brother Muttu Linga Nayaka a.k.a. Muttu Alakadri Nayaka in early 1677 (r. 1677–1680) was to be followed by the usurpation of the Muslim commander Rustam Khan (1680–1682). The expansion of the Tevar into the lowlands of Tanjore in 1670 strained the old Dutch-Ramnad alliance and initiated a series of talks between Company officials and representatives of the aranmanai between 1670 and 1672, both apprehensive to restore the balance of power on the Madurai Coast in the form of a temporary marriage of convenience. This flurry of diplomatic activities proved to be abortive and was followed by a lull between 1672 and 1674. For one thing, the initial military successes of Madurai’s central authorities against the Tevar and their subsequent conquest of Tanjore (1673) made Company assistance seem superfluous and even counterproductive. For another, with investments in the region still relatively small, the Company continued to concentrate on events elsewhere in Asia in what it considered more vital areas. On Java the

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 413 rapid disintegration of the sultanate of Mataram led to a growing involvement in internal politics, whereas on Ceylon the outbreak of war with Kandy was followed by the incursion and subsequent expulsion of the French from Trincomalee and São Tomé. The period between 1674 and 1676 was arguably the time when the Company, under the leadership of the imperialist faction at Colombo and tempted by the unstable conditions in Madurai (and Ramnad), was more deeply involved than ever in the internal politics of the region. No sooner had the Company forces expelled the French from São Tomé (September 1674) and returned it to the Qutb Shah of Golconda, than ‘advantageous contracts’ were concluded with the aranmanai and the Tevar, respectively. These agreements, along with another substantial loan given to the aranmanai in July 1676, gave the Company extensive rights in the sphere of government. In the imperialist vision, as exemplified by the Gentlemen Van Goens, these agreements were the beginnings of the establishment of a Pax Neerlandica in Southern India and Ceylon and the dominion of the surrounding waters. The Company’s politico-commercial hegemony on land was to be achieved by the establishments of forts and exclusive agreements with indigenous rulers, while the dominium maris was to be achieved via the so-called ‘passes and protection rights’ system enforced by Company vessels cruising the coastal waters (see Chapter 1). Imperialist hopes in this respect were fed by the rapprochement with the lower class Paravas or kamarakkarar, impoverished by the continuing absence of a pearl fishery, the Company’s attempt to control the Indo-Ceylon trade, and the alleged oppression of the Madurai population by the increasingly cash- strapped aranmanai. The Company-kamarakkarar alliance was cemented by the granting of religious freedom to the Paravas in April 1679.2 While similar attempts were made by the imperialists to incorporate the Muslim Maraikkayars of Kayalpatnam into the Company’s patronage network, it was ultimately recognised that they were subjects of the aranmanai and harmful competitors in the Indo-Ceylon trade. This period of cross-cultural contacts ended with the fall from power of the imperialist, ‘Ceylon-centric’ faction, the consolidation of the Tevar state, and the apparent imminent collapse of Madurai proper. Ironically, the loosening grip of the aranmanai would allow for the realisation of the long-standing imperialist goal of a fortified settlement at Tuticorin, while the commercial conflict with the Tevar and his ‘portfolio capitalist’, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar,

2 For analyses of the gradual rapprochement between the Company and the Paravas: Vink, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of the Fishery Coast’; Idem, ‘Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia’; Idem, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’.

414 chapter 6 would usher in two Dutch punitive expeditions, which seemingly tilted the balance of power in favour of the Europeans.

General Framework: Dutch

The 1670s were a troublesome decade for the Dutch, characterised by increased European (and Asian) competition and the decreasing importance of monopolistic products and monopoly positions, such as fine spices and the Company’s privileged position in Japan, the ‘linchpin of the inter-Asian trade’.3 In the so-called ‘Year of Disaster’ (1672), the greater parts of the diluvial East and South of the United Provinces were quickly overrun by the forces of Louis XIV of France, the prince-bishop of Münster, and the elector of Cologne, while French and English fleets threatened to invade the maritime provinces of Holland and Zeeland. With overseas lines of communication effectively cut off, outward-bound fleets with new supplies of men and materiel (including money) were bottled up in the Dutch ports, while the return fleets from Asia with their precious cargoes could only make it home safely by making the cumbersome roundabout voyage ‘achterom’ around the British Isles. At the same time, the proceeds of Company sales in Europe dropped, partly as a result of a decline in demand due to war conditions, oversupply, and an aggressive dumping policy of the Company Directors in the so-called ‘pepper race’ against the English East India Company. Following the outbreak of the war, the States of Holland and Zeeland repeatedly called on the voc chambers to provide men, saltpetre, and cash. Mainly because its charter was about to expire, the Company was finally forced to succumb to government pressure, providing, in addition to saltpetre already delivered, a loan of 2 million guilders to the States of Holland and Zeeland.4 Apart from changes in Europe itself, including the rising tide of protectionism in England, France, and elsewhere, the long-distance trade of Europe with Asia underwent a structural change, with a shift of emphasis from the markets for fine spices (cloves, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon) and pepper in the

3 For convenient surveys of the politic-economic history of the time: De Vries and Van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, pp. 429–448; Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 776–824; Vink and Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, pp. 52 et seq.; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-colonial India; Israel, Dutch Supremacy in World Trade, pp. 292 et seq. 4 Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid bij de voc, pp. 113–114; Idem, Geschiedenis van de voc, pp. 137–138; Israel, Dutch Supremacy in World Trade, pp. 292 et seq.; Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 776– 824; De Vries and Van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, pp. 429–448.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 415

Indonesian archipelago, monopolised or dominated by the Company, to the open, highly competitive textile markets of India. In the wake of the ‘Indian’ or ‘calicoe craze’, the share of fine spices and pepper in the sales value of the Amsterdam chamber declined from 59.24 per cent between 1670/1671 and 1680/1681 to 46.03 per cent between 1680/1681 and 1690/1691, while the share of textiles during the same period increased from 25.01 to 42.12 per cent. In the 18th century, the role of Indian textiles would be partly taken by the equally competitive markets of Mocha (and Java) coffee and Chinese tea.5 These tendencies were to assert themselves more vigorously in the next decade with the onset of the ‘long’ or ‘global eighteenth century’ (1680–1820), witnessing a dramatic expansion in the volume of Euro-Asian trade grafted on the ‘bullion for goods’ pattern with a shift in composition from traditional goods, such as pepper and fine spices, to non-traditional commodities (see Chapter 7). Similar changes were taking place in the intra-Asian trade. The trade with Japan (to which the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed access from 1639 on during the ‘closed country era’ or Sakoku) was one of the major elements in the Company’s domination of the intra-Asian and the Euro-Asian trade through the greater part of the seventeenth century. Asian supplies of bullion had formed an important supplement to supplies sent from Europe. However, the terms of trade at the artificial islet of Deshima, site of the Company factory or ‘Dutch prison’, gradually deterioriated due to the growing concern of the Tokugawa shogunate with the ‘drain’ of bullion due to foreign trade and declining output of domestic gold and silver mines. Following the prohibition of the export of silver in 1668, and two increases in the price of the koban or oval- shaped gold coin between 1670 and 1672, the Japanese authorities introduced the system of ‘appraised trade’, fixing prices applicable to all goods foreigners imported into the country. These measures initiated what has been styled ‘the phase of decline’ (1673–1720) in the Company’s Japan trade. As a result of these changes, the Company Directors were forced to send ever-larger amounts of money from patria (the Dutch Republic) to Asia: 14.6 million guilders in 1660– 1670, 15.6 million guilders in 1670–1680, 27.7 million guilders in 1680–1690, and 36.2 million guilders in 1690–1700.6

5 Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid, pp. 286–287; Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, pp. 12–14, and 269–278; Vink and Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, passim. See also: Gaastra, Geschiedenis van de voc, pp. 127–134; Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schöffer (eds), Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 192. 6 Nachod, Die Beziehungen der Niederländischen Ostindischen Kompagnie zu Japan, pp. ccvii, and 365; Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, pp. 118–141, esp. 129–133; Gaastra, De Geschiedenis van de voc, pp. 139–140; Vink and Winius, The Merchant- Warrior Pacified, pp. 52–53.

416 chapter 6

While commercial profits were diminishing, expenditures in Asia increased rapidly due to the Company’s military adventurism on Java and Ceylon. The disastrous policies of Sultan Amangkurat I (r. 1646–1677) of Mataram, the last of the imperial states of Java, produced the ‘greatest rebellion of the seventeenth century’, leading to the implosion of the dynasty and subsequent intervention of the voc. The rebellion was initiated in 1671 by disaffected Madurese and exiled Makassarese on East Java under the prince of Madura Raden Trunajaya, the Panembahan of Giri, and initially also the estranged crown prince, and successfully played on existing Muslim and anti-Dutch sentiments among the Javanese population. Although Dutch commercial interests were almost entirely limited to the northeast coast of Java, events there were so inextricably involved with the interior that, having opted for a limited intervention in late 1676, the Dutch were obliged in the end to march into the heart of Java. This change in tactics was also partly due to the death of the cautious Governor General Joan Maetsuycker in January 1678 and his replacement by Director-General Van Goens Senior. It is telling that in contrast to his call for a similarly aggressive Ceylon policy, the new Governor General managed to gain support of the Batavia- or ‘Java-centric’ councillors for large-scale Dutch intervention on Java in exchange for extensive politico-commercial concessions. In late 1681, the last resistance against the new ruler of Mataram, Amangkurat II (r. 1677–1703), had been crushed, but at enormous human and financial costs.7 On Ceylon, the expansion into the interior after 1665 led by Governor Van Goens Senior produced a powerful backlash from the ‘Lion King’ Raja Sinha II, ruler of the interior kingdom of Kandy. The first massive attack against the Dutch on numerous fronts occurred in August 1670, forcing the Company to withdraw its lines of defense from the uplands to within its pre-1665 boundaries. Taking advantage of the diversion caused by the intrusion of the ‘Persian squadron’ under Admiral Jacob Blanquet de la Haye sailing into Kottiyar Bay in March 1672, Raja Sinha II launched another series of attacks and fomented uprisings within Dutch-occupied territories, while the third and greatest attack took place in August 1675.8

7 M.C. Ricklefs, War, Culture and Economy in Java, 1677–1726: Asian and European Imperialism in the Early Kartasure Period, asaa Southeast Asia Publications Series 24 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993), pp. 30–68; Idem, A History of Modern Indonesia Since c. 1300, second edn. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 69–78. 8 Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 53–76.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 417

Van Goens’ problems with the ‘Lion King’ of Kandy strengthened the hand of the Batavian government, increasingly involved in the affairs of Mataram, in its opposition to the aggressive policy of the Ceylon government. With Ceylon budget deficits sky-rocketing (peaking at 802,368 guilders in the financial year 1674–1675), Batavia’s determination to enforce a less ambitious mercantile policy, along with appeasement of Raja Sinha II on Ceylon, grew proportionately, gaining an increasingly receptive audience among the Company Directors. As the Gentlemen Seventeen or ‘paymasters’ put it in August 1678, Ceylon and Malabar were ‘two very costly step-children of the Company, which are in a position…to crush us under the weight of their expenses’.9 As a result of all these changes, the financial results of the Company in Asia started to level off after 1670, even producing permanent deficits after 1690. These developments had significant ramifications for the Company’s policy vis-à-vis Madurai, which, despite the growth of commercial involvement in the area during this period, remained of peripheral interest. The value of Dutch imports increased from 63,690 guilders in the financial year 1669–1670 to 212,533 guilders in 1674–1675, but subsequently stabilised for several years around 150,000 guilders. Company exports quadrupled from 30,741 guilders in 1669–1670 to 126,117 guilders in 1678–1679. Gross revenues during this same period doubled from 32,601 guilders (1669–1670) to 67,926 guilders (1678–1679), while net results ranged from a deficit of 37,164 guilders in 1670–1671 to a profit of 40,994 guilders in 1679–1680 (see Table 26). Although these figures indicate a growing involvement in the area, they pale in comparison with the size of Company trade with and profits from its other Indian factories.10 Following the publication and discussion of various policy papers, the ‘Java- centric’ faction at Batavia, with the support of the Company Directors, gained the upper hand over the imperialist faction based on Ceylon. In 1677 a comprehensive program was imposed on Ceylon based on ‘frugality and mercantile means’, prescribing sharp reductions in expenditures on fortification, personnel, and naval power, while urging neutrality and disengagement from indigenous politics. The replacement of Van Goens Junior in late 1679 as governor of Ceylon by Laurens Pijl ended a 21-year-period in which the Gentlemen Van Goens had effectively determined Company policy in Ceylon.

9 Cited in: Idem, pp. 90–91. 10 For the financial results of Surat, Malabar, Ceylon, Coromandel and Bengal during this period, see: Vink and Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, pp. 164–182.

418 chapter 6

Table 26 Dutch imports and exports from the Madurai Coast, plus gross revenues, expenditures and net results, 1669/70–1679/80 (in guilders)

Financial Value of Value of Gross Expenditures Net profits/ year imports exports revenues loss

1669–70 63,690 30,741 132,601 22,448 +110,153 1670–71 76,843 21,229 13,615 50,779 −37,164 1671–72 67,465 73,602 39,682 43,123 −3,441 1672–73 98,590 69,579 41,182 41,633 −451 1673–74 187,006 82,743 45,340 31,749 +13,591 1674–75 212,533 52,497 56,253 45,427 +10,826 1675–76 150,357 75,398 46,347 60,617 −14,270 1676–77 159,476 83,788 55,435 43,400 +12,035 1677–78 136,486 108,251 16,008 47,534 −31,525 1678–79 159,527 126,117 37,949 32,094 +5,855 1679–80 272,961 254,883 67,926 26,932 +40,994

Sources: voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratien over den generalen handel ter Custe Madure 1738. No. 5 Samentreckinge van het geheele beloop der negotie die voor reekeninge van de generale Nederlandsche Compagnie op de Custe van Madure tsedert hare eerste establissementen aldaar gedreven is…tzedert Ao. 1659–60 tot 1737–38; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 638r–638v, Memorie der lasten en winsten der kuste Madure tsedert den jare 1670 en 1671 tot 1689 en 1690.

General Framework: Madurai

As far as the affairs of Madurai are concerned, the 1670s were characterised by the struggle over Tanjore, ‘the spit where all the neighbours are wont to eat the roast before it is even done’.11 The subsequent overextension of Ramnad and Madurai led to the violent implosion of both states, falling prey to external aggression and internal discord. The incursion of the Ramnad army under Chandra Cervaikarar and Raghu natha Tevar’s son Thiru Udaya Tevar,12 into the coastal lands of Tanjore in May 1670 occurred at the instigation of the aranmanai, enraged by the recent

11 voc 898, bub 1674, f. 551, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 19.10.1674. 12 Thiru Udaya Tevar (r. 1710–1725), a son-in-law and possibly also a nephew of Kilavan Setupati. voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 331v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 12.12.1676; L. Bes, ‘Toddlers, Widows, and Bastards Enthroned: Dynastic Succession in Early-Modern South Asia as Observed by the Dutch’, Leidschrift 27, 1 (2012), p. 130. Early 1680, one ‘Tiroerear Teuver’ was dispatched to Trichinopoly as commander of 4,000

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 419 reconquest of Vallamkottai by Vijayaraghava Nayaka (1664), his refusal to pay tribute, and his dubious role in the Madurai-Mysore War. For his part, the Tevar in his ‘immoderate olai’ of August 1670 justified his incursion by the desertion of one of his subjects, one Vanangamuddi, to Tanjore and the alleged harass- ment of the area around Pattukkottai by Tirumunatha Pillai or ‘Wellander wanwierepirmal’ (Valavan Teruvan Veera Perumal?).13 The rapid advance of his most powerful ‘adopted son’ (kumara varkkam), Raghunatha Tevar a.k.a. Tirumalai Setupati, clearly unnerved Chokkanatha Nayaka. Having made his peace with Vijayaraghava Nayaka, the Madurai ruler hastily concluded an agreement with his Tanjore counterpart through the mediation of the Tanjore Brahmin Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya promising to oust the intruders against a monthly payment of 20,000 pardaus. In July 1672, the makeshift Madurai-Tanjore alliance managed to achieve its objective by expelling the Marava army from the Tanjore lowlands.14 Unable to come up with the monthly instalments, however, Vijayaraghava Nayaka had to acquiesce in the installation by the aranmanai of local officials or adikharis, who started to collect the Tanjore tolls and revenues. His appetite

troops by Raghunatha Tevar allegedly to support Chokkanatha Nayaka against Ekoji. See: voc 1361, obp 1681, f. 384v, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680. 13 In Company sources, ‘den Wellanderwan’ is referred to as a robber with his base in the forested interior near Adirampatnam. Valavanpuram is 8 miles northwest of Adiram patnam on the outskirts of Pattukkottai. voc 1277, obp 1671, f. 1585v, Miss gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.5.1670; voc 1274, obp 1671, ff. 206r–207v, Transl. ola Tirumale Chedupadi Kata Teuver aan adml. Van Goens, 30.8.1670; voc 1277, obp 1671, f. 1571r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 29.9.1670; voc 1284, obp 1672, f. 1912r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 1.11.1670; voc 1274, obp 1671, ff. 13v–14r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 30.11.1670; voc 1282, obp 1672, f. 1929r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 13.2.1671; voc 1284, obp 1672, ff. 1954v–1955r, Miss. Jacob van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 5.3.1671; Idem, f. 1984r, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 6.9.1671; voc 1282, obp 1672, ff. 893v–894r, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.10.1671; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1670–1671, pp. 305–306. 14 For detailed information in Company sources on the Madurai-Tanjore alliance against the Tevar: voc 1279, obp 1671, ff. 13v–15v, Secrete resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 4.3–11.3.1671; voc 896, bub 1672, ff. 632–633, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 27.7.1672; voc 1288, obp 1673, ff. 419r–419v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.10.1672; Idem, f. 378r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 28.10.1672; Idem, ff. 453r–453v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.11.1672; voc 1295, obp 1674, ff. 54r–55r, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 23.1.1673; voc 1292, obp 1673, f. 24r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 6.2.1673.

420 chapter 6 whetted, and seeing an opportunity to redress some older grievances, such as the underhanded support of Tanjore during the latest war against Mysore, the reconquest of Vallamkottai by Vijayaraghava Nayaka in 1664, and the alleged refusal of the Tanjore Nayaka to give his daughter in marriage, Chokkanatha Nayaka decided to press on and ordered the siege of the city of Tanjore.15 A relief expedition from Ramnad under Raghunatha Tevar’s successor, Raja Surya Tevar (r. 1673), was crushed by the Madurai talavay Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka, the Marava ruler captured and subsequently summarily executed at Trichinopoly. Thereupon, Ramnad proper was invaded by a Madurai army under the pradhani Chinnatambi Mudaliyar, while Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka captured the city of Tanjore in September 1673. Vijayaraghava Nayaka and his oldest son died a heroic death preceded by the sati of his wives and their offspring, whereupon Chokkanatha Nayaka’s foster-brother, Muttu Alagiri Nayaka, was installed as viceroy.16

15 See: voc 1295, obp 1674, ff. 54r–55r, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 23.1.1673; Idem, f. 59r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 25.2.1673; Idem, f. 82r, Miss. gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 29.4.1673; Idem, f. 127v, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 16.10.1673; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 163–164; Idem (Sathianathaier), Tamilaham in the 17th Century, pp. 85–87; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), p. 58; Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 185, and 190–192; W. Irvine (ed.), Storia do Mogor or Mogul India, 1653– 1708 by Niccolao Manucci (London: J. Murray, 1907), III, pp. 99–100. 16 These series of dramatic events did not fail but to make a profound impression on contemporaries, both Asian and European. See, f.e.: voc 1295, obp 1674, ff. 127r–128r, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 16.10.1673; voc 1304, obp 1675, ff. 323r–324v, Rapp. opperh. Huijsman wegens de jegenwoordige stant der saecken op Madure, 29.3.1674; voc 1302, obp 1675, ff. 613r–613v, Transl. ola Trimele Cedepaddij Cattij Teuver aan superint. Van Goens, 10.6.1674; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1673, p. 327; André Freire in: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 247; Irvine (ed.), Storia do Mogor, III, pp. 99–100; L. Varadarajan (ed.), India in the 17th Century (Social, Economic and Political): Memoirs of François Martin (1670–1694) (New Delhi: Manohar, 1981), I, Part 1, p. 362; H. Froideveaux (ed.), Mémoires de L.A. Bellanger de Lespinay, Vendômois, sur son Voyage aux Indes Orientales (1670–1675) (Vendôme: C. Huet, 1895), pp. 135–136, and 192–194; Ch. Fawcett (ed.), The Travels of the Abbé Carré in India and the Near East 1672 to 1674, Works Issued By the Hakluyt Society, second series, 96 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1947), II, pp. 378–675; Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 185, and 191–199; S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Sources of Vijayanagar History (Madras: University of Madras, 1919), pp. 324 et seq.; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 163–165, and 184; Idem (Sathianathaier), Tamilaham in the 17th Century, pp. 87–88; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 191–193; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, The Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 45, and 58–62.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 421

By the end of 1673 the all-conquering Madurai forces seemed to be in firm control. Yet, the subsequent histories of the aranmanai and the Tevar, though closely interconnected, would take completely different paths. In what can perhaps be called South India’s ‘great divergence,’ Madurai’s central authorities quickly lost control over the course of events and Nayaka affairs descended into virtual anarchy, while Ramnad was consolidated under the astute leadership of Raghunatha Tevar a.k.a. Kilavan Setupati (r. 1674–1710) through a series of military, political, and fiscal reforms. Chokkanatha Nayaka’s conquest of Tanjore and the seemingly impending collapse of Ramnad led to a powerful reaction amongst Madurai’s neighbours, contributing to the increasing destabilisation of the region. To the northwest, simmering Madurai-Mysore hostilities flared up again after 1673 under the ambitious leadership of Chikkadeva Raja (r. 1673–1704), who continued the aggressive policy of the Wodeyar (Udaiyar) rulers of Mysore. In 1673 Chikkadeva Raja himself led an expedition against Madurai, defeating Chokkanatha Nayaka and talavay Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka at Madhuvanna, initiating the conquest of Satyamangalam, Anantagiri, and Dharapuram by Mysore. Pre occupied with fighting off Bijapur and Golconda, Chikkadeva Raja did not resume the initiative until 1678 in what has been called the ‘beginnings of a contest for the south between Mysore and the Marathas’. The Mysorean capture of the forts of Andur and Kuntur, the last two fortresses which Madurai had preserved in the north, would set the stage for the large-scale Mysorean invasion of Madurai after 1680.17

17 For references to hostilities between Madurai and Mysore during this period, especially in 1673 and after 1678: voc 1292, obp 1674, f. 214r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 29.5.1673; voc 897, bub 1673, f. 817, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 30.9.1673; voc 1295, obp 1674, f. 129v, Miss. onderk. Albert van Weede van Tegenepatnam aan gouvr. Paviljoen van Coromandel, 18.10.1673; voc 1292, obp 1674, f. 393v, Miss. Van de Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 9.1.1674; voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 346v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1674; voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 86r, Miss. superint. Van Goens en opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan H. XVII, 31.12.1674; voc 1313, obp 1676, f. 245v, Miss. superint. Van Goens int schip ‘t Wapen van Middelburg aan Batavia, 30.4.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 141v, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 13.10.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 65v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; Idem, f. 313v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.11.1676; Idem, f. 302r, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 31.12.1676; Idem, f. 304r, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 7.1.1677; Idem, f. 488v, Transl. ola Chidambaranatha Chittiaer aan commr. Huijsman, 8.1.1677; voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 736v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en

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To the east, the war with Ramnad took a decisive turn for the worse as the successive invasions of Ramnad under Chinnatambi Mudaliyar (1673) and Kumara Swami Mudaliyar and Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya (1674) were repelled by Sivasankara Pillai, the able commander of the Marava army and the de facto ruler of Ramnad with Chandra Cervaikarar (see further ahead). Chinnatambi Mudaliyar himself was killed, whereas, following the defeat of Kumara Swami Mudaliyar and Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, the war was brought to Madurai proper. Hostilities with the Tevar continued until late 1675 when the aranmanai and Ramnad joined forces against Ekoji Bhonsle, the former Bijapuri commander and founder of the Maratha dynasty at Tanjore (see below).18 The only external frontier of Madurai, which remained relatively calm was that with Travancore to the southwest, although even here tensions run high as well ‘since traditionally there have been some disputes over border territories and the collection of revenues, which previously were paid as a tribute to the Nayaka of Madurai, but nowadays are received by the raja of Travancore’.19

raad van Ceijlon aan H XVII, 9.2.1677; James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, ff. 63–64, Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 13.11.1677; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 14v–15r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 171–174; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 196–197, and 201–203; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 76 (1917), p. 76; Bertrand, La Mission de Maduré, III, pp. 247, 249–250, and 272; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, I, pp. 274–291; Nayeem, External Relations of the Bijapur Kingdom, p. 141. 18 For references to the hostilities between the aranmanai and Ramnad: voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 308v–309r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.11.1673; voc 1304, obp 1675, ff. 321v, and 327r–327v, Rapp. Huijsman wegens de jegenwoordige stant der saecken op Madure, 29.3.1674; voc 1302, obp 1675, ff. 613r–613v, Transl. ola Trimele Cedepaddij Cattij Teuver aan superint. Van Goens, 10.6.1674; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 408v–409v, Transl. ola bramine Timmersa Naijck aan de cannecappel van de kaptn. van Tuticorin Huijsman, 15.11.1674; voc 1299, obp 1675, ff. 133v–134r, Miss. Vorwer, Thomas van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 30.11.1674; Idem, f. 150r, Transl. ola vrijheer Tiremale Cheudijpadij Cata Theuver aan superint. Van Goens, 5.12.1674. For the conclusion of peace: voc 1307, obp 1676, f. 681r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 1.2.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 46r, and 66v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676. Manucci ascribes the initial successes of Chinnatambi Mudaliyar, ‘a man astute, sagacious and valorious’, to the fact that Raghunatha Tevar failed to deploy 12 pieces of artillery left behind in the charge of 70 Europeans. See: Irvine (ed.), Storia do Mogor, III, pp. 95–98. 19 voc 1304, obp 1675, f. 324v, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordige stant der saecken op Madure, 29.3.1674. Ratheeshkumar discusses the role of the Aramboli Pass in the history of south Travancore, offering an easy gateway to invading armies from the east. See:

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 423

Inside Madurai proper, many Madurai palaiyakkarars were anxious to preserve their relative autonomy from the aranmanai, especially those situated in ill-defined, marginal border areas. In early 1674, for instance, during the hostilities between the Madurai central authorities and the Tevar, a Dutch observer reported that two palaiyakkarars located on the coast on the border with Ramnad, one Utappa Nayaka and Katappa Nayaka, defected to the side of the Marava ruler reportedly ‘because due to the weakening of the Tevar, they feared to become too dependent on the Nayaka of Madurai and subsequently would receive little or no respect’.20 The Maravas from the ‘miniature Pandya dynasty’ based at Tenkasi were a special case, revolting between 1673 and 1676 after its conquest by Vadamalaiyappa Pillai in 1661.21

N. Ratheeshkumar, ‘Historical Geography in Transition: A Case Study of South Travancore’, Journal of Kerala Studies 13, 1–4 (1986), pp. 175–188. Also: Sathyanatha Aiyar (Sathi anathaier), Tamilaham in the 17th Century, pp. 118–124. This collection of essays contains a chapter on the ‘vassalage’ of Travancore vis-a-vis Madurai. Unfortunately, the historiography of Travancore (and Kerala or Malabar) is heavily tilted towards the Dutch impact in the seventeenth century and to the reigns of Marthanda Varma (r. 1729–1758) and Rama Varma (1758–1798) in the eighteenth century. The most recent study is: De Lannoy, The Kulasekhara Perumals of Travancore. 20 voc 1304, obp 1675, f. 327v, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der saecken op Madure, 29.3.1674. A 1677 list of ‘rebellious’ palaiyakkarars refusing to pay their tribute to the aranmanai includes the Tevar, Manur, Udaiyarpalaiyam, Ramachandra Nayaka, Kasturappa Nayaka, Bengarappa Nayaka, ‘Ellia Nayaka’, Gutti Mudaliyar, Rama Reddi, and Lingama Reddi, with total arrears of 1,308,000 pardaus ‘besides many other palaiyakkarars, who enjoy the revenues of their lands as sovereigns’. In addition, the Maravas from Uttamapalaiyam (uthamapalayam), and the inhabitants of ‘Colimale’, Nattam, and various other territories reportedly refused to pay any tribute to the aranmanai whatsoever. See: James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, ff. 43–53, Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 13.11.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 299, and 350. 21 According to a 1675 report, the ‘kingdom’ of Tenkasi consisted of 16 villages, 12 Dutch miles by 8 Dutch miles [1 Dutch mile = 4.7 English miles], inhabited by 8,000–10,000 Maravas. An indigenous informant claimed that the last ruler, Rani Nayinar Pandya (‘Neijna Pandare’) died in imprisonment at Palaiyamkottai after 647 years in captivity, whereupon the dynasty became extinct. See: voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1271v–1272r, Rapp. boekhr. Krijn Caperman aan commt. Huijsman, 13.5.1677. See also: voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 722r, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.11.1674; voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 263v, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 1.12.1674; Idem, f. 66r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.12.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 21r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1675; voc

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But the most important reaction came from the north, from Bijapur under Sikandar Adil Shah (r. 1672–1686). In order to support his claims to the overlordship of Tanjore, the Bijapuri ruler dispatched his Maratha commander Ekoji Bhonsle with an army allegedly to reinstate the local Nayaka dynasty in the person of Vijayaraghava’s son, Chengamala Das, who had managed to escape the carnage during the Madurai conquest of Tanjore.22 Although the subsequent siege of Tanjore, starting in May 1674, was briefly interrupted in the face of the arrival of Madurai reinforcements under Kavita Nayaka, Ekoji resumed the blockade of the Tanjore capital in January 1675, profiting from a rupture between the viceroy of Tanjore, Muttu Alagiri (or Alakadri) Nayaka, and Chokkanatha Nayaka.23 In December 1675, in what the Dutch described as

1316, obp 1677, f. 65v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676. 22 On the forced removal of Chengamala Das from the Company factory at Tegenampatnam, Sher Khan Lodi (d. 1681), the Bijapuri governor of Valigondapuram, intimated ‘that the kingdom of Tanjore had been conquered by the king of Bijapur and left under its own ruler as a boon against the payment of an annual tribute of 3 lakhs [300,000] of pardaus. As his majesty was no longer receiving this, he was rightfully the first to restore this young prince without any pretensions of other rulers’. voc 1295, obp 1674, ff. 132r–133r, Miss. onderk. Van Weede van Tegenepatnam aan gouvr. Paviljoen van Coromandel, 19.10.1673. John Fryer styles the Tanjore and Madurai ‘Rajas’ and the other rulers of the Karnatak ‘disjointed Members of Visiapour’, who are ‘as little Absolute as the rest of the Princes of Visiapour, being Tributary, or rather Feudatory, obliged as well by Allegiance as by Purse…’. See: W. Crooke (ed.), A New Account of East India and Persia Being Nine Years’ Travels 1672–1681 by John Fryer, Works Issued By the Hakluyt Society, second series, 20 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1912), pp. 43–44. 23 For the Bijapur response under Ekoji: voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 303r–304r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.11.1673; Idem, ff. 393r–393v, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 9.1.1674; Idem, f. 390r, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.1.1674; Idem, f. 337v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.1.674; Idem, f. 173r, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 28.1.1674; voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 346v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1674; Idem, ff. 408v–409r, Transl. ola bramine Timmersa Naijck aan de cannecappel van Huijsman, 15.11.1674; Idem, f. 723v, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.11.1674; Idem, ff. 25v–27r, Miss. superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; voc 1299, obp 1675, ff. 133v–134r, Miss. opperh. Verwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 30.11.1674; Idem, ff. 139r–139v, Miss. Verwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 425 the ‘final act in the Tanjore tragedy’, the city fell to the Bijapuri general, Muttu Alagiri Nayaka being forced to take refuge at Ariyalur and thence at Mysore.24 Having initially duly restored Chengamala Das, Ekoji shortly thereafter decided to usurp the Tanjore throne himself, effectively stepping into the vacuum left by the defeat of Muttu Alagiri Nayka, the inaction of Chokkanatha Nayaka, the impotence of Chengamala Das, and the disintegration of the Bijapuri state.25

Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 18.12.1674; voc 1297, obp 1675, f. 1048v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 25.1.1675; voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 349v–350r, Miss. Verwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 30.4.1675; Idem, ff. 245v, and 247r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 30.4.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 21r–21v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1675; voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 362v–363v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 8.7.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 164v–165r, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 4.10.1675; Idem, f. 480r, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 20.10.1675; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh- Register 1674, p. 14; A. Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, Fondateur de Pondichéry (1665–1696), 3 vols. (Paris: Société d’Éditions Géographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales, 1932), II, pp. 9–10; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 167–168; Idem (Sathianathaier), Tamilaham in the 17th Century, pp. 90–93; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 194–195; Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 62–63, and 74; M.H. Rama Sharma, The History of the Vijayanagara Empire (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1980), II, pp. 325–326; V. Prabakhara Shastry (ed.), Tanjavuri Andhra Rajula Charitra (Hyderabad: Manimanjari Prachurana, 1984); Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, pp. 247–248; Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, p. 201. 24 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 182r–28v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.12.1675. See also: Idem, f. 480r, Miss. Verwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 20.10.1675; Idem, ff. 496r, and 497r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 6.11.1675; Idem, ff. 499v–500v, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.11.1675; Idem, f. 331r, Rapp. Huijsman van den presente toestandt der saecken op Madure, 5.12.1675; Idem, ff. 493v–494r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Rhee van Nagapatnam, 14.12.1675; Idem, f. 282r, Miss. gouvr. van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.12.1675, f. 282r. Martin dates the fall of Tanjore in January 1676: Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, p. 35. 25 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 483r–483v, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 9.11.1675; Idem, ff. 486r–486v, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 10.11.1675; Idem, f. 500r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.11.1675; Idem, ff. 303v–304r, Rapp. Vorwer wegens de toestand van ‘s Comps. zaken tot Nagapatnam, 20.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 65v–66v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; Idem, f. 23r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van

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Chokkanatha Nayaka undertook some halfhearted attempts to regain control of Tanjore by solliciting military assistance from neighbouring Asian and European powers (including the Dutch)26 and engaging in a series of ceremonies to ritually cleanse himself from an apparent impurity. It can be no coincidence that reports about the Madurai ruler’s ‘contagious or other infectious disease’ and his apparent devotion to religious pursuits emerged around the time of the loss of Tanjore.27 These efforts proved insufficient to turn the tide. Chokkanatha Nayaka abdicated ca. January or February 1677 in favour of his younger brother (sinna turai, lit. ‘junior master’ or ‘small gentleman’) or heir apparent (irandavatu pattam), Muttu Linga Nayaka a.k.a. Muttu Alakadri Nayaka (r. 1677–1680). Contemporary European and Asian observers agree on the fact of Chokkanatha’s abdication, but they differ as to the reason for the transfer of power. According to a Dutch

Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 19.2.1676; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 168–170; Idem (Sathianathaier), Tamilaham in the 17th Century, pp. 93–97; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 196–197; Rangachari, ‘The Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 74–75; Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 201–202; Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 248; Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Sources of Vijayanagar History, pp. 326–327; Rama Sharma, The History of the Vijayanagara Empire, II, pp. 326–328. 26 For negotiations with neighbouring rulers included Bijapuri nobles, such as Sher Khan Lodi, Nasir Mahmud Khan, and Santoji Ghorpade, the rulers of Ariyalur and Udaiyar palaiyam, and others, see: voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 98v–99r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.5.1676; Idem, ff. 447r–447v, Transl. ola Sjockenade Naijck aan opperk. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam, 17.11.1676; Idem, f. 313r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.11.1676; Idem, f. 291v, Miss. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 1.12.1676; Idem, f. 336v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.12.1676; Idem, f. 340v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 23.12.1676; Idem, f. 304r, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 7.1.1677; Idem, ff. 488r–488v, Transl. ola Chidam baranatha Chittiaer aan commt. Huijsman, 8.1.1677; Idem, f. 175v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 20.1.1677; voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 736v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.2.1677; voc 1329, obp 1678, f. 1159r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 18.2.1677. Negotiations with Europeans included the Dutch, English at Madras, and French at Pondichéry. See: Ch. Fawcett (ed.), The English Factories in India, new series, vol. II: The Eastern Coast and Bengal, 1670–1677 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), pp. 174, and 174 n. 3. 27 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 496r and 497r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 6.11.1675; Idem, f. 499v, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.11.1675; Idem, f. 31r, Rapp. Huijsman van den presenten toestandt der saecken op de custe van Madure, 5.12.1675.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 427 account, the Madurai ruler abdicated in response to the defection to Ekoji Bhonsle of three sons of two of his closest relatives, the talavay Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka and Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, along with 4,000 followers. Thereupon, Chokkanatha ‘had attempted to commit suicide, but, this being prevented, handed over the government to his brother’.28 In 1678, André Freire, a Jesuit Father of the Madurai Mission, claimed that Chokkanatha Nayaka was forced to abdicate as the leading palaiyakkarars were disgusted by his conduct and imprisoned him under pretext of insanity. François Martin, the ‘founder of Pondichéry’, observed in his memoirs that Chokkanatha abdicated, ‘acknowledging his incapacity or for other personal reasons,…which was approved by all his officers’. An 18th-century Telugu manuscript claims that Chokkanatha directed his brother to manage affairs as he was employing himself in religious pursuits. A contemporary Dutch eyewitness account at Trichinopoly of November 1677 asserts that Chokkanatha, having initially abdicated voluntarily in favour of his younger brother, subsequently had second thoughts. It also describes Chokkanatha’s house arrest and the daily skirmishes between his followers and the Muslim cavalry and foot soldiers surrounding the compound.29

28 The report of De Geus, dated February 24, is cited in: voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 17r–17v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1677; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1677, p. 105. See also: Idem, f. 40v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.6.1677; Idem, ff. 212r–212v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677. Martin places the accession of Muttu Linga Nayaka in March 1677, see: Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, p. 86. For information on the system of dual rule, see: Rangachari, ‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, The Indian Antiquary 44 (1915), p. 118. 29 Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 272; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, p. 86; Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, p. 203; James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, ff. 43–53, Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 13.11.1677. To some extent, the ‘Beschrijving’, compiled with the help of ‘several old Brahmins’, can be considered as a legitimation of the reign of the new ruler Muttu Linga Nayaka, as it attempts to discredit Chokkanatha as being an illegitimate ruler, greedy and unwilling to part from his accumu- lated treasures, and averse to protecting his subjects. Sathyanatha Aiyangar places the abdication of Chokkanatha Nayaka after the treaty between Shivaji and Ekoji of March 1678, but this date is clearly too late. At the Navarattiri festival of 1678, Muttu Linga Nayaka traveled to the city of Madurai to undergo his yearly coronation, the pattapicekam (‘ritual unction’), which was repeated at least once a year to renew the king’s sovereignty. A Company account of May 1678 reports that he had travelled from Trichinopoly to the city of Madurai in order to receive the sceptre (cenkol) and be infused with cosmic power. The report is corroborated by letters from Sher Khan Lodi to François Martin. Having taken refuge at Trichinopoly, the erstwhile governor of Valigondapuram in June 1678 informed

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As the two brothers and their respective followers were battling it out on the streets of Trichinopoly,30 the affairs of the aranmanai quickly descended into virtual anarchy. In March 1677 the Maratha chief Shivaji Bhonsle invaded the Bijapur Carnatic following a tacit understanding with the Mughal general Bahadur Khan, and Abul Hasan Qutb Shah of Golconda (r. 1672–1687) and his minister, the Telugu Brahmin Madanna Pandit (d. 1686). Shivaji was attracted by claims to the jagir of his father Shahaji, held by his half-brother Ekoji, and the dissolution of the Bijapuri state due to factional warfare at the court between the Afghan party under Bahlol Khan and Deccani (Dakhni) party under Khawas Khan (d. 1676), along with the rebellion and internal discord among local independent-minded ‘Bijapuri’ officers, such as Sher Khan Lodi (d. 1681), Nasir Mahmud Khan (d. 1680), and Ekoji Bhonsle. Having captured all of Gingee by July 1677 from Sher Khan Lodi and Nasir Mahmud Khan, Shivaji’s half-brother Santoji Ghorpade defeated Ekoji in November 1677 and subsequently concluded an agreement in March 1678 effectively dividing their father’s patrimony.31

Martin that the Nayaka of Madurai upon arrival in Trichinopoly had refused to give him an audience. voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 24r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.5.1678; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 63, 301, 301 n. 129, and 350–351; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 133–134. See also: Idem, f. 28v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.6.1678; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madurai, p. 181; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 201. For a description of the pattapicekam: Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 38–43; James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., ff. 48–53, Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 29, 302–303, and 351–352. 30 An insightful view of the ‘indigenous revolts and revolutions at this court and all across the city (which are increasing daily)’ resulting from the ‘strange fantasies or rather foolish acts of these two brothers’ is provided by the Company resident at Trichinopoly Adolff Bassingh. See: voc 1330, obp 1678, ff. 922v–923v, Extract miss. resident Bassingh uijt Tritchenapalij naar Tuticorin, 25.11.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 366–367, and 373– 374. For further references to the fraternal conflict: voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 212r–212v, Miss GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 24r, Miss. gouvr. van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.5.1678; Idem, f. 28v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.6.1678; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 80v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 2.6.1679; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1838r–1839r, Consideratiën opperk. Van Rhee en provl. koopman Van Vliet van des E. Comps. belangh en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1678, p. 54. 31 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 64v–66r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 11.6.1677; Idem, ff. 239r–239v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 14.9.1677; Idem, f. 373r, Extract dagreg. assistent Bassingh in de stadt Tritchenapalij. 26.11.1677; Idem, f. 923v, Extract miss. Bassingh uijt Tritchenapalij aan

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 429

In Madurai, Muttu Linga Nayaka’s reign ended sometime in 1680 with a military coup initiated by Rustam Khan (d. 1682), the talakartan of Trichinopoly. Reinstalling Chokkanatha Nayaka as a puppet ruler, the Muslim general served as the de facto ruler of Madurai between 1680 and early 1682. Unable to rally sufficient support, Rustam Khan’s usurpation marked the low-point in the affairs of the aranmanai as it found itself surrounded by the four armies of Mysore, Ekoji, the Tevar, and Sambhaji, Bhonsle (r. 1680–1689) the son and successor of Shivaji.32

Tuticorin, 29.1.1677; Idem, f. 374r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 29.11.1677; Idem, ff. 396r, and 400r–402r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 3.12.1677; Idem, f. 153r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.12.1677; Idem, ff. 598r–598v, and 604v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 22.12.1677; Idem, ff. 644r–644v, 646r, and 651v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge, 13.1.1678; voc 1340, obp 1679, ff. 1214r–1215r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.2.1678; Idem, ff. 1217r–1217v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapat nam aan Batavia, 14.3.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 14v–15r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; voc 1340, obp 1679, ff. 1273r–1274v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 11.5.1678; Idem, f. 1277v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 15.5.1678; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1677, pp. 234, and 319; Idem, Dagh- Register 1678, pp. 54, 149, and 458; Subrahmanyam, ‘The Politics of Fiscal Decline’; J.N. Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 5 vols. (Calcutta: M.C. Sarkar, 1924–1930), IV, pp. 240–248; Idem, Shivaji and His Times, second edn. (New York and London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1920), pp. 322–352; J.F. Richards, The Mughal Empire, The New Cambridge History of India I.5 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 213–215; Nayeem, External Relations of the Bijapur Kingdom, pp. 108, and 205–210; Verma, History of Bijapur, pp. 172–175, and 204–205; Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shahi Dynasty, pp. 634–637; Sathyanatha Aiyangar, History of the Nayaks of Madurai, pp. 174–180; Idem (Sathianathaier), Tamilaham in the 17th Century, pp. 97–114; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 196–199; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 77–78; Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, pp. 269–272; Fawcett (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1670–1677, II, pp. 187–189. Gordon’s work on the Marathas is somewhat disappointing and sheds virtually no light on this crucial episode: S. Gordon, The Marathas, 1600–1818, The New Cambridge History of India II.4 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 32 Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayakas of Madurai, p. 181; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 201–202; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), p. 96. Rustam Khan was probably a Pathan or Rajput Muslim, who had reportedly been a confidant of Chokkanatha Nayaka from his youth. Starting as mercenary soldiers (iravuttan, irauttars, ‘cavalier, horseman, trooper’, title of certain class of Tamil-speaking Muslims) under their own cavalry regiments, he and his relatives had been patronised by the Madurai rulers and used in various positions. In 1676, for instance, Rustam Khan was dispatched by Chokkanatha Nayaka as an ambassador to Sher Khan

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A veritable apocalyptic image of the state of affairs was painted in 1678 by André Freire. Describing the havoc wrought by the Four Horsemen of death, famine, pestilence, and war, the Jesuit father in millenarian terms predicted the imminent collapse of Madurai: ‘everything seems to indicate that this realm, so powerful twenty years ago, will soon fall prey to its enemies, or rather victim of the foolish policy of its own government’.33 The political history of Ramnad after 1673 stands in shrill, positive contrast with that of the aranmanai. The consolidation of the Ramnad state was achieved, under the astute and ruthless leadership of Raghunatha Tevar, through a series of military, political, and fiscal reforms between 1674 and 1679. The military situation of Ramnad improved radically through the defeat of two subsequent invasions by the aranmanai under Chinnatambi Mudaliyar (1673) and Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya and Kumara Swami Mudaliyar (1674) by the Ramnad army led by Sivasankara Pillai.34 Peace between Ramnad and the

Lodi to muster support against Ekoji, and was subsequently promoted to the rank of cartar or sartar (sardar, Persian, ‘commander, officer’) over 4,000 horse by Muttu Linga Nayaka. Rustam Khan may have been the commander of the 1,000 Muslim cavalry and 2,000 foot surrounding the compound of Chokkanatha Nayaka, holding Chokkanatha and 200 of his followers captive at Trichinopoly in November 1677. Reportedly, the combined forces of Madurai in 1677 consisted of merely 12,000 foot and 2,000 horse. While a foot soldier earned 10 to 16 fanams (10 fanams = 1 pardau), a horseman, the majority of which were Muslim, earned 8–16 pardaus per month, depending on physical ability, equipment, and quality of the horse, respectively. Despite the presence of a commander- in-chief or talavay (Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka), the separate military commanders, including various Muslim captains, wielded absolute command over their regiments. According to the Dutch, influenced by notions of military orientalism (see Chapter 1), the Muslim soldiers (along with the Maravas) were supposedly more warlike than the ‘effeminate’ local troops. Apart from their services as horsemen and soldiers, Muslim recruits also were important as Persianate courtiers and occasional medicinal healers (hakims). See: Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 35, 185–186, and 203–204; S. Bayly, ‘The Limits of Islamic Expansion in South India’, in: Dallapiccola and Zingel-Avé Lallemant (eds), Islam and Indian Religions I, pp. 465–467; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 447r–447v, Transl. Baddegase ola Sjockenade Neijck van Madure aan opperk. Verwer en raad van Nagapatnam, 17.11.1676; James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, ff. 70–79, Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 13.11.1677; voc 1330, obp 1678, ff. 922v–923v, Extract miss. Bassingh uit Trichinopoli aan Tuticorin, 25.11.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 90, 312–315, and 355–357. 33 Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 273. 34 voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 308v–309r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.11.1673; voc 1304, obp 1675, ff. 321v, and 327r, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoodigen stant der saecken op Madure, 29.3.1674; voc 1302,

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 431 aranmanai was concluded in late 1675, as the two rivals decided to join forces against Ekoji Bhonsle, founder of the Maratha dynasty at Tanjore, in the wake of the ouster of the Madurai viceroy Muttu Alagiri Nayaka.35 Apart from the aranmanai, Raghunatha Tevar also managed to keep Ekoji at bay. Following his conquest of Tanjore, the Maratha ruler attempted to exploit the malcontent within Marava ranks and extend his dominions further southward into Ramnad territory. These attempts were only briefly interrupted as a result of the Maratha fraternal squabbles between Shivaji and Ekoji (November 1677−March 1678). In the fight against the Maratha cavalry, Raghunatha Tevar and the Marava infantry received crucial support from Sher Khan Lodi and several hundred horse. Following his defeat by Shivaji in July 1677, the erstwhile governor of Valigondapuram subsequently sought asylum at Ariyalur and Trichinopoly. Being rejected in October 1678, however, he, along with his son Ibrahim Khan Lodi and a small retinue, was forced to join the ranks of Raghunatha Tevar. In April 1679, following a series of indecisive skirmishes between Ekoji’s cavalry and Marava muskettry, both parties decided to come to terms. His services no longer needed, Sher Khan Lodi was dumped shortly thereafter.36 The military consolidation of the Ramnad state was confirmed by

obp 1675, ff. 613r–613v, Transl. ola Trimele Cedepaddij Cattij Teuver aan superint. Van Goens, 10.6.1674; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 408v–409v, Transl. ola bramine Timmersa Naijck aan de cannecappel van Huijsman, 15.11.1674; voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 150r, Transl. ola vrijheer Tiremale Cheude Padij Cata Theuver aan superint. Van Goens, 5.12.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 21r–21v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1675; Idem, f. 141v, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 13.10.1675. 35 For the conclusion of peace between the aranmanai and the Tevar: voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 46r–46v, and 65v–66v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676. For the collaboration between the aranmanai and the Tevar against Ekoji: voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 340v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 23.12.1676; Idem, f. 302r, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 31.12.1676; Idem, f. 304r, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 7.1.1677; Idem, f. 401v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman, 12.1.1677; Idem, f. 175v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 20.1.1677. 36 Similar to the aranmanai, Ekoji learned the hard way that, though the Maratha cavalry was superior in the open terrain, Marava guerrilla warfare was ideally suited to the local rugged conditions in Ramnad. As Martin observed: ‘[The Nayaka of the Maravas] has about 50,000 infantry, including close to 30,000 musketteers, but all these troops are only useful in the woods, passes and other places where cavalry cannot be deployed. In the open field 1,000 horse would be enough to defeat them…’. Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, p. 159. Unfortunately for the Company, the Dutch factory at Adirampatnam was located on

432 chapter 6 the shift of the capital from Pogalur to Ramnad, the construction of a stone fort instead of mud ramparts, and an increase in the strength of the army to 25,000–30,000.37

the boundary of these ecological zones. The Company records of this period contain detailed information on these series of events: voc 1297, obp 1675, f. 1048v, Miss. opperh. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 25.1.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 161r, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 4.10.1675; Idem, ff. 486r–486v, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 10.11.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 92v–94r, and 98v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.5.1676; Idem, f. 121r, Miss. gouvr. van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1676; Idem, ff. 313r, and 316r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.11.1676; Idem, f. 331v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 12.12.1676; Idem, f. 338v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.12.1676; Idem, ff. 340v, and 342v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 23.12.1676; Idem, f. 302r, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 31.12.1676; Idem, f. 175v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 20.1.1677; voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1159r–1159v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 18.2.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 644r–644v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 13.1.1678; voc 1340, obp 1679, ff. 1214r, 1215r, and 1217–1217v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.2.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 14v–15r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; voc 1340, obp 1679, f. 1277v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 15.5.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 28v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.6.1678; voc 1340, obp 1679, ff. 1303r–1303v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.8.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 112r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 11.10.1678; Idem, ff. 110r–110v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 16.10.1678; Idem, f. 292r, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 20.11.1678; Idem, f. 294r, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.12.1678; Idem, ff. 444v–445r, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 24.12.1678; Idem, f. 140r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1679; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 26v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.4.1679; Idem, ff. 72v–73r, and 80r–80v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 2.6.1679; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1678, pp. 149, 458, and 642. See also: Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 150, 154, and 158–163. 37 In April 1680, the overall strength of the Ramnad army was reported to be between 25,000 and 30,000 men. See: voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 174r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Viet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 6.4.1680; voc 1361, obp 1681, f. 384r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 22v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, The

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 433

In addition to military consolidation, Raghunatha Tevar also succeeded in strengthening his grip over Ramnad politically by effectively crushing all internal opposition from influential courtiers and members of the leading lineages, local power holders, and rival claimants to the throne. An important step in this process was the execution of the ‘kingmaker’ and commander-in-chief Chandra Cervaikarar and two of the leading councillors, Sivasankara and Kariappa Pillai, in early 1676. This triumvirate had been the de facto rulers of Ramnad following the elevation of Raghunatha Tevar until the Marava ruler ended their usurpation ‘with his own hands and back-sword’.38 In the short run, the execution seemed to backfire as it was followed by the defection of several leading members of Ramnad’s political establishment to the side of Ekoji. Defectors included two relatives of Chandra Cervaikarar, Perianna and ‘Bicham’ Cervaikarar, and the ‘Tevar’s best general’, one ‘Wedda’ Tevar, along with 3,000 and 5,000 Marava warriors, respectively. The ranks of these malcontents were swelled even more by the ‘defection’ of the Kallars under a certain Chandra Tondaiman, the Appanar Nattu Marava chief Raghuvanna Tevar, and Tirumunatha Pillai or ‘Wellanderwirepirmael’ (Valavan Teruvan Viri Perumal?), operating in the vicinity of Adirampatnam.39 Similarly, rival claimants to the throne, such as Tadiya Tevar, Sangra Tevar, and one Chokkanatha Setupati or Setu Ranga Raja, were appeased via a combination of persuasion and military force, while peace with the aranmanai

Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), p. 45; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 276; Kadhirvel, History of the Maravas, 1700, p. 35. 38 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 164r, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 4.10.1675; Idem, f. 321r, Rapp. Vorwer wegens de toestand van ‘s Comps zaken tot Nagapatnam, 20.12.1675; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 832r, Relaas commr. Huijsman wegens de nuttigheden die de Cie. in’t huren der Madurese zeehavens zou komen te genieten, 11.4.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 83v–84r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.4.1676; Idem, ff. 92v–94r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.5.1676; Idem, f. 121r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1676. 39 Indicative of the gradual improvement of the situation of Raghunatha Tevar are the vicissitudes of ‘Wedda’ Tevar. In October 1676, ‘Wedda’ Tevar defected with 5,000 men from the environs of Adirampatnam to the side of Ekoji. He was subsequently taken captive by Santoji Ghorpade in the battle with Ekoji in November 1677. Handed over to the aranmanai, he was released and placed at the command of 2,000 peons. Serving under Ekoji as commander of the fortified pagoda of Tirumakkottai, ‘Wedda’ Tevar was killed in a surprise attack by Raghunatha Tevar in late 1678.

434 chapter 6

(late 1675) deprived claimants such as Chokkanatha Setupati from critical external support.40 In early 1677, Raghunatha Tevar reportedly was gradually gaining control of the situation, ‘having learned the hard way to be more cautious, ingratiating himself with many chiefs, receiving support from the Nayaka of Madurai, and assuming command of the army in person. Thus, he has forced the rebellious chiefs to retreat and recaptured the most considerable places of his country’.41 A crucial role in the fiscal consolidation of the Ramnad state was performed by the ‘portfolio capitalists’, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars, members of the Kilakkarai-based family of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir or Citakkati, ‘the prince of poets and ports’: Abd al-Qadir’s older brother (d. 1688), his brother’s younger son Citakkati Pillai called Raghunatha (d. 1698), Abd al-Qadir himself (d. 1708), and the fourth, his son (d. 1710). The last member of the Periya Tambi family, who had served the Tevars, was later reinstalled as regent of the lowlands and given the permission to bear the honourific names ‘Vijaya Raghunatha’ again after Vijaya Raghunatha Setupati a.k.a. Thiru Udaya Tevar (r. 1710–1725). Abd al-Qadir and his relatives belonged to the Tamil Shafi’i Muslim community of maritime traders settled on the southeastern coast, known as Maraikkayar (Tamil marakkalam, ‘boat’). Their heads went by the title Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, granted to the family by Raghunatha or Kilavan Setupati, ruler of Ramnad.42 A 1665 estimate put the number of Muslim inhabitants of the Ramnad and Madurai ‘port-hamlets’ at 22,640, Kayalpatnam

40 Tadiya Tevar was the palaiyakkarar of Siruvalli and a close relative of Tirumalai Setupati. Raghunatha Tevar appeased him by giving him one of his cousin sisters in marriage. In late 1676, Sangra Tevar and his followers reportedly were seeking protection from the aranmanai under favourable conditions. Chokkanatha Setupati or Setu Ranga Raja was initially supported by the aranmanai, but failed to generate much popular support. A reference to the lawful son of ‘Triveodea Teuver’ [son of Tirumalai Setupati] can be found in: voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 331v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge, 12.12.1676. 41 voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 175v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 20.1.1677. 42 For a discussion of the role of ‘portfolio capitalists’ in general and the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars in particular see Chapter 1 and: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 77–80. See also: Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 264–304; Shulman and Subrahmanyam, ‘Prince of Poets and Ports’; Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, esp. pp. 79–92; Arasaratnam, ‘A Note on Periathamby Marikkar’; Bes, ‘The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits’.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 435

(10,000), Kulasekharapatnam (5,400), and Kilakkarai (3,200) being the most prominent.43 The growing power of Ramnad dovetailed with the ambitions of the Maraikkayars, who played a key role in the process of commercialisation allowing the Tevar to consolidate his domains. The first specific reference in Company records to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar as the ‘Tevar’s merchant’ is in a 1678 qaul, granting the Periya Tambi the monopoly of trade in Ramnad in chanks, rockfish skins, and chaya roots. There are, however, indications that the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar may have had, at least from the early 1670s, close commercial relations with the Bijapuri governor of Valigondapuram, Sher Khan Lodi. The incorporation of the services of this Maraikkayar community of political merchants by Raghunatha Tevar would set the stage for the open conflict between Ramnad and the Company in the next period.44

Abortive Negotiations, 1670–1672

The rapid conquest of the lowlands of Tanjore by the Tevar after May 1670 unnerved both the Company and the aranmanai, since it threatened to upset the balance of power in the region. Chokkanatha Nayaka reportedly was particularly upset about Raghunatha Tevar’s usurpation of certain honourary titles and rights, such as lord of the pearl fishery, a title he asserted by holding a pearl market at Rameswaram. Following a long exposé about the repeated treacherous behaviour of the Tevar, the ‘perjurious and disloyal rebel’, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar in February 1671 informed Pijl that Chokkanatha Nayaka had felt himself compelled to make an oath vowing to oust the Tevar from Tanjore and curtail his pride ‘as he did no longer heed the honour of his lord’. According to the Tirunelveli governor, the Madurai ruler had renounced his honourific titles and had his beard grown long and tied into knots, vowing ‘not to shave it off before his grievances had been avenged’. At the same time, Van Goens Senior, commenting on the recent conquests of the Tevar, observed that the Tevar had become too powerful for the Nayaka

43 voc 1251, obp 1666, f. 783, Rapp. gedaen door Capptn. Van Rheede, 7.10.1665. 44 voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 141v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 18.12.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 159v–160r, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 4.10.1675; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 887v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 23.9.1676; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 110v–111v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 16.10.1678.

436 chapter 6 of Madurai. Whereas the Marava ruler previously used to call the Company his protector and overlord, in the so-called ‘immoderate olai’ of August 1670 he considered it his subordinate and tributary. Therefore, the Ceylon governor concluded, ‘it was time to humiliate him somewhat and force him to return to the rightful owners the lands, which he had conquered not by right but solely by force of arms’.45 In the aftermath of the ‘provisional treaty’ of Kayatar of December 1669, three series of negotiations between voc and the aranmanai were conducted as part of the effort to restore the balance of power on the Madurai Coast: in February/March 1670 between Governor Van Goens Senior and Vadam alaiyappa Pillai in the so-called ‘dialogue’ at Melapattam, and two rounds of talks between Senior Merchant Laurens Pijl and Kumara Swami Mudaliyar at Melaputhaneri in February and June−July 1671, respectively. These negotiations eventually proved to be abortive due to changing external circumstances, among others, the successes of the Madurai-Tanjore alliance against the Tevar and the renewal of hostilities on Ceylon and Java, but in particular the intrusion of the French ‘Persian squadron’ under Admiral De la Haye. In August 1670, following his successful take-over of the Tanjore lowlands in May 1670, Raghunatha Tevar or Tirumalai Setupati (r. 1645–1673) sent an olai (referred to above) to Admiral Van Goens via Jaffnapatnam, justifying his recent conquests and demanding an annual tribute consisting of a Persian horse and tusked elephant, along with exemption from the payment of safe conducts, anchor dues and costum duties at Jaffnapatnam, Mannaar, Tuticorin, and other voc ports, arguing that Company vessels enjoyed similar freedom from customs in his lands.46 Informing Commander Jorephaes Vosch and the Council of Jaffnapatnam in October 1670 of this ‘immoderate olai’, Van Goens observed that ‘apparently his [the Tevar’s] good fortune has made him so puffed up that he already thinks the Company has become his tributary’. Not surprisingly, Raghunatha Tevar’s requests were categorically turned down. The Tevar’s request for the freedom from tolls was denied because of the ill-treatment meted out by the maniyakkarars of the Tevar to various Ceylon freeburghers and merchants, including

45 voc 1279, obp 1671, ff. 13v–14v, Secrete resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon rakende ‘t werck van Madura en den Teuver, 4.3–11.3.1671. See also: voc 1282, obp 1672, ff. 962r–964v, Miss. gouvr. van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.2.1671. The immediate cause for Van Goens’ harsh reaction was the Tevar’s ‘immoderate olai’ of August 1670 (see further ahead). 46 voc 1274, obp 1671, ff. 206r–209r, Transl. ola Tirumale Chedupadi Kata Teuver aan adml. Van Goens, 30.8.1670.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 437 the recent plunder of a wrecked freeburgher vessel near Kilakkarai. Moreover, though merchants from Ceylon should pay the local customs the same way as the subjects of the Tevar were held to at Jaffnapatnam, Mannaar, and Tuticorin, Company ‘pataches’ (from Port. patacho, brigantine) had never visited the Tevar lands. As far as the demands for an annual recognition of a Persian horse and tusked elephant were concerned, if only the Tevar were to send his merchants with money to Jaffnapatnam, they would be given preferential treatment and provided with the elephant. Horses, finally, could not be produced since they had been ‘spoiled’ in the recent Tuticorin War.47 Further aggravated by the reported ‘robbery’ of the pearl banks by 50 ‘Moorish’ vessels from the Ramnad Coast in 1670, Van Goens Senior and Council of Ceylon in January 1671 passed a secret resolution that in case the aranmanai would request Company assistance to curtail the Tevar, the offer would be accepted. In exchange for ‘some notable favours’, including the ratification of the Treaty of Kayatar and permission to build fortresses (vaste wooningen), the Company would impose a maritime blockade of the Ramnad Coast.48 Instead of waiting for overtures on behalf of Madurai’s central authorities, however, Senior Merchant Laurens Pijl and Junior Merchant Daniel Goes were sent in February 1671 to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai at Melapattam near Tirunelveli. Pijl was instructed to hold an exposé assuring the Madurai ‘power broker’ of the Company’s good faith regarding indigenous rulers and the beneficial effects of a fortified settlement at Tuticorin and the necessity to secure Company goods against the threats of fire, scoundrels, thieves, and pirates. Thereupon, he was to hand over 10 articles, including the request for a new residence (art. 1); free trade in all the Madurai lands in accordance with the ‘Nagapatnam qaul’ of 1665 along with the offer of establishing mutual permanent residents (art. 4); the protection of all the indigenous merchants, weavers, and others working for the Company and exemption from anything but the customary duties (art. 5); permission to freely cut wood for the purposes of shipbuilding and burning of lime (art. 9); and a special olai issued by the aranmanai authorising the

47 voc 1274, obp 1671, ff. 209v–211r, Miss. adml. Van Goens aan Raganade Teuver, 21.10.1670; Idem, f. 226v, Concept memorie adml. Van Goens aan commr. Jorephaes Vosch en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 23.10.1670; Idem, ff. 13v–14r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 30.11.1670. 48 voc 1274, obp 1671, ff. 11v–14r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 30.11.1670; Idem, ff. 628r–629r, Secrete resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 8.1.1671; Idem, ff. 302v–305v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 10.1.1671; voc 1282, obp 1672, ff. 963r–964v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 15.2.1671.

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Company to exclude all other Europeans, be it peacefully or by violent means (art. 10). In addition, Pijl and Goes were to request the transfer of the annual tribute of the Paravas to the Company in exchange for the payment of a fixed sum to the aranmanai. The treaty was to be written on a silver olai, confirming all the privileges previously enjoyed by the Portuguese in order to demonstrate clearly that Tuticorin and the other ports belonged to the Company by right of conquest and that the Paravas subsequently were Company subjects. It should also confirm the ‘provisional treaty’ of Kayatar of December 1669, with the exception of Article 3, limiting the Company ‘so disrespectfully’ to a residence of a mere 30 square fathoms.49 Having handed over the presents to Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, the two Dutch ambassadors were intimated by the Madurai governor that he wished to speak with Van Goens himself. On March 1, Van Goens accompanied by Pijl, Captain Barent Clebout, Merchant Cornelis van der Duijn, and Junior Merchant Cornelis van der Ham, were received by ‘the Pillai’ or Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, who was attended by the Brahmin Rama Palli, his son Asunda Rama Pillai, and his secretaries Pagavanna Mudaliyar and Madanna Nayanar Pillai. Welcomed in a stately fashion, Van Goens opened the so-called ‘dialogue’ of Melapattam with complaints about the poor condition of the Company’s ‘miserable residence’ at Tuticorin, which in no way accorded with its reputation as lord of the Seven Ports and Ceylon and sovereign of the seas between Mannaar, Cape Comorin, and Ceylon. ‘The Pillai’, eloquent and gracious as ever, expressed his regrets not to have known the Dutch better before, promising to rectify everything according to the Company’s wishes; the Dutch would be allowed to build a residence in accordance with the size, location, and form requested. However, ‘in order to accomplish this with less worry and concern’, the request should be made to the Nayaka, when Vadamalaiyappa would not fail to show his favour toward the Company. He also granted the exclusion of other Europeans, but only in accordance with the stipulations of the Peace of Kayatar. As far as the monopolisation of the Indo-Ceylon trade by the Company was concerned, Vadam alaiyappa replied that, if the Company were to purchase the locally produced textiles in return for a sufficient quantity of arecanuts, the trade of the inhabitants of Madurai with Ceylon would be less necessary. The request for permission to freely cut wood was granted unconditionally. The Madurai governor confirmed the Company’s privileges along the Fishery Coast, which the Dutch claimed they had inherited from the Portuguese

49 voc 1277, obp 1671, ff. 1603r–1605v, Instr. gouvr. Van Goens voor opperk. Pijl, gecommd. aan de landregent Barmiliappa Pulle, 18.2.1670.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 439 by right of conquest. However, he insisted on the observation of Article 2 of the Peace of Kayatar, limiting the Company to a residence of 30 square fathoms. As to the proposal that the voc would collect the tribute of the Paravas itself against the payment of a fixed annual or bi-annual sum to the aranmanai, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai replied that he could not dispose of this matter since it fell under the authority of the Nayaka. Nevertheless, he did promise to use his influence at the court in its favour. When asked what the best time for an embassy to the court would be, Vadamalaiyappa commented that as soon as he had subdued several rebellious minor palaiyakkarars, who had opposed the aranmanai during its war with the Company, he would inform Pijl when to visit the court, at which time he would also be present in order to favour the Company’s requests. The overall tone of the meeting was deemed favourable enough by Van Goens, who believed that the time was right ‘to strike the iron when it is hot and the mood toward the Company is very favourable’.50 In February 1671 Senior Merchant Laurens Pijl, the Dutch Chief of Tuticorin, and Chinappa Mudaliyar traveled to Melaputhaneri, near Palaiyamkottai in the Tirunelveli region, to open a second round of negotiations. In a closed- door meeting, Pijl and Chinappa Mudaliyar met with the new Tirunelveli governor, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar, and his cousin, the deputy governor Malaiyappa Mudaliyar. As Pijl handed over his instructions, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar seemingly objected only to the request that the Company be allowed to build residences everywhere in the aranmanai lands. After a long discourse, the new governor came to the point and unfolded an ambitious plan, including forming a quadruple alliance among the Nayakas of Madurai, Tanjore, and Gingee (probably Nasir Mahmud Khan, the Bijapuri governor of Gingee), and the Company. While the indigneous rulers were to field a 100,000 men army to launch a three-pronged overland attack against the Tevar, the Company was to invest Rameswaram by sea. Pijl used the occasion to sound out the aranmanai’s feelings about the possible rewards for the Company in exchange for military assistance. Reluctant to cede Pamban Channel and the local fortress, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar was also unyielding regarding the cession of the Rameswaram temple, both of which (as Pijl rightly understood) would place the aranmanai at the mercy of the Company. Instead of Rameswaram, the Tirunelveli governor was willing to grant the Company some lands of equal or greater value in the interior, which, as Pijl readily realised, were at the mercy of

50 voc 1274, obp 1671, ff. 187r–203r, Extract Ceijlons dagreg. behelsende ‘t samenspraeck tussen gouvr. Van Goens en Barmiliappa Pulle tot Tuticorin gehouden, 2.3.1670; voc 1277, obp 1671, f. 1621r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.7.1670.

440 chapter 6 the aranmanai—a reflection of what has been aptly called ‘the balance of blackmail’ (see Chapter 1).51 Without waiting for further instructions from Batavia, Governor van Goens and the Council decided that the opportunity should be seized to obtain satisfaction from the Tevar and gain possession of the entire coast between Nagapatnam and Tegenampatnam to the exclusion of all other Europeans. The only objection, the contract with the Tevar, was quickly put aside as it was deemed to have been rendered obsolete by the Tevar’s non-observance. In a letter, dated March 11, Pijl was subsequently instructed to travel to Trichinopoly and to contract the following conditions in exchange for military assistance: the cession of all the seaports of the Tevar conquered by the Company (art. 1); the possession of Rameswaram including the temple (arts. 2 and 3); permission to build ‘adequate residences’ at the Eight Ports (the Seven Ports plus Kayalpatnam) (art. 4); ratification of all the remaining articles in the previous contract to be written on two golden olais (art. 5); permission to build factories north of Rameswaram at Adirampatnam, Tondi, or other places taken by the Company to the exclusion of all other Europeans (art. 6); and reduction of the tolls and custom duties as much as could be agreed upon (art. 7). The Company was to control Pamban Channel by stationing Dutch garrisons at the forts on the island and the mainland. However, due to the present weakness of the Ceylon garrison resulting from the lack of fresh supplies of men and the current war with Kandy, Pijl was not to commit himself to any precise date regard ing Company assistance. Finally, Pijl was given liberty to sign an agreement for the leasing of all the Nayaka’s ports, which was deemed the best means to remove all Company fears for the intrusion of other Europeans.52 In response to Pijl’s report regarding the objections of the aranmanai to the term ‘fortresses’ and its insistence on a specific time for the rendering of military assistance, Governor Van Goens and the Council conceded that the loaded term ‘fortification’ could be replaced by the more neutral ‘residence’ and that Pijl need not insist too much on any jurisdiction over the indigenous population. However, the possession of Rameswaram and the ‘Opposite Coast’ was considered the quintessential issue, and agreement by the aranmanai would be sufficient. Regarding the timing of Company assistance, Pijl was instructed that, when pressed by the aranmanai, he could promise military backup before the coming August. In a subsequent letter of ‘simple and well-intended

51 voc 1279, obp 1671, ff. 9v–20v, Miss. opperk. Pijl aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 28.2.1671. See: Das Gupta, ‘Europeans in India Before the Empire’, pp. 229–230. 52 Idem, ff 20v–28r, Miss gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan opperk. Pijl en koopman De Heijde, 11.3.1671.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 441 considerations’ to Batavia, Van Goens argued that, if provided with 1,500–1,600 soldiers, the Company would be capable of taking Rameswaram without having to rely on the ‘superstitious twaddle, slow resolutions, and weak arms’ of Chokkanatha Nayaka. The possession of the island would be an important step closer to the realisation of the imperialist vision of a Pax Neerlandica in South India and Ceylon, by allowing for the exclusion of all Europeans from the area between Nagapatnam and Karaikal on the Coromandel Coast.53 In June 1671, a third round of negotiations was resumed at Melaputhaneri following the return of Kumara Swami Mudaliyar from Trichinopoly and the reception of Van Goens’ further instructions by Pijl. Initially, agreement was quickly reached on such minor issues as the collection of outstanding Company debts among the indigenous population, the mutual exchange of deserters and runaway slaves, and the capital punishment of murderers by the culprit’s own authorities. Even a special olai granting the Dutch permission to exclude other Europeans by peaceful or violent means seemed, at least initially, to present no problems. More problematic were the articles dealing with the taxes to be imposed by the aranmanai on the indigenous merchants and weavers in the service of the Company, the permission to freely cut wood for the building of ships and the burning of lime, and the right of shipwreck (jus naufragii) of vessels belonging to the Company and the aranmanai along with the respective subjects. Not surprisingly, the real stumbling blocks in the negotiations proved to be the size and format of the Company’s residences at Tuticorin and the other seaports along with Company demands for proper compensation in exchange for military assistance against the Tevar. Kumara Swami Mudaliyar initially referred the matter of the Dutch residences on the Madurai Coast to Chok kanatha Nayaka and demanded that Pijl should indicate a specific size for the ‘house’ at Tuticorin. Reminding Pijl of the trouble that getting permission to build a residence of 26 fathoms (art. 3 of the ‘provisional treaty’ of Kayatar) had caused in the past, the Madurai governor feared that under the term ‘residence’, the Company could easily have the fortification of all of Tuticorin in mind. After Pijl had answered that it would be highly disrespectful to the Company to quarrel over a few fathoms less or more, he maintained that Tuticorin was a Company conquest as it had been taken from the Portuguese and recently successfully defended in the war against the aranmanai.

53 voc 1280, obp 1672, ff. 34r–42r, Secrete resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon rakende ‘t werck van Madura en den Teuver, 15.4.1671. See: Vink, Mission to Madurai, esp. pp. 102–106.

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Following this rather sharp exchange, the tone of the talks quickly turned sour. In fact, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar stance was remarkably similar to the by now familiar position of the aranmanai first voiced by Vadamalaiyappa Pillai in 1659. Showing himself to be highly dissatisfied with the claim that Tuticorin was the Company’s own conquest, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar wondered, if that were the case, why the Company was requesting permission from the aranmanai. In ‘a stern voice’, he reminded Pijl of

how long the Portuguese had resided on the Madurai Coast without the least desire to demand the kind of houses we were asking now. Instead they had always contented themselves with the existing houses and had only behaved like merchants. Moreover, the Company had been able to make do for 12 or 13 years. Why was it necessary now to build larger residences or warehouses? He could not grant this on the aranmanai’s lands without orders from his Lord, the Nayaka, and [the Company] should regulate itself in accordance with the Treaty of Kayatar…

Pijl retorted that the Company was asking for permission merely to live in eternal friendship with the aranmanai and that there was a great distinction between the Dutch and the Portuguese. Whereas the Estado da India consisted merely of private merchants looking after their own interests, the Company was one single body, conducting more trade in one month than the Portuguese had done in a whole year. Indeed, the small size of the warehouses was the very reason, which had limited the size of Dutch commerce and prevented the aranmanai and its subjects from profiting to the same degree as other rulers in Asia had done. Not impressed by this answer, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar countered with a rhetorical remark, wondering aloud ‘what profits had the aranmanai and its inhabitants enjoyed so far from the Company? It could easily do without as there were plenty of merchants in the interior’. Referring to the restrictions on the Indo-Ceylon trade recently imposed by the Company, the Tirunelveli governor argued that ‘during the Portuguese period, the aranmanai had profited more than nowadays since ships had come to visit Madurai from all directions’. Nevertheless, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar was willing to allow for the increase of the size of the residence from 26 to 39 square fathoms. Pijl, however, objected that the circumference of the present residence already amounted to 80–90 fathoms length and 40 fathoms wide, adding that ‘it would cause great disrespect if the Company had to tear down and reduce its presence on its own conquered and defended soil’. The gradual hardening of the tone of the conversations was directly related to the abortive negotiations regarding military collaboration against the Tevar.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 443

Having seen Van Goens’ letter, dated March 11, demanding, among other things, the possession of Rameswaram, the Madurai governor retorted that, whereas the Company could keep the other conquests from the Tevar, Rameswaram could never be ceded ‘since it was a sacred land, where no other nation was allowed to live. Indeed, he was committing a great sin by merely listening to this proposal’. Nevertheless, he was willing to grant a certain remuneration and a residence on the corner of the mainland along with the presence of Company servants in the market towns of Madurai. Pijl was incensed, arguing that in order to control the passage of Pamban Channel, which ran close to the island, the Company had to have some kind of fortified settlement there as well. Sensing the incompatibility of the two standpoints, Pijl on July 9 informed Kumara Swami Mudaliyar ‘that he was sorry to be forced to leave empty- handed and that he could not have imagined that the Honourable Company would have been mocked so openly’. Kumara Swami Mudaliyar countered with a proposal, whose terms were considerably worse than the ones previously offered. The old privileges enjoyed by the Portuguese were granted, as well as the mutual exchange of runaway subjects and slaves, but all other Company requests were either partly or completely turned down. The issue of the residence at Tuticorin was referred to the Nayaka, while the construction of one- storey warehouses would be allowed at Alvar Tirunagari and Kayalpatnam alone. Moreover, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar bluntly stated that the aranmanai would never tolerate the construction of two-storey buildings as they would only be used for military purposes. The indigenous merchants and others in the service of the Company were held to pay their customary tribute and no remission in the tolls was granted. No money could be forwarded to these commercial brokers without Kumara Swami Mudaliyar’s knowledge. Permission to cut firewood had to be obtained from the aranmanai, while no mention was made of wood needed for shipbuilding and lime burning. Murderers had to be handed over as punishment would be left to their respective authorities. Subjects of the aranmanai and the Company were not exempt from the right of shipwreck and their vessels and cargoes did not have to be restituted. In case the exclusion of other Europeans would result in hostilities, the Company would be held to defend the aranmanai. When told that this offer was final, Pijl informed the Madurai governor ‘that he could not enter into such a contract and that therefore he could not sign it’. When Pijl was granted permission to leave, the two parties broke off the negotiations.54

54 voc 1282, obp 1672, ff. 1061r–1079v, Secrete miss. Pijl van Alvatirnegerij aan gouvr. Van Goens van Ceijlon, 14.7.1671.

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The failure of these three rounds of negotiations should not have come as a big surprise. As I have argued elsewhere in the case of the Dutch embassies to the Nayaka court of Madurai, a shared interest in trade and at times converging political objectives formed the unstable foundations for a complex courtship fraught with tensions between two ill-suited partners, a mixture of conflict and coexistence typical of the ‘age of contained conflict’.55 In spite of the initial eagerness on both sides, the series of talks were doomed from the beginning and never stood much of a chance as the respective positions were fundamentally incompatible. Against the demands for some substantial rewards on the part of the Company, the aranmanai was unwilling to relinquish its control over the coast. Even if the talks had resulted in some kind of temporary marriage of convenience, the outcome would have been null for various reasons. For its part, the aranmanai would never give up its control over the coast by acceding to Company demands such as fortified settlements and jurisdiction over the Paravas. Moreover, even if there had been such willingness, any win- dow of opportunity was effectively closed by 1672 due to the military successes of the Tanjore-Madurai alliance against the Tevar, which by July 1672 had managed to expel the Marava army from the Tanjore lowlands. Even before receiving information about the final breakdown of the negotiations, Batavia in July 1671 urged Governor Van Goens to decline ‘the engagement with the Nayaka of Madurai against the Tevar’ as the Company simply lacked sufficient military might due to the shortage of soldiers on Ceylon and the inability of Batavia to fill the gap. Moreover, the High Government reminded Van Goens, the Tevar was the Company’s oldest ally who had rendered great services during the siege of Jaffnapatnam. Even though his comportment deserved some correction, the Company had no real reason to complain. In addition, it was to be feared that, in case the Tevar was curtailed, the balance of power would tip too much in favour of the aranmanai, regardless of whether Rameswaram would be secured for the Company or not. Contrary to Van Goens’ assertions, the possession of the island-shrine was considered neither commercially profitable nor strategically important with regard to Ceylon. The contractual obligation to protect the ‘idol temple’, as suggested by Van Goens, presented some moral dilemma as it was ‘hard to reconcile’ with the Dutch Reformed religion and Christian vocation. In view of all these reservations, Van Goens would do best to temporise and merely ensure that the Company would preserve its free trade in Madurai to the exclusion of all other Europeans. If, however, the Tevar continued to insult the Company, Van Goens would have

55 Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 19, and 44.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 445 permission to enforce a naval blockade of Rameswaram until the arrival of further military reinforcements from Europe.56 For political reasons the High Government also considered Kumara Swami Mudaliyar’s final offer from Madurai regarding the exclusion of other Euro peans, in particular the English and French, impractical. In times of peace in Europe, the Company simply could not afford to create problems for the Directors and Dutch government at home by helping the aranmanai to defend the Madurai ports if they came under French or English attack when denied permission to trade. It even expressed its suspicions as to whether the abortive talks had merely been a diplomatic ploy on the part of the aranmanai to induce the Tevar to return to the fold of Madurai’s central authorities. Van Goens was again urged to use extreme circumspection and to cultivate the Company’s friendship with the Tevar.57 Although Van Goens indeed subsequently changed his opinion on the Tevar, it was not because of Batavia’s reservations, but because of the lack of military might at his disposal combined with the news of the preparation of large fleets in France and Portugal allegedly planning to attack Ceylon and its surroundings. In September 1671, Van Goens dispatched Laurens Pijl to the Tevar in order to issue a ‘neighbourly warning’ against an impending attack on Rameswaram, and, if time allowed, to renew or improve the treaty, with a promise of military support upon request in accordance with the treaty of February 1658. At the same time, Van Goens decided in view of the ‘impending winds of war’ to stop the reinforcement of Tuticorin and withdraw its garrison and remove the guns emplaced at the factory, leaving only a skeleton garrison, ‘in order not to extend our arms further than we can reach’.58

56 voc 895, bub 1671, ff. 453–454, and 500–504, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 16.7.1671. 57 voc 895, bub 1671, ff. 864, and 869, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.11.1671. For similar problems regarding the enforcement of the monopolistic agreements with the rulers of the Malaysian tin districts vis-à-vis European competitors, see: M.P.M. Vink, ‘The Entente Cordiale: The Dutch East India Company and Portuguese Shipping Through the Straits of Malacca, 1641–1663’, Revista da Cultura 13/14 (1991), pp. 288–309. 58 voc 1282, obp 1672, ff. 1117r–1118r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.9.1671; Idem, ff. 1126v–1127r, and 1130v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.9.1671. For the response of Batavia to the possibility of a French–Portuguese intrusion in the Bay of Madurai and the mission of Pijl: voc 895, bub 1671, ff. 861, and 869, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.11.1671.

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Mutual Distractions, 1672–1674

In fact, the war in Europe and the subsequent French intrusion in South Asian waters in March 1672 in the form of the ‘Persian squadron’ (escadre de la Perse) under Admiral De la Haye forced Van Goens Senior to use the Company’s dwindling resources in the region first at Ceylon and then on the Coromandel Coast. The surrender of the remaining French forces under Captain Sieur de Lesboris at the Isle of the Sun in the Bay of Kottiyar in July 1672 was followed by the protracted siege of São Tomé (September 1672-March 1673; September 1673-September 1674). Realising that he had to focus on ‘the more weighty and more important affairs connected with our European enemies’, Governor Van Goens the Younger of Ceylon lamented he could attend more effectively to the affairs of Madurai, ‘if only São Tomé were conquered, our oppressed fatherland relieved, and we provided with the necessary and long-requested succour of manpower’.59 Simultaneously, the aranmanai’s brief control of Tanjore shifted the attention of Madurai’s central authorities back to its traditional preoccu- pation with affairs to the north. Although these diversions on both sides put mutual relations in suspension between 1672 and 1674, they did not lead to the abrogation of all contacts. In fact, both (abortive) negotiations with the Tevar and the cancellation of a planned mission to the Nayaka of Madurai were intended to conclude new and improved contracts since the previous agreements with these respective rulers

59 voc 1295, obp 1674, f. 128r, Miss. Van der Meerse en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 16.10.1673; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 347v–348r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1674. For similar complaints from Superintendent Van Goens: voc 1288, obp 1673, f. 452r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 18.11.1672; voc 1292, obp 1674, f. 290r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 3.9.1673; Idem, f. 308v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.11.1673. For detailed information on this series of events, see the contemporary accounts of François Martin, Bellanger de Lespinay, the Abbé Carré, and Jacob Blanquet de la Haye: Varadarajan (ed.), India in the 17th Century, I, Part 1, pp. 287–288, 306–307, 322, 360, 362, 374, 384, 406, 412, 416–418, and 424–425; Froideveaux (ed.), Mémoires de L.A. Bellanger de Lespinay; Fawcett (ed.), The Travels of the Abbé Carré, II, pp. 378–675; J.B. de la Haye, Journal du Voyage des Grandes Indes: Contenant Tout ce qui s’y est Fait & Passé par l’Escadre de Sa Mayesté Envoyée sous le Commandement de M. de La Haye, Depuis son Depart de La Rochelle au Mois de Mars 1670, Avec une Description Exacte de Toutes les Îles, Villes, Ports, Baies, Moeurs, etc. (Paris: Robert & Nicolas Pepie, 1698). The accounts of Martin and Bellanger de Lespinay contain numerous references to the abortive French negotiations with Chokkanatha Nayaka to get military assistance against the Dutch: G.J. Ames, Colbert, Mercantilism, and the French Quest for Asian Trade (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), pp. 109–185.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 447 were found insufficient or defective. As these efforts proved to be futile due to the prevailing distractions, relations were maintained through low-profile, insubstantal missions and outward displays of friendship. In effect, the ‘French problem’ served to temporarily defuse the rising tensions between the imperialist and mercantile factions in leading Company circles, which for the time being remained limited to a war of words between Ceylon and Batavia. Time and again, Van Goens cum sociis complained about the alleged oppression of the local population by the Madurai government, warned against the danger of the intrusion of European competitors, and emphasised the dependency of Ceylon on Madurai. Their continuous requests for military reinforcements were accompanied by emphatic calls for permission to build a fort at Tuticorin, albeit against the will of the aranmanai, ‘the only unfailing means to finally reach the long-desired objective and to reap and safely secure the true fruits from that bountiful country’.60 Using the French intrusion as an excuse, however, Batavia dissuaded Van Goens from constructing more forts and further territorial expansion. Arguing that the aranmanai was free to abuse its subjects as they did not fall under Company jurisdiction, Superintendent Van Goens was urged to use all circumspection in view of the lack of militia on Ceylon by ‘caressing the rulers and subordinate regents as much as possible’.61 Similar to the Company’s relations with the Tevar, potential sources of conflict with the aranmanai were therefore brushed aside or deliberately ignored. These included the visitation of the pearl banks near Mannaar instead of those off the Madurai Coast, the cutting of firewood for burning lime, the arrest of pattamars or footrunners carrying Company correspondence, the right of shipwreck on the Madurai Coast, and jurisdiction over the Paravas.62

60 See, for example: voc 1282, obp 1672, f. 1144r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.12.1671; voc 1280, obp 1672, ff. 255r–256v, Miss. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.1.1672; voc 1288, obp 1673, ff. 262v, 282v–283r, and 284v–285r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.3.1672. 61 voc 896, bub 1672, ff. 632–634, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 27.7.1672. See also: Idem, f. 292, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gedestineerd gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 16.4.1672. 62 For the dispute over the visitation of the pearl banks near Mannaar: voc 1280, obp 1672, ff. 514r–514v, Miss. superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.2.1672. For the interference with Company’s pattamars or couriers and the opening of letters: voc 1304, obp 1675, f. 325v, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der saecken op de custe van Madure, 29.3.1674. For the conflict over the right of shipwreck with the muppan of Kulasekharapatnam over the Surat ship ‘Cabaras’: voc 1304, obp 1675, ff. 328r–329v, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der seacken op

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The most explosive issue by far was the disputed authority over the Paravas. Incensed by the alleged oppression of the Roman Catholic fishermen by the aranmanai, Van Goens the Younger in December 1673 ordered the Company Merchant Rutgert de Heijde at Tuticorin to warn the maniyakkarar of Melur that the Company, as the lawful protector of the Paravas, would not tolerate any infringement of its rights and jurisdiction. The answer from Tirunelveli was brief and to the point. In March 1674, the two deputy governors Ramappa Ayya and Sangra Mutti retorted ‘that the Company should behave as a merchant and not interfere with the impositions of the ruler on his subjects, including the Paravas, be they according to customs or 10 fanams more, as they could and would impose them at their pleasure’.63 Despite the confrontational language on both sides, both the Company and the aranmanai could ill-afford a real showdown. While a ‘projected mission’ to be headed by Senior Merchant Laurens Pijl was indefinitely postponed in October 1672 along with all other high-profile embassies, both parties exchanged pleasantries and small gifts via low-key diplomatic relations.64 Upon the (temporary) restoration of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai in the fall of 1672, for instance, Superintendent Van Goens dispatched ‘an important Brahmin’ (Timmarasa Ayya?) from Nagapatnam with some honourific signs, consisting of small gifts and an accompanying olai of little substance. Reportedly, the congratulatory embassy was received so favourably by Vadamalaiyappa, ‘that he made the messenger gape, filling his mouth with gold fanams and dismiss- ing him with a robe of honour’. In response, Vadamalaiyappa Pillai sent various olais, promising nothing but good friendship though without making any con- crete proposals.65 Meanwhile, Van Goens Senior continued to eye Rameswaram and advocate its conquest by using the same arguments for the ‘work of the Tevar’ as those

de custe van Madure, 29.3.1674; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 348r–348v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1674. 63 voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 154v–155r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 20.12.1673; voc 1304, obp 1675, f. 325r, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der saecken op de custe van Madure, 29.3.1674. 64 voc 896, bub 1672, ff. 291–292, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gedestineerd gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 16.4.1672; Idem, f. 634, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 27.7.1672; voc 1288, obp 1673, f. 397v, Corte memorie superint. Van Goens voor commr. Vosch en raad te Jaffnapatnam, 18.9.1672; Idem, f. 419v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.10.1672. 65 voc 1288, obp 1673, ff. 378r–378v, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 28.10.1672; Idem, f. 453v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.11.1672.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 449 in favour of the so-called ‘work of Tuticorin’. Possession of ‘the valuable island’ would give the Company complete control over the pearl fishery and settle the issue of the pearl market once and for all. Not only would it prevent all future ‘robbery’ of the pearl banks by the Tevar’s subjects, it would also allow the Company to establish the pearl market of the Madurai fishery on the island under its own jurisdiction. Moreover, because of its geostrategic location, Rameswaram could serve as a cordon sanitaire for Ceylon, allow the Company to control shipping along the Coromandel Coast, secure provisions for Colombo, and provide a safe haven for indigenous weavers, painters, and merchants against the oppression of their indigenous administrations. However, as with the fortification of the Company’s seat at the Madurai Coast, he was forced to leave the Rameswaram project aside, at least until the final solution of the French problem. For his part, the Tevar was engaged in a struggle for survival against the invading armies of the aranmanai and hardly in a position to stir up trouble with the Company, nor force the Company into the arms of his deadly opponent.66 Thus, Raghunatha Tevar’s request in late 1672 for military assistance in the form of several heavy guns and experienced Dutch artillerymen was turned down by Van Goens Senior ‘because of our own needs and great necessity’. Batavia subsequently approved of Van Goens’s negative response, and instructed him in addition to order Chief Pijl of Tuticorin not to make any significant proposals until further notice.67 As was the case with Company-aranmanai relations, potential bones of contention between the voc and the Tevar were buried or held in suspense. The ill-treatment of the Dutch resident and the Paravas of Vembar, the robbery of four Company pattamar lascorins en route from Nagapatnam to Mannaar, and the plunder of a Kayamkulam vessel of Babba Prabhu carrying a Dutch safe conduct near the islands in November 1673 (‘leaving the passengers and crew not a single cloth to cover themselves’) merely initiated several token olais of complaint by Merchant Rutgert de Heijde, followed by Raghunatha Tevar’s obligatory promise in return to punish the ‘peace-breakers’ and reimburse the damage in order to continue friendly relations ‘as long as the sun and

66 voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 308v–309r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.11.1673; Idem, ff. 2v–3v, and 8v–9r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 24.1.1674; Idem, f. 540r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan H. XVII, 10.2.1674. 67 voc 1288, obp 1673, f. 447v, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 14.11.1672; voc 896, bub 1672, f. 1082, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 3.1.1672.

450 chapter 6 moon will last’. The Marava ruler on his part remained silent when Governor Van Goens decided to provide asylum to several refugees from Adirampatnam at Jaffna.68 Both the Tevar and the Company went to great lengths to cultivate outwardly friendly relations. On the death of Tirumalai Setupati in the Spring of 1673, for instance, his successor, Raja Surya Tevar was congratulated both by Senior Merchant Robert Padtbrugge from Tuticorin and by Commander Pijl of Jaffna, while Superintendent Van Goens and Governor Van Goens Senior sent a letter from Colombo, conveyed by the Jaffnapatnam Brahmin Timmarasa Ayya, expressing the hope for the continuation of cordial relations.69 Company relations with the Tevar between 1672 and 1674 focused on efforts to remedy the alleged ‘forgery’ discovered in the Tevar’s copy of the treaty of April 1660.70 According to the Dutch, the copper olai held by the Marava ruler contained certain irregularities in respect with Article 2 regarding the free trade between each other’s lands and ports and through the Gulf of Mannaar and Pamban Channel, against the payment of customary dues. Several mediation efforts, however, between Laurens Pijl and Rijckloff van Goens Junior and Raghunatha Tevar’s councillor, the ‘corpulent Brahmin’ Mannia Pillai Ayya, were inconclusive. These negotiations were compounded by the Company’s desire to establish a factory at Tondi, Kilakkarai, or Periyapatnam in order to provide Ceylon with provisions, while the Tevar requested passes for one or two vessels to Kalpitiya and Kottiyar and demanded five free thonis in the pearl fishery instead of the customary three.71

68 voc 897, bub 1673, f. 819, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 30.9.1673; voc 1292, obp 1674, f. 155r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 20.12.1673; Idem, ff. 338r–338v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.1.1674; voc 1302, obp 1675, f. 618r, Brief superint. Van Goens aan Trimle Cedepaddij Catte Teuver, June 1674. 69 voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 213v–214r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 29.5.1673; Idem, ff. 180r–180v, Resol. superint. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 13/14.8.1673; Idem, ff. 289v–290r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Paviljoen en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 3.9.1673; voc 897, bub 1673, f. 819, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 30.9.1673. 70 The similarities with the dispute between the Company and Raja Sinha II of Kandy over the Westerwolt Treaty of 1638 are obvious. 71 voc 1282, obp 1672, ff. 1444v–1445r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.12.1671; voc 1280, obp 1672, ff. 288r–288v, Miss. gouvr. van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672; voc 1288, obp 1673, f. 262v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.3.1672; voc 896, bub 1672, ff. 293–295, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gedestineerd gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 16.4.1672; voc 1288, obp 1673, f. 419v, Miss. gouvr. van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 451

In March 1674, however, Van Goens Senior wrote that according to the Tevar’s ambassador Mannia Pillai Ayya at Tuticorin the differences regarding the copper olai could be smoothed over. Apparently, the Marava ruler no longer had any objections against the establishment of a Company factory at Tondi, Kilakkarai, or Periyapatnam, while differences over the Tevar’s demands for five thonis in the pearl fishery instead of three were negotiable. Van Goens Senior observed rather cynically that the change in attitude was the result of the Tevar’s fear for a close alliance between the voc and the aranmanai, as a result of which he would lose ‘his most powerful support and last resort’.72

Fishing in Troubled Waters, 1674–1676

The period between 1674 and 1676 arguably was the time when the Company, under the leadership of the imperialist faction and tempted by the unsettled conditions in Madurai (and Ramnad), was more deeply involved than ever in the internal politics of the region and closest to the realisation of its vision of a Pax Neerlandica in South India and on Ceylon. No sooner had Company forces expelled the French from São Tomé in September 1674 and dutifully returned it to the Qutb Shah of Golconda, than two ‘advantageous contracts’ were concluded with the aranmanai and the Tevar, respectively. While the aranmanai was eager to secure its possession of the newly conquered province of Tanjore, the Tevar was in need of support against both external aggression and internal dissension. These agreements, along with another substantial loan provided to the aranmanai in July 1676, gave the Company, at least on paper, extensive rights in the sphere of government. In a long exposé on the advantages of leasing the Madurai seaports, Commander Huijsman of Tuticorin provided an insightful analysis of the dual fiscal system of Madurai, consisting of maniyakkarars or tax farmers, who were bidding annually for their positions on a competitive basis, and palaiyakkarars or hereditary holders of a palaiyam (lit. ‘armed camp’) or chiefdom owing tribute to the aranmanai. Arguing for the Company’s rights of jurisdiction and

aan Batavia, 25.10.1672. The issue of the safe conducts was referred to Van Goens Senior, who turned it down because of the war with Raja Sinha II. The request for five free thonis in the pearl fishery was settled to the Tevar’s detriment in the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674. 72 voc 1304, obp 1675, ff. 325v–326r, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der saecken op de custe Madure, 29.3.1674; voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 347v, Miss. gouvr. van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1674.

452 chapter 6 taxation over the Christian and Muslim inhabitants of the Madurai Coast, Huijsman compared the position of the Company ‘at least’ with that of a ‘powerful palaiyakkarar’ (see Chapter 1).73 Huijsman’s perception of the Company’s role was characteristic of the views of the imperialist faction and conflicted sharply with that of the aranmanai and the Tevar, who both considered the voc to be more of a low-status ‘bandit- king outsider’, valuable if troublesome merchant, or a ‘portfolio capitalist’ at best, rather than another potentially subversive palaiyakkarar. For the moment, however, both were forced to set aside their reservations.74 In dire need of securing its recent conquest of Tanjore against the Bijapuri Maratha general Ekoji Bhonsle and the ongoing hostilities with the Tevar, the aranmanai wisely decided to make the best of a bad situation. Following a series of skirmishes with Company forces in and around Nagapatnam, the Madurai talavay and governor of the Tanjore lowlands Kavita Nayaka (‘Ceridam’)75 and Superintendent Van Goens Senior on September 18, 1674, signed a ‘contract of alliance and peace’ at Nagapatnam. The so-called ‘Tanjore contract’ granted the Company jurisdiction over what Van Goens considered the three best ports of Tanjavur, Nagapatnam, Tirumalaraianpatnam, and Karaikal, along with their immediate surroundings, against the annual payment of 6,400 pagodas (arts. 1–4). According to Van Goens, Chiormandelan, the ‘outer city’ of Nagapatnam, which contained over 100,000 inhabitants, including numerous merchants, textile weavers, painters, leatherworkers, carpenters, masons, and agricultural labourers, could be turned into an ‘inn and free city for all those persecuted by the evil Gentile and Moorish governments’.

73 voc 1321, obp 1677, ff. 827r–828r, Relaas commr. Huijsman wegens de nuttigheden die de Compe. in ‘t huren der Madurese zeehavens zou komen te genieten, 11.4.1676. 74 Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 46–77, 55, and 155 n. 108. See, e.g., the warning of the substitute governors of Tirunelveli Rammapa Ayya and Sangara Mutti Pillai in March 1674 from Tirunelveli ‘that the Company should behave as a merchant and not interfere with the impositions of the ruler on his subjects (including the Paravas), be they according to customs or 10 fanams more, and that they could and would impose these at their pleasure’. See: voc 1292, obp 1674, ff. 154v–155r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 20.12.1673; voc 1304, obp 1675, f. 325r, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der saecken op de custe Madure, 29.3.1674. 75 Kavita Nayaka or ‘Ceridam’ [ciritam, ‘head’?] was a Telugu-speaking Vellala, father of Bodi Alagari Nayaka or Pradhani Nayaka (d. 1675) and married to a sister of Chokkanatha Nayaka. His brother reportedly was killed in September 1674 on the outskirts of Nagapatnam in a sortie led by the Company lieutenant David Butler. Kavita Nayaka and his son functioned on and off as talavay and/or pradhani of Madurai until 1679 when he was apprehended along with three of his favourites at Trichinopoly and replaced as pradhani by Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya. See: Vink, Mission to Madurai, p. 269 n. 22.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 453

Nevertheless, in order not to offend the perceived local religious sensitivity, the temples at Karaikal and Tirumalaraianpatnam, including their land holdings, were to remain under the administration of the Brahmin Pattars (art. 5). Finally, provided the conditions of the contract were respected, the Company promised to maintain its neutrality regarding the enemies of the aranmanai, while Admiral Van Goens was to broker peace between the Nayaka of Madurai and the Tevar through the use of mediators, including a member from his council (arts. 6–7). Four days later, on September 22, Kavita Nayaka also granted the Company the right to mint pagodas, fanams, and other coins at Nagapatnam, with payment of half of the profits to the aranmanai. Thus, while the Company was seemingly granted extensive governmental rights and revenues, the aranmanai assured the Company’s financial and diplomatic support in securing its claims to the Tanjore province.76 While attributing the success of the negotiations to the Company’s high reputation due to the recent successes in the war against the French (and English), Van Goens did not forget secretly to grease the palms of Kavita Nayaka with 1,000 pagodas or 6,000 guilders, while promising another 2,000 pagodas in case the Company received permission to fortify Tuticorin.77 The agreement was clearly forced on the aranmanai by circumstances, since Madurai was hard-pressed by its three-front-war against Ekoji in the north, Ramnad in the east, and Mysore to the northwest. Aware of the Dutch war with France and England, Chokkanatha Nayaka attempted to gain support from their European rivals in the region. Thus, in August 1674 and January 1675, François Martin, the ‘founder of Pondichéry’, and Louis Auguste Bellanger de Lespinay, received letters from the Madurai ruler, stating that if the French were to assist him with 200 soldiers and a new fleet he would chase the Dutch and Danes from his lands (read: Tanjore), promising Martin the possession of either Nagapatnam or Tranquebar. Chokkanatha’s ‘offer’ came too late as the remnants of the once-mighty ‘Persian squadron’ had already surrendered to the Dutch. As Martin realised, ‘there was nothing left we could do but to cultivate

76 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 529r–531v, Contract van alliantie en vreede tussen Van Goens en Cawatte Neijcke, 13.9.1674; Idem, ff. 515v–519r, Miss. superint. Van Goens te Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 18.9.1674; Idem, f. 644r, Acte verleend aan de Comp. door de Madurese neik, 22.9.1674; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 514–517, and 521–522. For the lyrical comments of Van Goens: Idem, ff. 25v–28v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; ‘Beschryvinge Van Goens Senior van den staat en gelegenheid van het eyland Ceylon’, 24.9.1675, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, p. 334. 77 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 389v–390r, and 400r–401r, Miss. superint. Van Goens en raad te Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 15.9.1674.

454 chapter 6 the friendship with that ruler, being no longer able to undertake anything…’. In December 1675, the Court of Committees of the English East India Company informed Governor William Langhorn and the Council of Fort St. George that they concurred with their opinion not to accept the ‘proposition made you by the Naique of Madurree’.78 Within days of signing the ‘Tanjore contract’ with the aranmanai, Van Goens also concluded an agreement with the Tevar. If he had been greatly optimistic about the agreement with the aranmanai, Van Goens waxed almost lyrical regarding the ‘highly favourable contract’ with Raghunatha Tevar. Van Goens’ enthusiasm was not misplaced, since the treaty, at least on paper, accorded extensive political and commercial privileges to the Company in the region. While both sides promised to maintain eternal friendship to be cultivated via the regular exchange of ambassadors (arts. 1 and 4), the agreement allowed for limited freedom of overseas trade between each other’s subjects (arts. 2, 3, and 6), and permitted the establishment of Company factories at Tondi, Adirampatnam, ‘or wherever it would suit the Company best’, while the Tevar would be free to leave factors or representatives at Mannaar or Jaffna, provided they were neither Muslims nor anybody but his own subjects. This proviso effectively excluded the Maraikkayars, who, along with all other Muslim communities, were viewed by the Dutch as foreign bodies living among their respective host societies. At the instigation of the Tevar, this article was subsequently moderated somewhat in his favour. The Company would be permitted only to establish a factory at Adirampatnam, while the Tevar would be also allowed to establish factories outside of Jaffnapatnam or Mannaar. Furthermore, as in the Portuguese period, the Tevar would enjoy the freedom of three thonis in the pearl fisheries, while all robbers of the pearl banks were to be handed over to the Company, whether they be Hindu, Muslim, or Christian (arts. 5 and 16). But the crucial articles that so elated Van Goens, were those granting the Dutch various commercial privileges, such as the monopoly of all the exports of chanks, chaya roots, and rockfish skins from the Tevar lands, plus the exclusive rights of importing boiled arecanuts from Malabar through Pamban Channel (arts. 12, 13, 14, and 17). Finally, the treaty provided

78 Vadarajan (ed.), India in the 17th Century, I, Part 1, p. 416; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, p. 9; Froideveaux (ed.), Mémoires de L.A. Bellanger de Lespinay, pp. 136; R.C. Temple (ed.), The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675–1680 (London: J. Murray, 1911), I, p. 251. While at Trimelevas in October 1672, Bellanger de Lespinay received desperate pleas for help from Vijayaraghava Nayaka, the ‘naique de Tangaoul’ [Tanjore] against ‘his mortal enemy’, the Nayaka of Madurai.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 455 for a mutual defensive agreement (against payment) under which the Company was held to provide military assistance, but only against the Portuguese and other European nations. No such restrictions applied in the case the Company required assistance from the Tevar (arts. 10 and 11).79 Clearly dissatisfied with the outcome of the Nagapatnam talks, Raghunatha Tevar subsequently dispatched his Brahmin councillor Mannia Pillai Ayya to Tuticorin in order to have several points further ‘clarified’ (read modified). Not surprisingly, in the so-called ‘Further Declaration’ of January 1675 Mannia Pilla’s requests to nullify the Company’s monopolies in chanks, rockfish skins, chaya roots, and Malabar arecanuts were flatly turned down by Superintendent Van Goens. The attempt to have the Company promise assistance against all the enemies of the Tevar (including indigenous foes) met a similar fate. While the Company refused to take Ramnad under its protection, it was willing to provide the Tevar with gunpowder, lead, and other ammunition, but only against payment. Although the Company’s reply must have come as a big dis- appointment, Mannia Pillai Ayya, being a true diplomat, gracefully accepted it with outward signs of gratitude, indicating ‘that his lord would be well satisfied and would diligently abide by the contract’.80 The reason why Mannia Pillai Ayya and the hard-pressed Tevar finally decided to ratify the ‘advantageous contract’ of September 1674 and the ‘Further Declaration’ of January 1675 was the overriding need to consolidate his regime in the face of external aggression and internal dissension. Commenting on the usurpation by his army commander Chandra Cervaikarar, the recent plunder of Ramnad by the troops of the aranmanai, and widespread domestic discord, Superintendent Van Goens in December 1674 acutely observed: ‘It is certain that he needs the Hon. Company as is demonstrated by the fact that he is consenting many things in the contract, which he would not have done if his hands had been free’.81

79 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 532r–534v, Accoord gemaeckt tusschen Trimele Sedepaddij Kattij Teuver en superint. Van Goens, 15.9.1674; Idem, ff. 67v–68r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 517–522, and 532. 80 voc 1299, obp 1675, ff. 136v–137r, Miss. Verwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 30.11.1674; Idem, ff. 148r–150r, Transl. ola Tiremale Cheudepaddij Cata Theuver aan superint. Van Goens, 5.12.1674; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, II, pp. 532–536. 81 voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 127v, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam, 27.12.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 321r, Rapp. Vorwer wegens de toestand van ‘s Comps zaken tot Nagapatnam, 20.12.1675.

456 chapter 6

Aware of Raghunatha Tevar’s precarious situation, Van Goens, as he had done with Kavita Nayaka, facilitated the Marava ruler’s approval by offering him a six-month-loan in the form of three chests of abasis or Persian gold coins worth 6,300 rixdollars and various military supplies, such as four pigs of lead and 2,000 pounds of gunpowder, along with a lavish present consisting of a tusked elephant, a Persian horse, and other curiosities, under obligation of the revenues from the Ramnad seaports and the island of Rameswaram along with the delivery of 2,000 oxen. In an apologia to the High Government at Batavia, which rightfully considered the underhanded deal ‘an extraordinary accommodation’, Van Goens Senior argued that the assistance would not only ingratiate the Company to the Tevar by allowing him to pay his soldiers and continue his war with the aranmanai as part of the Company’s divide-and-rule policy, but would also permit a closer inspection of Pamban Channel or Rameswaram against the overseas smuggling of such contraband goods as pepper, arecanut, and wild cinnamon from Malabar. In order to enforce compliance with these restrictions and secure Company possession and sovereignty over the islands south of Adam’s Bridge, Van Goens argued that it was necessary to have one or two Company vessels cruise the waters between Point Calimere and the west corner of Rameswaram from January to October, and also to occupy the islands of Musal Tivu and Nalla Tanni Tivu or Fresh Water Island, strategically situated vis-à-vis Pamban Channel and Ramnad’s major port of Kilakkarai, respectively.82 The dual agreement with the Tevar led to the establishment of a trading factory on the Ramnad Coast at Adirampatnam and two small military posts at Musal Tivu and Nalla Tanni Tivu or the Fresh Water Island. In November 1674, the Van Goenses described Adirampatnam as ‘an ancient commercial town’,

situated at the border with Tanjore on a suitable river [Muthupet], about 16 hours south of Nagapatnam within the bay north of Adam’s Bridge near the Jaffnapatnam islands. The land here is extremely fertile and densely populated (although devastated to some degree due to the war).

82 voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 656v, Instr. superint. Van Goens aan opperh. Verwer en Van Rhee te Nagapatnam, 30.9.1674; Idem, ff. 67r–67v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; voc 1299, obp 1675, ff. 72v–73v, Miss. superint. Van Goens en opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan H. XVII, 31.12.1674; voc 1313, obp 1676, f. 246v, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 30.4.1675. For Batavia’s condemnation: voc 899, bub 1675, f. 475, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 4.11.1675.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 457

We will stockpile our arecanut here [as at Nagapatnam and Tuticorin], employ a number of weavers [to produce coarse textiles], and establish, both here and at Nagapatnam, a staple for nel for Ceylon. These lands are abundant and full of horned cattle, at least 2, 3, and 4,000 of which are annually exported by the people of the Tevar to Kalpitiya on Ceylon in exchange for arecanuts from the upland Ceylonese.83

Almost nine years later, in July 1683, the Company Merchant Joan van Vliet described Adirampatnam in greater detail:

It is a considerable village, but built in a strange manner for the houses are all surrounded by thick and tall deciduous trees. Thus, when walking along the street one cannot see (so to speak) but green walls and very few or no houses at all. It is inhabitated by about 900 families, mostly Moors, plus Vellalas, fishermen, and a few Brahmins… Some years ago, many more people used to live here, but a large part has fled and is still displaced because the village was plundered at the orders of Vijayaraghava Nayaka [of Tanjore] and subsequently held by various rulers. First the Nayaka of Madurai [Chokkanatha Nayaka] took it from the Tanjore ruler only to lose it to the Tevar [Raja Surya Tevar], whose successor [Raghunatha Tevar] is controlling it now…84

While Van Goens the Younger estimated the annual imports of arecanut at Adirampatnam to be 30,000 amanams and textile exports to be 2,000 parcels, the establishment of a local factory would allow the Company to tap into the economy and produce of the region, which, until now, had been largely uncharted territory. In addition to the export of cattle and textiles from such coastal towns as Tondi, Periyapatnam, and Devipatnam to the ports on the

83 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 30v–31r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674. See also: Reimers (ed.), Memoirs of Ryckloff van Goens, pp. 37, and 88. Muthupet [‘Mutepette’] is described as ‘a river, which serves to define the border between Tanjore and the Tevar, situated about 12 to 13 miles [1 Dutch mile = 4.7 English miles] south of this city [of Nagapatnam]’. voc 1369, obp 1682, f. 1545r, Weinige artikelen in forma van vraagpunten ingesteld bij comms. Jacob Jorisz. Pits, 18.7.1681. In fact, Muthupet is a village 9 miles northeast of Adirampatnam and to the southwest of the Koraiyar River, located at the southern end of the Cauvery River delta on the Bay of Bengal. The rivers Koraiyar, Paminiyar, Kilaithankiyar, Marakkakoraiyar and other tributaries of the Cauvery River flow through Muthupet and adjacent villages. 84 voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 560v–561r, Rapp. Van Vliet, secunde der Madurese kust, aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.7.1683.

458 chapter 6 eastern and northern seaboard of Ceylon, including Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Jaffnapatnam, and Puttalam, the islands off the coast also produced chaya roots. These roots could be used to dye red banner cloth, cotton yarn, and various ‘Malay textiles’ for Batavia at the ‘Company’s village’ of Tirumalaraianpatnam. In early December 1674, Junior Merchant Cornelis Durijn and Provisional Assistant Jan Sweers sailed from Nagapatnam to Adirampatnam to become the first Company residents in the lands of the Tevar.85 In October 1675, Timmarasa Ayya subsequently obtained permission from Raghunatha Tevar for the construction of a stone house at Adirampatnam on a square lot, 70 rods each side.86 Sometime after the establishment of the Adirampatnam factory, a sentry of 8 to 10 lascorins each was stationed both at Musal Tivu and Nalla Tanni Tivu, the two most important islands south of Adam’s Bridge. Musal Tivu, the north- erly island, was hardly four Dutch miles [1 Dutch mile = 4.7 English miles] from Rameswaram between the mainland and the pearl banks and its heavy guns controlled the thoroughfare. Nalla Tanni Tivu or Fresh Water Island, the more southerly island, was reportedly only about 6 miles from Tuticorin, ‘a beautiful large island covered with trees’, and strategically located near Kilakkarai, one of the most important Ramnad ports. As a result, it was ideally situated to enforce the Company’s claims to dominium maris over South Indian waters and prevent smuggling or contraband trade in the Company’s ‘own goods’, such as pearls, chanks, chaya roots, pepper, and other commodities.87

85 voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 62v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.12.1674; Idem, f. 141v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 18.12.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 321r, and 323r, Rapport opperk. en provl. mede-opperh. Vorwer wegens de toestand van ‘s Comps. zaken tot Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 20.12.1675. For information regarding Company activities at Adirampatnam in these years see: voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 356r–356v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 30.4.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 21v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1675. 86 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 160v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 4.10.1675; Idem, ff. 74r–74v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 11.10.1675; Idem, f. 13r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.11.1675; voc 899, bub 1675, f. 592, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.12.1675. 87 voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 73v, Miss. superint. Van Goens en opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan H. XVII, 31.12.1674; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 1028r–1028v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 25.2.1675; Reimers (ed.), Memoirs of Ryckloff van Goens, pp. 37–38, and 88; Beschryvinge Van Goens Senior van den staat en gelegenh. van het eiland Ceylon aan GG en R, 24.9.1675, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, pp. 218,

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 459

In October 1690, a Company inspection team visited Nalla Tanni Tivu and portrayed the following, rather desolate image of a bleak and barren landscape, quite the contrary of the lush picture painted by the Van Goenses:

[The Fresh Water Island] is located about three-quarters of a mile from the mainland, one mile north of Muraiyur and two miles south of Valinokkam, running northeast to southwest in length and northwest to southeast in width. It is about an hour in circumference and for the most part surrounded by one-foot-high coral stone and cilli. There are only two open places where one can land with a sloop, thoni, or other small vessels on the north by northwest side and the northwest side…This island in general is of reasonable height and its greater half covered by small sand hills, while on the southwest side is a higher hill of wind-deposited sand…, though, according to experience, this land moves more and more to the northeast each year. On the southeast side of the island is a decent plain mostly overgrown by an abundance of chaya roots, ready to be harvested, while the eastern part of the island appears somewhat fertile as well. For the rest, it is barren everywhere. On the southwest side are several cilli reefs, which apparently have been deposited by the sea in previous times when the coral reefs, which are presently there, formed a much more formidable barrier against the sea. We have not found any wells or foundations of them, except for a small hole containing fresh water. Crossing the island, we had several holes dug and found fresh water in abundance along the entire southwest side of the island as far as the hills stretched… However, on the southeast side of the island, which is empty and flat, we merely found salt, brackish, and stinking water…88

No sooner had matters in Tanjore and the Ramnad Coast seemingly been settled in favour of the Company by the two ‘advantageous contracts’, than the focus of the Van Goenses shifted once more to the ‘work of Tuticorin’, that is, the fortification of the Company’s factory. As the Superintendent and Governor and Council of Ceylon put it in a resolution in November 1674: ‘the burdensome wars and miserable state which afflicted our fatherland and the Hon. Company [in Asia] demanded its postponement in hope for better times in order not to overstretch the forces of the Company by further expansion’.

and 235–236. The actual distance between Nalla Thanni Tivu and Tuticorin is about 55 miles or double the distance reported here. 88 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 427r–427v, Rapp. Van Buren, Pluijmert, en Karstersen wegens de situtatie van het Verswatereiland, 23.10.1690.

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However, ‘since these dark clouds over our fatherland and the Hon. Company have dissipated’, they continued, ‘it would be irresponsible not to take advantage of Divine Providence and favourable circumstances’.89 The Van Goenses were determined ‘to strike everywhere when the iron is hot’ as the aranmanai was surrounded by enemies and plagued by internal revolts of the palaiyakkarars, ‘without one being able to tell who is lord of the country’. As a result, they concluded, ‘it is sufficiently clear that both Madurai and Tanjore are without ruler, indeed without any government’. Moreover, the Company’s high reputation due to the recent victories over the French and the English, the aranmanai’s fear of a Company-Ramnad alliance, and the poor payment of the Madurai soldiers, who allegedly could be easily persuaded to enter Company service, were all factors, which would facilitate the easy completion of a fort at Tuticorin.90 Therefore, it was decided to pursue the so-called ‘work of Tuticorin’ by both diplomatic and non-diplomatic ways, with or without permission of the aranmanai. In late 1674, preparations were started for a high-profile embassy to Trichinopoly under the Jaffnapatnam Brahmin Timmarasa Ayya, to be accompanied by over 300 indigenous servants and lascorins. The Company ambassador was to be provided with lavish presents and the usual curiosities, including four tusked elephants, silk textiles, Dutch linen, fine spices, mirrors, and a Japanese cabinet, plus a bribe of 4,000 rixdollars for Bodi Alagari Nayaka or Pradhani Nayaka, with a total value of 17,500 rixdollars or 40,000 guilders. Timmarasa’s instructions were to ask for permission to construct a fort, possession of the Seven Ports along with three to four villages suited for weaving and agriculture against a certain recognition, and prohibition of the overland import of Malabar arecanuts, while allowing the Company to keep out arecanut imports by sea.91 Simultaneous with the preparations for Timmarasa Ayya’s mission, Van Goens Senior ordered the collection of stone, lime, and other materials for the erection of a star-shaped fortress, consisting of three whole and two half

89 voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 411r, Resol. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 3.11–26.11.1674. This resolution was taken in clear defiance of the orders of the Gentlemen Seventeen in a letter, dated November 4, 1673, and a missive by the High Government to Ceylon, dated October 19, 1674. voc 898, bub 1674, ff. 555–556, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 19.10.1674. 90 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 31r–31v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 245v–246r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 30.4.1675. 91 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 31r–32v, and 67v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 461 bastions, while the villages on both sides of the fortress were to be protected by a small ditch and small wooden dirt-filled barricades. A military contingent of 200 soldiers from Ceylon supplemented by 200 locally hired peons was deemed sufficient against an imaginary (but not very likely) ‘black assault’. This strategy, Van Goens reassuringly informed Batavia, was similar to the one pursued regarding the outer city of Nagapatnam, which was followed by the signing of the favourable ‘Tanjore contract’. In view of all the other preoccupations of the aranmanai, the Superintendent confidently predicted ‘that our objective will be achieved with some altercation though without bloodshed’.92 This single-minded resolve on the part of the Company’s imperialist faction could easily have led to the renewal of the conflict with the aranmanai as Vadamalaiyappa Pillai had only very recently warned the Company not to build a fortress. In October 1674, Madurai’s eminence grise sent an olai to the ‘captain’ of Tuticorin, reminding him that ‘after the time of the Portuguese had run out and the Hon. Comp. had captured their residences about fifteen or sixteen years ago, the Company and the aranmanai have continued to live with each on the same footing in friendship without any quarrel’. ‘This being the case’, he persisted, ‘why lend one’s ear to evil people and insist on building a fortress?’ The Madurai power broker conveniently glossed over the Tuticorin War of 1669 and the recent conflicts over the Company’s claim to dominium maris, concluding that ‘in matters dealing with the sea, the Company can do whatever it pleases, in matters dealing with the land, we will not fail to live in all friendship without increasing or diminishing anything’.93 Contrary to Vadamalaiyappa’s assurances, the Company’s claim to dominium maris did not remain undisputed by local officials of the aranmanai. In March 1674, for instance, the muppan of Kulasekharapatnam contested the Company’s claim to the right of shipwreck of the Surat vessel ‘Cabaras’, which had stranded on a reef near Manappad on its return voyage from Aceh. In December 1674, moreover, the muppan of Kulasekharapatnam, with the help of 400–500 armed men, forcibly prevented the arrest by the Company of a Malabar vessel at Koodutalai (Kudda Talai) carrying several hundred bales of

92 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 31r–31v, and 38v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 128v, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam, 27.12.1674; Idem, f. 287r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan superint. Van Goens, 28.12.1674; voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 311r–312r, and 315r–315v, Concept instr. superint. Van Goens voor commt. Huijsman, 13.1.1675; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 1027v–1028r, Miss. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Cochin aan H. XVII, 25.2.1675. 93 voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 342r, Extract transl. ola Barmeleapa Poele aan de kaptn. van Tuticorin, 8.10.1674.

462 chapter 6 arecanuts. In November 1675, Commander Huijsman of Tuticorin reported that three or four parus had brought 2,000–3,000 bales of Malabar arecanuts west of Cape Comorin from where it was transported overland by pack-oxen to Kulasekharapatnam. On behalf of Tiruvenkathanatha Ayya, the governor of Tirunelveli, the maniyakkarar subsequently requested permission to import Malabar arecanuts (deemed ‘a cancer against the profits of Ceylon’) at Kulasekharapatnam and the other ports.94 Vadamalaiyappa Pillai’s warning was not an empty threat, but backed up by force. In early May 1675, following a prohibition not to collect any more stone, the aranmanai mustered 5,000–6,000 local troops, threatening to wage war on the Company and take Tuticorin by force. In response Chief Marten Huijsman of Tuticorin conscripted a number of sailors from the Company vessels in the Tuticorin roadstead. Although Huijsman’s precautionary measure was subsequently praised by Van Goens the Younger, the Ceylon governor downplayed the whole episode, arguing that this show of force was mere intimidation and that these troops were actually intended to bolster the Madurai army against its indigenous enemies. Whatever the case may have been, after a few days the force was dispatched to Trichinopoly, whereupon, as Van Goens Junior put it light- heartedly, ‘the rumours of such an effeminate war have dissipated completely’.95 Despite this mutual flexing of muscle, neither side could really afford matters to escalate. In fact, the Van Goenses were forced to abandon both

94 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 328r–329v, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der saecken op de custe Madure, 29.3.1674; Idem, f. 348r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1674; voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 317r–317v, Concept instr. superint. Van Goens voor commt. Huijsman en raad van Madure, 13.1.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 497r–497v, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 6.11.1675; Idem, f. 504r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.11.1675; Idem, f. 330v, Rapp. Huijsman van den presenten toestandt der saecken op de custe Madure, 5.12.1675; Reimers (ed.), Memoirs of Ryckloff van Goens, p. 49. See also the conflict in late 1674 over a paru from Kayamkulam belonging to ‘the scoundrel’ Babba Prabhu arrested at Tuticorin for having a false passport and carrying contraband goods, and another small vessel from Porto Novo with 4 Portuguese, including two granddaughters of Simão d’Almeida, for having no pass at all and carrying 8–10 firelocks and other guns. See: voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 720v, Miss. opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.11.1674; Idem, ff. 31v–34v, and 67v, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674; voc 1299, obp 1675, ff. 74r–82v, Miss. superint. Van Goens en opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan H. XVII, 31.12.1674. 95 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 17v–18r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1675.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 463 diplomatic and non-diplomatic paths toward the fortification of the Tuticorin factory. Having decided in December 1674 to postpone Timmarasa Ayya’s mission in view of the recent invasion of Madurai by Mysore, and so as not to dispose of the presents in an untimely way, Batavia issued explicit orders not to commence the ‘work of Tuticorin’ against the will of the aranmanai, nor to encumber the Company with new fortifications. These instructions clearly upset Governor Van Goens the Younger of Ceylon, who in February 1675 complained to the Company Directors that he and the Council of Ceylon had been ‘diverted from our concept and [deprived of a] proper occasion, …hardly knowing what to do next and how to direct our affairs’.96 Superintendent Van Goens’ response was along the maxim ‘I obey but do not comply’ (obedezco pero no cumplo) followed by the Spanish viceroys in the Americas. While ostensibly observing the prohibition not to fortify the Company settlement, Van Goens Senior decided to improve the defenses of Tuticorin by surrounding the Parava quarters with a ditch 18 feet wide and, in addition to the 100 Europeans in Company service, hire 110 indigenous soldiers and another 150 at the expense of the Paravas. Van Goens considered these defenses necessary ‘since the Company factory has been repeatedly attacked by marauders and indigenous enemies’.97 For the time being, events seemed to work in favour of the Van Goenses. With Senior after June 1675 situated at Batavia as Director General or ‘heir- apparent’ to the Governor General and Junior strategically placed as governor of Ceylon, the Gentlemen Van Goens imperialist party-faction seemed to be in firm control of Company affairs, while the aranmanai was clearly losing its grip over Madurai affairs. Moreover, the subsequent deaths of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and Bodi Alagari Nayaka or Pradhani Nayaka in 1675 and the emergence of the ‘outsider’ Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya were viewed as events favourable to the implementation of the imperialist agenda. As Van Goens Senior reminded his son in his political memoirs or ‘memorie van overgave’ of April 1675: ‘Fortune has never before smiled on us in such a way as now, nor are the means necessary for the project lacking as little as at present’. Therefore, the new Director- General continued optimistically, ‘our project should be pursued accordingly’.98

96 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 1027v–1028r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Cochin aan H. XVII, 25.2.1675; voc 1299, obp 1675, ff. 86r–86v, Miss. superint. Van Goens de Jonge en opperk. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan H. XVII, 31.12.1674. 97 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 18v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1675; voc 1297, obp 1675, ff. 1083r–1083v, Generale missive, 29.8.1675. 98 Reimers (ed.), Memoirs of Ryckloff van Goens, pp. 37, and 88.

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Between June and October 1675, the local tax farmer, merchant, and ambassador-mediator Chidambaranatha Chitti99 was sent to Trichinopoly and thereafter visited, along with Chinappa Mudaliyar, Governor Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya at Tirunelveli. The outcome of these ‘inpromptu missions’ was predictable. The cash-strapped aranmanai was willing to permit the construction of a fort at Tuticorin, but only against the payment of 100,000 pardaus in elephants, horses, valuable textiles, cash, and curiosities. Even the independent-minded Governor Van Goens the Younger rightly considered himself not qualified to accept such a high-priced offer and declined politely. In fact, the aranmanai’s response made him press Batavia even harder to send sufficient troops with which the Nayaka’s consent could be obtained against an honest, but much smaller, recognition.100 Vadamalaiyappa Pillai’s death in early 1675 marked the end of an era of relative stability and prosperity of the aranmanai. From the 1640s onward, the Madurai power broker had dominated the affairs of the Madurai court for over three decades. The subsequent rapid turnover of the governors of Tirunelveli was indicative of the growing instability of and increasing disarray within the Madurai central authorities. Vadamalaiyappa’s successor, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya (fl. 1674–1690), came from a Brahmin family from Mattur, (Mathur) near Tirukkadavar or Thirukkadiyur,

99 Chidambaranatha Chitti, one of several ‘little portfolio capitalists’ or political merchants (including Karuppa Chitti and Ali Husain Maraikkayar) peopling the region. From 1674 onwards, voc documents regularly mention him as a local tax farmer, merchant, and ambassador-mediator between the aranmanai and the Company, operating mostly from the coastal area south of Tuticorin. At various times, he leased the villages of Attur, Kulasekharapatnam, and the coastal area between Tuticorin and Koodutalai. He reportedly traded, among other things, in elephants and pearls. He had a brother residing at the Madurai court and was able to speak Telugu. A 1685 olai from the Pradhani Tiruven katanatha Ayya to Commander Rutgert de Heijde of the Madurai Coast, requesting military assistance against the Tevar of Ramnad and a loan from the voc, refers to Chid ambaranatha as ‘my popular friend’, urging De Heijde to accept whatever he would say ‘as if spoken by me personally’. See: voc 1416, obp 1686, f. 1245v–1246r, Transl. ola landregent Tieroewengernader Aijen aan commt. De Heijde can Tuticurin, 10.7.1685. 100 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 18v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1675; voc 1313, obp 1676, f. 362r, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 8.7.1675; Idem, f. 384r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 11.10.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 72v–73v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 11.10.1675; Idem, f. 10v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.11.1675. While at Tirunelveli, Chidambaranatha Chitti and Chinappa Mudaliyar also contracted the delivery of 200 lasts of rice at 25 rixdollars per last (see Chapter 3).

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 465 home of the famous Abirami Amman Temple, 10 miles north of Karaikal, in Tanjore on the banks of the Cauvery River. As an ambassador of Tanjore, he had brokered the military alliance with Madurai against the Tevar in 1672 by promising a monthly payment of 20,000 pardaus. As this contract reportedly incited the displeasure of Vijayaraghava Nayaka, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya subsequently was forced to relocate to Madurai to become one of the leading court officials under Chokkanatha Nayaka, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, and Rani Mangammal, serving on and off as governor of Tirunelveli and subsequently pradhani following the deaths of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and his reported enemy Bodi Alagari Nayaka or Pradhani Nayaka in 1675. In December 1675, Governor Van Goens the Younger optimistically wrote to the Company Directors, that unlike Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and Pradhani Nayaka, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya would be less opposed to the fortification of Tuticorin, ‘being from Tanjore and not from Madurai and having attempted to live in peace with us from the beginning’.101 Tiruvenkatanatha initially reiterated the aranmanai’s earlier demand for 100,000 pardaus in exchange for permission to build a fort at Tuticorin. Realising the unfeasibility of reaching an agreement over this issue, in November 1675 he came up with a more modest proposal by suggesting a Company loan of 10,000 pardaus to be reimbursed along with 2,000 pardaus interest from the revenues of Tuticorin and Kayalpatnam for one year. As an ardent member of the imperialist faction and one of the leading clients of Van Goens Senior, Huijsman reacted enthusiastically, considering it an important first step in realising the imperialist vision of a Pax Neerlandica in South India and Ceylon. The Tuticorin commander in his optimism foresaw a symbiotic relationship between the Company and the aranmanai, driven by a common interest regarding the well- being of the land. First, it would allow the Company to provide protection against the oppression of the maniyakkarars, while the subsequent large influx of people would increase the revenues of the two seaports in a short time to 15,000 pardaus and more. Second, it could serve as a confidence-building measure and would open an avenue to convert the one-year loan into a long-term formal lease and a

101 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 284r–284v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 28.12.1675. For biographical information on Tiruvankatanatha Ayya: voc 1304, obp 1675, ff. 323r–323v, Rapp. Huijsman wegens den jegenwoordigen stant der saecken op de custe Madure, 29.3.1674; Desikar, ‘Tiruvenkatanatha of Matai’, pp. 133–136; Idem, ‘Venkatesa’. According to the ‘Koyil Olugu’, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, misguided by Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, persecuted the family of his own acarya, Kumara Srinivasa Desikar, and died shortly thereafter having been cursed by Srinivasa Desikar (in fact, Muttu Virappa III died of smallpox in early 1691). Hari Rao (ed.), Koil Olugu, p. 191; Idem, History of the Srirangam Temple, p. 198.

466 chapter 6 means to assume a role in the administration and collection of taxes in Madurai, while the aranmanai, seeing the convenience (and profitability) of the arrangement, might be induced to farm out the other remaining seaports to the Company as well. Third, it could serve as a means to incorporate the Maraikkayars, in addition to the Paravas, as a client community, though only ‘as far as the interests of the Company and the situation would allow’. According to Huijsman, acting as a patron of both the Maraikkayars and the Paravas would provide an opportunity to play off these two groups against each other by exploiting their traditional rivalry. Fourth, leasing the seaports might also provide the Company with an additional legal title to exclude other Europeans from the Madurai Coast in addition to the right of conquest, exclusive treaty, and the full jurisdiction over the Parava settlements and pearl banks.102 Not surprisingly Huijsman’s warm recommendations were not lost on Governor Van Goens and Council of Ceylon, who decided to jump on the occasion because, they maintained, reimbursement was guaranteed and the goodwill created with the aranmanai would help to accomplish the Company’s further designs regarding the ‘work of Tuticorin’. At his instigation, Tiruven katanatha Ayya would be secretly offered the 2,000 pardaus interest, and promised an additional recognition in case the Nayaka’s permission to build a fort was obtained. In view of the expected revenues from Tuticorin and Kayalpatnam, the Nayaka could be promised a tusked elephant in addition to the 10,000 rixdollars a year. Huijsman was ordered that talks ‘at least be kept alive’ until further instructions from Batavia had been received.103 It is interesting to note that whereas no one in the Company leadership seemed particularly bothered by the religious factor per se, the mercantile faction feared the commercial strength of the ‘Moors’, while imperialists such as Van Goens the Younger regarded Muslim political strength (closely tied with the activities of the political merchant or ‘portfolio capitalist’) as an additional source of anxiety. After the conquest of Tanjore by Ekoji Bhonsle, the Ceylon

102 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 500r–503v, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.11.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 328r–333v, Rapp. Huijsman van den presenten toestandt der saecken op de custe Madure, 5.12.1675; Idem, ff. 284r–285v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.12.1675; voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 349v–350v, Extract miss. commt. Huijsman aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 22.7.1676. 103 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 341v–342v, and 348r–348v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 29.11–3.12.1675; Idem, ff. 328r–328v, and 335v–336r, Rapp. Huijsman van den presenten toestandt der saecken op de custe Madure, 5.12.1675; Idem, ff. 356r–356v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 6.12.1675; Idem, ff. 265r–265v, and 284v–286v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 28.12.1675.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 467 governor was anxious about the imminent collapse of the Ramnad and Madurai states in the face of the all-conquering ‘Moorish’ tidal wave engulfing the Indian subcontinent. While arguing for the necessity to protect Rameswaram, Van Goens Junior also emphasised the need to maintain Company privileges and possessions along the Madurai Coast as ‘lords of the sea and arbiters over the Paravas and Christians in addition to our conquest’. He therefore assured Batavia that although he would not lightly risk the Company’s money and reputation, neither would he ‘neglect to safeguard its interests under the present unsettled circumstances when the game is up for grabs’.104 The overriding concern of the aranmanai in these negotiations was its desperate need for money. Despite obvious hesitations to farm any of the seaports to the Company, the exigencies of war took precedence over all other concerns.105 Thus, in June 1676 the new governor of Tirunelveli, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar, reportedly a mere underling of Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, dispatched an olai to Commander Huijsman offering the lease of Tuticorin, Kayalpatnam, Attur, and Kulasekharapatam against 5,000 pardaus as he found himself ‘in dire need to send money to the aranmanai at the coming new moon’. In the subsequent negotiations over the lease of Alvar Tirunagari after December 1676 (to be described), Huijsman intimated that matters could not be postponed much longer since, on the first new moon, the Tirunelveli governor was held to pay his monthly rent, ‘and, therefore, apparently will have no such desire afterwards’.106 Ignoring orders from Batavia not to engage in any further negotiations with the aranmanai, Governor Van Goens continued talks with Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya at Tirunelveli via Chidambaranatha Chitti and the Malabari merchants Perimbala or Verimbala Sinay (d. 1692) and Wammena (d.c. 1680).107 Having

104 voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 65v–67r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; Idem, ff. 83r–83v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.4.1676; Idem, ff. 98v–99r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.5.1676. 105 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 560r, Nadere consideratien commt. Huijsman raeckende het gedane rapport wegens den toestant van Madure, 23.12.1675. Commander Huijsman attributed Tiruvenkatanatha’s ‘extreme hesitation’ to the covert dealings of the ‘cunning Paravas’, who opportunistically chose to oppose the project, similar to their opposition to Van Rheede in 1668, fearing to fall completely under the control of the Company. 106 voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 345r–345v, Transl. ola landregent Commare Swami Modeljaar aan commt. Huijsman, 7.6.1676. See also: voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 301r, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 31.12.1676. 107 Perimbala or Verimbala Sinay was a Brahmin large-scale merchant from Kanara highly influential in Cochin often holding political office, including that of rajador mór or

468 chapter 6 informed Huijsman initially that the aranmanai would be willing to grant permission to build a fort for 50,000 pardaus to be paid in elephants and horses, the Madurai governor subsequently was willing only to pledge the revenues of Tuticorin as security. As Huijsman informed Governor Van Goens, ‘this proposal would cause great changes in the intention to leave the 2,000 pardaus as a bribe to the governor’.108 Following negotiations with Huijsman via the Brahmin Manandia Ayya, the Company in July 1676 issued a loan of 12,000 pardaus or 36,000 guilders in elephants, copper, and cash, against which Kumara Swami Mudaliyar pledged the revenues of the ports of Tuticorin, Kayalpatnam, Kulasekharapatnam, and Attur between August 1676 till July 1677 as security (see Table 27). Governor Van Goens Junior considered the offer so advantageous, that he decided not to wait for approval or instructions from Batavia, which he hoped would be forthcoming post factum.109 Despite the proviso that the Company would be allowed to collect arrears in the monthly payment from the inhabitants by force, in December 1690 the Nayaka of Madurai and the muppan of Kulasekharapatnam still owed the Company 2,722 and 337 guilders, respectively.110

chancellor. Wammena, with whom the voc was involved at least from 1659 onwards, is referred to as a leading Brahmin merchant from Kayamkulam. For information on Perimbala: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. 134–139, 148, 190, 201, 204–206, 208, 210, 212, 245, 258, 259, 263, 267, 268, and 295; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 229, 636, 738, and 849; V, pp. 5, 240, and 241; Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan van Reede tot Drakenstein, pp. 36, 37, and 45. On Wammena: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. 29, 54, 159, and 190; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, p. 229. 108 voc 899, bub 1675, ff. 576, and 591, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.12.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 563v, Nadere consideratien Huijsman raeckende het gedane rapport wegens den toestant van Madure, 23.12.1675; Idem, ff. 508r–508v, Miss. commt. Huijsman en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 24.12.1675. 109 voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 346r–346v, Transl. contract of obligatie van de landregent Commare Suami Modeljaar, 2.7.1676; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 31–34. For information on the distribution of the elephants, copper, and cash to the aranmanai: voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 118v–119v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1676; Idem, ff. 125v–126r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.7.1676; voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 349v–350r, Extract miss. commt. Huijsman aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 22.7.1676; Idem, f. 339v, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan opperh. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam, 20.8.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 283r, Miss. commt. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.11.1676; voc 1329, obp 1678, ff. 1278r–1278v, Rapp. boekhr. Caperman aan commt. Huijsman van Madure, 13.5.1677. 110 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 416v, and 419r, Rapp. gecommitteerdens aan comms. Van Rheede wegens uitstaande schulden ter kuste Madure, 9.12.1690.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 469

Table 27 Security provided by the aranmanai against the Company loan of 12,000 pardaus or rixdollars (36,000 guilders), 1676

Tuticorin by Karuppa Chitti, receiver of the 2,700 rds. a year pakuti, 225 rds. a month Kayalpatnam by the four ambalakkarars, 325 3,900 rds. a year rds. a month Kulasekharapatnam by Kumara Swami, muppan, 3,600 rds. a year 300 rds. a month From Attur by Ayya Ariya Pillai, village scribe, 1,800 rds. a year 150 rds. a month Total 12,000 rds. a year

Sources: voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 346r–346v, Transl contract of obligatie van de landregent Commare Suami Modeljaar, 2.7.1676; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum-Neerlando Indicum, III, pp. 31–34.

In December 1676, Kumara Swami Mudaliyar plus two court officials (one of whom was probably Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya) secretly offered Commander Huijsman the revenues of Alvar Tirunagari against a loan of 8,000 rixdollars. Although accepting the offer would highly indebt these officials and would increase the Company’s reputation, it was feared that Chokkanatha Nayaka or a new governor of the lowlands might not acknowledge the agreement. Moreover, if news of the secret deal were to leak out, it could create suspicion concerning the Company’s real intentions and endanger the reimbursement of the loan on the seaports. In view of these caveats, Governor Van Goens ordered Huijsman to delay until orders from Batavia regarding Madurai were known.111 As the situation of the aranmanai quickly deteriorated after 1675, requests for assistance were no longer limited to indirect financial support, but included open military assistance as well. In October and November 1676, Chokkanatha Nayaka dispatched various olais to the Company asking for military support against Ekoji Bhonsle. By doing so, the Madurai ruler not merely acted out of desperation, but also demonstrated a keen political awareness. Dutch relations with Ekoji turned sour after Ekoji’s forces in March 1676 had overrun the ports of Tirumalaraianpatnam and Karaikal, which had been granted to the Company by Kavita Nayaka in September 1674.

111 voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 193v–194r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 15.12.1676; Idem, f. 301r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 31.12.1676.

470 chapter 6

In October 1676, Chokkanatha Nayaka sent his ambassador Venkata Pedi with an olai to Chief Pieter Vorwer (or Verwer) at Nagapatnam, informing him that he was gathering his forces, and that the Company and the Marava palaiyakkarars were to do the same in order to besiege the city of Tanjore and expel Ekoji. The Madurai ruler assured Vorwer that all the expenditures incurred would be reimbursed, promising several hundred thousand pagodas in cash or rice and nel, confiding that he was ‘relying more on the Hon. Company than on anybody else’. Acting according to instructions not to engage too much in indigenous politics, Vorwer informed Governor Van Goens the Younger that he would delay matters until he had received further instructions from Batavia and subsequently told the Madurai ruler that Admiral Van Goens had dispatched his ships with soldiers, but had been forced to return due to adverse winds.112 Ever eager to please his patron Van Goens, Commander Huijsman and his second-in-command Michiel de Geus of Tuticorin considered that it would be advantageous for the Company if Chokkanatha Nayaka got the upper hand against Ekoji, ‘for with a little assistance [of 10–20 men and 3–4 pieces] two birds could be killed with one stone both here and at Nagapatnam and the haughty Ekoji and the other Moors scared off and paid back in kind…’. Playing on a familiar ‘Christo-centric’, anti-Islamic theme prevalent in all Company circles, but particularly strong among the imperialists, Huijsman and De Geus feared that ‘the extension of the authority and power of the Bijapuri Moors to Coromandel and these surroundings would not bode well for the Hon. Comp. because of those people’s great appetite for commerce and maritime trade’.113 In November 1676, Chokkanatha Nayaka anxiously sent a second olai to Vorwer, informing him that he had sent Rustam Khan as his ambassador to Sher Khan Lodi, the Bijapuri governor at Valigondapuram, who allegedly would provide him shortly with 2,500 horse along with another 500 from Nasir Mahmud Khan, the Bijapuri governor of Gingee. While these reinforcements were to join the Madurai army, the Company was to combine its forces with those of the Tevar at Pudukkottai and ‘den Wellanderan’ (Tirumunatha Pillai a.k.a. Valavan Teruvan Viri Perumal?), ‘making all the preparations according to our consultation’.114

112 voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 446, Transl. ola Sckenade Neijck aan opperh. Verwer, 8.10.1676; Idem, ff. 309r–309v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 3.11.1676. 113 voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 281r, Miss. commt. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 12.11.1676. In fact, the ‘portfolio capitalists’ were the Company’s worst nightmare as they could wield both commercial and political powers similar to the chartered companies. See: Vink, Mission to Madurai, esp. pp. 77–80. 114 voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 447r–447v, Transl. ola Sjockenaden Neijck aan opperh. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam, 17.11.1676.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 471

Vorwer was not particularly impressed by Chokkanatha Nayaka’s reassurances. As the Dutch chief and his Council at Nagapatnam informed Governor Van Goens, the Madurai ruler’s proposal should not be taken serious as he ‘is shopping with a closed purse all the time and for several years has not only deceived many indigenous rulers, but also has allowed his own conquered city of Tanjore and its lands to be lost due to that very same shortcoming’.115 Although not unwilling to assist the Madurai ruler against Ekoji, Van Goens Junior insisted on a number of safeguards, such as having the Nayaka’s army attack first, full payment in advance for Company assistance, and security for what the Company would be awarded in addition. Without these guarantees, the Ceylon governor commented, ‘we cannot but pursue our own interest and not be bound in any way’. Van Goens had higher hopes for concluding a favourable peace with Ekoji Bhonsle, considering Chokkanatha’s proposal more a raiding expedition intended to strip the impending winter harvest from the fields than a serious attempt to dislodge Ekoji from Tanjore. Meanwhile, he warned Batavia that, in case the High Government would deem it unadvisable to redress matters with Ekoji by force, the Company would be compelled to enter into another contract and accommodate the ‘Moors’ continuously with presents.116 In fact, these reservations concerning the military and financial potential of the aranmanai incited Van Goens Junior to enter into an agreement with the new Tanjore ruler in December 1676.117 Ironically, in January 1677 Batavia had decided to authorise Van Goens to assist Chokkanatha Nayaka against Ekoji with 400–500 European soldiers, and a similar number of topazes and peons, along with the accompanying artillery ‘for the honour and profit of the Hon. Company and the glory of our

115 voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 336v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 16.12.1676. 116 voc 1316, obp 16778, ff. 389v–390r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin, 27.11.1676; Idem, ff. 132v–133r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.12.1676. Reportedly the Nayaka of Madurai did leave Trichinopoly, but only for a short time and merely to pay his troops, while no help from Sher Khan Lodi was forthcoming. Meanwhile, Van Goens Junior commented, ‘the bountiful Tanjore harvest is being stored in the barns, which was the principal objective of the Nayaka anyway’. voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 736v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.2.1677. 117 The agreement confirmed the Company’s possession of Chiormandelan and the 10 villages outside of Nagapatnam against an annual recognition along with the minting rights at Nagapatnam in accordance with the contract with Kavita Nayaka. The issue of the Company’s pretensions on Tirumalaraianpatnam and Karaikal, however, was to be settled in the future by friendly means, leaving Ekoji meanwhile in possession of the two seaports. See: Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 34–39.

472 chapter 6 fatherland’. The aranmanai, however, was to pay the expenditures for six months up front, something the High Government seriously doubted would ever occur ‘because of the parsimony of the Nayaka and other considerations’. The reasons for Batavia to insist on using such a large continent of white troops was ‘not only to serve as the prop and stay of the said Gentiles, but also to be able to maintain ourselves in case of lack of courage on the part of the Nayaka troops against the Moors’.118 To the chagrin of Van Goens the Younger, this authorisation arrived too late as the letter from Batavia was not dispatched until May 1677. By that time, the Ceylon governor had long since turned down the request, causing him to lament in November 1677 that he only wished he would have received these orders six months earlier. As he intimated Batavia, he would not have made so many objections against the subsequent request by Muttu Linga Nayaka for a Dutch bodyguard of 20 soldiers, which probably was intended to protect the new ruler somewhat against the uncertainties of the volatile Madurai court.119 Following the defeat of Ekoji by Santoji Ghorpade in November 1677, Governor Van Goens the Younger received a new request for military assistance against Tanjore by Muttu Linga Nayaka. In December 1677, the new ruler of Madurai claimed he had dispatched his army to besiege the city of Tanjore, asking the Company to ‘make all the necessary preparations in order to help bring the said fortress back to our side’. At the same time, Muttu Linga Nayaka also sent a letter to Governor William Langhorn at Madras inviting the English to settle on favourable terms in any part of his territory or in the seaports of Tanjore, which he hoped to reconquer shortly.120 In fact, as we shall see, the time for any such daring enterprises for both the imperialists and the aranmanai in particular had past. Relations between the Company and the Tevar between 1674 and 1676 were determined by the Tevar’s attempts to evade the restrictive conditions of the ‘advantageous contract’ of September 1674 and the ‘Further Declaration’ of January 1675. The raising of the arecanut tolls and other obstacles at

118 voc 692, ff. 166–171, Resol. GG en R, 30.1.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 185v–186v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 18.5.1677. 119 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 111v, and 130v–131r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677. See also: Idem, ff. 40v–41r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.6.1677; Idem, ff. 212r–212v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677. 120 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 597r–597v, Transl. brief Moettallegatre Naick aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 13.12.1677; voc 1323, obp 1678, f. 667r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 15.2.1678; Fawcett (ed.), The English Factories in India, 1670–1677, II, pp. 174, and 174 n. 3.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 473

Adirampatnam, the overseas import of boiled arecanuts from Malabar via Pamban Channel, the Dutch military presence at the islands of Musal Tivu and Nalla Tanni Tivu, the non-observation of the Company’s monopoly of chanks, rockfish skins, and chaya roots, the failure to repay the Company loan of 6,300 rixdollars, the barter of 2,000 oxen against a tusked elephant, and the request for additional military supplies by the Tevar would all prove to be bones of contention, most of which could not be resolved. During these years, however, no definitive rift would occur due to the need of Raghunatha Tevar to consolidate his control over Ramnad vis-à-vis internal opposition and external aggression, especially the wars with the aranmanai (until late 1675) and Ekoji Bhonsle (until April 1679). In this respect, Raghunatha Teyar’s qaul to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar in 1678 effectively set the stage for the violent conflict between the Company and the Tevar during the 1680s. Shortly after the establishment of a Company factory at Adirampatnam in December 1674, conflicts arose over the raising of the areca tolls at Adiram patnam by Raghunatha Tevar from 3.5 to 10 fanams per boi of 30,000 pieces of arecanuts. The Company considered this step to be in clear violation of the contract of September 1674, which stated unambiguously that all dues and impositions were to be levied according to custom (art. 2). As Governor Van Goens the Younger put it in late 1675, ‘the Company could not be held to pay more than any other private trader had done previously’. In response, the Tevar was clearly dissatisfied with the decrease in his revenues due to his concession not to allow any arecanuts through Pamban Channel (art. 17) and insisted that Ceylon arecanuts imported via Nagapatnam would be subject to the same rate as those imported via Pamban Channel. According to the Tevar’s ambassador Mannia Pillai Ayya, the Dutch offer to pay 3.5 fanams toll per amanam of arecanuts was unacceptable, ‘since the Company had prohibited all arecanut trade, while according to custom 1 amanam of arecanuts imported from Ceylon or its subordinate ports in the lands of the Tevar would pay 11 fanams’. Despite several attempts at mediation between Timmarasa Ayya and Mannia Pillai Ayya at Nagapatnam and Tuticorin on behalf of the Company and the Tevar, respectively, no final agreement could be reached.121

121 For Governor Van Goens’ comments: voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 346r–346v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 29.11.−3.12.1675. For the response of Mannia Pillai Ayya: voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 869v, Notulen van de onderhandelingen tussen commt. Huijsman en Manniapulle Aijen, 4.7.1676. See also: voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 159v–160v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 4.10.1675; Idem, f. 182v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman en raad te Tuticorin, 17.10.1675; voc 899, bub 1675, ff. 592–593, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr.

474 chapter 6

Closely related to the conflict over the arecanut tolls was the presence of Company sentries at the offshore islands of Musal Tivu and Nalla Tanni Tivu, which had been established sometime in 1675. The Dutch military presence at Musal Tivu in particular was a continuous thorn in the side of the Tevar, since it was not only a major obstacle in preventing the ‘smuggling’ of arecanuts, pearls, chanks, and other commodities in violation of the ‘advantageous contract’, but also perceived as a clear threat to the Tevar’s power and reputation due to the vicinity of the Parangis to the island-shrine of Rameswaram. The Dutch post on Musal Tivu could not be continued, Raghunatha Tevar warned Com mander Huijsman of Tuticorin in July 1676, ‘since everybody said, to his disgrace, that the Dutch guard would be at Musal Tivu today and at Rameswaram tomorrow’.122 The Tevar’s fears were not unfounded, for we have seen that from the beginning the Van Goenses had been clearly eyeing the island-shrine’s strategic location vis-à-vis Ceylon and constantly pressed Batavia to gain permission to occupy or at least protect the island against what they perceived to be the Muslim peril. Especially in the aftermath of Ekoji Bhonsle’s conquest of Tanjore in late 1675/early 1676 when the political fortunes of both the aranmanai and Ramnad were at a low, these fears resurfaced time and again in imperialist correspondence. In the meantime, the conflict between the Tevar and the Company remained in suspense as neither Batavia nor Ceylon were willing to compromise and insisted that the boiled arecanuts from Malabar should be kept out. The opinion of Superintendent Van Goens Senior, Governor Van Goens the Younger and Council of Ceylon in November 1674 was characteristic of the sentiments prevalent in all leading Company circles, when they declared that to allow this trade through Pamban Channel would be ‘unreasonable since these private traders and their patrons would eat the fruits of the tree which the Company itself has planted and raised with such great care on its own legal soil’. Though Batavia basically agreed with this line of argument, it did urge Van Goens Junior to

Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.12.1675; voc 1307, obp 1676, f. 681r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 1.2.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 47r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; Idem, f. 83v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.4.1676; voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 352r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.7.1676. 122 voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 352r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.7.1676.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 475 conduct inspection of vessels passing Pamban Channel with due circumspection in order not to needlessly provoke the Tevar.123 Maintaining the paper monopoly in rockfish skins, chanks, and chaya roots in practice proved to be a task virtually beyond the powers of the Company. The great demand for these commodities from both Asian and European customers, such as the English from Madras and the Bijapuri regent Sher Khan Lodi, who both had local agents in the Ramnad ports, created a sellers’ market in which the Company could not compete on even terms due to its high overhead costs. Moreover, because of the length of the coast and the relative remoteness of the area, local trade could not be monitored effectively. The trade in local chanks from Ramnad may serve as a case in point. Having factors or agents at Kilakkarai and other Ramnad seaports, possibly including the future Periya Tambi Maniyakkar, Sher Khan Lodi was heavily engaged in the trade of local products, such as rockfish skins and chanks, offering higher prices than the Company was willing or could afford to pay. In an attempt to circumvent Company inspection, 700 cours of chanks were reportedly transported overland from Kilakkarai, Periyapatnam, and Vedalai to north of Pamban Channel and loaded on board a Muslim paru or small sailing vessel destined for Cuddalore. When the Company Bookkeeper Krijn Caperman was sent to Kilakkarai in June 1676, his demands to expel these agents and hand over the chanks were flatly turned down. In an olai to Raghunatha Tevar of July 1676, Commander Huijsman of Tuticorin wrote that he could not believe that these illegal actions were done with the knowledge of the Marava ruler, rather,

123 voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 29v–30v, and 67v–68r, Miss. superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.11.1674. See also: voc 898, bub 1674, ff. 555– 556, Miss. GG en R aan superint. Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 19.10.1674; voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 247r–248r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 30.4.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 182v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman en raad te Tuticorin, 17.10.1675; voc 899, bub 1675, f. 599, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 46v–47r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; Idem, f. 83v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.4.1676; Idem, f. 94r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.5.1676; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 872r, Notulen van de onderhandelingen tussen commt. Huijsman en Maniapulle Aijen, 4.7.1676; voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 340v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge aan commt. Huijsman te Tuticorin, 27.7.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, ff. 88v–89r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 15.12.1676; Idem, f. 401v, Miss. gouvr Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman te Tuticorin, 12.1.1677.

476 chapter 6 they must be the work of ‘certain evil people’ as he did not expect the Tevar to break his contract over such a trifling affair.124 Huijsman was soon to be undeceived. In an unusually frank reply, Raghu natha Tevar retorted that although for the entire existence of the Ramnad state chanks had never been sold for less than 20 to 21 fanams per cour, he was willing to lower the price to 19 or 18 fanams out of friendship to the Company. If, however, the Company did not accept this offer ‘he would rather bury the chanks and stop diving for them altogether’.125 The Company, however, refused to offer more than 15 fanams per cour, being 1 fanam below the Tuticorin market price, provided no more than 1,000 cour were fished, or to annually present the Tevar with an elephant. ‘Otherwise’, Commander Huijsman observed in December 1676, ‘the Tevar most likely will not be contented and all differences left unresolved, as he knows very well how to serve himself of time and circumstance. Therefore, it is no more than reasonable that we should do the same’. This restraint preached by Huisman, however, was asking too much of the parties to observe in practice, as will become apparent in the next chapter.126 Even the seemingly simple barter of 2,000 oxen in exchange for a tusked elephant as stipulated by the ‘advantageous contract’ of September 1674 did not occur without complications. The elephant died before ever reaching Ramnad, while only 400 oxen were delivered at Devipatnam of which the majority (almost three quarters) died shortly upon arrival on Ceylon. Not

124 voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 343v–344r, Ola commt. Huijsman aan de vrijheer Teuver, 22.7.1676. See also: voc 1299, obp 1675, f. 141v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan superint. Van Goens en gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 18.12.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 160r, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 4.10.1675; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 182v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman en raad te Tuticorin, 20.12.1675; voc 899, bub 1675, f. 892, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.12.1675; voc 1316, f. 94r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.5.1676; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 871r, Notulen van de onderhandelingen tussen commt. Huijsman en Maniapulle Aijen, 4.7.1676. Other interested customers reportedly were one Kistappa Nayaka, the Danes at Tranquebar, and the English at Madras. 125 Cited in: voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 352r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.7.1676. See also: voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 887v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 23.9.1676. 126 voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 392v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman te Tuticorin, 1.12.1676; Idem, f. 294r, Miss. commt. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 8.12.1676.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 477 suprisingly, the Tevar’s request for a ‘second’ healthy war elephant was approved, but only if the remaining oxen proved to be all ‘good and shapely young animals’. The request for an additional elephant was granted provided the Tevar would pay in cash up front.127 A similar reservation was made concerning the Tevar’s request for 10,000 lbs. of saltpetre at 1/2 fanam or 3 stuivers per pound. During negotiations with Commander Huijsman at Tuticorin in December 1675, the Tevar’s representative, the Brahmin Mannia Pillai Ayya, was told that the money (500 rixdollars or 1,500 guilders) had to be paid in advance before delivery would be made. In this case, it seems that a deal eventually was reached, for in July 1676 Mannia Pillai Ayya informed Huijsman that he expected delivery at a price of 400 rixdollars.128 The Company’s insistence on payment up front was understandable and directly related to its bad experience regarding the reimbursement of the loan of 6,300 rixdollars against a monthly interest of 2 per cent. Time and again, Raghunatha Tevar under various pretexts intimated that he could not fulfill his part of the bargain. In an olai to Commander Huijsman of July 1676, for instance, he excused himself on the grounds of the widespread destruction and pillaging of his lands and depletion of his treasury in the wake of the invasion of Chinnatambi Mudaliyar, which had prevented his palaiyakkarars from paying their mandatory pakuti. In December 1676, following the execution of his councillors and the subsequent widespread unrest, he replied that, as soon as he had put his affairs in order and had returned to Ramnad, he would read and

127 voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 162v, Miss. Vorwer, Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 4.10.1675; Idem, f. 489v, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 19.11.1675; Idem, f. 495r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan provl. opperh. Van Rhee van Nagapatnam, 14.12.1675; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 47r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 870r, Notulen van de onderhandelingen tussen commt. Huijsman en Maniapulle Aijen, 4.7.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 121r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1676; voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 352r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.7.1676; Idem, f. 310r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 3.11.1676; Idem, ff. 317v–318r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.11.1676; Idem, f. 332v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 5.12.1676; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1677, p. 98. 128 voc 899, bub 1675, f. 592, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.12.1675; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 870r, Notulen van de onderhandelingen tussen commt. Huijsman en Maniapulle Aijen, 4.7.1676; voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 352r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.7.1676.

478 chapter 6 answer the letters of his ambassador, promising to reimburse the Company on the receipt of his new tax revenues.129 It is interesting to note that although Governor Van Goens the Younger was clearly embarrassed by the non-payment, he did not decide to pursue the option of execution left open by the treaty to collect the money. In July 1676, the Ceylon governor did instruct Huijsman to inform Mannia Pillai Ayya, the Tevar’s ambassador, that in case no order for reimbursement was forthcoming, the revenues of the Ramnad seaports would be collected by the Company in accordance with the agreement. However, the announcement was merely part of a bluff, for Van Goens intimated to Huijsman that it was a ruse ‘in order to hear what the reply will be’. In November 1676, Mannia Pillai Ayya was told that, if he had received no further instructions from his master, he would be sent back from Tuticorin to Ramnad under protest that the Company could not be held accountable for any future disaster and forced to seek reimbursement by way of execution in accordance with the treaty.130 The time to act upon such threats, however, was running out.

Castle and Palace Revolutions, 1677–1679

In the wake of a soul-searching debate in the 1670s over ‘a policy for Ceylon’ and the Company in general, the ‘Java-centred’ faction at Batavia under the Councillors of the Indies Pieter van Hoorn and Cornelis Speelman after 1675 managed to impose its mercantile vision on the imperialists in the

129 voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 352r, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.7.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 302v, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 31.12.1676. 130 voc 1315, obp 1677, f. 340v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman te Tuticorin, 27.7.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 179v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.11.1676; Idem, f. 388r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman te Tuticorin, 7.11.1676. See also: Idem, f. 47r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.2.1676; voc 1321, obp 1677, f. 870v, Notulen van de onderhandelingen tussen commt. Huijsman en Maniapulle Aijen, 4.7.1676; voc 1316, obp 1677, f. 121r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad v Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1676; Idem, f. 318r, Miss Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.11.1676; Idem, ff. 290v–291r, Miss. Huijsman en De Geus van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 1.12.1676; Idem, f. 134r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.12.1676; Idem, f. 189r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 15.12.1676; Idem, f. 302v, Miss. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 31.12.1676.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 479

Westerkwartieren. Crucial support for this ‘castle revolution’ at Batavia (where ironically enough Van Goens Senior became Governor General in 1678) was obtained from a majority of Company Directors or ‘paymasters’ in the Dutch Republic, who, like the Van Hoorn-Speelman faction, were increasingly dissa tisfied with the gap between the projected profits and actual financial results of the Ceylon government (see Table 28).131 As the former Commander of Malabar, Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede, wryly observed in November 1677:

[Van Goens] promises these profits to be certain, but this is highly questionable since they are affected by many unforeseen circumstances. However, these high praises have served to convince our principals [the Directors] to put all their money on Ceylon. Yet, if one had added the expenditures, they would have been able to arrive at a better judgement, especially because while expenditures are always fixed, profits are uncertain due to war, poor markets, and so forth.132

Following the publication and discussion of various policy papers,133 the High Government at Batavia (except for Van Goens Senior), starting in January 1677,

131 The critical study on this topic is: Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid. See the general regulations of October 1676 and the subsequent orders by the Company Directors: voc 1342, obp 1680, ff. 1302–1523, Gen. reglement H. XVII van 16 October 1676, mitsgs. de successive orders; voc 1353, obp 1681, ff. 546–716, Vervolg op het gen. reglement verleden jaar begonnen. As Batavia wrote to Van Goens the Younger in September 1679: ‘We are not pleased with so many specific calculations or proposals of profits and advantages which can be found in the Ceylon letters. From now on, Your Honour should refrain somewhat from this, showing effectively that the results and outcome accord with the proposals made’. voc 893, bub 1679, f. 1018, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.9.1679. For the response of the Ceylon Governor: voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 128v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679. 132 Consideratiën van Ceylon van Van Rheede aan GG en R, 23.11.1677, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, p. 271. Van Rheede, who had formerly been a loyal underling of Van Goens Senior, by now had become his arch-enemy, though the conflict seem to have been more a clash of personalities than policies as Van Rheede’s subsequent measures as commissioner general were to demonstrate (see Chapter 7). 133 For some of the most important policy papers dealing with this soul-searching debate during these years: voc 1307, obp 1676, ff. 191–210, Miss. raad ordin. Pieter van Hoorn, nevens de praeparatoire consideratien op de presente toestand van het eijland Ceijlon, aan H. XVII, 6.3.1675; Beschryvinge van de staat en gelegenheyd van het eylant Ceylon… opgesteld door Rykloff van Goens, 24.9.1675, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, pp. 204–245; voc 1315, obp 1677, ff. 306–331, Overgeleverd advies directeur-generaal Van Goens aan de Hoge Regering met betrekking tot de toestand van Ceijlon, 7.11.1676; Idem, ff. 332–334, Nadere consideratiën op het eijlant Ceijlon, Pieter van Hoorn, 28.11.1676;

480 chapter 6

Table 28 Projected revenues of Ceylon by the Van Goenses (1672, 1674, and 1679) compared with actual figures of Batavia (1681) based on information provided by Governor Pijl of Ceylon (in guilders)

Van Goens Van Goenses Van Goens Batavia Senior Junior

1672 1674 1679 1681

Areca 250,000 750,000 540,000 100,000 Textiles 550,000 450,000 50,000 Salt 200,000 50,000 15,000 Opium >50,000 Chanks 100,000 100,000 60,000 50,000 General 250,000 100,000 240,000 much less revenues than 250,000 Elephants 100,000 120,000 Other profits 50,000 Cinnamon 50,000 318,000 Total 1,400,000 1,650,000 1,278,000 [810,160]*

* Based on the annual average of the actual total revenues from 1669–1670 to 1678–1679. See: Winius and Vink, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, p. 173. Sources: voc 1280, obp 1672, ff. 291v–296r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.1.1672; voc 1298, obp 1675, ff. 39v–42v, Miss. superintendent Van Goens, gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H XVII, 26.11.1674; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 126r–127r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H XVII, 2.1.1679; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1887v–1888r, Consideratien 1ste commr. Laurens Pijl en raad te Colombo rakende het belang van Ceijlon, 10.7.1681; voc 906, bub 1681, ff. 925–926, Miss. raden van India aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.10.1681. The reaction of the High Government (Governor General Van Goens Senior did not sign the letter!) on receiving this information from Pijl is telling: ‘we would have hardly dared to believe our own eyes if we had not seen the numbers and double-checked the sums or calculations repeatedly’. voc 906, bub 1681, fls. 925–927, Miss. raden van India aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.10.1681. became increasingly adamant at imposing its mercantilist vision of ‘frugality and mercantile means’ on Ceylon affairs. In various resolutions and letters, it hammered home its mantra, arguing that ‘it is absolutely impossible for the

Consideratien van Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede over Ceylon overgegeven aan de gouverneur-generaal en raden, 23.11.1677, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, V, pp. 247–285; voc 1351, obp 1680, ff. 2539v–2550r, Vertoog van den toestand des gouvernements van Ceijlon gedaan door Rijckloff van Goens de Jonge, raad-extr. en oud-gouvr. van Ceijlon, aan GG en R, 25.2.1680.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 481

Company to continue on the previous footing’. In order to reduce the heavy expenses in accordance with the intentions of the Directors, Batavia first ordered an almost complete freeze on all the works of fortifications, except for the most necessary repairs, and prohibited the construction of new ones, including the one at Tuticorin, despite permission previously granted by the Directors. However, it allowed for having the Parava quarters surrounded by a ditch and wooden palisades similar to those of the ‘outer city’ of Nagapatnam, Chiormandelan, provided the construction and repairs were done by and at the expense of the local inhabitants, while the artillery and ammunition was to be provided by the Company. Second, the number of European personnel on Ceylon proper (Nagapatnam and Madurai excluded) was to be reduced from 4,000 to 3,000 men, while the indigenous servants were to be limited as much as possible. The reduction in the number of personnel at Madurai was left to the discretion of Van Goens the Younger, ‘since our intention has been stated clear enough before’. In September 1678, the Ceylon governor had Commander Huijsman of Tuticorin draw up an estimate according to which the number of European and Asian servants on the Madurai Coast could be cut roughly in half, from 74 to 40 and from 173 to 85, respectively. Third, though naval power was considered the first and most important line of defense against any European invasion, the number of yachts, hookers, sloops, and other vessels was to be reduced as much as possible. Finally, Batavia proscribed a policy of ‘wholesome neutrality’ and disengagement from indigenous politics in general and appeasement vis-à-vis Raja Sinha II, in particular by withdrawing from the uplands of Ceylon occupied after 1665, ‘as the Company here [on Java] is already sufficiently bothered by war and other burdens and inconveniences’. Nevertheless, as we have already seen, it did (belatedly) permit Van Goens the Younger to provide assistance to the aranmanai against Ekoji Bhonsle under certain conditions, while the Tevar was to be assisted when forced to take refuge on Rameswaram.134 In response, Van Goens the Younger protested that Ceylon was a ‘military government’ rather than a ‘commercial settlement’ where ‘one can hear much less the sound of money (which is so dear to all people) than the cursing of the

134 voc 691, f. 101, Resol. GG en R, 14.9.1676; Idem, ff. 166–171, Resol. GG en R, 30.1.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 178v–180r, and 185r–186v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon; voc 692, ff. 101–102, Resol. GG en R, 13.7.1677; voc 1324, ff. 197r–197v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 17.7.1677; voc 692, ff. 137–141, Resol. GG en R, 26.8.1677; voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 199v–202r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677.

482 chapter 6 soldiers over their release and other inconveniences’. In accordance with the imperialist dogma, military might was ‘the anchor without which the richly- laden Ceylon vessel could not be freed from disaster and damage’. While promising to reduce expenses on fortifications, naval power, and personnel, Van Goens considered 3,400 European servants to be the absolute minimum, while an additional 40–50 and 350 ‘white heads’ were deemed sufficient for Madurai and Nagapatnam, respectively. If Batavia insisted on 3,000, Van Goens threatened, it should start looking for a new governor (an invitation which was unexpectedly to be accepted by the Council of the Indies and the Directors).135 Thus, to a certain extent, Van Goens the Younger’s diplomatic overtures to the aranmanai in the period after 1677 can all be considered desperate attempts to force the issue of the ‘work of Tuticorin’ so dear to the imperialist agenda. Van Goens himself travelled to Tuticorin in July–August 1677, while his trusted confidant and personal secretary, the Company Assistant Adolff Bassingh, and Chinappa Mudaliyar (September−December 1677) and the head peon Mukkapa Nayaka (October 1678−ca. February 1679) were dispatched to Trichinopoly. These efforts all proved to be fruitless, partly because of the rapidly deteriorating internal affairs of the aranmanai and partly of the changing balance of power in Company circles at the expense of the imperialist faction. Indeed, both sides were reaping the bitter fruits of their earlier aggressive policies. Batavia’s permission to surround the Parava quarters with a ditch and wooden palisades and the Directors’ approval to build a small fort at the Madurai Coast with the consent of the aranmanai, combined with the dismal state of affairs of the Nayaka state, induced Van Goens the Younger in July 1677 to visit the Madurai Coast in person along with Captain Salomon Lesage. In fact, his was a last-ditch effort to save the ‘work of Tuticorin’. Van Goens claimed that in a few days he had achieved so much with Kumara Swami Mudaliyar, the governor of the lowlands, and the Nayaka, that permission to build a fort would have cost much less than the 10,000 guilders, which the Directors had allowed him to spend. Allegedly on the verge of meeting with the Tirunelveli governor ‘in order to conclude everything favourably’, Van Goens received the above- mentioned letter from Batavia, prohibiting the pursuit of a fort at Tuticorin, despite approval from the Company Directors, but granting permission to reinforce the Parava quarters.

135 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 128r–128v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677; Idem, ff. 169v–171r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 23.12.1677; voc 1343, f. 40r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.5.1679.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 483

According to Van Goens, these ‘unexpected tidings’ made him ‘very sad and unable to conduct any further negotiations’. He asserted that it would be much harder to reinforce the Parava quarters with consent of the aranmanai since their residences occupied 7 to 10 times more land than a proper fort and would subsequently require much larger presents and heavier expenses. Moreover, the Paravas were presently unable and unwilling to bear the brunt of the works and repairs because of their abject poverty. Finally, the ditch, which was to surround the Parava quarters, would be filled almost instantaneously with sand because of the prevalent strong westerly winds during the months of May and October as Tuticorin was situated in the middle of barren drifting sand. Having rejected the reinforcement of the Parava quarters at Tuticorin as unfeasible, and confronted with the prohibition of fortifying the local Company factory, Van Goens took the counteroffensive by ‘enlightening’ Batavia of the drawbacks of the ‘poor Tuticorin factory’ and the many advantages of Punnaikayal and the ‘excellent village of Attur’, which could become a ‘second Nagapatnam outer city in Madurai’, similar to Chiormandelan. The Ceylon governor boldly requested permission to construct the projected star-shaped fortress at Punnaikayal, ‘since the work of Madurai has been curtailed for so long and orders been so contradictory [sic!] that it is time to finish it’. During his presence, Van Goens informed Batavia, he had already persuaded the erstwhile Company envoy Chidambaranatha Chitti to leave the village of Attur to the Company, provided he kept his portion of one-third of the profits but not the jurisdiction.136 Without awaiting further orders from the High Government and eager to force the issue, Van Goens the Younger and the Council of Ceylon in September 1677 decided to dispatch the Company Assistant Adolff Bassingh to Trichino poly, along with Chinappa Mudaliyar and a small armed escort.137 Bassingh’s instructions were to gain permission for the possession of Attur and all its privileges and revenues (except for those of the Brahmins and the local temples) against the annual payment of 1 tusked elephant and 1,500 to 2,400 rixdollars in cash and commodities; acquire complete jurisdiction over the seaports

136 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 104–111r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677. For his subsequent letters to the Company Directors: Idem, f. 163v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 23.12.1677; voc 1323, obp 1678, ff. 666r–666v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 31.1.1678. A completely different assessment of the relative value of Punnaikayal vis-à-vis Tuticorin is provided by Governor Laurens Pijl of Ceylon in January 1681. voc 1355, obp 1681r, ff. 75r–77r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1681. 137 The 1677 Bassingh mission is one of three Dutch embassies to the Nayaka court of Madurai discussed in detail in: Vink, Mission to Madurai, esp. pp. 261–380, and passim.

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(including Attur, Kayalpatnam, and Kulasekharapatnam) and the Paravas in order to prevent further disputes with the aranmanai resulting from the dual administration over the Roman Catholic fishermen by the Company and the central authories of Madurai; and, despite the fact that ‘for specific reasons’ fortifications had been prohibited by Batavia, obtain permission to build a ‘fortress or stronghold’ at Tuticorin or one of the other seaports to which the Company was entitled by right of conquest. Bassingh was to reassure Muttu Linga Nayaka of the good intentions of the Company, pointing out the recent defense of Nagapatnam on behalf of the aranmanai against Ekoji Bhonsle and the return of São Tomé to the Qutb Shah of Golconda following the expulsion of the French. A fort, moreover, would protect the Madurai Coast and the province of Tirunelveli against the violence of other European enemies. However, Bassingh was not to insist too hard on this point in order not to rouse any suspicions. In addition to these specific objectives, Bassingh’s mission was also one of commercial and political reconnaissance, aimed at gaining knowledge of the commercial network centred on Trichinopoly and the present state of the ‘upland revolutions’. Indigenous merchants were to be encouraged to trade at Tuticorin by various promises and incentives, while he was to properly inquire after the friends and enemies of the aranmanai.138 On the arrival of new instructions from Batavia dated September 1677 not to pursue the ‘work of Tuticorin’, Van Goens the Younger replied in October 1677 that he would inform Commander Huijsman at Tuticorin as soon as possible to have Bassingh recalled immediately ‘and to speak merely of matters serving to promote commerce’.139 Despite this apparent observance, however, the Ceylon governor once again resorted to a subterfuge or stalling technique, similar to that used in respect to the proposed fortification of Attur instead of Tuticorin. In a subsequent letter to Huijsman, Bassingh was instructed to do the utmost to gain possession of Punnaikayal and Attur, encourage the trade of the Trichinopoly and Madurai merchants with the Company, and get permission for minting rights at either Attur or Tuticorin. Almost simultaneously, Van Goens the Younger informed Batavia that Bassingh would be summoned from Trichinopoly since, due to the orders received, ‘there is nothing for him to request’, expressing his regrets that the initial instructions for the well-being of the Company could not be pursued.140

138 voc 1338, obp 1678, ff. 893r–895v, Instr. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon voor asst. Adolff Bassingh gaande naar Tritchenapalij, 4.9.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 261–282. 139 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 277v–278r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 19.10.1677. 140 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 127v, and 136v–137r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677; James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos.,

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Van Goens’ claims that the ‘auspicious beginnings’ of Bassingh’s mission had been cut short by the orders from Batavia were far from the truth, because the Company assistant arrived at Trichinopoly at the worst possible time. In November 1677, Bassingh reported that despite his and Chinappa Mudaliyar’s daily presence at the Madurai court, he had been forced to return to his residence empty-handed ‘while waiting in misery’.141 Bassingh’s eyewitness account, unfortunately only very partially preserved, provides a unique glimpse at the ‘indigenous revolts and revolutions’ at the court and throughout the city resulting from the fraternal struggle between Muttu Linga Nayaka and the ‘raging’ Chokkanatha Nayaka, whose compound was guarded by 1,000 armed Muslim horse and 2,000 foot along with several large cannon. Thus, the Company assistant describes a skirmish between supporters of the two brothers in which 30 men were killed, including several important Brahmins and leading Cervaikarars, following an attempt of Chokkanatha Nayaka to visit the nearby Srirangam temple.142

Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, ff. 24–25, Eenige verhalinge.van de voornaamste coopluijden van petten off marten buijten de stad Tritchenapallij [ca. Nov 1677]. In a letter to Van Goens the Younger of December 1678, Commander Vorwer of Nagapatnam informed the Ceylon governor that Bassingh was still at Trichinopoly in contrast to what he had been told by Commander Huijsman two months earlier. See: voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 606r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 22.12.1677. 141 voc 1330, obp 1678, f. 922v, Extract miss. Bassingh uit Trichinopoli aan Tuticorin, 25.11.1677. Bassingh used his spare time writing a large tract on the history of Madurai ‘in obedience of the oral instructions of Commander Huijsman…in order to fruitfully and actively pass the idle hours I have had during my presence at Trichinopoly’. James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, ff. 136, Beschrijving van de oorsprong der Naijken van Madure, 13.11.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 344, and 365. 142 voc 1330, obp 1678, f. 923r, Extract miss. Bassingh uit Trichinopoli aan Tuticorin, 25.11.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 64, 366, and 373. There is no copy of Bassingh’s voluminous journal in the Company archives at The Hague. Though higly unlikely, there may be one preserved at the Tamil Nadu State Archives at Eggmore, Madras, the National Archives at Colombo, the Arsip Nasional at Jacarta, or elsewhere. One version of his ‘Beschrijvinge’ was published in volume five of François Valentijn’s Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën (1724–1726), two other, unpublished versions are located in a collection of manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India in the James Ford Bell Library (JFBL) in Minneapolis, the United States, and in the Alting collection at the National Archives in The Hague. An update of Bassingh’s account was compiled in 1762 by G.F. Holst, which is available in three versions, all kept at the National Archives in The Hague. I have used the more complete Valentijn version in my book and collated it with the corrupted text of the JFBL version when necessary. Bassingh’s account has been supplemented with materials derived from the National Archives, including his instructions, brief extracts from one of

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Van Goens’ stalling techniques notwithstanding, Bassingh was finally forced to return to Tuticorin in December 1677, in the words of Van Goens the Younger, ‘having accomplished nothing’. The Ceylon governor’s assessment, however, was overly pessimistic. While at Tennur, the most important market or pettai near Trichinopoly, Bassingh was able to talk with several merchants, offering them remission of half the tolls, similar to what the Company was enjoying, along with a Company escort if a sizeable amount of commodities were bought at Tuticorin. Although the merchants reportedly excused themselves on the grounds of unfamiliarity with local conditions and the oppressive government, they proposed to have the Company erect a staple of European imports at Madurai or Tirumangalampettai from where arecanuts could be distributed to the neighbouring area. The merchants were willing to pay 8 pardaus per boi of areca of 30,000 pieces plus the tolls and freightage. At least one ‘Hindustani’ merchant decided to take the bait and promised to visit Attur or Tuticorin.143 Bassingh was also provided with an olai from Muttu Linga Nayaka, which, apart from requesting military assistance, was also intended to inform Governor Van Goens that Kumara Swami Mudaliyar had been replaced by Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya and Ariyanatha Pillai ‘because he had caused grief to the merchants’. Van Goens was told that he could deal with the new governor of Tirunelveli Ariyanatha Pillai ‘in order to have the merchants return and trade with Your Honour as before’.144 Although minting rights had been refused by Muttu Linga Nayaka and the pradhani due to the fact that the Madurai mint had been farmed out to private individuals, it was decided to follow the Madurai ruler’s advise and to pursue this matter and the possession of Attur with Ariyanatha Pillai. In January 1678, Bassingh was dispatched to Tirunelveli ‘in the hope of accomplishing something advantageous, especially since there are rumours of another change in government. This probability makes the governors much more decisive than usual, thinking that whatever will come of it will end with this change while profiting and concealing as much as possible…’.145

his letters and journal, and an olai or letter in response from the Nayaka of Madurai. See: Vink, Mission to Maudrai, p. 17 n. 12. 143 James Ford Bell Library, Minneapolis, Minn., B 1738 Mos., Manuscript papers relating to Dutch trade in India, ff. 24–29, Eenige verhalingen [ca. Nov 1677]; voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 614v, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 18.1.1678. 144 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 597r–597v, Transl. brief Moettallegatre Naick aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge, 13.12.1677; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 377–380. 145 voc 1324, obp 1678, f. 173r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 23.12.1677; Idem, ff. 613r–613v, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van

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Ariyanatha Pillai, however, refused to rise to the bait and had already aroused Dutch indignation by forcibly confiscating and publicly selling rice and nel contracted by the Company, while extorting the 2,000 rixdollars payment from Chidambaranatha Chitti. The Tirunelveli governor matter-of-factly informed Commander Huijsman that he would return the money or rice in February, claiming to be in need of money in order to pay the aranmanai. The incident, along with the ‘incredible’ oppression of the governor, the tripling of the local tolls by the muppan of Kulasekharapatnam, the imprisonment and physical abuse of Company merchants, and the plunder and mistreatment of the Manappad Paravas made Van Goens the Younger decide to press for the possession of Attur and permission to blockade the seaports ‘in order to be able to repay violence with violence and show that we also wield authority over a foot’s breadth of land there’.146 In June 1678, Ariyanatha Pillai himself arrived with 2,000 foot and 300 horse at Punnaikayal, and inspected the Company’s factory and the village, but left reportedly ‘finding nothing to complain about’. The Madurai governor consented to restitute the goods stolen from the Manappad Paravas, fully reimburse the Company loan at Kayalpatnam, while releasing Chidambaranatha Chitti and promising payment of the confiscated 2,000 rixdollars. ‘All fine words’, Van Goens the Younger commented wryly, ‘which are seldom acted upon. However, they know time and again how to placate us with them when necessary, while coming up with new vexations and insults afterwards’.147 The response of the High Government to Van Goens’ unauthorised actions was predictable. In September 1678, Batavia repeated its previous prohibition against any fortification on the Madurai Coast, advising Van Goens to employ the largest of the three local churches as the Company’s factory. Moreover, the

Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 18.1.1678; Idem, f. 583r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin, 19.1.1678; voc 1323, obp 1678, f. 666v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.1.1678. 146 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 152v–153r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.12.1677; Idem, f. 613v, Miss. commt. Huijsman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 18.1.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 15v–16r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; Idem, f. 24v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.5.1678; Idem, f. 18r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.6.1678. In December 1690, Chidambaranatha Chitti still had an outstanding debt to the Company of 7,270 guilders. See: voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 419v, Rapp. gecommitteerdens aan comms. Van Rheede wegens uitstaande schulden ter kuste Madure, 9.12.1690. 147 voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 28v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.6.1678.

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Ceylon governor was not to be the first to resort to violence, and was to avoid all troubles since ‘the Company (may God help us) is presently not in a position to avenge all insults’.148 The instructions arrived too late to refrain Van Goens from acting. In October 1678, he informed Batavia that following a temporary blockade of Kulasekharapat nam, the muppan himself had come to see Chief Joan Fauconnier of Tuticorin, acting ‘rather more polite, relinquishing his pretensions regarding the local tolls’. Requesting permission from Batavia for a full blockade of all the Madurai seaports, Van Goens intimated that he had decided to dispatch the head peon Mukkapa Nayaka and a Dutch Company servant fluent in Tamil along with 1 arachchi reformado, 3 lascorins, 1 torch bearer, and 1 kanakkapillai to Trichinoply ‘in order to demonstrate in writing what great insults, injustices, and damages the Company is being subjected to on a daily basis, requesting His Highness to attend to this or that; otherwise the Hon. Company would be forced to use its right and might for its own preservation’.149 After a brief interview with the Tirunelveli substitute governor Kalitiappa Pillai at Tirunelveli, Mukkapa Nayaka proceeded to Trichinopoly where he was to request the possession of Attur, freedom of trade, and the reimbursement of the loan. As delicate as his mission was to begin with, matters were compounded by the blockade of Kulasekharapatnam and the ‘robbery’ of the pearl banks and the subsequent dispatch of the three main culprits, the Parava headmen João de Melo, his nephew Nicola de Melo, and João da Cruz Correia to Colombo (see further ahead in this chapter). In addition, Kalitiappa Pillai had sent Chokkanatha Pillai, the actual governor of Tirunelveli, a letter written by the raja of Kayamkulam, in which the Malabar ruler complained that the Company was prohibiting the merchants of his state from trading with

148 voc 902, bub 1678, ff. 1007, and 1021, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 16.9.1678. 149 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 50r–50v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 17.10.1678; voc 1351, obp 1680, f. 2529r, Lijst van alle inlandse dienaren onder het Ceijlonse gouvt., 30.2.1679. The term ‘reformado’ applies to former soldiers of the Madurai army who had defected to the Company during the Tuticorin War of 1669. The Dutch Company servant fluent in Tamil might be the one at Tuticorin mentioned by Van Goens Senior, ‘who from age 10 or 12 until age 22 has been taught the high and low Malabar [=Tamil] language from the most learned Brahmins at Tekkumkur and excels in reading, writing, and speaking eloquently and who has virtually turned into a Gentile, refusing to eat beef and observing many other superstitions…’. Beschrijvinge van den staat en gelege- nheijt van het eyland Ceylon door Van Goens aan GG en R, 24.9.1675, in: Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, p. 238.

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Kulasekharapatnam and instead referred them to Punnaikayal or Tuticorin, desiring ‘that the aranmanai as lord of the land would see to this matter’.150 At the same time, the maniyakkarar of Tuticorin, Piravi Pirumal Pillai, dispatched an olai protesting that the Dutch had failed to heed his invocations of the name of the aranmanai not to send the three Parava pattangattins to Colombo, especially since they allegedly had not paid 1,200 rixdollars for two years arrears of ventikkol or alms and two months of pakuti or tribute.151 In an ill-concealed threat, the Tuticorin maniyakkarar suggested that the Company could be forced to return the Parava headmen from Colombo ‘either through harsh words or other insinuations to the people sent by the Hon. Lord Com mander to Trichinopoly’.152 Regarding the blockade of Kulasekharapatnam, Mukkapa Nayaka intimated to the aranmanai’s plenipotentiaries, the pradhani Kavita Nayaka and Chok kanatha Pillai, that the Company was entitled to arbitrate maritime affairs without having to consult the aranmanai. Justifying the blockade by the non- reimbursement of the loan and the tripling of the tolls by the local muppan, the Company’s head peon requested satisfaction ‘in accordance with reason and right’. Thereupon, Kavita Nayaka and Chokkanatha Pillai insisted on seeing the ‘Nagapatnam qaul’ of 1665. This request was cause for some embarrassment. According to Chief Joan Fauconnier of Tuticorin and his second-in-command Joan van Vliet the problem was that while the remission of half of the tolls and the privileges previously possessed by the Portuguese had been recognised by the aranmanai in the ‘Nagapatnam qaul’ of 1665 and the Peace of Kayatar of 1669, the names of

150 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 245r–245v, Transl. ola Moekapanaijck uit Trichinopoli aan koopman Fauconnier te Tuticorin, 3.12.1678; Idem, f. 135v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1679. 151 In December 1688, the taxes to be paid by the inhabitants of Kayalpatnam amounted to 9,000 pardaus, including 1,000 pardaus of ‘ventikkol, a so-called alms’ (een soogen. bedel- gifte). See: voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 394r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl, 11.12.1688. The pattangattim-mór of Tuticorin was responsible for the collection of the pakuti or tribute based on the assessments of the individual wealth of the residents by the povos or district heads. He was then to hand over the money collected to the representatives of the Nayaka or his governor. The main duty of the kanakkipillai-mór was to keep the accounts and records of the pakuti. voc 1505, obp 1683, f. 362r, Memorie Van Rhee voor opperk. en geeligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust Rutgaard de Heijde, 31.1.1682. 152 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 241r–242v, Transl. ola Moeckapa Neijck aan commr. Huijsman te Tuticorin, 19.11.1678; Idem, ff. 212r–213r, Miss. Fauconnier en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.11.1678; Idem, ff. 134r–135r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1679.

490 chapter 6 these impositions were more familiar than their actual contents, leading to numerous disputes with the muppans and maniyakkarars. Nevertheless, Fauconnier requested to have the ‘Nagapatnam qaul’ sent to Tuticorin in order to dispatch a copy to Mukkapa Nayaka.153 The other complicating factor, the payment of taxes by the Paravas, was directly related to the issue of authority over the Roman Catholic fishermen. As Fauconnier and Van Vliet informed Van Goens the Younger, though ventikkol had been remitted a long time ago by previous governors of Tirunelveli, ‘the nature of the miserly regents is such that, once they manage to acquire something, they want to introduce it as an old custom’. The Ceylon governor therefore ordered that no pakuti or any other taxes should be levied over the Christian villages, except for the ventikkol, which could be taken from the Paravas ‘as far as the respect and authority of the Company would permit’.154 In view of the fundamental differences between the two positions, combined with the infighting within both the Company and the aranmanai, Mukkapa Nayaka’s mission, similar to that of Van Goens the Younger and Bassingh, was doomed from the beginning. In April 1679, Van Goens informed Batavia that the Company’s head peon and the other members of the embassy had returned ‘in disgrace’ to Tuticorin ‘without receiving the least reply or letter from either the Nayaka or the pradhani’. Again, the Ceylon governor insisted that the whole episode once more demonstrated the necessity of sufficient naval power, a good number of European servants, and a proper small fort, ‘which will create more respect and freedom in trade rather than always having to be ready with presents’.155 Similar to the stalemate regarding the ‘work of Tuticorin’ was the outcome of the proposal to have a pearl fishery for the Company along with hired thonis and divers, provided the aranmanai would receive the customary one day catch and three, four, or five free thonis. In view of the recent ‘robbery’ of the

153 voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 245v, Transl. ola Moekapa Naijck uit Trichinopoli aan koopman Fauconnier te Tuticorin, 3.12.1678; Idem ff. 219v–220r, Miss. Fauconnier en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.12.1678; Idem, f. 230v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Vorwer en raad te Tuticorin, 16.12.1678. 154 voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 228r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Vorwer en raad te Tuticorin, 1.12.1678; Idem, ff. 219v–220r, Miss. Fauconnier en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.12.1678. 155 voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 26r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.4.1679. See also: voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 134r, and 135v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1679.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 491 pearl banks, the ‘Moors’ were to be excluded from participation. If, however, the aranmanai did not agree, it would be suggested that the Company and the aranmanai would each have an equal share in the fishery. In March 1679 the Senior Merchants Rutgert de Heijde and Thomas van Rhee entered into negotiations with the Brahmin Manandia Ayya and Chidambaranatha Chitti, representatives of Governor Kalitiappa Pillai of Tirunelveli. Despite all ‘reasonable, indeed, highly profitable offers and presentations’, Kalitiappa Pillai in early April 1679 sent an olai informing the Company ‘that he could not accede to anything but an ordinary fishery and that the common man should participate’. Moreover, feigning ignorance of the ‘robbery’ of the pearl banks, Manandia Ayya replied that the Muslims were subjects of the aranmanai and that the governor would not want them to be excluded.156 In a rather perceptive analysis, interspersed with the obligatory invections alluding to the alleged Oriental character of the indigenese and Oriental despotism, De Heijde and Van Vliet distinguished three reasons for the failure of the negotiations with the aranmanai. First, this ‘distrustful, haughty, and arrogant nation’ was disinclined to listen to ‘natural reason’, but instead were governed by their ‘whims’. Thus, ‘the Lord Nayaka prides himself to have always been lord of the pearl fishery. He and his councillors, envious of the Company, therefore, interpret these proposals as being to his disadvantage as they would be the equivalent of losing his claim to the title of lord of the fishery’. Second, the proposals would affect the private fortunes of the governors or tax farmers, ‘who always pursue their own interests even at the expense of the ruler himself’. The profits of the pearl fishery for the governors consisted of the tolls and taxes on the sale of pearls at the pearl market of Palaiyakkayal. The appeal to the interests of the common man was merely a subterfuge for concealing their private motives, ‘which only occurs in order to be able to tax and extort them even more’. Finally, the present governor Kalitiappa Pillai was merely a strawman of Chokkanatha Pillai, who was the real governor of Tirunelveli. As a result, Kalitiappa Pillai could not make any important decision without consulting Chokkanatha Pillai.157

156 voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 14v, and 18r–18v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.3.1679; Idem, f. 25v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.4.1679; Idem, ff. 228r–230r, Rapp. De Heijde, Van Rhee en Van Vliet rakende het verhandelde met Calitiappa Pulle, 19.4.1679; Idem, ff. 34v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.5.1679. 157 voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 231r–232r, Rapp. De Heijde, Van Rhee en Van Vliet rakende het verhandelde met Calitiappa Pulle, 19.4.1679.

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The reaction of Batavia to the failure of these negotiations and Van Goens’ subsequent suggestion to hold any future pearl fisheries at Mannaar ‘in the Company’s own waters and on its sovereign territory’ was telling. The High Government wished that Kalitiappa Pillai would have consented, but was not surprised that he had not done so as similar requests in the past had also never been granted. Reserving the pearl oysters for the Company or otherwise prohibiting any fishery was only deemed practical at Arippu on the Company’s own pearl banks, ‘but to do so openly along the Madurai Coast would not be easy’.158 As in the case of relations with the aranmanai after 1677, the High Government urged Van Goens the Younger to use moderation and mercantile means in dealing with the Tevar. The Ceylon governor was to seek repayment of the Company loan through admonishing the Marava ruler, but he was prohibited to force the issue by blockading his seaports without explicit permission from Batavia. A similar policy of restraint was to be pursued regarding the observation of the Company’s monopolies in the import of arecanuts and export of rockfish skins, chanks, and chaya roots. The observation of the ‘advantageous contract’ of September 1674 was to be enforced by raising the prices for rockfish skins, chanks, and chaya roots offered by the Company, while following a dumping policy in order to boost the sale of Ceylon arecanuts and Malabar pepper against the overland and overseas imports from Malabar by indigenous merchants. In addition, Company vessels were to cruise north and south of Pamban Channel and west of Cape Comorin to inspect indigenous vessels, but were to use caution in order not to offend the local rajas.159 This mixture of diplomatic, commercial, and military persuasion produced limited results at best. A veritable flood of admonitions from Tuticorin, Nag apatnam, and Colombo to Raghunatha Tevar to pay back his loan and observe the ‘advantageous contract’ was systematically disregarded by the Marava ruler. In January 1679, a clearly frustrated Van Goens the Younger informed the Directors that, manifold requests to the contrary, the Tevar was still ‘singing his

158 voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 35v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.5.1679; voc 903, obp 1679, f. 1019, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.9.1679. 159 voc 691, f. 100, Resol. GG en R, 14.9.1676; voc 1324, obp 1677, f. 186v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 18.5.1677; Idem, ff. 210r–211r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677; voc 902, bub 1678, ff. 1007– 1008, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 16.9.1678; voc 903, bub 1679, ff. 1006, and 1018, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.9.1679.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 493 old song’. The Marava ruler merely produced ‘smooth letters’ and ‘will not come up with any money nor obey his contract as long as he can mollify us with words and olais, always finding some kind of excuse while taking advantage of us in the meantime’.160 In addition, raising purchase prices of chanks and rockfish skins and lowering sale prices of Ceylon arecanuts at Tuticorin and Nagapatnam could not prevent the continuation of ‘smuggling’ and ‘contraband trade’. While purchases of chanks and rockfish skins and sales of Ceylon arecanuts and Malabar pepper did improve, the Company could simply not compete with indigenous trade on even terms because of its higher overhead costs.161 The Asian merchants and traders’ ability to purchase firsthand straight from the producer, accept smaller profit margins, combined with their knowledge of local market conditions, made these ‘pedlars and merchant princes’ formidable opponents to the Company.162 Finally, Company supervision was far from watertight, let alone ‘landtight’. For one thing, the overland trade in Malabar pepper and arecanuts could not be prevented and remained the undisputed market leader. Prices of Ceylon arecanuts and Malabar pepper imported by the Company time and again had to be adjusted to the volume and sale prices of overland imports. In January 1679, for instance, Commander Vorwer and Council of Tuticorin informed Van Goens

160 voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 136r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1679. For references to some of the summons sent to Ramnad by Commander Pieter Vorwer from Nagapatnam, Chief Marten Huijsman from Tuticorin, and Governor van Goens the Younger from Colombo: voc 1323, obp 1678, f. 666v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.1.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 15r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 30.4.1678; voc 1340, obp 1679, ff. 1274v–1275r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 11.5.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 28v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 21.6.1678; Idem, f. 51v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 17.10.1678; Idem, f. 230v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge aan commt. Vorwer en raad te Tuticorin, 16.12.1678. 161 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 211v–212r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 7.9.1677; Idem, f.131r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 70r–70v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 2.6.1679; voc 1351, obp 1680, f. 2242v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 1.10.1679; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 117r–117v, Rapp. Van Rhee van den jegenwoordigen toestant ter custe Madure, 19.10.1679; Idem, f. 121v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679. 162 See, for instance, the calculations of Thomas van Rhee, the chief of Tuticorin, comparing the sale prices and profit margins of the Company and indigenous merchants in the trade in Malabar pepper at Madurai, presented to Governor Pijl of Ceylon. voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 16v–18v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.3.1680.

494 chapter 6 that they had been forced to lower the price of Ceylon areca in view of the stiff competition offered by the overland trade in Malabar arecanuts ‘because the Malabarese are situated very close to these lands and connected with them and are also subjected to much fewer expenses in land tolls than further to the north. Therefore, they are able to sell it at much lower prices in these lands than we are’.163 For another, the Company vessels cruising Pamban Channel and the west cape of Cape Comorin were unable to monitor all indigenous shipping. In June 1678, for instance, a vessel belonging to Babba Prabhu from near Quilon arrived safely via Pamban Channel at Porto Novo with a cargo of Malabar pepper and wild cinnamon, both considered to be contraband goods. Two months later, in August 1678, the English from Madras managed to get their hands on a cargo of rockfish skins and chaya roots from Devipatnam and Rameswaram via their Chief Merchant Kasi Viranna (d.1680).164 The greatest and most formidable challenge to Company pretensions was presented by the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars, members of the ‘portfolio capitalist’ family of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir. As leaders of the Maraikkayar community based at Kilakkarai they represented the Company’s worst nightmare, since they commanded the same combination of political and commercial resources as the chartered companies. The first reference in Company correspondence to the ‘famous Moorish merchant’ Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, probably the elder brother of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir, is in October 1678 when Sher Khan Lodi, his son Ibrahim Khan Lodi, and his immediate retinue joined the side of the Tevar. Having been granted some lands between Pudukkottai and Tondi, the former Bijapuri governor reportedly was in close dealings with the Periya Tambi, suggesting, along with other hints, that the ‘seventeenth-century commercial magnate’ may have acted previously as a factor for Sher Khan Lodi and others on the Ramnad Coast.165

163 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 440v–441r, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 3.1.1679. 164 voc 1340, obp 1679, ff. 1301r–1302v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.8.1678; voc 1333, f. 112r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 16.10.1678; voc 902, bub 1678, f. 902, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 5.11.1678. For information on Kasi Viranna: Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 229–232; Y. Sharm,’ A Life of Many Parts: Kasi Viranna—A Seventeenth- Century South Indian Merchant’, The Medieval History Journal 1,2 (1998), pp. 261–290. 165 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 110r–111v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 16.10.1678. Subrahmanyam asserts erroneously that the first reference to ‘the old Periya Tambi’ in Dutch and English records occurred in 1682. Rao, Shulman and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, p. 275. See also: Arasaratnam, ‘A Note on Periathamby Marikkar’, pp. 51–57; Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, p. 83.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 495

In November 1678, Commander Van Rhee of Nagapatnam informed Governor Van Goens the Younger of Ceylon that Raghunatha Tevar had issued a qaul to the Periya Tambi, Maraikkayur granting him the monopoly of trade in his lands in general, and in chanks, rockfish skins, and chaya roots in particular, ‘in direct violation of the 12th, 13th, and 14th articles of the ‘[advantageous] contract’ [of 1674]’. A few months earlier, his predecessor, Pieter Vorwer, had already expressed serious doubts about the commercial potential of the Ramnad Coast ‘since the maniyakkarars are at present both merchants and regents at the same time…and moreover their own judges’.166 Van Goens the Younger was rightly alarmed by this deliberate move of state building on the part of Raghunatha Tevar. In December 1678, he ordered Commander Vorwer of Tuticorin to warn the Marava ruler ‘that he should abstain from such affairs, which were contrary to the alliance and prohibit the Moor Periya Tambi from dealing in commodities reserved to the Company. Otherwise, we would be forced to attend to this matter in such a way as the right and might of the Hon. Comp. would allow. Moreover, the Lord Tevar should, without delay, issue orders for the reimbursement of the Company’s money as this could no longer be missed…’.167 Having farmed the monopoly of chanks from the Ramnad Coast for 3,000– 3,600 pardaus or rixdollars, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar ignored the warning and diving for chanks reportedly continued unabated south of Rameswaram near Kilakkarai. The Company’s response was firm in the form of a maritime blockade north and south of Pamban Channel, while Company chaloupes or launches were sailing back and forth along the coast in order to prevent the Periya Tambi from dispatching his vessel from Kilakkarai to Porto Novo or Bengal. Apparently frustrated in his efforts, Raghunatha Tevar, somewhere around August 1679, sent an ambassador to Tuticorin to request a safe conduct for Bengal. At the instigation of Governor Van Goens, Chief Thomas van Rhee consented to issuing the pass, provided, however, the Company’s loan to the Tevar along with the interest were paid first. Thereupon, the ambassador produced only ‘empty words’. In effect, the stage was set for the open conflict in the next period.168

166 voc 1340, obp 1679, f. 1303v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.8.1678; voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 292r–292v, Miss. Van Rhee en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 20.11.1678; voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 90v–91r, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.7.1679. 167 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 228v–229r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon aan commt. Vorwer en raad te Tuticorin, 1.12.1678; Idem, f. 445r, Miss. Van Rhee en raad te Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 24.12.1678. 168 voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 36v, Miss. gouvr Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 12.5.1679; Idem, ff. 90v–91r, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 19.7.1679; Idem, f. 170r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 7.9.1679; Idem, f. 176r,

496 chapter 6

Numerous references have already been made to the relationship between the Company and the Paravas during this period. The 1670s can be considered a transitional stage in the gradual rapprochement between the Dutch and the Paravas, especially the lower-class Paravas or kamarakkarar. Accommodation suited the imperialist vision because an active patronage of the Paravas, who were considered Company ‘subjects’, helped to shore up Dutch claims to jurisdiction over the Fishery Coast and control of the strategic Palk Straits.169 As the Dutch imperialists found out to their dismay, the Paravas constituted an independent-minded client community, actively pursuing a private agenda quite distinct from that of their supposed patrons, not only in the religious, but in the political and commercial spheres as well. In fact, the Paravas were able to do so by cleverly exploiting the existing conflict between the Company and the aranmanai during this period in order to, as Governor Van Goens put it, ‘have the best of two worlds’. Thus, Company officials repeatedly complained about the ‘fickleness’ of the Paravas and their ‘underhanded intrigues’ against Company projects, especially the construction of a fort, wishing that they would no longer ‘be of two minds’. In December 1675, for instance, Commander Marten Huijsman of Tuticorin sourly observed that the Paravas ‘have come to the conclusion that it is much safer for them to favour either the Company or the aranmanai, according to time and circumstances, fearing that if they completely devoted themselves to one of the two sides, more and heavier impositions would be levied on them than the present ones’. Huijsman suggested, therefore, that the Company should incorporate the Muslim Maraikkayars of Kayalpatnam into the Company patronage network, thus exploiting the existing Parava-Maraikkayar rivalry to bring the recalcitrant Catholic fishermen to order.170 Despite tensions of this sort, the 1670s were characterised by a continuation of a process of gradual rapprochement, started in 1664 with the policy of religious toleration, between the Dutch and the Parava community, especially the lower class kamarakkarar. Reportedly impoverished by the prolonged absence of a pearl fishery since 1669, the Company’s attempt to control the Indo-Ceylon

Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 26.9.1679; voc 1351, obp 1680, f. 2242r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 1.10.1679; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 121v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 31.10.1679. 169 For analyses of the gradual rapprochement between the Company and the Paravas: Vink, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of the Fishery Coast’; Idem, ‘Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia’; Idem, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’. 170 voc 1308, obp 1676, ff. 560r–560v, Nadere consideratiën commt. Huijsman, 23.12.1675; voc 1333, obp 1679, f. 135r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1679.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 497 trade, and the alleged oppression of the aranmanai, the Parava leadership in early 1672 implored Van Goens Senior to take them under Company protection. In return, they promised ‘to perform all the types of work, for which the Company would like to use them’.171 Instead of allowing the Paravas ‘all types of work’, Van Goens strictly circumscribed Parava occupations in such ways as to benefit the Company. Thus, Parava mercantile activities were not to harm Dutch interests. To achieve this end, they would not be allowed to trade in the commodities reserved to the Company and would also be subject to the restrictions imposed on the Indo- Ceylon commerce during this period. These limitations were particularly detrimental to the interests of the Parava trading elite. However, other ‘appropriate’ activities, although intended to profit the Company as well, proved to be advantageous to the kamarakkarar and included employment as lime burners, dockhands, fishermen, lascorin soldiers, and coolie labourers.172 In November 1677, Governor Van Goens Junior foresaw no difficulties with regard to the local Paravas, ‘living currently by the Company’s trade and residence alone’, in moving the Company seat at the Madurai Coast from Tuticorin to Punnaikayal, ‘for where the prey is, the eagles gather’. According to him, Tuticorin, which previously had been a village of stately residences and wealthy inhabitants, currently consisted merely of straw, dirt, and a few stone houses, serving as a place of refuge for the miserable living under the protection of the Company in the midst of a depopulated wasteland.173 As the Dutch were engaged in hostilities with Raja Sinha II, hundreds of Parava coolies and lascorins from Tuticorin were taken into Company employment and sent to Ceylon in order to work on the fortifications and serve as indigenous auxiliary troops. In June 1674, moreover, 38 topazes or mixed bloods and ‘Portuguese’ residing near Tuticorin were taken into Company service and even allowed to settle at Tuticorin, provided that no ‘papists’ (Jesuit priests) or their following were amongst them. It is striking that an oath of allegiance to the Company requested of these ‘Portuguese’ by Governor Van Goens Junior was deemed unnecessary by Batavia ‘since we are still in friendly correspondence with that nation’.174

171 voc 1288, obp 1673, f. 284v, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan Batavia, 4.3.1672. 172 voc 1313, obp 1676, ff. 319v–320r, Concept instr. superint. Van Goens aan commt. Huijsman, 13.1.1675. 173 voc 1324, obp 1678, ff. 106v–107r, and 109v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.11.1677. This gloomy description has to be taken with a grain of salt as it was closely related to his promotion of Punnaikayal in an attempt to bypass the prohibition of Batavia against the fortification of Tuticorin (see earlier). 174 voc 1298, obp 1675, f. 358r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1674; Idem, f. 450r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan

498 chapter 6

While official relations between the Dutch Republic and Portugal remained cordial, anti-Catholic sentiments in Company circles were fueled by the growing tensions and subsequent outbreak of the Holland War between the Dutch Republic and France in Europe (1672–1678), followed by the intrusion of the ‘Persian squadron’ of the French Admiral De la Haye in South Asian waters. Prior to De la Haye’s arrival in the Bay of Kottiyar on the east coast of Ceylon in March 1672, rumours were even circulating about the dispatch of large fleets from France and Portugal, while the new Portuguese viceroy, Luís de Mendonça Furtado, Count of Lavradio (1671–1677), reportedly had assumed the title of restaurador de Ceilão with the obvious intention of reconquering Ceylon from the Dutch. In September 1671, therefore, Governor Van Goens Senior of Ceylon expressed his fears of a joint French–Portuguese attack on Malabar, Ceylon, and especially the island-shrine of Rameswaram. Van Goens was particularly alarmed by the presence of what he deemed potential fifth columnists in the areas under Company jurisdiction, ‘all of them still completely devoted to the Roman religion, who therefore cannot be trusted’.175 While the French threat, as we have seen, did materialise in the form of the escadre de la Perse, Van Goens’ fears of a Portuguese renaissance following the end of Luso-Spanish hostilities in 1668 proved to be unfounded. Despite grandiose visions, such as the establishment of a fifth world monarchy (quinto imperio do mundo) of the court preacher António Vieira (1608–1697) or calls for the reconquest of Ceylon by his fellow-Jesuit Fernão de Queyroz (1617–1688), Portugal, with its limited resources, had no choice but to focus on its most valuable overseas possession, Brazil.176 As one leading historian of Portuguese Asia

superint. Van Goens, 5.6.1674; Idem, f. 514r, Miss. superint. Van Goens aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 5.9.1674; voc 1308, obp 1676, f. 357v, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 6.12.1675. 175 voc 1282, obp 1672, ff. 1117r–1117v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 13.9.1671. For the response of Batavia: voc 895, bub 1671, f. 861, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon, 19.11.1671. 176 F.e., C.R. Boxer, A Great Luso-Brazilian Figure: Padre António Vieira, S.J., 1608–1697 (London: The Hispanic & Luso-Brasilian Councils, 1957); H. Cidade and A. Sergio (eds), Padre Antonio Vieira: Obras Escolhidas, 12 vols. (Lisbon: Sá da Costa, 1951–1954), esp. IV, pp. 1–71; J. Lúcio d’Azevedo, Cartas do Padre António Vieira, 3 vols. (Coimbra: Imprenta da Universidade, 1925–1928); De Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of Ceylon, esp. pp. 1004, and 1197. In January 1672 Governor Van Goens Senior of Ceylon observed: ‘It is unquestionable that the Portuguese king wrote to the viceroy [before the conquest of Ceylon by the Company] “perdemos India, não perdemos nada, perdemos Ceilão, perdemos todo” or “India lost, nothing lost, Ceylon lost, all lost”… and even nowadays one can

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 499 has observed recently, ‘the interests of the Estado da India were sacrificed at the altar of the empire in the New World’.177 Thus, the letter patent of Prince Regent Dom Pedro of Portugal (r. 1668–1706) issued to Mendonça Furtado in March 1670 merely described him as ‘viceroy and captain-general of the Estado da India’.178 Moreover, no large Portuguese fleet ever appeared in Asian waters to test the loyalty of the Company’s client community on the Fishery Coast. The strength of the emerging Dutch-Parava alliance, however, was tested in late 1678 when a ‘conspiracy against the Company’s prosperity and privileges’ was discovered in the form of the unauthorised fishing of the pearl banks near Tuticorin by the local Paravas and Maraikkayars. According to initial reports, the local Parava leadership had colluded with the Maraikkayars by secretly fishing for pearls with no less than 46 vessels over the past two years. Illustrative of imperialist discourse was the fact that the ‘robbery’ was described as ‘a villainous and treacherous deed’ on the part of the Company’s supposed loyal client community.179 Yet, no definitive rupture followed, not only because the imperialists needed to preserve the loyalty of the Paravas as their alleged client community, but also because at this time it could not afford a dispute with the aranmanai, which was highly upset about the subsequent course of action by the Company, in particular the dispatch of the three ringleaders, João da Cruz Correia, Nicola, and his nephew João de Melo, to Colombo. In early November 1678, the maniyakkarar of Tuticorin, Piravi Pirumal Pillai, dispatched two arachchis and several lascorins to the local Company factory, demanding from Commander Huijsman that the Parava pattangattins were to remain on the Madurai Coast where the issue should be resolved, claiming that they were 1,200 pardaus in arrears in the payment of their taxes. We have already seen that in a subsequent olai to Governor Chokkanatha Pillai of Tirunelveli, the Tuticorin maniyakkarar was particularly upset that the three Parava headmen had been sent to Colombo, despite the invocation of the

hear the Portuguese commonly sigh and lament: “ai, nossa Ceilão, nossa remedio,” [“ay, our Ceylon, our cure”] as we have heard them exclaim on many an occasion…’. voc 1280, obp 1672, ff. 384v–349r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1672. 177 Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700, p. 276. 178 Pissurlençar (ed.), Assentos do Conselho do Estado, IV, pp. 220–223. 179 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 195r–198v, Miss. commt. Huijsman en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 8.11.1678; Idem, ff. 200r–200v, and 203r–204r, Miss. koopman Fauconnier van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 17.11.1678; Idem, ff. 241r–242v, and 244r, Transl. ola Moeckapa Neijck aan commr. Huisman te Tuticorin, 19.11.1678; Idem, ff. 158v–159r, Resol. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.11.1678.

500 chapter 6 name of the Nayaka and his officeholders, and suggested that the Company should be forced to return the Parava headmen from Colombo ‘either through harsh words or other insinuations to the people sent by the Hon. Lord Commander to Trichinopoly [the head peon Mukkapa Nayaka and the other members of the Company mission]’.180 As a result, efforts at damage control started almost from the very beginning. Although it was concluded, in line with the prevailing paranoid Dutch siege mentality, that ‘everyone was contaminated’, only the three aforemen- tioned principal instigators, João da Cruz Correia, Nicola, and his nephew João de Melo, were arrested and shipped to Colombo, while the common Paravas and the other headmen were pardoned ‘in order to prevent greater damage and alteration’. The whole affair was also portrayed as a storm in a glass of water. Investigations allegedly demonstrated that no more than 1,200 oysters valued at less than 300 guilders had been caught and sold illegally.181 João da Cruz Correia, ‘the least guilty’ of the three ringleaders, was subsequently pardoned in September 1679 and allowed to return to Tuticorin. The ‘evil scoundrels’ João and Nicola de Melo, who initially had been sentenced to five-year-banishment at the Cape of Good Hope, eventually died at Colombo before the Governor Pijl and Council of Ceylon, who had requested their par- don, were informed of their final acquittal by Batavia in late 1683.182 In addition to the general amnesty, the Company-kamarakkarar alliance was further cemented at the end of this period by according the Paravas the right of worship within the areas under Company jurisdiction. In fact, the religious settlement of April 1679 confirmed the spiritual authority of the Portuguese Jesuits over the Parava community. The immediate cause for the settlement was the ransom of one of the Parava headmen, the pattangattim Pedro da Cruz Pinho Gago. Having attended mass at the improvised church

180 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 241r–242v, Transl. ola Moeckapa Neijck aan commr. Huijsman te Tuticorin, 19.11.1678; Idem, ff. 212r–213r, Miss. Fauconnier en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 27.11.1678; Idem, ff. 134r–135r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1679. 181 voc 1333, obp 1679, ff. 218r–219v, Miss. Fauconnier en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge van Ceijlon, 15.12.1678; Idem, ff. 230r–230v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge aan commt. Vorwer en raad te Tuticorin, 16.12.1678; Idem, ff. 133r–135v, and en 141r, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1679. 182 voc 1343, obp 1680, ff. 18r–18v, Miss. gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.3.1679; voc 903, bub 1679, ff. 1005–1006, and 1024–1025, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Van Goens de Jonge en raad van Ceijlon, 21.9.1679; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 113r–113v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 110r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683.

The Bitter Fruits Of War, 1670–1679 501

(described as a ‘thatched hut and residence’) at Sivantha Urani near Tuticorin, Da Cruz Pinho Gago had been arrested by the cash-strapped officials of the aranmanai and subsequently released upon the payment of 1,000 pardaus or 3,000 guilders. A Parava request to the Dutch Chief Thomas van Rhee to be permitted the right to celebrate mass at their ‘Great’ or ‘Mother Church’ (Periyakovil or Matakovil), ‘Our Lady of Snows’ (Nossa Senhora das Neves) in Tuticorin under their padre vigário or vicar priest was subsequently granted by Governor Van Goens Junior of Ceylon.183 This period of cross-cultural contacts ended with the falling out of power of the imperialist faction, the consolidation of the Tevar state, and the seeming imminent collapse of Madurai proper. Ironically, the loosening grip of the aranmanai would allow for the realisation of the long-standing imperialist goal of a fortified settlement at Tuticorin, while the commercial conflict with the Tevar and his ‘portfolio capitalist’, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, would usher in two Dutch punitive expeditions, which seemingly tilted the balance of power in favour of the northern Europeans.

183 voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 60r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede te Tuticorin, 30.3.1690; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 424r–424v, Rekest van de pattangattins en verdere Paravase gemeente aan gouvr. Van Rhee van Ceijlon, 3.5.1692; voc 1506, obp 1693, f. 859r, Dagreg. gouvr. Van Rhee op de voijagie naar Tuticorin, 12.8–8.9.1692.

chapter 7 Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690

The memoirs [of Ceylon] before that time [1681] are all in agreement with the principles laid down by Their Excellencies, the two Van Goenses, father and son, …who were of the opinion that Ceylon should be subdued by the Company by force of arms, so that the Company might enjoy its advantages, even in spite of the king of the country,…But the later documents are in quite a different spirit. There kindness is advocated, with a view of gaining the affection and goodwill of the natives. Expenses are to be cut down as much as possible, in order to make ends meet. As a result of this the Company lost much good and profitable territory… Memoir left by governor gustaaf willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon to his successor Willem Maurits Bruynink, 1740.

For convenience’s sake, the entire course of Company trade at the Madurai Coast can be divided into three distinct periods. The first period covers the first twenty years of Company factories and trade there [1659– 1679], which I consider the time of a newly started and as yet insecure, though promising, trade. The second period, consisting of the next twenty years, I call the time of a more reasonable and improved trade. However, the last thirty or fourty years I deem to be one of an initially deteriorating and subsequently fraudulent and unprofitable trade… Considerations of governor gustaaf willem baron van imhoff of Ceylon regarding the trade of the Dutch East India Company on the Madurai Coast, 1738.1

Following a disastrous decade of war, the 1680s were, on the face of it, a time of recovery for both the Company and Madurai. In late 1681, the mercantile faction at Batavia formulated a comprehensive and full-fledged policy for Ceylon, radically different from the principles laid down by ‘Their Excellencies, the two Van Goenses, father and son’. At the same time, the Company Directors initiated a series of reforms aimed at returning to the commercial basis of the Company by reducing its overhead costs. The subsequent policy of retrenchment concentrated on three strategic areas: South India and Ceylon, Java and

1 voc 11297, f. 41, Consideratien van den raad ord. en Ceylons gouvr. Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff over de handel van de Gen. Ned. O.I. Maatsch. op de Madurese Cust, 22.11.1738; Memoir Left by Gustaaf-Willem Baron van Imhoff, pp. 4–5.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 503 surroundings, and the Spice Islands of Eastern Indonesia. On the Madurai Coast, the result of this more conservative policy and the rapidly expanding long-distance textile trade with Europe (the so-called ‘Indian’ or ‘calicoe craze’) was, in the words of Van Imhoff, a ‘more reasonable and improved trade’. Similar to the apparent improvement in Company affairs, Madurai’s fortunes seemingly rebounded in the wake of an acute crisis of survival (the ‘time of troubles’) in the early 1680s, as it managed to recover most of its lost territories, albeit largely due to external circumstances. Thereupon, the aranmanai renewed its expansionist policy vis-à-vis its neighbours and long-standing rivals, Tanjore, Travancore, and Mysore. Ramnad, on the other hand, initially seemed to profit from the difficulties of the aranmanai, but its recent acquisi- tions were lost due to internal rebellions and external attacks after 1685. However, despite the outward return to normalcy, appearances were deceptive as there was to be no more ‘business as usual’. Beyond the horizon larger forces were at work, which in the long run would undermine the very foundations of both the Company and the state of Madurai, ushering in, to cite Van Imhoff, a period of ‘an initially deteriorating and subsequently fraudulent and unprofitable trade’. Structural political and commercial changes forced both Madurai and the Company to turn inward into splendid isolation in the south, effectively leaving the larger political and economic arena to their more powerful Asian and European rivals to the north. During this time period, the traditional regional rivalries of India’s southernmost rulers became inexorably intertwined with the escalating pan-Indian Mughal-Maratha struggle. Following the conquest of the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687), the Mughals in their ‘Deccan obsession’ invested the fort of Gingee (1690), the ‘Troy of the East’, and began to extract tribute from Madurai and the neighbouring princes. At the same time, these powers could not ignore the revenue demands of the rapidly expanding Marathas. In addition, as part of the process of ‘first’ or ‘early modern globalisation’2 in general and the ‘long eighteenth century’ (1680–1820)3 in particular, intra- Asian and long-distance trade with Asia entered a new competitive phase of

2 Bayly, ‘From Archaic Globalization to International Networks’; Idem, The Birth of the Modern World, pp. 41–48; Idem, ‘ “Archaic” and “Modern” Globalisation’; Gunn, First Globalization. 3 Nussbaum (ed.), The Global Eighteenth Century; L. Blussé and F.S. Gaastra (eds), On the Eighteenth Century as a Category of Asian History: Van Leur in Retrospective (Brookfield: Ashgate, 1998); R. Raben, ‘The Broad Weft and Fragile Warp: Conference on the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Asian History’, Itinerario 18, 1 (1994), pp. 10–18; P.J. Marshall, ‘Retrospect on J.C. van Leur’s Essay on the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Asian History’, Itinerario 17, 1 (1993), pp. 45–58; J.C. van Leur, Indonesian Trade and Society: Essays in Asian Social and Economic History, second edn. (Bandung: Sumur Bandung, 1960), pp. 268–289.

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‘profitless growth’,4 characterised by the diminishing importance of monopolistic commodities and monopsonistic positions and a dramatic expansion in the volume of Euro-Asian trade grafted on the ‘bullion for goods’ pattern without a concomitant increase in profitability. Japanese minerals (gold, silver, and copper), and the fine spices from Ceylon and Eastern Indonesia were gradually supplanted by ‘non-traditional products’, such as textiles, coffee, and tea, available on the relatively open markets of India, Arabia, and China. At the same time, European and Asian competition gained momentum ushering into a new ‘age of commerce’ in which the voc had to work harder to earn the same absolute amount of profit. As alternative sources of precious metal in the Indian Ocean basin were drying up (especially Japan, Gujarat, and Persia) and demand expanded in the wake of the ‘consumer revolution’, the result was a massive ‘drain’ of precious metals from Europe to the early modern global workshops and ‘sinks’ of India and China.5 The basic instability of the period between 1680 and 1682, the ‘time of troubles’,6 was illustrated by the repeated incursions of Ramnad bands into the Madurai lowlands (April and November 1680) and their actual occupation by the Mysorean army (July 1681–April 1682). Ironically, the political instability allowed the Company’s mercantile faction to realise one of the elusive long- standing goals of the Van Goenses, that is, the fortification of the Tuticorin

4 De Vries and Van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, p. 447. See also Vink and Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, pp. 48–86; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-colonial India, pp. 211–267. 5 Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 179–194; Gaastra, ‘The Exports of Precious Metal From Europe to Asia’; Idem, ‘De Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie in de Zeventiende en Achttiende Eeuw’; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise, pp. 83–110, and 211–239; Idem, ‘Bullion for Goods’; Idem, ‘Precious Metal Flows in Asia and the World Economic Integration in the Seventeenth Century’, in: W. Fischer, R.M. McInnis, and J. Schneider (eds), The Emergence of a World Economy, 1500–1914 (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1986), I, pp. 59–76; Idem, ‘Precious Metal Flows into India in the Early Modern Period’, in: Flynn, Giraldéz, and Von Glahn (eds), Global Connections and Monetary History, pp. 149–168; D. Rothermund, Europa und Asien im Zeitalter des Merkantilismus (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge sellschaft, 1978); De Vries, ‘Connecting Europe and Asia’; Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, pp. 12–14, 62–69, 263, and 269–278; Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, 79–95; Furber, Rival Empires of Trade, pp. 230–234; W. Barrett, ‘World Bullion Flows, 1450–1800’, in: Tracy (ed.), The Rise of Merchant Empires, pp. 224–254; S. Moosvi, ‘The Silver Influx, Money Supply, Prices and Revenue-Extraction in Mughal India’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 30, 1 (1987), pp. 47–94. 6 The term is employed in the letter of Andres Freyre, Superior of the Madurai Mission, to Charles de Noyelle, Varugapatti, 14.5.1683, in: Stephen, Letters of the Portuguese Jesuits from the Tamil Countryside, p. 254.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 505 factory. Meanwhile, relations with Ramnad continued to coalesce around the restrictive commercial clauses of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674. The period between 1682 and 1685 was dominated by the occupation of the Madurai Coast by the Tevar. Dutch-Ramnad relations were still defined by the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674, but were now compounded by the fact that the Tevar decided to farm out the occupied lowlands to his ‘portfolio capitalist’, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. The ensuing communal violence between the Christian Paravas and Muslim Maraikkayars was inextricably bound to the politico-commercial conflict of the Company with the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, leading to armed Company intervention in the form of the First Dutch- Ramnad War (January–March 1685). Though peace was quickly restored, the aranmanai, which had previously requested Dutch assistance in vain, profited by regaining control of the Madurai Coast ca. May 1685. In accordance with its novel self-proclaimed mercantile stance, the Company turned down requests for military assistance from both sides during the subsequent hostilities between the aranmanai and the Tevar continuing until November 1685. Between 1686 and 1690, Dutch-aranmanai relations were determined by the conflict between the mare clausum or ‘closed seas’ policy of the Company and the traditional ‘open door’ policy of the aranmanai. The conflict was spurred by the direct intrusion of English and French trading interests into Madurai in collusion with disaffected Asian merchants and rulers. In contrast, Dutch-Ramnad relations seemingly improved with the abolition of the restrictive commercial clauses of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 and the settlement of some of the remaining issues. Between late 1687 and 1690, however, the Company pursued a dual policy, attempting to coopt the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives, while secretly preparing for a possible rupture. Through the Second Dutch-Ramnad War, a surprise attack on Rameswaram in August 1690, the Tevar was forced into signing a ‘reputable peace’. Almost at the same time, a surprise visit of the Nayaka of Madurai to Tuticorin in July 1690 led to the conclusion of a ‘contract of alliance’ with the aranmanai. The enforcement of both agreements, however, proved to be as elusive as the attempts to consolidate Dutch politico-commercial regional hegemony despite the building of a monumental fort at exorbitary costs at Nagapatnam, the new headquarters of the Dutch administration of the Coromandel Coast the same year. Ironically, it was the mercantile faction, which realised two of the main goals of the imperialists, that is, both the fortification of Tuticorin and the final incorporation of the Parava leadership into the Dutch patronage network. In addition to the rapprochement with the kamarakkarar or common Paravas in the 1670s, relaxation of the Company’s religious and economic policies, along with the growing political instability along the coast, the ‘final solution’ of the

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Parava problem consisted in the incorporation of the Parava trading elite or mejaikarar into the Dutch patronage network. The so-called ‘first persecution’ of 1690–1691 was merely a temporary aberration from this process of gradual accommodation, completed by a policy of freedom of conscience and the liberalisation of the Indo-Ceylon trade (1697).

General Framework: Dutch

The last decades of the seventeenth century have been characterised as a period in which Dutch world trade hegemony was ‘gradually eroded’ and ‘many signs of incipient decline’ were evident due to the rise of mercantilist forces, especially in England and France. In Europe, the Dutch Republic seemed to profit from a brief and uneasy lull in the international arena following the Peace of Nijmegen (1678) to regain most of its lost overseas markets. This apparent recovery was cut short, however, by the Nine Years’ War or the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–1697), the most relentless guerre de commerce or economic war of the mercantilist era. Indeed, as one noted historian of the Low Countries has observed recently, the Dutch world entrepôt ‘beyond the zenith (1672–1700)’ was living on borrowed time, bound to decay as soon as protectionist policies were adopted more widely. Similarly, in Company history the period 1680–1720 has been traditionally called ‘an era of afterglow’ or, more recently, a period of ‘profitless growth’, characterised by a growing volume of trade but no corresponding economies of scale.7 The average annual invoice value of Asian return cargoes by the Dutch East India Company increased from 2.56 million guilders between 1640/1641 and 1649/1650, 4.53 million guilders between 1680/1681 and 1689/1690, 5.51 million guilders between 1700/1701 and 1709/1710, and 6.5 million guilders between 1710/1711 and 1719/1720, to 8.72 million guilders between 1720/1721 and 1729/1730.8 The end of the Company’s ‘golden age’ has been attributed to structural changes in intra-Asiatic and long-distance trade, characterised by the continued

7 Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 825–853; Idem, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, pp. 292–358; Gaastra, De Geschiedenis van de voc, pp. 37–38, 56–65, and 127–148; De Vries and Van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, pp. 429–448, esp. 441–447. 8 In comparison, the annual invoice value of Asian return cargoes by the English East India Company rose from 0.99 million guilders between 1664 and 1669 (partly the result of the Second Anglo-Dutch War), 4.84 million guilders between 1680/1681 and 1689/1690, and 5.49 million guilders between 1710/1711 and 1719/1720, to 7.56 million guilders between 1720/1721 and 1729/1730. Gaastra, Dutch East India Company, Table 19, p. 135; Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, Table 40, 190; Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, Table C.1, pp. 507–509.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 507 decline in the role of highly profitable monopoly products and monopolistic positions. In Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate in 1685 ordained further restrictions on overseas commerce via the introduction of the system of ‘limited trade’. By imposing a sharp reduction in the overall value of imports into Japan as well as a change in their composition to the detriment of the trade in raw silk, the 1685 regulations seriously eroded the role of Japan, previously the ‘linchpin of the Company’s intra-Asian trade’, in the overall trading strategy of the Company. The resulting decline in the export of gold kobans could only be partially compensated by the increased export of abasis and ‘Moorish’ ducats from Persia. As a result, the amount of currency which had to be exported from Europe, already increasing sharply due to the growing size of operations, grew even more rapidly from 11.3 million guilders in 1670–1680 and 19.7 million guilders in 1680–1690 to 28.6 million guilders in 1690–1700.9 In the long-distance trade of Europe with Asia, the shift from the monopolistic pepper and fine spice producing areas of Eastern Indonesia to the relatively open textile markets of Bengal and Coromandel accelerated in the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century due the so-called ‘calicoe craze’ and ‘Chinoiserie’ vogue or demand for Indian textiles and things Chinese in Europe, respectively. Thus, from 1670/1671–1679/1680 to 1680/1681–1689/1690 the share of spices and pepper in the sales value of the Chamber Amsterdam dropped from 59 to 46 percent, while the share of textiles rose from 25 to 42 percent.10 Cotton and silk textiles were the staple commodities exported from

9 If one includes the bills of exchange, the figures become even more dramatic. See: Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, pp. 128–136; Gaastra, De Geschiedenis van de voc, p. 139; Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 187, and 234; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, i, pp. 487–490; Nachod, Niederländischen Ostindischen Kompagnie, pp. ccii–cciv, and ccvii. In 1696 the downward trend in the Japan trade was further reinforced by the reduction of the gold content of the koban from 85.69 percent to 56.41 percent without a reduction in its silver price. It is no coincidence that from the mid-1680s onwards the Company servants at the Madurai Coast begin complaining about the shortage of gold kobans. 10 Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid, pp. 286–287; Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, pp. 12–14, and 269–278; Bruijn, Gaastra, and Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 192. The change in the composition of Euro-Asian trade was less dramatic in the case of the e.i.c. since, having been forcibly excluded from the spice producing areas and ‘thrown back’ on the Indian subcontinent by the Dutch, it had already focused on alternative competitive markets and products. Nevertheless, the share of pepper in the total value of English imports into Europe decreased from 25.25 percent (1.09 million guilders) in 1668–1670 to 7.02 percent (0.97 million guilders) in 1698–1700, while the share of textiles and raw silk increased from 57.21 percent (2.47 million guilders) to 81.07 percent (11.18 million guilders).

508 chapter 7 the Indian subcontinent, accounting for roughly 70–90 percent of all Dutch exports from Coromandel, Bengal, and Madurai.11 In response to these developments, the Company Directors launched two major initiatives. Between 1676 and 1680, the Gentlemen Seventeen issued a series of rules and regulations, which were codified at Batavia by the Councillors of the Indies Cornelis Speelman and Joannes Camphuys in the ‘General Regulation’ of 1680. A second undertaking, initiated by the Amsterdam Burgo master and Company Director Coenraad van Beuningen, was started by the creation of a commission of ‘reform and budgetary measures’ (redres en mesnagie) at the Amsterdam chamber in April 1683. The dispatch of Commissioner General Van Rheede in December 1684, the increase (November 1687) of the powers of existing judicial officials, now called independent fiskaals, charged with the inquiry into the abuses and crimes of Company servants, and the introduction of general musterrolls, annual surveys of the number of Company personnel in Asia as of 1688, were all part of this second thrust.12 From the 1680s onward, a process of commercial contraction and (ironically) territorialisation set in whereby the Company as a ‘reluctant imperialist’ focused on three key geographical areas of activities, that is the Spice Islands of, Eastern Indonesia, Java and its surroundings, and Ceylon and South India.13 In Eastern Indonesia, the Pax Neerlandica in the Moluccas, which had been firmly established in the 1660s, was further expanded by the assertion of Dutch supremacy over the sultanates of Ternate and Tidore. A revolt led by Kaicili Sibori Sultan Amsterdam of Ternate (r. 1675–1690) between 1679 and 1681 was

11 voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1993r–2006r, Aanwijsinge wat kwantt. en soort van koopmans. op de Madurese kust zijn verkocht, 1.3.1677–30.2.1681; voc 1525, obp 1694, ff. 1238r–1240v, Extract getrocken uijt d’Tutucorijnse negotieboecken van diverse jaeren…waerbij aengewesen werdt wat quantitijt lijwaeten deser custe zijn ingekoght, 20.4.1693; voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratiën van Van Imhoff over de generale handel ter custe Madure. No. 5 Samentreckinge van het geheele beloop der negotie…op de Custe van Madure, 1659/60–1737/38, 22.11.1738; Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise, Tables 5.1 and 6.2, pp. 98–99, and 222–223. 12 Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid, passim; Idem, ‘The Independent Fiskaals of the voc, 1689–1719’, in: Blussé, Ross, and Winius (eds), All of One Company, pp. 92–107; Vink and Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, pp. 73–74; P.J. Veth, ‘H.A. Van Reede tot Drakestein’, De Gids 1 (1887), pp. 113–161, and 423–475. The more recent works on Van Rheede focus on ‘his’ scientific achievements: J. Heniger, Hendrik Adriaan van Reede tot Drakestein (1636–1691) and the Hortus Malabaricus: A Contribution to the History of Dutch Colonial Botany (Rotterdam and Boston: A.A. Balkema, 1986); and: K.S. Manilal (ed.), Botany and History of Hortus Malabaricus (New Delhi: Oxford and ibh Pub. Co., 1980). 13 Gaastra, De Geschiedenis van de voc, pp. 57, and 64–65.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 509 suppressed with relative ease. The sultan of Ternate was reinstalled, but forced to sign a treaty in July 1683, acknowledging his status as a ‘vassal’ of the Company based on the right of conquest. Tidore, which had helped to sup- press the rebellion, remained relatively free of direct Dutch interference, but gradually came to view its relationship in the same way as Ternate, especially after the Company forced its choice of a successor on Sultan Saifuddin (r. 1657– 1687) despite strong claims of his brother Kaicili Goram. In July 1689, the new ruler, Sultan Hamzah Fahruddin Kaicili Seram (r. 1689–1707), reaffirmed all previous treaties between Tidore and the Company. Thus, Ternate’s and Tidore’s status changed from ‘younger brother–older brother’ to a distinctly more hierarchical one of ‘children’ toward ‘father’ Company.14 After the end of Trunajaya’s rebellion in November 1681, the Company wanted nothing more than to withdraw its military forces from Central and East Java. It was to find, however, that the results of its own policies would require a state of constant preparedness and intervention, leading to what has been called ‘expansion without design’.15 Moreover, according to the ‘Batavia- centric’ vision, Java’s northeast coast (pasisir) was deemed indispensable as a source of timber and rice and as a market for Company textiles, as well as being strategically of vital importance to the Company’s Asian headquarters. In West Java, the ‘final solution’ of the Bantam problem, which had developed into a powerful rival centre of independent foreign shipping, was found in March 1682 by exploiting an internal conflict within the royal house between the ambitious crown prince, later Sultan Haji (r. 1682–1687), and his father, Sultan Ageng a.k.a. Sultan Tirtayasa (r. 1651–1683). Yet, as the position of Sultan Susuhunan Amangkurat II of Mataram (r. 1677– 1703) became more secure, his relations with the Company gradually deteriorated. In February 1686, while visiting the Mataram court at Kartasura, the Company envoy François Tack was killed along with 74 other Dutchmen by Amangkurat II’ s own troops along with those of the runaway Balinese slave Surapati (d. 1706). Surapati subsequently built up an independent domain at Pasuruan in East Java, where he and his followers were to govern much of East Java for over eight decades.

14 Andaya, The World of Maluku, pp. 176–213; Knaap, Kruidnagelen en Christenen, pp. 42–68; Idem (ed.), Memories van Overgave van Gouverneurs van Ambon in de Zeventiende en Achttiende Eeuw, Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Kleine Serie 62 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1987), pp. 250–283. 15 W. Remmelink, ‘Expansion without Design: The Snare of Javanese Politics’, Itinerario 12, 1 (1988), pp. 111–128.

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In August 1689 a plot was uncovered led by the head of the Ambonese in Batavia, a Muslim and long-time Company servant called Captain Jonker. Jonker had joined with Makasarese, Bugi, and Bantanese opponents of the voc at Batavia in plotting a massacre of the local Europeans. He was also believed to be in collusion with the ousted Minangkabau ruler Raja Sakti (Ahmad Syah ibn Iskander) in South Sumatra along with Amangkurat II. Following a pursuit in which Jonker himself was killed, many of his followers fled to Kartasura. Amangkurat II initially provided asylum, but in a vain effort to gain Dutch support against Surapati, in February 1690 handed over 50 of the conspirators to the Company, which summarily executed them. The episode, however, merely confirmed and deepened mutual apprehension and distrust. In line with its paranoid siege mentality, the Company kept its limited personnel in defensive posture on the north coast, fearing a general Muslim conspiracy against the Europeans.16 Almost as a natural extension of its influence over Java’s pasisir northeast coast and Bantam, the Company also attempted to strengthen its position on the nearby island of Sumatra. However, the results of armed intervention on the southeast coast (1681, 1683, and 1687) and almost annual expeditions dispatched from Batavia and Padang to the west coast were limited at best. Pro- Acehnese sentiments among the local heads (penghulus, rajas, orangkayas, and other local headmen) of the west coast ports, such as Singkil, Baros, Priaman, Kotatenga, and Tikku, were fed by the presence of the English at Bencoolen (Bengkulu) after 1685 and Indrapura between 1685 and 1693. Complications on the east coast, such as the delicate upstream-downstream (ulu-ilir) association and the fragile Jambi-Palembang brotherhood, were compounded by the involvement of Johor and the arrival of Makassar and Bugi refugees, internal rivalries within the ruling dynasties, and widespread anti- Dutch feelings among local Muslims coalescing in the 1680s around the figure of the ousted Minangkabau ruler jang di pertuan Ahmad Syah ibn Iskander (a.k.a. Raja Sakti).17

16 Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia, pp. 77–84; Idem, War, Culture, and Economy in Java, pp. 60–108; L. Nagtegaal, Riding the Dutch Tiger: The Dutch East Indies Company and the Northeast Coast of Java, 1680–1743, Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 171 (Leiden: kitlv Press, 1996), pp. 70–77. 17 B. Watson Andaya, To Live as Brothers: Southeast Sumatra in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993), pp. 74–144, esp. 103–135; N. Macleod, ‘De Oost-Indische Compagnie op Sumatra in de 17e Eeuw’, De Indische Gids, 25, 2 (1903), pp. 1246–1263, and 1913–1932; 26, 1 (1904), pp. 620–637, 795–804, and 1265–1286; 27, 2 (1905), pp. 1268–1285, and 1586–1608; 28, 1 (1906), pp. 777–807; and 28, 2 (1906), pp. 1420–1449. On Sumatra’s west coast: Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III,

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 511

In Ceylon, the Company displayed a similar apprehension towards an indigenous ruler, Raja Sinha II, and his successor Vimala Dharma Surya II (r. 1687– 1707). Initially, the mercantile faction at Batavia formulated, between October and November 1681, a comprehensive and full-fledged policy for Ceylon, which seemed to herald a dramatic departure from those previously formulated by the Gentlemen Van Goens. Reiterating its faith in the resolution of August 1677, intended to reduce expenses on fortifications, personnel, and naval power, the Batavian Council, supported by Governor Pijl of Ceylon, decided that peace with Raja Sinha II was essential. This goal was to be achieved by the offer to return all the lands occupied since 1665. The much-anticipated change, however, came to naught as Pijl, realising Raja Sinha’s old age and physical debility and his need to ensure a smooth transition of power to his son, made a volte- face. The result of the loss of the sense of urgency was what has been called a ‘policy of drift’ during the final years of Raja Sinha’s life. In essence, Pijl’s policy was not radically different from that of the two Van Goenses, but he was clothing it in flattery and submissive language, playing down appearances of Dutch sovereignty, while placating the Kandyan ruler with rare and luxurious articles and providing assistance in bringing Buddhist priests from Arakan to Kandy. However, following the succession of Vimala Dharma Surya II, a new apprehension entered Ceylon correspondence. Similar to the situation on Java, Pijl feared a general uprising of the Sinhalese population in the lowlands in support of the ‘young king’. Pijl now constantly pressed Batavia for military reinforcements in order to strengthen what he believed to be the dangerously depleted and vulnerable Company garrisons on the island. Negotiations between the Company Senior Merchant Claes Alebos and Kandyan officials in July 1688 to legalise Dutch claims to sovereignty against rival Europeans faltered over the Dutch insistence on the continued occupation of coastal lands and closure of the ports. Dutch-Kandyan relations were to remain frozen in a state of cold war apprehension, though open hostilities did not break out until 1760.18

pp. 218–219, 220–223, 227–232, 243–251, 252–255, 256–259, 259–261, 290–292, 298–299, 351–355, 355–359, 388–392, 406–410, 423–426, 426–433, 442–444, 480–481, and 536–538; Dagh-Register Batavia 1680, pp. 32, 127–131, 186. 191–193, 298–299, 711–713, and 713–720; Van der Chijs et al. (eds), Dagh-Register 1681, pp. 25, 336, 338–339, 340–343, 345–354, 627–629, 636, 652–654, and 656–658; Idem, Dagh-Register 1682, pp. 132–133, 400–408, 560–561, 802– 806, and 1022–1024; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, I, p. 277. On the Lampung districts: Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 392–406. 18 Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 234–235, 237–238, 278, 286, 332–333, and 367–369; Arasaratnam, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 93–119; Idem, ‘The Kingdom of Kandy: Aspects of its External Relations and Commerce, 1685–1710’, Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social

512 chapter 7

While concentrating on Ceylon, the Company for various reasons in the late 1680s also decided to withdraw from central and northern Coromandel and Malabar as part of its overall policy of retrenchment. The combination of war, famine, and disease in the wake of widespread political turmoil and instability had led to a collapse of trade in the region, while competition from rival European and Asian traders was especially fierce here. Southern Coromandel and southern Malabar also were strategically situated and served as a cordon sanitaire or buffer zone for Ceylon. Finally, the momentous decision of Commissioner General Van Rheede to move the seat of the Coromandel government from Pulicat to Nagapatnam in 1690 and construct a costly fortress (the so-called ‘castle with the golden walls’) was prompted by the consideration that Nagapatnam was under the direct jurisdiction of the Dutch unlike Pulicat, where the Company would be subject to the whims of local indigenous officials.19

Studies 3 (1960), pp. 109–127; Idem, ‘Vimala Dharma Surya II (1687–1707) and his Relations with the Dutch’, Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies 6 (1963), pp. 59–70; P.E. Pieris, Ceylon and the Hollanders, 1658–1796 (Tellippalai: American Ceylon Mission Press, 1918), pp. 25–38. Visiting Ceylon between 1687 and 1689, the account of the Antwerp physician Aegidius Daalmans (d. before 1703) provides a clear insight in Pijl’s ‘cunning’ tactics vis-à-vis Vimala Dharma Surya. See: D. Ferguson transl., ‘A Belgian Physician’s Notes on Ceylon in 1687–89’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 10, 35 (1887), pp. 141–160. Also: F.H. de Vos, ‘A Short History of the Principal Events that Occurred in the Island of Ceilon, Since the Arrival of the First Netherlanders in the year 1602, and Afterwards, from the Establishment of the Honourable Company in the Same Island, till the year 1757’, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11, 38 (1889), pp. 11–17. This episode, along with many others, once more seems to prove that the mercantile faction members were opportunists driven by political economy at heart. Whenever the (cheap) opportunity presented itself, they would seize it, as is demonstrated also with the fortification of Tuticorin. 19 Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 73–74; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Com panies and Commerce, pp. 71–74; Idem, ‘De voc in Ceylon and Coromandel’, p. 52; Gaastra, De Geschiedenis van de voc, p. 77; Vink and Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, p. 51. Van Rheede’s ill-fated decision received widespread criticism, both by contemporaries and modern historians. See: Havart, Op- en Ondergang van Coromandel, I, p. 15; Van Dam, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, II, ii, p. 110. François Martin observes the following on ‘le dessein du commissaire Van Rée’ to move the seat of the Coromandel government to Nagapatnam and construct a large fortress: ‘One did not see the necessity to construct a work of this importance at Nagapatnam where the Dutch Company had hardly any commerce’. He did, however, point to the strategic importance of Nagapatnam with regard to Jaffna, Mannaar, and the pearl fishery of Tuticorin, while the region also provided rice for the Ceylon garrisons. Elsewhere, the French agent of Pondichéry asserted that Dutch Company servants strongly complained about Van Rheede’s commercial directives, declaring openly ‘that a second envoy or commissioner in the Indies of

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 513

In southern Malabar, the revolt of the Vettatu tavazhi or branch of the ruling Cochin family led by Goda Varma was crushed by Van Rheede in one of his last acts prior to his death in December 1691. Thereafter, however, budgetary measures imposed by the mercantile faction at Batavia led to a sharp reduction in the Company presence and a further concentration on the southern part of the Malabar Coast.20 The prevalence of the mercantile vision and the concentration on Java, Ceylon, and Eastern Indonesia did not exclude the use of violence elsewhere (including Madurai). When deemed necessary or the opportunity presented itself, the Company was still willing and able to occasionally flex its muscles, such as the dispatch of a fleet to Persia under Commissioner Reynier Casembroot (1684), and the capture of Masulipatnam by Governor Laurens Pit of Coromandel (1686). However, these rather isolated actions cannot be compared with the systematic and prolonged campaigns to capture the spice monopoly in Eastern Indonesia and the subsequent expulsion of the Portuguese from the Westerkwartieren, the area west of Malacca.21

the same character would lead to the ruin of their affairs’. Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 485, 516, and 559; III, pp. 46, and 102; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 73–74. 20 Instructie Van Rheede voor commr. Van Dielen en raad van Malabar, 23.11.1691, in: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. 221–222; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 482–484, and 553; N. Macleod, ‘De Machtsuitbreiding der Oost Indische Compagnie op het Vasteland van Azië van 1683–1697’, De Indische Gids 23 (1901), pp. 1271–1275; Vink and Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, pp. 74. In September 1697, the High Government ordered Commander Magnus Wichelman of Malabar and Commissioner Hendrik Zwaardecroon to sharply reduce the expenses on ships, personnel, and fortifications, arguing that ‘after 36 years’ experience and futile expectations’, it was time ‘to change the course of the Malabar ship and to relieve the Company of the useless investments, which time and again have been made on that coast without giving any returns’. In May 1698, Zwaardecroon was able to report that the number of Company servants had been reduced from 1500 in June 1697 to 897 at the time of his departure. He commented: ‘The Company is to be pitied, because having raised our sails so high on the topmast from the beginning, now we are in a mood to strike them willingly in order to reduce the money they cost us’. Vink and Winius, The Merchant-Warrior Pacified, pp. 72–73. 21 For information on the disastrous expedition to Persia: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 736, 741–743, and 826–827; Idem V, pp. 2–3, 63–64, 89–90, 143, and 247; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 368–370, and 410–412; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, iii, pp. 316–321; Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, V, i, p. 249. For Masulipatnam, see: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 817–819; Idem, V, pp. 4, 57–58, and 137; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 413–423; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 69–70; Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën,

514 chapter 7

On the Madurai Coast, the result of this reorientation (‘southernization’ in the case of the Coromandel Coast) combined with the rapidly expanding textile trade with Europe was, in the words of Van Imhoff, a ‘more reasonable and improved trade’. This commercial expansion was only briefly interrupted by sectarian violence and war (1684–1685) and the disastrous policies of the Dutch Commissioner General Van Rheede in the late 1680s, including the replacement of the ‘associations’ of indigenous merchants by individual brokers. Thus, the value of imports increased from 303,616 guilders (1680–1681) to 474,767 guilders (1687–1688), while exports rose from 297,909 guilders (1680– 1681) to 393,587 guilders (1687–1688) (see Table 29). In similar fashion, investments in Madurai textiles exported to Europe expanded rapidly in the early 1680s (from 163,529 guilders in 1680–1681 to 302,601 in 1682–1683), then suffered a severe setback, and thereafter recovered, rising dramatically in the following decade to peak at 700,528 guilders in 1700–1701.22 Ironically, while the Dutch mercantile faction opted for a more conservative policy of contraction and retrenchment, their ‘harmful neighbours’, most notably the English and French, decided to imitate the example of the Company’s discredited imperialist faction. In the 1680s, under the leadership of Josiah Child, member of the Court of Committees and subsequently governor of Bombay, and the warlike faction, the English East India Company pursued an aggressive, expansionist policy. Along both the west and east coast of India the English advanced southward into areas where the Dutch had previously been the sole European investors. From Fort St. George, Madras, which ‘took off’ in the 1670s, a relentless push closer to the textile markets made the English open factories further south at Cuddalore, Kunimedu, and Porto Novo, though some proved to be short-lived. The search even took them to the Far South, to Tanjore and Madurai. Although no actual factories were established here, the English managed, as we have already seen, to establish commercial relations with this region via the mediation of indigenous merchants, such as Kasi Viranna and the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. Contacts were certainly not limited to the official level, especially after the opening of private trade to eic servants in 1674, while an English interloper called at Kilakkarai in ca. September 1682 and an English pirate vessel, reportedly belonging to the Duke of Monmouth, visited Manappad in October 1689.

V, i, pp. 67–68; Havart, Op- en Ondergang van Coromandel, I, pp. 211–213; Idem, II, pp. 164–165; Van Dam, Beschryvinge, II, ii, p. 166. 22 voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratiën van Van Imhoff over de generale handel ter custe Madure. No. 3: Samentrekkinge van het inkoops kostende en rendement bij verkoop in Nederland van alle de Madurese lijwaten… tsedert anno 1688 tot 1734 en 1736, 22.11.1738.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 515

Table 29 Dutch imports and exports from the Madurai Coast, plus gross revenues, expenditures, and net results, 1680/81–1690/91 (in guilders)

Financial Value of Value of Gross Expenditures Net profit (+)/ year imports exports revenue net loss (−)

1680–81 303,616 297,909 108,796 31,499 +77,297 1681–82 417,088 391,344 162,653 48,325 +114,328 1682–83 489,500 324,113 119,451 52,730 +66,721 1683–84 497,998 371,292 157,662 51,849 +105,812 1684–85 254,799 129,034 76,772 55,636 +21,136 1685–86 250,094 105,237 100,626 78,982 +21,644 1686–87 409,453 337,849 139,212 68,421 +70,791 1687–88 474,767 393,587 124,267 58,948 +65,319 1688–89 297,611 218,305 61,501 71,695 −10,194 1689–90 253,461 186,227 57,631 78,546 −20,915 1690–91 549,271 145,821 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Sources: voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratien over den generalen handel ter Custe Madure 1738. No. 5 Samentreckinge van het geheele beloop der negotie die voor reekeninge van de generale Nederlandsche Compagnie op de Custe van Madure tsedert haar eerste establissementen aldaar gedreven is… tzedert Ao. 1659–60 tot 1737–38; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 638v–639r, Memorie der lasten en winsten der kuste Madure tsedert den jare 1670 en 1671 tot 1689 en 1690.

The drive for cheaper supplies of pepper in the 1680s incited the eic to pene- trate southern Malabar, establishing factories at Tellicherri (1682), Ruttera or Kovalam (1688), and Anjengo (1694). From Ruttera and Calicut, where a factory had been established in 1664, the English joined forces with, among others, the Rani of Attingal, the Zamorin of Calicut, and local Kunjali and Mappila Mara ikkayar communities to trade with Madurai. This Asian-European partnership allowed indigenous rulers and merchants to circumvent restrictive Dutch pass policies, while the English gained access to the pepper and textile markets of Travancore and Madurai.23 In October 1687, for instance, Caleb Travers, the second-in-command of Ruttera, visited Kottar.24 Along with Thomas Pattle,

23 Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, esp. pp. 111–117. For the English penetration of southern Malabar and southern Coromandel: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, p. 823; Idem, V, pp. 4, and 16; Fawcett (ed.), English Factories in India, I (n.s.), pp. 345–346, and 351; Idem, III (n.s.), pp. 364–365, 371–372, 395, and 406–408; Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 140–141; Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, pp. 110–112; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. lxiii–lxiv. 24 voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 211v–214r, and 221v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; Idem, ff. 128v–129r, and 168r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad

516 chapter 7 third-in-command at Calicut, and Calicut Muslim merchants Travers in October 1688 also called at Kulasekharapatnam.25 The English ‘intrusion’ was not limited to the English East India Company alone. In October 1689, a thirty-six gun English pirate vessel from Madagascar, reportedly belonging to James Scott, the 1st Duke of Monmouth, called at Manappad.26 In March 1691, one vessel and six manchuas or large cargo boat) reportedly left Calicut in another attempt to call at Manappad.27 Yet despite repeated rumours to the contrary, the English East India Company, for various reasons, did establish a factory on neither the Ramnad nor the Madurai Coast. Lack of interest due to the relative remoteness and limited commercial importance of the area, Dutch vigilance and relative strength in the region, along with fear of diplomatic repercussions in Europe were the most important factors behind this English policy of relative neglect and circumspection.

van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 14v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; Idem, ff. 155r–156r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.5.1688; voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 930r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 29.5.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 58v–59r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1688; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. lxiii–lxiv. 25 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 448r–448v, Miss. residenten van Manappad aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 25.10.1688; Idem, ff. 449r–449v, Miss. residenten van Manappad aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 26.10.1688; Idem, ff. 450r–450v, Miss. residenten van Manappad aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 27.10.1688; Idem, ff. 451r, and 452r–452v, Miss. residenten van Manappad aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin; 28.10.1688; Idem, ff. 453r, and 455r, Miss. residenten van Manappad aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 29.10.1688; Idem, ff. 455v–456v, Miss. residenten van Manappad aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 30.10.1688; Idem, f. 472r, Miss. Travers en Pattle aan kaptn. Van Vliet te Tuticorin, 16.10.1688 (Old Style); Idem, f. 457v, Miss. residenten van Manappad aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 3.11.1688; Idem, ff. 458r–458v, Miss. residenten van Manappad aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 4.11.1688; Idem, ff. 426r–430r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en secunde Kaperman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 6.11.1688; Idem, ff. 435v–436r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 7.11.1688; Idem, ff. 97v–99v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.12.1688; Idem, ff. 245r–250v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1689; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 278. 26 voc 1463, obp 1690, ff. 401v–402r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 13.10.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 129r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 14.11.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 151v–152r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; voc 1459, obp 1690, f. 866v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690. See also: Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, pp. 62 and 83. 27 voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 1466–1467, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan koopman Urselings en raad van Tuticorin, 13.8.1691; Idem, ff. 1546–1547, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticorin, 14.11.1691; Idem, ff. 1549–1550, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticorin, 28.11.1691.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 517

Like the English, the French during this period embarked on a policy of expansion, albeit in a more intermittent and less consistent fashion. In the early 1680s, the financial situation in Asia of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, founded by Colbert in 1664, was desperate, reflecting the state of exhaustion of the Company in France. As a result, French contacts with Tanjore (October 1679), Madurai (May 1680), and Ramnad (1680, 1682) were inconsequential, while they were even forced to abandon the Tellicherri factory in April 1682 for lack of funds. Matters improved after the reconstitution of the Company in the wake of the death of Colbert and the issuance of a new charter in February 1685. Due to financial support from Europe, the Pondichéry factory gained a new lease on life. Thus, François Martin was able to undertake new initiatives, such as the reestablishment of trade at Masulipatnam (May 1687) and Chander nagore (after August 1688). From early 1688 onward, the wars in central and northern Coromandel and Bengal forced Martin and the Council of Pondichéry to look southward, ‘in order to found an establishment…and find supplies there, which we cannot acquire from the places where we normally draw the assortments for our cargoes’. In May 1688, a mission by the Pondichéry interpreter Kulantha, a Tamil Christian from the vicinity of São Tomé, to the court of Shahaji Bhonsle at Tanjore led to the founding of a factory at Kaveripatnam near Karaikal in late 1688. At the same time, the French were active in the pepper trade at the markets or pettais around Trichinopoly. In September 1688, the Hindu jewel and blood coral merchant Deva Raja Chitti, operating from Kanchipuram, Tegenampatnam, and Pondichéry, visited the Madurai court asking for permission to establish a French factory at Kayalpatnam, promising 50,000 pardaus plus an immediate pearl fishery. Though Muttu Virappa Nayaka III and the majority of the councillors were tempted, at the instigation of the pradhani Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya the French request was turned down. The French, however, did receive invitations from the Rani of Attingal to establish a factory near Cape Comorin in October 1689 and March 1690. By this time, however, Martin had already decided to halt all commerce in view of the outbreak of the Nine Years’ War.28

28 voc 1472, obp 1691, ff. 120v, and 171v–172r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 5.12.1688; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 315v–316r, Rapp. in forma van dagregister…gedaen door den Adsistend Welter wegens ‘t voorgevallene op de reijse na, aenwesen tot, en ter- ugcomst van Tritchinapalij, 9.9.1689; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 269v–270r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 13.10.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, f. 144r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 865r–865v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 276, and 367; P. Kaeppelin, La Compagnie des Indes Orientales et François Martin: Étude sur l’Histoire et des Établissements Français dans l’Inde sous Louis XIV (1664–1719) (Paris: A. Challamel, 1908), pp. 165–171, 191–195, 219–230, and 252–278;

518 chapter 7

General Framework: Madurai

As far as indigenous affairs are concerned, the 1680s were opened by a period of acute crisis, a veritable ‘time of troubles’, in which the Nayaka state of Madurai, weakened by internal strife, was locked in a desperate struggle for survival against Mysore. Profiting from the fraticidal conflict between Muttu Linga Nayaka and Chokkanatha Nayaka and the subsequent usurpation of Rustam Khan (mid 1680–ca. February 1682), the Muslim governor (talakartan) of Trichinopoly, Chikkadeva Raja, the Wodeyar ruler of Mysore (r. 1673–1704), dispatched an army under talavay Kumaraiya (Kumara Ayya). In early 1680, the Mysorean general quickly overran a large part of Madurai, including Naikenkottai (Nayakkankottai) and Dindigul. In the wake of these victories, Chikkadeva Raja assumed the titles of ‘Sultan of Hindu kings’ and ‘Emperor of the South and of the Karnataka country’.29 Having made peace with Ekoji Bhonsle in ca. July 1680, Muttu Linga Nayaka invoked the help of Raghunatha Tevar, Ekoji, and Sambhaji Bhonsle, the son and successor of Shivaji, who had died in April 1680. Meanwhile, Kumaraiya’s victorious forces continued their conquests, capturing the city of Madurai in December 1680 and subsequently investing Trichinopoly. Here, the Mysorean

Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 174, 177, 191, 292, 546–547, 554, 567, 571, and 573–574; Idem, III, pp. 30, 57–58, and 85. Deva Raja Chitti is probably one of the two quarrelling coral merchants living at Pondichéry mentioned by Martin in January 1690. Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, pp. 74–75. 29 voc 1361, obp 1681, f. 361v, Miss. commr. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.2.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 9r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.3.1680; Idem, f. 178v, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 6.4.1680; voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 384r–385r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 22v, and 30v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1838r–1840r, Consideratien opperk. Van Rhee en koopman Van Vliet van des E. Comp. belang en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 180–182; B. Muddachari, The Mysore-Maratha Relations in the 17th Century (Prasaranga: University of Mysore, 1969), pp. 91–92; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, pp. 287–292; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madurai’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), p. 97–99; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 186, 191, 198, and 201. According to André Freire, member of the Madurai Mission, Rustam Khan took advantage of an excursion of Muttu Linga Nayaka outside the walls of Trichinopoly by closing the gates of the fort and subsequently seizing power: ‘In order to provide himself with some shadow of legality, he had Chokkanatha taken out of prison and declared him king. In reality, however, he reserved authority to himself along with all the trappings of royalty’. André Freire to Paul Oliva, general of the Company of Jesus, Vadougarpatti, 1682, in: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 302.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 519 talavay was confronted by the armies of Ekoji, Haraji Mahadik (d. September 1689), the governor of Gingee on behalf of his brother-in-law Sambhaji Bhonsle, and Thiru Udaya Tevar, the adopted son of Raghunatha Tevar, all alarmed by the rapid advance of Mysore. At the same time, the Mysorean garrison at Madurai was besieged by troops of the aranmanai, the Tevar, and various palaiyakkarars under the overall command of Raghunatha Tevar.30 Meanwhile, unable to resist the initial temptation to profit from the problems of the aranmanai, Ramnad forces under Sankara Tevar and Chokkanatha Cervaikarar had invaded the Madurai lowlands twice, in April–June and

30 voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 384r–385r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 30r–30v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680; voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 461r–462r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 24.7.1680; Idem, f. 471v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 20.8.1680; Idem, ff. 479r, and 480r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 27.9.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 206r, Rapp. opperk. Van Rhee van de presente toestand ter kuste Madure, 24.10.1680; Idem, f. 149v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1680; voc 1369, obp 1682, f. 1375v, Miss. prest. Hartsinck en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 6.11.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 164v–165r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 19.12.1680; voc 1369, obp 1682, f. 1414v, Miss. resident Clement van Portonovo aan Batavia, 5.4.1681; Idem, ff. 1430v–1431r, Miss. commt. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 9.4.1681; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1839r–1840r, Consideratien Van Rhee en Van Vliet van des E. Comps. belang en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 181–182; Muddachari, The Mysore-Maratha Relations, pp. 91–92; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, pp. 292– 294; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 97–98; Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, pp. 36–37; Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 303; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 198, 201, and 216. In May 1680, while at Pondichéry, François Martin received letters from Muttu Virappa Nayaka III and Ibrahim Khan Lodi, son of Sher Khan Lodi, who had entered the service of the aranmanai in late 1679 after his father had left the employment of Raghunatha Tevar for lack of payment. Whereas the Madurai Nayaka requested only 30–40 French soldiers, promising to pay them 4 pagodas per month, Ibrahim Khan Lodi asked Martin to assemble 200–300 Europeans, offering the same pay plus 12 pagodas per month for the commander for every 100 soldiers he would bring. In February 1681, Ibrahim Khan Lodi informed Martin that allegedly he had been left with merely 300 men to hold the city of Madurai. According to Ibrahim Khan Lodi, the small garrison had fled the city on the approach of the Mysorean army, whereupon he had no other choice than to follow their example. Martin prematurely added that after its conquest, the city was returned to Madurai following the conclusion of peace between the two Nayakas. Unfortunately, Martin left Pondichéry for Surat shortly thereafter. The remainder of his memoirs are therefore much less valuable as a source of information for events in the Far South. For further info on Ibrahim Khan Lodi and the other sons of Sher Khan Lodi: Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, V, pp. 60, and 96.

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November–December 1680. The Madurai Governor of Tirunelveli, Tambi Periya Pillai a.k.a. Chinna Vadamalaiyappa Pillai, was unable to organise any effective opposition. However, in view of the rapid Mysorean advance, Raghunatha Tevar’s priorities shifted as he ordered his soldiers to withdraw in order to press the siege of Madurai.31 For the greater part of 1681, the Mysorean forces and those of Ekoji, Haraji, Mahadik or Arasumalai Raja and Raghunatha Tevar confronted each other in a standoff at Trichinopoly. At the same time, however, the Madurai pradhani Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya won and lost Dindigul, while the anti-Mysorean forces suffered a number of crushing defeats near Madurai in March and June of 1681. Thereupon, the Tevar and the other palaiyakkarars retreated to their respective lands, allowing Kumaraiya to occupy the Madurai lowlands in July 1681 and install- ing a Mysorean civil administration at Tirunelveli under a certain Kavinanjiraiya.32 The installment of a Mysorean civil administration centred at Tirunelveli was a clear indication that Kumaraiya and Chikkadeva Raja intended to hold on to the new territories. However, the bloody end of the usurpation of Rustam Khan at Trichinopoly in ca. February 1682 was to decide otherwise. Contem porary accounts on the restoration of Chokkanatha Nayaka provide somewhat differing accounts of this watershed event reversing the fortunes of the aranmanai. According to the Jesuit Father André Freire, Rustam Khan and the remainder of Muslim troops, who had survived a Mysorean ambush, were killed when returning to Trichinopoly by Chokkanatha Nayaka and some of his

31 For detailed information on these series of events: voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 174r–174v, and 178r–178v, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Batavia, 6.4.1680; Idem, ff. 172r–172v, and 173v, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Batavia, 1.5.1680; voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 384r–395r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 22v, and 54v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680; Idem, ff. 167r–167v, Miss. commr. Van Rhee en Van Vliet aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 17.12.1680; Idem, ff. 74v–75r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1681. 32 voc 1369, obp 1682, f. 1414v, Miss. resident Clement van Portonovo aan Batavia, 5.4.1681; voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1569v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1681; Idem, ff. 1839r–1840r, Consideratien Van Rhee en Van Vliet van des. E. Comps. belang en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; voc 1364, obp 1682, f. 55r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; Idem, ff. 123r–123v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.8.1681. According to Rao, who describes events from the viewpoint of the interior, the period between 1680 and 1682 was ‘occupied by diplomatic relations between Madurai and Mysore’. Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, p. 293 n. 82. Fortunately, the information provided by Company records is complementary to the reports of the Madurai Mission and other sources, centred on events in the uplands around Trichinopoly, by providing information on simultaneous developments in the Madurai lowlands.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 521 closest friends.33 An indigenous account, ‘Notice of Chinna-Kattira-Naicker’, is somewhat similar, but does not mention the Mysorean ambush. It appears that the downfall of Rustam Khan was the result of an elaborate plot by the Madurai talavay Govindappa Ayya, Raghunatha Tevar, Chinna Kadiri Nayaka of Kannivadi, and other palaiyakkarars, in which the usurper and 1,000 Muslim followers were killed by strategically positioned musketeers. Only when the head of Rustam Khan (recognised among the dead by an ‘impostume on his ear’) was presented to Chokkanatha Nayaka, was he willing to reassume effective control of the Madurai state. Another indigenous account, ‘History of the Carnatica Governors Who Ruled over the Pandya Mandalam’, accords Chokkanatha Nayaka a more active role in his restoration. Upon receiving a letter from Chokkanatha Nayaka, Raghunatha Tevar is said to have come with a large army to besiege Trichinopoly. As the gates of the fort were opened by some friends of Chokkanatha, Rustam Khan and his followers were killed. Thereupon, Chokkanatha is even said to have recalled his younger brother, Muttu Linga Nayaka, from Nagapatnam (in fact, Muttu Linga Nayaka never returned to Trichinopoly and died in the lands of the Tevar).34 Another version is provided by a Company report of April 1682, observing that ‘Restumbouchan’, who had formerly seized and deposed Chokkanatha Nayaka, ‘had been attacked and killed by his own people along with at least 400 of his followers due to lack of payment. Thus, Chokkanatha Nayaka, who has been reinstated for the fourth time, hopes to hold his own through the help of the Tevar and a ready peace with the Mysorean commander Kumaraiya’.35 Shortly thereafter, in March 1682, the Mysorean army, weakened by the recall of a substantial part of its forces by Chikkadeva Raja in order to oppose a Maratha invasion threatening the Mysore capital, was routed by Haraji

33 Freire to Oliva, Vadagourpatti, 1682, in: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 303. Nelson, Rangachari, Muddachari, and Rao adhere to this version: Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 202; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 96–97; Muddachari, The Mysore-Maratha Relations, pp. 92–93; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, p. 279. 34 Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 35, 185–187, and 204. Sathyanatha Aiyar follows the first indigenous account, while Nelson adheres to a mixture of these two accounts. Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 181–182; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 202. 35 voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 427v, and 433v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 25.2.1682. In March 1682, a jubilant Chokkanatha Nayaka announced his restoration to Governor William Gyfford and Council of Madras, reporting rather prematurely that ‘we and the Nayaka of Mysore are now good friends’. Letters to Fort St. George, 1682, Records of Fort St. George, new series, 2 (Madras: Superintendent, Government Press, 1916), p. 23. Cited in: Hayavadana Rao, The History of Mysore, p. 292.

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Mahadik. Whatever illusions Chokkanatha may have had, the Madurai ruler was soon to be undeceived by the behaviour of his so-called ally, Haraji, who subsequently reinvested Trichinopoly with his own troops. Chokkanatha Nayaka himself died shortly thereafter in June 1682.36 The early reign of his son and successor, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III (r. 1682– 1691) witnessed a painful and slow recovery from the ‘time of troubles’, largely through the help and distractions of others (1682–1685). From the control of a single city, the aranmanai within three years managed to expand its power base regaining control of most of its patrimonial lands. The recovery of Madurai’s central authorities occurred during the usurpation of the talavay Tuppaki Anan dappa Nayaka, son of Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka and uncle of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, between June 1682 and September 1686. Chikkadeva Raja, at least for the time being, was forced to abandon his claim to ‘Emperor of the South’ as his attention shifted to the campaigns of Sambhaji Bhonsle and the Nayaka of Ikkeri (Kanara) in northwestern Mysore. Moreover, he had to deal with a rebellion by the inhabitants of eastern Mysore resisting the heavy taxation necessitated to finance the war effort. In turn, Ekoji Bhonsle was forced to deal with a similar problem in his domains, along with the continuous depredations of the Kallar and Marava ‘robbers’ on his frontiers. Sambhaji (d. 1689) was preoccupied with two ‘furious little wars’ against the Siddis of Janjira (a small piratical maritime state on the Arabian Sea coast tributary to the Mughals) between 1680 and 1682 and the Portuguese at Goa (April 1683–January 1684). More important, however, were the disastrous campaign against Mysore and the culminating conflict with the Mughal state. In fact, Aurangzeb’s arrival at Aurangabad in March 1682 signalled his

36 voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 123r–124r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.8.1681; Idem, f. 133v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.12.1681; Idem, f. 4r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 26v–27r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 182–185; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 202–204; Muddachari, The Mysore-Maratha Relations, pp. 97–98; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, pp. 294–298; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 97–99; Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, pp. 303–305. Freire describes the ‘battle’ between the Maratha and Mysore army as ‘a terrible butchery’, and gives the following melodramatic account of the demise of the ‘domestic tyrant’ Chokkanatha Nayaka: ‘Frustrated in all his hopes, robbed of all his estates and treasures, abandoned by his troops, deprived of all his resources, and pressed even harder by Sambhaji in his fortress of Trichinopoly than by the armies of Mysore, the Nayaka was overwhelmed by sadness and melancholy, which led to his death.’

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 523 determination to allocate the full resources of the Mughal state to the conquest of Bijapur and Golconda, and crushing the Maratha ‘insurgency’.37 Finally, Raghunatha Tevar was preoccupied with incursions of the Pallavaraja of Pudukkottai, who had been ousted by the Marava ruler in favour of a brother of one of his concubines, called Raghunatha, subsequently assuming office with the title Tondaiman. At the same time, the Ramnad ‘little king’ was engaged in hostilities with the elusive Kulavaipatti Maravas of Appanar Nattu, the region in modern northeastern Pudukkottai in 1683 and 1684, the Parava- Maraikkayar hostilities on the Madurai Coast in 1684 and the ensuing war with the Company (January–March 1685).38

37 Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 193–195; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 204, and 207–213; K.R. Subramaniam, The Maratha Rajas of Tanjore (Mylapore: K.R. Subramaniam, 1928), pp. 19–21; Muddachari, The Mysore-Maratha Rela tions, pp. 99–110; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, pp. 299, 303–304, and 462–495; Richards, The Mughal Empire, pp. 219–220; Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, IV, pp. 308–335, and 342–358; P.S.S. Pissurlençar, Portuguese-Mahratta Relations (Bombay: Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture, 1983), pp. 77–95; S.L. Karandikar, The Rise and Fall of the Maratha Power I: 1620–1689 (Shahaji, Shivaji, Sambhaji) (Poona: Sitabai Shivram Karandikar, 1969), pp. 274–286; Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, pp. 307, 377, and 380–381; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 104–105, and 120. 38 For references to Raghunatha Tevar’s difficulties with the Pallavaraja (son of the killed Pallavaraja) and the ‘Callewatse Marruas’ in Company correspondence: voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 238r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 26.10.1682; voc 1387, obp 1684, f. 1753r, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 562v–563r, Rapp. Van Vliet, secunde der Madurese kust, wegens zijn verrichting aan het hof van de vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683; voc 1396, obp 1683, f. 323v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.1.1684; Idem, f. 25r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, f. 344v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.7.1684; Idem, f. 96r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 11.7.1684; Idem, f. 353r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 28.7.1684; Idem, ff. 371r–371v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684; Idem, ff. 397v, and 403v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 23.11.1684; Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, pp. 27–35; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 206; K.R. Venkatarama Ayyar (ed.), A Manual of the Pudukkottai State, second edn. (Pudukkottai: Sri Bihadamba, 1940), II, 1, pp. 732–735, and 754–761; Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 159–163. Dirks, providing a detailed account of the origins of the Pudukkottai state, places the assumption of rule by Atmanata (1641–1730) as the first Tondaiman Raja in ‘ca. 1686’. A Dutch observer in July 1683 provides the following information on the Tondaiman Raja, ruling the area around ‘Wittuapette’ (Athivetti?), 7 Dutch miles [=33 miles] northwest of Adirampatnam: ‘This person reportedly was formerly a vassal of the Tanjore ruler, but has been detached from

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In April 1682, the skeleton Mysore garrisons along the Madurai Coast were forced to withdraw to Palaiyamkottai in the face of the army of Raghunatha Tevar, who subsequently controlled part of the lowlands until May 1685 under an impromptu arrangement with the aranmanai. The rapid expulsion of the Mysorean army from the coast was followed by drawn-out sieges of the strongly garrisoned forts of Dindigul (taken after July 1682), Palaiyamkottai (captured ca. October 1682), and Madurai (seized during the second half of 1683). Having cleared Madurai proper, the Maratha-Madurai coalition carried the war against Mysore to the north to the northern provinces of Madurai, to Satyamangelam, Uttamapalaiyam, and Kambam. Meanwhile, Sambhaji’s Bhoosle’s generals, Haraji Mahadik and Santoji Ghorpade, continued to wield extensive power over the affairs of the aranmanai collecting part of the revenues in payment of their services in an arrangement similar to the Tevar’s control over parts of the Madurai Coast.39

him and brought under the domain of the Tevar. He is a palaiyakkarar commanding 5,000 men, and the Tevar has placed him as regent in the lands taken from the deceased Pallavaraja’. See: voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 562v–563r, Rapp. Van Vliet, secunde der Madurese kust, wegens zijn verrichting aan het hof van de vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683. In fact, the late Pallavaraja had been killed by the son of Raghunatha Tevar. Kulavaipatti is a village 9 miles northeast of Pudukkottai in Pudukkottai taluk, Pudukkottai district. In July 1684, the ‘Callewatse Marruas’ are portrayed as ‘forest people’, who are used to reside ‘in the wooded and mountainous regions (which form their strength) and mind their own business without paying obeisance to anyone. They often resort to raids, robbery, and theft (for which they are notorious), and subsequently retreat to their forests and caves, from which it is hard to force them out’. See: voc 1396, obp 1683, f. 351v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 28.7.1684. 39 For events in the lowlands, including Palaiyamkottai: voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 116v, Resol. raad van Ceijlon, 23.4.1682; Idem, f. 126r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.6.1682; Idem, ff. 26v–27v, and 44r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 1379, obp 1683, f. 2242v, Miss. De Heijde en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 8.7.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 237v–238r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 26.10.1682; Idem, f. 67v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1682; Idem, f. 91r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1387, obp 1684, f. 1753r, Relaas opperk. De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 562v–563r, Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtingen aan het hof van de vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 567–568. For events elsewhere: voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 44r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 1379, obp 1683, ff. 2242v–2243r, Miss. De Heijde en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 8.7.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 505v, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 26.9.1682; Idem, ff. 174v–175r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 4.1.1683; Idem, f. 91r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1384, obp 1684, f. 85v, Miss. gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 14.3.1683; voc 1387, obp 1684, f. 1753r, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383,

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Indicative of the rejuvenated strength and confidence of the aranmanai were the increasing rumours of the pradhani Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya ‘coming down’ to reclaim all of the lowlands, the feelers sent out to the Company and Shahaji Bhonsle at Tanjore to form an offensive alliance against the Tevar, plus the growing tensions with the Marava ruler. Several incidents involving envoys of the Marava ruler were indicative of the aranmanai’s irritation over the fact that the Tevar did not live up to his part of the contract to maintain 10,000 troops in the service of his lord in return for possession of coastal lands valued at 60,000 pardaus. The aranmanai insisted on their return in exchange for some lands north of Ramnad held by the Kulavaipatti Maravas. This deal could hardly have been attractive to Raghunatha Tevar, because, as we have seen, he was at odds with the ‘forest people’ of this area. Diplomatic incidents were followed by a rapid military buildup on both sides starting in late 1684.40

obp 1684, ff. 224–23r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 22.6.1683; voc 1384, obp 1684, f. 259v, Miss. gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 10.10.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 176r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683; Idem, f. 315v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 323v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.1.1684; Idem, f. 25r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, ff. 366v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 24.9.1684; Idem, ff. 371r–371v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684; Idem, f. 383r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1684; Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, pp. 36–37; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 208–213; Muddachari, The Mysore-Maratha Relations, pp. 99–104; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, pp. 300–304; Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, pp. 305, 308, 337, 345, and 360. 40 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 340r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 16.6.1684; Idem, ff. 344r–345r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.7.1684; Idem, f. 349v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 9.7.1684; Idem, ff. 100r–100v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 11.7.1684; Idem, ff. 351v–352r, and 356r–356v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 28.7.1684; Idem, f. 360v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Ceijlon aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 15.8.1684; Idem, f. 366v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 24.9.1684; Idem, ff. 371r–371v, and 381r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684; Idem, ff. 383r–383v, and 386v–387r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1684. The first diplomatic incident between the aranmanai and Ramnad reportedly occurred at Trichinopoly in October 1684 between Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka and the Tevar’s envoy. In reply to the request for some lands from the Kulavaipatti Maravas, Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka was said to have become so incensed that he had the envoy expelled disgracefully under beat- ings and punching, adding ‘Your master, the Tevar, already possesses so many lands belonging to the Lord Nayaka without giving the least assistance and now you desire even

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In the wake of the First Dutch-Ramnad War (January–March 1685), the Marava army was forced to withdraw from the Madurai Coast in May 1685 in the face of the combined armies of the aranmanai under Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka and the Tanjore Governor Baboji or Varaboji Pandidar. Worsted in a number of encounters in the open, the Tevar managed to stabilise the front along the ecological frontier using the dense and extensive thorny forests near Adirampatnam. In ca. December 1685 peace was concluded between the Nayaka of Madurai and Raghunatha Tevar, according to which the Marava ruler returned all lands previously held on behalf of the aranmanai along with a reimbursement of 50,000 pardaus and two elephants.41

more, which would not be allowed to happen…’. The second incident took place at Tirunelveli about a month later, in November 1684, between Siva Ramanatha Pillai, the governor of Tirunelveli and relative of Tambi Periya Pillai, and an envoy of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. Asking for the return of the run-away muppan of Kulasekharapatnam, one Aditya Mutti Pillai, the Brahmin envoy was dragged outside and severely beaten. The Tirunelveli governor meanwhile told the poor envoy ‘that the Tevar was a mere palaiyakkarar, of which his lord and ruler had 72 under his command. If he [the Tevar] did not like to be treated as such, he would have to face the consequences…’. voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 387r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1684; Idem, ff. 397r–397v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 23.11.1684. 41 voc 1416, obp 1686, f. 1234r, Transl. ola Tiroewengoeram cannecappel uit Adiramp. aan Timmersa Naijck, 24.5.1685; Idem, ff. 1232v–1233r, Transl. ola Pavasij Pandij, veldoverste van Chaggamsij Rasja, aan commt. De Heijde van Tuticorin, 25.5.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 45v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.6.1685; voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1246v–1247r, Transl. ola Chedoepaddij Catte Teuver aan commt. De Heijde van Tuticorin, 28.6.1685; voc 1416, obp 1616, ff. 1240r–1241v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 5.7.1685; Idem, ff. 1245v–1246r, Transl. ola landregent Tieroewengernader Aijen aan commt. De Heijde van Tuticorin, 10.7.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 87v–88v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; voc 1414, obp 1686, ff. 520v–521r, Miss. commt. Van Dielen en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 6.8.1685; voc 1410, obp 16186, ff. 96r–96v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.9.1685; voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1349v–1350r, and 1355r, Notulen asst. Welter op Killekarre, 5.10.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 117r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.10.1685; voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1343r–1343v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 31.10.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 255r–256r, Transl. rapp. sComps hoofdpion Moecapanaijck op desselfs wederkomst van Madure en den heer Anandapanaijck, 20.11.1685; Idem, ff. 126v–127r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 8.1.1686; Idem, f. 172v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 15.1.1686; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 17r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.2.1686; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 4, and 16. A Dutch report of July 1685 observed, ‘that the troops of the Tevar are residing, to their advantage, in the thorny forests, where they cannot be attacked by the [Maratha] cavalry and from where, while retreating slowly, they keep an eye on their enemies. The Madurai

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The period between 1686 and 1690 was defined, among others, by a series of intrigues and counter-intrigues against Muttu Virappa Nayaka III: the ‘great conspiracy’ of 1686, followed by the ‘conspiracy of the uncles’ of 1689. Having reconquered the greater part of his ancestors’ patrimonial lands, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III freed himself from the control of his uncle Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka and assumed direct personal control over the affairs of the aranmanai. After 1686, the Madurai ruler, taking advantage of internal dissension within Ramnad, took the offensive against Raghunatha Tevar in the southeast, subsequently joining forces with Shahaji and Sambhaji Bhonsle against Mysore in the northwest after 1688, and, finally, in 1689 started what was to become an annual occurrence, that is, the invasion of Travancore in the southwest. More important events, however, took place simultaneously to the north of Madurai, where the Mughal southward drive under Emperor Aurangzeb led to the conquest of the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687), and the beginning of the siege of the fort of Gingee (1690). The Nayakas of Madurai were to become Mughal zamindari, along with the rulers of the other states of southern India, including Ramnad, Tanjore, and Mysore, while simultaneously being exposed to Maratha depredations. The plotters involved in the ‘great conspiracy’ of 1686 were Shahaji Bhonsle of Tanjore, the Maratha Governor Haraji Mahadik of Gingee, Raghunatha Tevar a.k.a. Kiluvan Setupati of Ramnad, Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka, the erstwhile talavay of Madurai under Muttu Linga Nayaka, and Chengamala Das, son of Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Tanjore, who had made his peace with Shahaji. Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka agreed to foment a civil war (an allusion to the effort to reinstate Muttu Linga Nayaka?), while the others were to organise an attack on Madurai. In return for military help from Tanjore, Shahaji was to enjoy for 12 years the districts between Pamban and Pudukkottai. In an apologetic olai of November 1686, however, Raghunatha Tevar asserted that ‘all the lands of Kudimiyamalai and those in Madurai which previously had belonged to us would be cleared and again left to us’. The Marava ruler claimed to be merely an accomplice in the plot, justifying his decision to participate since he considered the offer simply too profitable to pass. Moreover, he deemed it inadvisable

troops have cut and are cutting down some of these forests with little effect due to the fact that these forests are extensive and cover the lands and frontiers of the Tevar’. obp 1616, ff. 1240r–1241v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 5.7.1685. See also: Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, p. 822. An inscription of ‘Vanoji Pandit’ of 1686–1687 can be found at Pudukkottai, claiming that he conquered all of Ramnad as far as Pamban. Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p. 361; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), p. 163 n. 49. Peace between Shahaji and the Tevar was concluded ca. July 1686. voc 1429, obp 1687, f. 1141v, Miss. Van Dielen en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 17.8.1686.

528 chapter 7 to let the Marathas gain a foothold in Madurai, which, as he realised all too well, ‘could also be prejudicial to our state’.42 Kumara Pillai, the Ramnad talavay, who had been presented to Raghunatha Tevar by Chokkanatha Nayaka in recognition of the Tevar’s share in the deliver- ance from Rustam Khan, threatened to put a spoke in the wheels of the conspirators. Having failed to dissuade his new master from attacking Madurai, Kumara Pillai planned to seize Raghunatha Tevar and Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka in order to hand the conspirators over to Muttu Virappa Nayaka III. However, this intrigue ended the same way as that against the Madurai ruler. Kumara Pillai was arrested and cruelly tortured to death along with the other members of his family.43 Though this threat was eliminated, the projected campaign was still nipped in the bud. Having arrived with his army at Tirukkalakudi near Kudimiyamalai in September 1686, the Tevar was embarrassed by a mini-‘great conspiracy’ of his own, fomented by the disaffected Appanar Nattu Marava chiefs Raja Surya Tevar and his brother Raghuvanna Tevar, assisted by the Tondaiman Raja of Pudukkottai, the Nayaka of Madurai, and Kumara Pillai. Barely escaping an attempt on his life by Raja Surya Tevar ‘through the benevolence of our God Ramanatha Swami’, Raghunatha Tevar for the longest time seemed to have the worst of the fighting, but the rebels in the end overplayed their cards. Having forced Raghunatha Tevar to

42 voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 450v, Extract miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1686; Idem, ff. 455r–455v, Transl. ola Chedupaddij Cata Theuver aan commr. Van der Duijn van Jaffnapatnam, 18.11.1686. For a detailed discussion of these events and the subsequent strict security measures at Trichinopoly: voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 276r–276v, 284r–285r, and 287v–289v, Dagreg. Welter, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 464, 470–473, 475–477, 548, 553–554, and 556–557. 43 voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 455r–455v, Transl. ola Chedupaddij Cata Theuver aan commr. Van der Duijn van Jaffnapatnam, 18.11.1686; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, p. 198; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, p. 213; Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, pp. 37–38. Kadhirvel bases his account of Kumara Pillai’s treason on an unpublished letter by De Britto from Uraiyur written to the Rev. Fr. General in July 1686, and an inscription at the funeral ghat at Ramnad, where Kumara Pillai was cremated, intended as a warning to potential traitors. A published letter by Father Luís de Melo, member of the Madurai Mission, of 1686 (with a postscriptum of 1687) mentions that Kumara Pillai, ‘supreme commander and prime minister of the Marava king’ residing at Pagani (or Paganeri), who had ordered the arrest of João de Britto, was about to execute the Jesuit priest, when a special courier dispatched by Raghunatha Tevar arrived, informing him ‘that he had recently discovered a conjuration against his person in his palace, enjoining him to rush with his army [to Ramnad]’. Luís de Melo to P. de Noyelle, general of the Company of Jesus, 1686, with a postscriptum of 1687, in: Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 391. The Company records, containing several olais by the leading players in the subsequent drama, make no reference whatsoever to the role of Kumara Pillai in these opening acts of the ‘great conspiracy’.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 529 sign away two-thirds of his lands, including the island of Rameswaram, Raja Surya Tevar and his associates nevertheless decided to press on. Running into an ambush of 1,000 musketeers in the vicinity of the earthen fort of Kalaiyarkovil in late 1686, Raja Surya Tevar and his allies suffered a decisive defeat near Seturanalin gapuram in July 1687. Living up to the stipulations of the anti-Madurai alliance of 1686, Shahaji Bhonsle dispatched an army under Baboji Pandidar, which, together with those of Raghunatha Tevar, surprised the enemy forces, reportedly killing Raja Surya Tevar, the Madurai commander Samandi Ayya Venkatapati, 34–35 leading Brahmins, 2,000 lascorins, including many officers, and 200 horse. The bloodbath was partly the result of the fact that upon the death of Raja Surya Tevar, his followers immediately turned on the Madurai troops, massacring their own helpers. Shortly thereafter, all sides in the conflict concluded peace.44 The ‘great conspiracy’ of 1686 was followed by the ‘conspiracy of the uncles’ of 1689, including Achyutappa Nayaka, Muttu Linga Nayaka a.k.a. Muttu Alakadri Nayaka, and Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka, against their nephew Muttu Virappa Nayaka III. Muttu Linga Nayaka, following his dethronement by Rustam Khan in

44 For a justification of these actions by Raja Surya Tevar, see: voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 456v–459r, Trans. ola Ragia Souria Teuver aan Timmersa Aijen, 23.11.1686. For a detailed reconstruction of the course of events: Idem, ff. 450r–453r, Extract miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 19.9.1686; Idem, ff. 455r–455v, Transl. ola Chedupaddij Cata Theuver aan commr. Van der Duijn van Jaffnapatnam, 18.11.1686; voc 1429, obp 1687, f. 453r, Extract miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.11.1686; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 453v–454r, Extract miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 5.12.1686; Idem, ff. 147r–147v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687; voc 1438, obp 1688, f. 1194v, Trans. ola bramine Kistna Aijen uit Tiroenamble uit het leger van Argie Ragie, 7.6.1687; voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 41v, and 45r–45v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 2.8.1687; voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 200v–201r, Miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; Idem, ff. 133r–133v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 14v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; Kadhirvel, A History of the Maravas, pp. 38–39; Subramaniam, The Maratha Rajas of Tanjore, pp. 22–23, and 27–28; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 213–214. As part of a settling of accounts, Raghunatha Tevar subsequently executed half of the chiefs of the Appanar Nattu Maravas (consisting of 6,000 men under 12–13 headmen) near Vaippar, ‘since they had not assisted him in his hour of need’. The other half was gifted with several villages and various prerogatives. voc 1438, obp 1688, f. 1382r, Miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 7.8.1687. According to a rather convulated indigenous account conflating the Marava ruler Raja Surya Tevar (r.1673) with this Appanar Nattu Chief namesake, ‘A Chronicle of the Acts of the Sethupathis, the Rulers of the Ramnad Capital’, Raja Surya Tevar was crowned in 1685 and died after six months, whereupon he was succeeded by his younger brother ‘Athina-deven’ [Adi Narayana Tevar]. On his turn, ‘Athina Deven’ died within three months and was succeeded by Raghunatha Tevar, who ruled for 37 years. Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, Appendix, p. 51.

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1680, initially took refuge at Ramnad with Raghunatha Tevar. In September 1684, however, he requested the Company to provide him with transportation in order to visit the court of Abul Hasan Qutb Shah of Golconda. Reportedly, Muttu Linga Nayaka was dissatisfied with Raghunatha Tevar for not giving sufficient support in regaining the Madurai throne. During the invasion of Ramnad by the aranmanai forces in 1686, however, Muttu Linga Nayaka was still at Ramnad, where Raghunatha Tevar attempted to use him as a bargaining tool against the aranmanai.45 His cause was taken up by the disgruntled Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka. The erstwhile talavay was initially held captive by Haraji Mahadik, but proved to be of little value as a bargaining tool with Muttu Virappa Nayaka III and was released shortly thereafter. In July 1687, the ‘deceived general’ apparently had been forgiven and was travelling along with the Company peons Ibrahim and Panchalan back to Trichinopoly. In July 1689, however, letters were intercepted allegedly implicating him along with the four brothers of Chokkanatha Nayaka. Muttu Virappa Nayaka III’s response was merciless, ordering the execution of his uncles’ entire family, including women and children:

[T]he ruler had his uncle and cousins, 18 in total, including some less than one year old, put to death by two executioners in the aranmanai and had the bodies thrown in a deep pit. The women, his aunts and cousins, 90 head in total, including many suckling babies and several pregnant women, were led by His Highness to a room on the rock within the fortress called Turukkam.46 The room was locked, the doors built with bricks and kept under guard, all the women perishing of hunger, stench, and filth.47

45 In 1738, almost fifty years later, during the final struggle over Madurai, the cause of the Nayaka dynasty was taken up by one Muttu Vijaya Ranga Tirumalai Nayaka, son of Muttu Linga Nayaka, ‘brother of Chokkanatha Nayaka, who assumed rule in the name of the latter because of his indisposition and afterwards refused to give it back following his [Chokkanatha’s] recovery, but was expelled with the help of Tanjore and died in the lands of the Maravas’. voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 367v–368r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 24.9.1684; voc 1429, obp 1687, f. 453v, Extract miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.11.1686; voc 11297, f. 35, Consideratien van den raad ord. en Ceijlons gouvr. Van Imhoff over de handel van de Gen. Ned. O.I. Maatsch. op de Madurese cust, 22.11.1738. 46 Turukkam (‘Toerigam’), ‘inaccessible place; mountain fortress, stronghold, fastness, rampart’. There are various appealing translations here with related, partially overlapping connotations: turi, ‘burden, weight’; tiru, ‘holy’, or ‘to end, expire, vanish; to be completed, finished, consummated’; turitam, ‘vice, wickedness, sin, turpitude; destruction, ruin, anni- hilation’; turricu, ‘fault, crime; sorrows, affliction distress’; turai, ‘affliction, distress, sorrow’. 47 voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 289r–289v, Journaal Welters, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 476–477, and 556–557. See also: voc 1394, obp 1685, f. 349v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl, 9.7.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 356v, Miss. commt. De

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Even before brutally settling the internal affairs of his house and palace, the restless Muttu Virappa Nayaka III had already turned his gaze outwards. In late 1685, the pradhani Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya invaded the lands of Madurai’s nominal tributary Travancore, making use of the presence of a large body of troops in the immediate aftermath of the peace between the aranmanai and the Tevar in November 1685. The invasion was also facilitated by the internal disputes between the Rani of Attingal Aswathi Thirunal Umayamma a.k.a. Umayamma Rani, Regent of Venad between 1677 and 1684, and the Ettuvittil Pillamar, the eight Nayar governors of the lands of the Padmanabha Ramaswamy Temple at Padmanabhapuram. As a result, the Rani had invoked the assistance of the Madurai pradhani against her opponents. In fact, this incursion was to be the precursor of an almost annual invasion of southern Travancore by Madurai forces after 1689 via Kottar or the Aramboli Pass.48

Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl, 28.7.1684; Idem, f. 370v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl, 18.10.1684; Idem, f. 387r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl, 30.10.1684; voc 1416, obp 1686, f. 1240r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan Batavia, 5.7.1685; Idem, f. 1342v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticurin aan Batavia, 31.10.1685; voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 1450r, Extract miss. opperk. en opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticurin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 13.9.1686; Idem, f. 147v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687; voc 1438, obp 1688, f. 1193v, Transl. ola uit Tiroenamble en ‘t leger van Argie Ragie, 27.5.1687; Idem, f. 1231v, Transl. rapport pions Ibrahim Moor en Pangelaan Sjentief, 17.7.1687; Taylor, Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, p. 199. 48 As early as 1680, rumours circulated that the aranmanai intended to invade Travancore in order to forcibly collect arrears in tribute: voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 214r, Rapp. Van Rhee van de presente toestand ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680. For references to the actual invasion of Travancore: voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 55r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.5.1686; Idem, ff. 78v–79r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 9.9.1686; Idem, f. 143v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687; voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 941r–941v, and 947r–947v, Miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.2.1690; Instructie comms. Van Rheede voor commr. Isaacq van Dielen en raad van Malabar, 23.11.1691, in: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 225; Sreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History, pp. 239, and 242–243; K.M. Panikkar, A History of Kerala, 1498–1801 (Annamalainagar: Annamalai University, 1960), p. 231; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 207–208; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), p. 162; Nelson, The Madura Country, Part III, pp. 225–226; Sreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History, pp. 242–243. ‘Maliyalam’ king sends 12 elephants and same number of horses, and quantity of treasure. See: Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, p. 215. Muttu Virappa Nayaka III was known for his impetuousness. In February 1690, a Dutch account observed that ‘reportedly during the first approach of Karakulam [near Trivandrum or Thiruvananthapuram], he went ahead with only 50 horse. Arriving at the gate, he found it closed by the Ettuvittil Pillamar,

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In 1687, hostilities with Mysore flared up once again when the talavay Doddaiya, successor and nephew of Kumaraiya, invaded the territories of Salem and Coimbatore. Despite collaboration with the Marathas, Shahaji of Tanjore and Haraji Mahadik of Gingee, the Madurai army was unable to oppose the victorious Mysorean general and army, who conquered the greater part of the Baramahal (Salem), including Dharmapuri (January 1689) and Kaveripatnam (July 1689), pushing into the Talaghat and annexing Omalur, Paramatti (May 1689), and Attur (January 1690). About February 1690, Chikkadeva Raja had not only come into full possession of most of the places lost during Sambhaji’s wars (1682–1686), but had also been in a position to reiterate his claim to supremacy as ‘Emperor of the Karnataka Country’.49 These traditional regional conflicts among the small rulers of South India became inexorably intertwined with the emerging pan-Indian Mughal-Maratha struggle. To stop the Maratha depradations under Shivaji Bhonsle (d. April 1680) and his sons Sambhaji (r. 1680–1689) and Rajaram (r. 1689–1700), and eliminate the two remaining Deccani sultanates of Golconda and Bijapur, the Mughal

who opened it in view of the small size of the force. Three of them, that is, Retrapoti [Ruttera Potti], Tikew.cti couroup [Tikelekutti Kurup?], and Seddricoetipulle [Chettrikutti Pillai?], greeted and presented the ruler with gifts… The ruler is very impulsive in many matters and acts without preknowledge of the courtiers, including this advance approach of Karakulam’. voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 941r–941v, Miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.2.1690. Compare with other daring exploits of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III: Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 201–203; Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 208–215. It was probably during one of his visits to Tirunelveli in February 1690 or July 1690 in the wake of an incursion into Travancore that the story of the son of Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, Venkatesa Ayya, if historical, should be placed. See: Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 213–215. 49 voc 1438, obp 1688, f. 1193v, Transl. ola bramine Kistna Aijen uit Tiroenamble en ‘t leger van Argie Ragie, 27.5.1687; voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 200v–201r, Miss. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; voc 1456, obp 1689, f. 2103r, Transl. ola Comps. courantier uit ‘t Mogols leger aan gouvr. Pit van Coromandel, 21.8.1688; Idem, f. 2104r, Transl. olas Comps. courantier uit ‘t Mogols leger aan gouvr. Pit van Coromandel, 24.8.1688; voc 1463, obp 1690, f. 255v, Transl. ola Comps. bramine uit ‘t Mogols leger te Tiroenemale aan gouvr. Pit van Coromandel, 20.1.1689; voc 1488, obp 1689, ff. 322v–323v, Transl. ola Comps. gezant Wieraragua uit Tanjore aan commt. Blom van Nagapatnam, 31.1.1689; voc 1448, obp 1689, ff. 324r–324v, Transl. ola Comps. gezant Rengappa uit Darasoerpette aan commr. Blom van Nagapatnam, 1.2.1689; Idem, ff. 327r–327v, Transl. ola Comps. gezant Wiereragua uit Trialoer aan commt. Blom van Nagapatnam, 7.2.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 290v–291r, Dagreg. Welter, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 478– 481, and 558; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 122, and 161–162; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, pp. 305–310; Muddachari, The Mysore-Maratha Relations, pp. 116–125; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 204, and 207; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 559–560.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 533

Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) left Ajmer for the South in September 1679 never to return. Following the Mughal conquest of Bijapur (September 1686) and Golconda (September 1687), Mughal forces under Zulfiqar Khan Nusrat Jang (1659–1713), son of the Wazir Asad Khan, in September 1690 invested Rajaram in the rock fortress of Gingee. The ensuing siege of the ‘Troy of the East’ was to last until February 1698. While fighting each other on the battlefield, the Mughals and Marathas also confronted each other indirectly on the diplomatic front by actively seeking support from the rulers of Madurai, Ramnad, Tanjore, Mysore, and Ikkeri (Kanara) . All of them were forced to pursue a delicate balancing act between the demands of both sides. The result was a vacillating policy of timely submission to Mughal authority while still making the necessary payments of protection money in order to prevent Maratha raiding parties from invading their territories. In June 1687, for instance, the ambassador of Haraji Mahadik at Trichinopoly anxiously reported the arrival of an envoy from the Mughal general and subsequent governor (faujdar) of Sira, Qasim Khan (d. November 1695), demanding that the Nayaka of Madurai ‘would receive the flag of that monarch [Aurangzeb] and let it fly in his domains and would join his troops on the approach of the Mughal army’. In December 1688, another Mughal envoy paid a visit to Trichinopoly, reportedly to collect arrears in the tribute due from Madurai, but after an initial audience failed to get a further hearing with Muttu Virappa Nayaka III. In February 1689, an envoy of Aurangzeb, possibly the same diplomat finding the doors of the Madurai aranmanai shut, arrived at the court of the Tevar at Ramnad for the very same purpose as at Trichinopoly.50

50 voc 1438, obp 1688, f. 1194v, Transl. ola bramine Kistna Aijen uit Tiroenamble uit ‘t leger van Argie Ragie, 7.6.1687; Idem, ff. 1196v–1197r, Transl. ola bramine Kistna Aijen uit Tiroenamble uit ‘t leger van Argie Ragie, 29.6.1687; voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 1237v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 6.2.1689; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 195–197, and 204–207; Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, IV, pp. 270–419; V, pp. 1–109; Richards, The Mughal Empire, pp. 205–233; G.R. Sardesai, New History of the Marathas, second edn. (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1986), pp. 303–350; Gordon, The Marathas, 1600–1818, pp. 91–100; Karandikar, The Rise and Fall of the Maratha Power, I, pp. 237–314; Rangachari, ‘History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura’, Indian Antiquary 46 (1917), pp. 120–123, and 158–160; Hayavadana Rao, History of Mysore, pp. 304–312; Subramanian, The Maratha Rajas of Tanjore, pp. 14–28; Nayeem, External Relations of the Bijapur Kingdom, pp. 109, 175–183, and 209–211; Verma, History of Bijapur, pp. 115, 178–182, and 205–213; Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shahi Dynasty, pp. 639–650; A.M. Siddiqi, History of Golconda (Hyderabad: Literary Productions, 1956), pp. 253–284. The story of the Mughal slipper, if true, should be connected with these diplomatic exchanges. See: Taylor (ed.), Oriental Historical Manuscripts, II, pp. 205–208.

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At the same time, Sambhaji Bhonsle (d. March 1689), increasingly hard- pressed by the Mughal advance, and his successor and son Rajaram (d. March 1700) repeatedly wrote the Nayakas of Madurai, Tanjore, and Mysore, inciting them to join forces with him to resist the ‘emperor’ in order ‘to prevent the Moors from conquering the entire country’. Sambhaji reportedly promised Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, Shahaji, and Letchuman Nayaka, a Hindu commander in Mughal service, that apart from the peaceful enjoyment of their patrimonial lands, they each would receive a third share in the expected spoils. Sambhaji’s appeal to ideological and material sentiments only found a receptive hearing with his relative, Shahaji, and Letchuman Nayaka, the latter subsequently defecting to the Marathas. The other South Indian rulers, however, let their traditional rivalries prevail and/or decided to acknowledge and profit from the new political realities, each dealing separately and submitting individually to the emperor by promising to pay tribute, while hoping to gain critical support in their contest with neighbouring rulers. The Mysorean conquests of the late 1680s, for instance, were initiated only after Chikkadeva Raja had bought the acquiescence of the Mughals. In October 1690, an ambassador of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III visited the Mughal general Zulfiqar Khan near Gingee, proposing that Shahaji should be expelled from Tanjore, claiming to act on behalf of the previous Nayaka dynasty of Tanjore and Chengamala Das. In November 1690, François Martin reported the presence of envoys from Tanjore, Madurai, Ikkeri (Kanara), and Mysore at the camp of Zulfiqar Khan, ‘as well as other minor Gentile rulers, who all made considerable presents to the general’.51

Reportedly, the Madurai Nayaka, fearing the recent Mughal advances, was also planning to move to Palaiyamkottai in the lowlands: voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 137r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.2.1688; Idem, ff. 14v–15r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688. 51 voc 1456, obp 1689, f. 2100v, Transl. ola Comps. courantier uit ‘t Mogols leger aan gouvr. Pit van Coromandel, 15.8.1688; voc 1454, obp 1689, f. 1010r, Miss. commt. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.8.1688; voc 1456, obp 1689, f. 2103v, Transl. ola Comps. courantier uit ‘t Mogols leger aan gouvr. Pit van Coromandel, 23.8.1688; voc 1448, obp 1689, ff. 322v–323v, Transl. ola Comps. gezant Wieraragua uit Tanjore aan commt. Blom van Nagapatnam, 31.1.1689; voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 1045r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 9.2.1689; voc 1486, obp 1691, ff. 336v–337r, Rapp. Comps. bramine Kistnaja wegens zijn verrichtingen omtrent de Mogolse veldoverste Sulfacarchan, 9.10.1690; Sathyanatha Aiyar, History of the Nayaks of Madura, pp. 206–207; Subrahmanian, The Maratha Rajas of Tanjore, p. 27; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, passim. Contemporary European observers, and many 20th-century Indian nationalist historians, have subsequently faulted the ‘failure’ of the Hindu princes to form a united front against the Mughal advance. This kind of policy, however, would have constituted a radical departure from established practice in South India.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 535

The ‘Time of Troubles’, 1680–1682

Dutch-Madurai relations during the ‘time of troubles’ (1680–1682) were dominated by the political instability of the time, borne out by the weakening of the aranmanai, the initial incursions of the Tevar, and the subsequent occupation of the lowlands by Mysore. Failure to get permission for a new factory at Punnaikayal from the aranmanai led to the opportunistic decision to begin the fortification of the existing factory of Tuticorin, provided no opposition was encountered. At the same time, requests to assist Madurai’s central authorities against the Tevar were turned down by the Company in order to maintain its self-professed policy of neutrality. Relations with the Tevar were still dominated by the restrictive commercial clauses in the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674, granting the Company monopolies in the export of chanks, chaya roots, and rockfish skins, while prohibiting the shipping of Malabar areca through Pamban Channel. As Raghunatha Tevar refused to honour the agreement, claiming to have been forced to sign under duress, the Company’s response consisted of a mixture of military and mercantile means. For various reasons, all of these countermeasures proved to be ineffective. The temporary occupation of the Madurai Coast by Mysore (July 1681–April 1682) initially provoked some incidents between the Dutch and the fledgling Mysorean administration, but allowed for the near-completion of the Tuticorin fortifications due to the tenuous nature of Mysore authority. Thus, like their imperialist counterparts, the Company’s mercantile faction, guided by the same precepts of political economy in the ‘age of mercantilism’, demonstrated that it would not eschew military entanglements when the opportunity presented itself and costs and risks were considered to be limited. Company-aranmanai relations started with some unfinished business in the form of the attempt to realise the rather desperate project of Governor Van Goens the Younger of Ceylon to move the seat of Company operations from Tuticorin to Punnaikayal. Acting on a resolution of the High Government of September 1679, Van Goens’ successor Laurens Pijl in January 1680 dutifully promised to apply all his efforts to get permission from Madurai’s central authorities. From the onset, however, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon expressed their reservations about the project, because ‘we are of the opinion that Madurai officials will never grant it, for they are too apprehensive that one would erect any fortifications there’. Moreover, contrary to Van Goens the Younger, the Ceylon government, for various reasons, considered Tuticorin a more favourable location than Punnaikayal. First, the port of Tuticorin was superior to that of Punnaikayal, during both the southwest or west and the northeast monsoon. Second, Tuticorin was closer to the cantai or market of Srivilliputtur, and therefore to be preferred

536 chapter 7 over Punnaikayal in the import trade since the Company merchants would be subject to less tolls. Third, except for the textiles from Alvar Tirunagari and Punnaikayal itself, the export trade of the Company along the Madurai Coast was conducted at Tuticorin due to its superior harbour and its proximity to the inland market town of Srivilliputtur. Fourth, unlike Tuticorin, Punnaikayal was ‘mostly surrounded by swampy pools of salt and brackish water, all of which, except for those on the seaside, fall dry at low tide, often producing a villainous stench’. Moreover, Punnaikayal could be more easily cut off from fresh water supplies than Tuticorin by indigenous enemies.52 Nevertheless, in March 1680, at the instigation of Siva Ramanatha Pillai, an important councillor of Governor Venkatadri Ayya [Venkatesa Ayya?] of Tirunelveli, it was decided to dispatch Sebastião Pereira and Ammayappa Pillai, the Company interpreters at Tuticorin and Alvar Tirunagari, to Tirunelveli with a present of 200 rixdollars to gain permission for the construction of a new factory at Punnaikayal. Initially fed with ‘partly idle talk, partly excuses’, Venkatadri Ayya’s final answer was, not surprisingly, ‘that such could not be allowed, and that permission from the Nayaka should be obtained first’. Moreover, the Dutch were already ‘provided with sufficient residences and churches along the coast’. Nevertheless, the Tirunelveli governor gave the rather vague promise that he would, ‘as far as possible’, try to ‘discuss the matter to the benefit of the Company’. One of Venkatadri Ayya’s councillors, moreover, secretly advised the two interpreters ‘that we should waste no more efforts and money since the administration is very unstable and changing constantly’. The anonymous councillor added that all of the Madurai officials ‘would make some promises and reassurances as long as one filled their hands, but afterwards would excuse themselves for lack of power’. Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, who felt little sympathy for the project anyway, needed little warning. Commenting on the failure of the interpreters’ mission, the Ceylon government observed in May 1680 that it did not see the least chance ever to get permission for the construction of a new factory at Punnaikayal as ‘words fall short to describe the suspicion and apprehension of

52 voc 694, f. 313, Resolutie GG en R, 12.9.1679; voc 1343, obp 1680, f. 294r, Miss. provl. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.1.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 9v–10r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.3.1680; Idem, ff. 75r–77r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1681. The contrasts with Van Goens’ description of Tuticorin and Punnaikayal are so extreme, that one wonders if both were talking about the same place! This example demonstrates clearly how subjectivity can influence one’s perceptions of reality and how cautious one needs to approach and contextualize Company and all other primary source materials.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 537 these people. All efforts to allay them with proper and healthy reasoning are fruitless and merely cause even greater misgivings’.53 Acknowledging the impossibility of gaining permission for the projected factory at Punnaikayal, Commander Van Rhee of Tuticorin intimated to Pijl that the palisades around the Tuticorin factory were irreparable and that the greater part had collapsed in the previous northeastern or rainy monsoon, requesting permission to replace the rotted woodwork with stone walls. In June 1680, Pijl subsequently wrote to Batavia, informing the High Government of the failure of the mission of Pereira and Ammayappa Pillai, asking for instructions whether the existing factory at Tuticorin should be surrounded by ‘a thin stone wall’ or a new factory should be constructed at Punnaikayal without the consent of the aranmanai. The Ceylon governor considered the latter option less likely than the first one, deeming the time opportune in view of the Madurai-Mysore hostilities in the uplands and the recent invasion of the lowlands by the Tevar. ‘During these troubles’, he concluded, ‘it would be (as the proverb goes) good fishing in troubled waters’.54 Expressing its dissatisfaction with the previous presentations of Van Goens the Younger regarding the potential and feasibility of the move to Punnaikayal, the High Government in November 1680 authorised the Ceylon government to surround the Tuticorin factory with a stone wall, provided it would cause no major inconveniences or disapproval of the Tirunelveli governor. Ironically, the stone wall was built by using the stones of the former Parava church of São Pedro, which had been torn down in the early 1670s at the orders of Van Goens Senior with the intention of building a fortress. In July 1681, it was reported that the stone walls and two small bastions had been completed on the seaside of the Tuticorin factory without encountering the least opposition from the Madurai governor Tambi Periya Pillai a.k.a. Chinna Vadamalaiyappa Pillai. Fears that the subsequent erection of a more conspicuous wall on the west- or landside would be more problematic would not materialise due to the Mysorean occupation of the Madurai lowlands.55

53 voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 177r–178r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 6.4.1680; voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 386r–386v, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 21v–22v, and 55v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680. 54 voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 22v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680. 55 voc 904, bub 1680, unfoliated, Miss. GG en R aan presiderend commr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 21.11.1680; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, p. 453. One month earlier, in October 1680, the High Government had still kept the Punnaikayal option open: voc 904, bub 1680, f. 1122, Miss. GG en R aan 1e commr. en raad van Ceijlon, 2.10.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 127v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.11.1680; Idem, f. 167v, Miss. commr. Van

538 chapter 7

In fact, hard-pressed for money and military support, the aranmanai was effectively immobilised and unable to act. Repeatedly, Company officials during this period complained about the heavy oppression of the Madurai inhabitants, including Company merchants such as Mardappa Chitti, who was forced to flee from Alvar Tirunagari to Kottar. Indicative of the fiscal and military emergency of the aranmanai, even the Brahmin Pattars of the temples in the lowlands, such as Alvar Tirunagari, were not exempt from plunder. When Chief Van Rhee of Tuticorin sent a protest letter to ‘Celsikiriaijen’, the Tirunelveli governor replied, in what the Dutch called ‘an absurd olai’, that the Company’s indigenous merchants ‘were subjects of his lord and that others should mind their own business’. Van Rhee also received several requests from ‘Celsikiriaijen”s successor, Tambi Periya Pillai, via Chidambaranatha Chitti for Company assistance in the form of gunners and artillery pieces along with a loan of 100,000 rixdollars under the security of any such villages as the Dutch desired. All these requests, however, were turned down either on grounds of preserving the Company’s neutrality or on the argument ‘that such would not suit the Hon. Company, and probably could not be recovered without having to draw the sword’. Heavily disappointed, Tambi Periya Pillai bitterly observed ‘that the Portuguese would have given them more support, though they had been enjoying fewer advantages from Madurai than the Hon. Company’.56 Relations between the Dutch and the Tevar in this period were still determined by the Company’s insistence on the observance of the restrictive commercial clauses in the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 and the repayment of the

Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 17.12.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1571r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1681; Idem, ff. 1847v–1848r, Consideratien Van Rhee en Van Vliet van des. E. Comps. belang en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 54r–54v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681. In a post factum justification, the Dutch claimed that in June 1683 a certain Brahmin called Venkatapati had delivered a letter at Tuticorin, reportedly written in May 1682 by Chokkanatha Nayaka just prior to his death, permitting the construction of the fortress. The Company itself, however, realised that the epistle would not suffice to convince the aranmanai as ‘no excuses would be lacking to assert that the letter was a forgery as had already been speculated upon its receipt’. voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 395v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688. 56 For references to the alleged oppression of the aranmanai: voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 55r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 205v–206r, Rapp. Van Rhee van den presente toestand ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 55r–55v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681. For the aranmanai’s requests for financial and military assistance: voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 167r–167v, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 17.12.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1570r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1681.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 539 loan of 6,300 rixdollars. As we have seen, the ‘advantageous contract’ granted the Company monopolies in the export of chanks, chaya roots, and rockfish skins, while prohibiting the shipping of Malabar arecanuts through Pamban Channel. Relations were compounded by reports that the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar was dealing with French and English factors from Pondichéry and Madras and several Porto Novo and Cuddalore merchants acting on their behalf, respectively.57 Raghunatha Tevar staunchly refused to recognise the validity of the agreement, while the Company was only willing to make minor concessions. The incompatibility of these positions was never more apparent than in two meetings between Thomas Van Rhee, the Company chief of Tuticorin, and the Tevar’s representatives at Tuticorin in December 1680 and October 1681. In the conference of December 1680, Thalavatta Pillai and Cervai Nayinar Maraikkayar, the brother-in-law of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, refused to deliver the chanks and rockfish skins to the Company, declaring openly ‘that their Lord had been constrained to sign the last contract and, therefore, was not obliged to observe it’. They offered, however, that if the Tevar were granted an annual safe conduct for a cargo of chanks (which they set at 3,200 cours) to Bengal, the remaining chanks (estimated to be 2,000 cours) would be handed over to the Company at market rate. Van Rhee, however, stuck to his guns and intimated to the two envoys ‘that they should not feed themselves with idle hopes’. Referring to the principle of pacta sunt servanda, the Tuticorin chief proclaimed ‘that it was an iron law and fixed maxim among us to maintain and observe our contracts with powerful lords and rulers intact’. Showing their dissatisfaction with this ‘unexpected reply’, Thalavatta Pillai reiterated ‘that the Tevar would observe the old treaty [of April 1660] and that he had been persuaded and misled to sign the last contract because of his minority and limited knowledge of his own interests by certain ill-disposed subjects [an allusion to his councillors Chandra Cervaikarar and Sivasankara Pillai, who were both executed in 1676]. Therefore, he was neither held nor willing to maintain it, and that, as in the times of his uncle [Raghunatha Tevar, r. 1645–1673], he wished to dispatch his vessel with chanks to Bengal’. In addition, the Ramnad emissaries requested that the restrictions on the Indo-Ceylon trade be lifted and the subjects of the Tevar permitted

57 For guidelines of the Ceylon government to Commander Vorwer and Council of Nagapat nam how to behave in the event of the arrival of French factors or discovery of French safe conducts aboard vessels of the Tevar: voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 122v–123r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 15.8.1680; voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 471r–471v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 20.8.1680; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 451–452.

540 chapter 7 to trade freely with Colombo, Mannaar, and Kalpitiya. Finally, the Tevar should be allowed five vessels in the trade with Ceylon, without being subject to inspection and the payment of tolls, along with five free thonis in the pearl fishery instead of the customary three. Acting in accordance with his instructions, Van Rhee was unyielding. The chief of Tuticorin bluntly informed the envoys regarding the chanks that the Dutch wanted all or nothing, that the Company reserved the arecanut trade for itself, and that the ports of Raja Sinha II were to remain closed to foreigners. Moreover, the old custom of three free thonis for the Tevar was to be strictly observed. Lastly, he reminded the envoys that the Company’s loan should be reimbursed. Despite the initial intransigent posturing, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, fearing English or French intrusion, decided to refer the matter to the High Government for further deliberation.58 As the two standpoints seemed to be diametrically opposed and impossible to solve via diplomatic negotiations, the Company’s response consisted of a mixture of military and mercantile measures. Thus, Company sloops from Tuticorin and Nagapatnam cruised along the coast of Ramnad and in the vicinity of Cape Comorin to prevent the illicit ‘smuggling’ of chanks, chaya roots, and arecanuts, while the Parava divers of Vaippar, ‘the first gate of the Madurai Coast’, were to hand over their weekly catch of chanks at Tuticorin in order to prevent the Tevar from participating in the ‘precious harvest’. At the same time, a small Company garrison stationed at Nalla Tanni Tivu or Fresh Water Island near Valinokkam, consisting of two Dutch and six indigenous servants and one manchua or cargo boat, was to prevent the ‘robbery’ of the pearl banks, diving of chanks, digging of chaya roots, and to inspect vessels trying to pass Pamban Channel.59 In addition to these military countermeasures, the Dutch also

58 voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 166r–167r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 17.12.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1736r–1737r, Extract miss. Van Rhee en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.12.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 73v–75r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1681; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1570v–1571r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.4.1681. For the instructions of Batavia and Governor Pijl and Council of Ceylon to Van Rhee: voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 119v–120r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 14.6.1680; Idem, ff. 55v–56r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1680; voc 904, bub 1680, f. 1123, Miss. GG en R aan 1e commr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.10.1680; Idem, unfoliated, Miss. GG en R aan presiderend commr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 21.11.1680. Similar arguments were used by both sides during the conference of October 1681. See: voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 366r–369r, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, opperk. en g’eligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust, 31.1.1682. 59 voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 471r–471v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 20.8.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1845v–1847v, and 1850v, Consideratien Van Rhee en Van

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 541 pursued other, commercial avenues by raising the prices for these commodities offered by the Company. Thus, prices paid for rockfish skins were increased from 7 to 17 rixdollars at Tuticorin, and (as of 1677) from 20 to 24 rixdollars at Nagapatnam.60 For various reasons, these countermeasures proved to be only partly effective. As the Company acknowledged, the Ramnad Coast could not be effectively monitored with less than six sloops to prevent diving for chanks, while even the constant patrolling of the seas near Cape Comorin could not be ‘waterproof’. The small presence at Nalla Tanni Tivu was recognised to be equally ineffective. It was discovered that, prior to the arrival of the diggers of the Company, the chaya on the islands of Musal Tivu and Valai Tivu had already been partly harvested. When confronted with the ‘theft’, the Tevar’s envoys feigned ignorance, permitting the Company to punish the culprits according to its liking.61 In addition, interference with Malabar shipping at Pamban Channel and Cape Comorin led to conflicts with both the Tevar and various south Malabar rulers. In September 1681, for instance, two arecanut vessels belonging to the raja of Kayamkulam and the Muslim merchant Uthman from Quilon (subject to the Rani of Attingal) were arrested by the Dutch resident at the Freshwater Island since their safe conducts stipulated that they were not allowed to sail beyond Manappad. However, when Van Rhee dispatched Company sloops from Tuticorin to unload the arecanut, the vessels had already left against the will of the small Dutch garrison of Nalla Tanni Tivu. The vessels were pursued to Pamban Channel, where they found a safe haven provided by Thiru Udaya Tevar, the local maniyakkarar and adopted son of Raghunatha Tevar. When summoned to release the vessels in order to unload the arecanut, the maniyakkarar categorically refused to do so, retorting that ‘his port was just as good as that of the Hon. Company’ and that ‘the vessels which were anchored there were as free as at Company places, regardless of the cargoes they were carrying’. The vessels safely continued their voyage to Porto Novo. In a letter of protest to

Vliet van des E. Comps. belang en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 86v–88v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; voc 1378, obp 1683, ff. 1497r–1499v, Miss. gouvr. Pits en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 4.9.1681. 60 voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 212r–212v, Rapp. Van Rhee van de presente toestand ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680; Idem, ff. 136v–137r, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijon, 30.10.1680. 61 voc 1355, obp 1681, f. 212v, Rapp. Van Rhee van de presente toestand ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680; voc 1370, obp 1682, ff. 1845v–1846v, Consideratien van des E. Comps. belang en negotie op de kust van Madure, 23.4.1681; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 366r–367v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, opperk. en g’eligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust, 31.1.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 93r–94r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683.

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Raghunatha Tevar, Chief Van Rhee of Tuticorin in October 1681 complained ‘that it was improper that valiant lords did not observe their given word and contract, resulting oftentimes in estrangement and great discord’. No reply, however, was forthcoming, despite the dispatch of a Company arachchi, who waited for a month at Ramnad in vain. No offense was taken, for the Company realised that Raghunatha Tevar had more urgent business to attend to, such as preparing for the impending hostilities with Mysore: ‘As long as he is involved in these war games no answer is to be expected, which for the moment should be tolerated’.62 In May 1682, another pepper and arecanut vessel of the Muslim merchant Uthman was arrested at Tuticorin as its safe conduct did not permit it to sail beyond Manappad. The confiscation of the cargo and vessel led to a protracted conflict with the Rani of Attingal and other southern Malabar rulers, such as the Signatti of Quilon, the high-ranking Nayar and regedor Bariatte Pillai, and the rajas of Kayamkulam and Purakkad.63 Moreover, the Company, realising it would be helpless in case the Tevar would resort to French or English protection, was forced to assume a more conciliatory stance. As Van Rhee put it to Governor Pijl of Ceylon in November 1680, the Tevar’s request for a safe conduct for the small vessel of the Periya

62 voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 8r, Miss. raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.4.1682. See also: voc 1379, obp 1683, ff. 2247r–2248v, Ola commt. Van Rhee aan de vrijheer Regounade Cheude Paddij Catte Teuver, 10.10.1681; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 151v–152v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.12.1681; Idem, f. 5r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1682; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 366v–367v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, opperk. en g’eligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust, 31.1.1682. 63 voc 1379, obp 1683, f. 2250, Transl. ola koningin van Attingen aan commt. De Heijde, undated; Idem, ff. 2250r–2251r, Miss. commr. De Heijde aan de koningin van Attingen, 18.6.1680; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 7r, and 28r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 1379, obp 1683, f. 2246r, Miss. De Heijde en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 8.7.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 139r–142r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 29.9.1682; Idem, ff. 236v–237r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 26.10.1682; Idem, f. 68r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1682; voc 908, bub 1682, ff. 1437r–1437v, and 1459r–1459v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.12.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 93r–94r, and 102r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1387, obp 1684, f. 1750v, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 8v–9r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 22.6.1683; Idem, ff. 139r, and 178r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 25r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, p. 670; Miss. commr. Huijsman en raad van Malabar aan Batavia, 11.4.1684, in: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. 218–219.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 543

Tambi Maraikkayar should be granted ‘for, in case of refusal, he will undoubtedly obtain it from the French or English, which would incline him more to those nations than to the Hon. Company’. Moreover, it was recognised that the Tevar had the military capacity to disrupt the trade in Madurai and to invade Mannaar as in the times of the Portuguese.64 While military measures were hence producing limited results at best, the use of mercantile means was hardly more effective due to the presence of the Company’s ‘harmful neighbours’, the English and the French. In effect, Raghu natha Tevar could take advantage of the sellers’ market, where the many competitors of the Dutch, such as the English at Madras, the French at Pondichéry, and the Muslim merchants of Porto Novo and southern Malabar, were willing and capable of offering higher prices than the Dutch. Not surprisingly, this opportunity was skilfully exploited by the Marava ruler: ‘Since the Indian rulers are as much interested in profit and advantage as the Hon. Company, they will seek those who have the most to offer’. Thus, rockfish skins at Tegenampatnam fetched 28–30 rixdollars against the paltry 17 and 24 rixdollars offered by the Company at Tuticorin and Nagapatnam, respectively. As a result, in October 1680, while Commander Vorwer of Naga patnam expressed his satisfaction about the positive effects of the raised price and the way in which the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar had observed the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 by delivering skins via his factors, no improvement occurred in the quantity of rockfish skins delivered at Tuticorin from the lands of the Tevar. Not surprisingly, Vorwer insisted that the price of 24 rixdollars should be maintained in view of ‘the manifold and eager competitors’. At the same time, the English, via their Chief Merchant Kasi Viranna, in 1680 managed to purchase 2,000 cours of chanks for 1 ‘Mamoedechamse’65 pagoda (1½ rixdollars or 3 rupees) per cour of chanks from the Ramnad Coast. The payment occurred in the form of 8 iron pieces of artillery, for which Raghunatha Tevar honoured the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar with a golden chain. Though the chanks from Ramnad were smaller than the fourth variety caught along the Fishery Coast, the English in effect paid almost six times that paid by the Company to the Parava divers (6½–7 fanams per cour) at Tuticorin.

64 voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 122v–123r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 15.8.1680; voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 471r–471v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 20.8.1680; voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 127r–127v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.11.1680; voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 56v, and 86v–88v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681. 65 ‘Mamoedecham’, ‘Mamodegam’, probably a reference to the Bijapuri governor of Gingee Nasir Mahmud Khan (d. 1680).

544 chapter 7

Subsequent attempts by Raghunatha Tevar to evade the Company’s maritime blockade directly by using his own ships were less successful. In his memorandum of succession of January 1682, Chief Van Rhee reported that for the past two years the cruising of a Company sloop near Pamban Channel had prevented the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar from exporting the chanks aboard one of his own vessels. Thereupon, he had sold 4,000 cours of chanks to two Porto Novo merchants for 1 ‘Mamoedechamse’ pagoda, but these were still buried at Vedalai. In July 1683, however, while at Ramnad, the Company Merchant Joan van Vliet reported that the Tevar had traded no fewer than 22 iron pieces of 12 and 18 lbs. with the English at Madras. Meanwhile, in October 1680, Vorwer and Council of Nagapatnam received an olai from the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, demanding, in the opinion of the Dutch, an outrageous price for the chanks, while insisting that the chanks should be accepted unsorted at Tuticorin. In November 1680, Van Rhee asked Governor Pijl what price the Tevar should be offered for the chanks caught along his coast, informing Pijl that the Tevar would not be inclined to deliver them sorted ‘since he can sell them easily to the English and others without sorting and removing the small ones’. The Dutch chief advised Pijl that the Company should regulate its price accordingly. Pijl subsequently informed the Directors in January 1681, that the Tevar refused to conform to the low prices paid to the Paravas and preferred ‘to regulate himself in accordance with a different market’.66 Following the crushing defeat of the combined aranmanai-Tevar forces near Madurai, the Madurai Coast was overrun in July 1681 by Mysorean troops under talavay Kumaraiya, who subsequently installed a civil administration under Governor Kavinanjiraiya at Tirunelveli. The relations between the Company

66 voc 1355, obp 1681, ff. 212r–212v, Rapp. Van Rhee van de presente toestand ter custe Madure, 24.10.1680; Idem, ff. 136v–137r, and 150v–151v, Miss. Vorwer en raad van Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl, 30.10.1680; Idem, ff. 127r–127v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.11.1680; Idem, ff. 69r–69v, and 75r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1681; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 366r–367v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, opperk. en g’eligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust, 31.1.1682; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 556r–558r, 559r–560r, and 565v–566r, Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtinge aan het hof van de vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683. In May 1681, Commissioner Willem Hartsinck informed Governor Pits of Coromandel that the Muslim regent (havildar?) of Cuddalore seemed to contract with the English regarding the lease of Cuddalore on the explicit condition that all the chanks which were secretly brought to Cuddalore in the name of the English had to come there and hence transported to Bengal. In order to prevent this scheme, Hartsinck issued a warning to the regent. voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 56v, and 86v–88v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 545 and the Mysorean administration were characterised by a few initial incidents and Mysorean attempts to quickly tap into local sources of revenue, such as the pearl fishery, and by the Company’s efforts to obtain permission for the completion of the fortification of Tuticorin. The tenuous nature of Mysorean control, however, prevented the new authorities from following up on their initial demands. In April 1682, in the wake of the defeat of Kumaraiya near Trichinopoly, the skeleton Mysorean garrisons in the lowlands were forced to withdraw to Palaiyamkottai in the face of the army of the Tevar. Dutch-Mysorean relations started with an incident resulting from, as the Dutch believed, ‘the arrogance and haughtiness of the victor at the instigation of the Moors and Brahmins’. In July 1681, some underlings of Ambaya Talaivar or Ambayaraiya (Ambaya Raiya), the maniyakkarar of Alvar Tirunagari and regent of the coastal lands, forced the Company Resident Krijn Caperman ‘to prostrate himself on the ground like other subjects, forcing him to remove his socks and shoes, and having him appear before them barefooted’. In a protest olai to Governor Kavinanjiraiya, Chief Van Rhee of Tuticorin objected that ‘no European nation is wont to do so anywhere in the world, and that such is despised and rejected by everyone’. Van Rhee, however, was intelligent enough to leave the Tirunelveli governor an escape clause. Assuming that this act was the result of ‘limited competence and evil councillors’, Kavinanjiraiya should inform his maniyakkarar underling not to mistreat the Dutch in the future ‘in order to fully observe the good friendship’.67 The Mysorean governor graciously decided to accept Van Rhee’s escape clause. In early August 1681, Kavinanjiraiya replied that the incident had occurred without the presence of any of his people. Moreover, he had dispatched some representatives to look for those responsible, promising that no further injustice would take place and that everything would be done according to the ways of the aranmanai.68 Shortly after the first incident, the maniyakkarar of Melur, Rangaraiya (Ranga Raiya), informed Van Rhee that his superior, Ambayaraiya, would visit Tuticorin the following day and that he expected to be granted a personal reception. Any refusal, he warned the ‘Dutch captain’, would not be taken well and lead to a ‘certain estrangement and rumour’. Van Rhee again protested

67 voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1773r, Transl. ola commt. Van Rhee aan de regent der benedenlanden Cavinansjen Ragia, 26.7.1681; Idem, f. 1774r, Extract dagreg. Tuticorin, 27.7.1681; Idem, ff. 1774v–1776r, Extract dagreg. Tuticorin, 31.7.1681. 68 voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1773v, Transl. ola landregent Cavinansjen Deuver aan commt. Van Rhee te Tuticorin, 3.8.1681; voc 1362, obp 1682, ff. 123r–123v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.8.1681.

546 chapter 7 while trying to prevent any rupture. The Dutch chief of Tuticorin replied to Rangaraiya that ‘we are neither under his orders nor his subjects, for our lords superiors, who govern us and whose orders we have to obey, are at Batavia and on Ceylon’. Therefore, Van Rhee excused himself from following the Mysorean regent’s instructions. However, he promised to do everything necessary in order to maintain ‘politeness, correspondence, and proper friendship’.69 Van Rhee subsequently dispatched the Company assistant Adam Pluijmert to meet Rangaraiya at Attur. Rangaraiya intimated to Pluijmert that he expected that there would be a fishery soon ‘since there had not been one in twelve years’. In addition, the Company was to present him with 15,000–20,000 rixdollars for the establishment of a fort similar to what had previously been offered to the officials of the Nayaka of Madurai.70 In view of these recent incidents, it was not surprising that, upon the arrival of Ambayaraiya with 250 horse and 2,000 foot on July 31 at Melur, the Dutch factory at Tuticorin was put in the highest state of alert and all the local Company personnel and the crews of the hookers and sloops placed in defensive positions. Ambayaraiya, however, merely performed the ceremony of ‘titan’ at the seashore (tirttam, ‘a holy place of pilgrimage and bathing for the good of the soul’). Following the ceremonies, Van Rhee sent the Company interpreter Sebastião Pereira accompanied by Chidambaranatha and Karuppa Chitti to present the Mysore regent with a small gift of 70 rixdollars. In accordance with instructions, Pereira complained about the shortage of fanams due to the stoppage of the mint and the devaluation of the currency, both of which tended to hamper trade. Seemingly pleased, Ambayaraiya replied that he would order the reestablishment of a mint and the resumption of the coining of fanams and ‘that good relations would be maintained’.71 This favourable encounter notwithstanding, the Company deemed it wise to place the relationship with the new Mysorean administration on a more solid footing. In August 1681, Chief Van Rhee of Tuticorin suggested to Governor Pijl of Ceylon that in order to appease ‘that arrogant people’, Governor Kavi nanjiraiya should be presented with a proper gift. Van Rhee proposed that a contract was to be concluded consisting of the following articles: an eternal

69 voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1774r, Extract dagreg. Tuticorin, 27.7.1681; Idem, ff. 1772r–1772v, Transl. ola commt. Van Rhee aan de manigar van Meloer, 28.7.1681; voc 1362, obp 1682, f. 123v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.8.1681. 70 voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1772r, Rapp. asst. Pluijmert aan onderk. Blijdenbergh, hoofd van Alwatiernegarij, 29.7.1681. 71 voc 1370, obp 1682, f. 1774v–1776r, Extract dagreg. Tuticorin, 31.7.1681; voc 1364, obp 1682, f. 123v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.8.1681.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 547 peace and friendship (art. 1); various commercial privileges, such as the exemption from all duties at the ports and half the inland tolls on all export commodities (arts. 2 and 3); freedom from harrassment for all indigenous Company merchants and washermen, provided they paid the customary dues (art. 6); permission to establish one or two new warehouses or bangsals in view of the increased trade of the Company, along with the strengthening of the defences of the existing ones at Manappad, Alvar Tirunagari, and Kayalpatnam (art. 9). The key article, however, was to grant permission, ‘if the Hon. Company deemed it necessary’, to construct a stone wall on the west- or landside of the Tuticorin factory similar to the one on the east- or seaside (art. 10). Anticipating no immediate change of government, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon concurred with Van Rhee that, in order to forestall further differences, the new Mysorean governor should be presented with a proper gift. For the time being, however, no more should be requested than mere confirmation of all existing rights. Only when the Mysoreans insisted on further elucidation of the request should the actual articles be handed over, provided that Article 10 ought to be left out ‘in order not to open their eyes and pretend that we could do so at Tuticorin without their license’. The text of the treaty, therefore, should be altered and phrased in vaguer terms, allowing, among other things, the inhabitants to freely cut wood and burn lime for the Company; concede the exclusion of all other European nations; and acknowledge the preservation of all the Company’s privileges over the seaports and its customary rights over the Paravas.72 In December 1681, however, Van Rhee subsequently informed Pijl that until now Kavinanjiraiya had been unwilling to permit the construction of a stone wall along the west- or landside, claiming that he first wished to visit Tuticorin in person for a visual inspection. The Tuticorin chief opined that the Mysorean governor merely wanted to be gifted with something (‘as is customary among that beggarly people’) and that, in view of the heavy armament of the Tevar, ‘similar to the other parts previously, the little that was left [of the fortifications] could be completed in that troubled water’.73 Van Rhee’s assessments proved to be correct. Subsequent correspondence with Kavinanjiraiya was followed by two rounds of talks with his representatives, Gopalaraiya (Gopala Raiya) and Rareesharaiya (Rareesha Raiya), in January 1682. Gopalaraiya promised to induce his master to approve of the com pletion of the fortification in exchange for a recognition of 250–300 pardaus. The Company offered this recognition merely because of the assistance Mysore

72 voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 123v–125r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.8.1681. 73 Idem, ff. 133v–134r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 16.12.1681; Idem, ff. 4v–5r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 9.1.1682.

548 chapter 7 had rendered in the collection of the materials and the supply of labourers, without any reference to the permission for the defence works themselves, ‘since we have forcefully maintained not to need permission from anybody in the world’.74 These negotiations did not produce the desired effect. In April 1682, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon informed Batavia that, although materials and masons had been assembled, work on the fortification of Tuticorin had been strictly prohibited by Kavinanjiraiya. Reiterating Van Rhee’s opinion, the Ceylon government asserted that these threats were merely the product of greed and that to give any present now would not be advisable in view of the fact that the Tevar had gone to war against Mysore on behalf of the aranmanai. It was only in June 1682, after the expulsion of the Mysorean troops from the Madurai Coast by the Tevar in April 1682 and during the ensuing unsettled state of affairs, that the west-or landside could be erected and stone wall around Tuticorin completed.75 While visiting the Madurai Coast on a tour of inspection in September 1699, Governor Gerrit de Heere of Ceylon described Tuticorin as ‘a square factory provided with four bastions and twenty-eight pieces for which the term small fort is more appropriate than factory’. The Ceylon governor protrayed the ‘small fort’ as

an oblong of 29 rods [358 feet or 109 metres] length and 16 rods [198 feet or 60 meters] width. On the seaside it has two small bastions, each flank being merely 1.5 rod [18.5 feet or 5.65 meters] and provided with one piece of artillery. From this [sea]side it stretches inland straight north, having two irregular bastions on the landside, larger than those facing the sea, which sides are each provided with two pieces. The interior space consists of two separate squares, the inner one to the landside forming the old factory. To the north is a church [S. Francisco] founded by the Portuguese, which now is the most important warehouse and to which the other rooms, mostly two-storeyed, have been attached over time. In olden days, both of the land bastions were merely surrounded by palisades. Abount 18 years ago they were enclosed by walls and the front part

74 voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 377r–378r, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, 31.1.1682. 75 For the abortive talks with Mysore: voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 7v–9r, Miss. raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 14.4.1682; Idem, f. 116v, Resol. raad van Ceijlon, 23.4.1682. For the completion of the Tuticorin fort: voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 27v, and 44r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 1379, obp 1683, f. 2247r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en Van Vliet aan Batavia, 8.7.1682; voc 908, bub 1682, f. 1423r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.12.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 92v–93r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 202r–202v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 15.4.1683.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 549

of the small sea bastions constructed and connected with them. Inside several small residences, warehouses, and other rooms, all one-storeyed, have been built. These works and fortifcations were erected profiting from the times when the Nayaka was up to his neck in troubles and the majority of his lands lost and evacuated to Mysore due to war. Otherwise, the completion would have had to be effectuated by force of arms.76

Ramnad Control of the Madurai Coast, 1682–1685

The occupation of the Madurai Coast by the Tevar (April 1682–May 1685) dominated the period between 1682 and 1685. Dutch-Ramnad relations were still defined by the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674, but were now compounded by the Tevar’s control of the Madurai Coast under the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. The resulting sectarian violence between the Christian Paravas and Muslim Maraikkayars was inextricably bound to the politico-commercial conflict of the Company with the Tevar and his ‘portfolio capitalist’, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, leading to the First Dutch-Ramnad War (January–March 1685). Though peaceful relations were quickly restored, the aranmanai managed to regain control of the Madurai Coast in ca. May 1685. Subsequent aranmanai- Tevar hostilities lingered until November 1685, during which time each of the belligerents requested the Company for military assistance, though in vain. The period 1682–1685 started with some unfinished business from the ‘time of troubles’ in the form of the expulsion of the remaining Mysorean presence from the Madurai lowlands. During the drawn-out siege of Palaiyamkottai (May 1682-ca. September 1682), the Company received several requests for military assistance from the Madurai commander Narasinha Ayya and Governor ‘Bastiaen Paijen’ or ‘Baijtia Paijen’. In May 1682, for instance, the Madurai gover- nor dispatched the Hindu merchant Karuppa Chitti with an olai to Tuticorin, requesting 10 pieces of artillery, 5,000 lbs. of gunpowder, and 15 Dutch artillerymen. In June 1682, Governor Pijl and Council decided to distribute 1,000 pounds of gunpowder and, against reasonable payment, as much lead as the aranmanai wanted. The Ceylon Governor proved to be a political realist, justifying the decision by pointing to the recent changes on the Madurai Coast: ‘The affairs of the Mysorean are very shaky and he will be forced to leave soon. As a result, the

76 voc 1615, obp 1700, ff. 484r, and 490r–490v, Dgl. aantekeningen gehouden door gouvr. Gerrit de Heere in zijn reis ter kuste Madure, 8.9–2.10.1699. In August 1686, Tuticorin was defended by 5 metal and 38 iron pieces. voc 913, bub 1686, f. 559, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 23.8.1686.

550 chapter 7 aranmanai will resume control over the lands of Madurai, whose friendship the Hon. Company will then be depending on. The Mysorean, on the other hand, following his expulsion, cannot inflict damage on us anywhere’. In order to cover the Company on both sides, Pijl refused the aranmanai’s request for fire- pots, gunners, and artillerymen, since that would be of ‘greater and possibly more dire consequence’. In the unlikely case that Mysore would recover, he asserted, the accommodation of the aranmanai could always be defended with the argument ‘that we are merchants and, when abundantly provided with certain commodities, eager to accommodate friends against payment’.77 As the aranmanai was hard-pressed for cash, reports on the alleged oppression and organised plunder of the inhabitants resurfaced in Company correspondence. In January 1683, Narayappa Ayya, the maniyakkarar of Alvar Tirunagari and nephew of the governor of Tirunelveli, attempted to plunder Punnaikayal with over 100 lascorins and other ‘hastily assembled individuals’. The raid, however, failed and the maniyakkarar, now ‘frightened to death’, had to be protected by the local Company servants against the revengeful Parava inhabitants. Though not obliged to do so, they deemed it better ‘to use this restraint and not to give any cause for provocation’.78 While the aranmanai held on to the interior parts of Tirunelveli, the Madurai Coast itself was controlled by the Tevar. Initially, the insertion of this new element did not seem to make a difference as Dutch-Ramnad relations were still clouded by the restrictive commercial clauses of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674. In October 1682, while at Jaffnapatnam, Governor Pijl of Ceylon was visited by two envoys of the Tevar, Ulagappa Cervaikarar and the kanakkapillai Siva Kurunathan, carrying an olai of the Marava ruler. Raghunatha Tevar requested two safe conducts, one for his ship carrying chanks caught along his

77 voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 126r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.6.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 27v, and 44v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1682; voc 908, bub 1682, f. 1439v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.12.1682; voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 91v–92r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 567–568. 78 voc 1387, obp 1684, ff. 1746v–1749r, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 18r–19r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 22.6.1683. According to the Company, the botched attempt was part of a system of organised plunder: ‘Some scoundrels and villains, out of hatred or malice or in search of profit, promise the governor a certain sum of money to plunder a certain village and town. They have to effect this with their own people, using for that purpose partly scum, thieves, and mostly Maravas, who are dispersed throughout the entire country and who enjoy a small remuneration in return’. voc 1387, obp 1684, ff. 1746v–1749r, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 551 coast to Bengal and one for a voyage to the ‘far islands’ (Andaman Islands?). At the same time, he complained about the fact that his subjects had to pay higher fees for the passports than the inhabitants of Jaffnapatnam. Not only was there no distinction between the two groups, but, he cleverly added, lowering the payments would incite the Ramnad traders to carry more provisions and other commodities to Ceylon, which would increase the Company’s custom revenues. In return, the Marava ruler urged the Company to resume the import of arecanut at Adirampatnam as it would increase his tolls and the prosperity of his inhabitants.79 In view of recent reports that a Frenchman had visited Raghunatha Tevar at Ramnad to conclude a commercial treaty and an English interloper had called at Kilakkarai, Governor Pijl and Council of Ceylon deemed it wise to concede both requests. The decision was also prompted by the assurance of Ulagappa Cervaikarar ‘that, in case his Lord would be given a sea letter for Bengal, no other European nations would be permitted in his lands, and those who would come to request it would be turned down’. The value of the chanks, the Ceylon government recognised, was disproportionally small compared with the damage the Company would suffer from the intrusion of rival European traders in the lands of the Tevar in the vicinity of Ceylon. A conciliatory olai was therefore dispatched to Raghunatha Tevar, stating that although his request regarding the export of chanks seemed strange in view of the agreement of 1674, the Ceylon government would write favourably to Batavia. In the meantime, he would be allowed to dive for chanks and start the construction of a vessel since the Marava ruler seemed inclined not to trade with others. Despite the fact that the higher fees for the safe conducts had been in use for ten years without the least complaint from anyone, it would be reduced in view of the mutual friendship and the short distance between Rameswaram and Point Calimere and Mannaar and Colombo. In February 1683, claiming not to have received any response from Batavia, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon subsequently decided to grant the Tevar a safe conduct, provided he would export no more than half of the chanks caught along his coast and hand over the other half to the Company at a reasonable price. If, however, the Tevar were to behave unreasonably, the Company would stick strictly to the agreement of 1674 according to which all chanks were to be handed over.80

79 voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 179r–179v, Transl. ola Tirumale Chedouw Padicatte Teuver aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 24.9.1682. 80 voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 144v–145r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.10.1682; Idem, ff. 146v–148v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 19.10.1682; Idem, ff. 239v, and 241v–242r,

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Meanwhile, several incidents had occurred on the Madurai Coast involving the Ramnad forces of occupation. In October 1682, Setunga Cervaikarar and his troops reportedly harrassed the Paravas of Vaippar, stealing their cattle and other possessions and extracting money, while abusing a Company lascorin sent by the local Company resident Lucas Pool to investigate matters. In November 1682, another Company lascorin, a certain Chinna, was killed on the outskirts of Tuticorin while sifting pearl grit by a soldier of the Tevar called Tirumalai Kulantha, nephew of Rama Krishna Cervaikarar. Both sides, however, showed restraint and initiated efforts at damage control. The Paravas of Vaippar were given an olai of security by Raghunatha Tevar, promising protection and assuring that no more than the customary payments would be exacted. In turn, in early December 1682, Pijl wrote an olai to the Marava ruler, stating that the Company’s desire to maintain friendly relations was seemingly frustrated by the ‘ignorance of the servants’. The Company preferred to have the Tevar inflict punishment on the culprits himself, but if he were to refrain from doing so, the Company would not fail to do so itself, ‘remaining innocent of all subsequent disasters’.81 Raghunatha Tevar responded quickly, accepting the extended hand offered by Pijl, arguing that indeed the incidents had occurred without his knowledge. He promised to return all stolen goods, while the assassins would be handed over after having been identified. For this purpose, he dispatched his uriyakkarar

Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl, 26.10.1682; Idem, ff. 66r–67v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1682; Idem, ff. 95v, and 104r–104v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 184v–185v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 18.2.1683; A.T. Pringle (ed.), The Diary and Consultation Book of the Agent, Governor and Council of Fort St. George, 1682 (Madras: Superintendent, Government Press, 1894), pp. 81, and 88. The English were as upset as the Company about the arrival of the interloper at Kilakkarai. Governor William Gyfford of Madras immediately dispatched Captain James Bett and Charles Fleetwood, the secretary of Fort St. George, and 60 peons to Raghunatha Tevar at Ramnad and the Periya Tambi at Kilakkarai in order to confiscate the vessel, which, however, had already left. The English also paid a visit to Tuticorin, bluntly warning Chief De Heijde and Council (‘rather exceeding the boundaries of politeness’) not to admit any interlopers at the Madurai Coast. Unfortunately, François Martin had already left Pondichéry for Surat by this time. His memoirs therefore do not contain any references to the dispatch of a Frenchman to the Ramnad court. 81 voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 238v–239v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl, 26.10.1682; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 419r–420r, Rolle der wederwaardigheden aan d’E Comps. hare dienaren en koopl. &a. door sTeuverheers palligares, manigares als Moorse regenten aangedaan, 28.10.1684.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 553 or court servant Kuttichathan to the Madurai Coast, expressing the hope that the Company would not take offense ‘over such minor incidents’.82 In early January 1683, two uriyakkarars or court servants arrived at Tuticorin, bringing with them three delinquents, the two immediate culprits who had severely beaten the Company lascorin, and Rama Krishna Cervaikarar, the uncle of the Tevar’s soldier who had wounded him, ‘since the nephew [Tirumalai Kulantha] had fled and could not be apprehended’. Though Chief De Heijde of Tuticorin was of the opinion that all three deserved the death penalty, he insisted that the court servants would execute at least one of them themselves. As they had received no such orders, De Heijde then intimated to the uriyakkarars that if they were to hand over the culprits, he would not accept them but that he ‘immediately would have them decapitated on the square by one of the relatives (bloedwreker, lit. ‘avenger of [spilled] blood’) of the deceased in order to end the blood feud’. However, despite De Heijde’s san- guinary intentions, he realised that, in accordance with Article 7 of the agreement of 1674, criminals were to be punished by their own nation. Thereupon, the uriyakkarars handed over the uncle, considered the ‘least guilty’, to the Dutch chief before returning to Ramnad with the others.83 Alarmed by the continuous reports of French and English intrusions in Ramnad, Governor Pijl and Council in April 1683 decided to send the Company Merchant Joan van Vliet, second-in-command at Tuticorin, and Assistant Willem Loquet to Ramnad in order to settle the issue of the chanks and reestablish trade in the lands of the Tevar, ‘with which we hope to keep the English and French out of this trade and out of the Tevar’s land’. Van Vliet’s instructions were to offer the Tevar half of the chanks caught along the Ramnad Coast, while reserving the other half to the Company against the payment of 1 ‘Mamodegamse’ pagoda. The Tevar’s delivery of chanks would be deducted from his debt to the Company, calculated to be 7,081 pardaus or 21,043 guilders (arts. 1 and 2). In addition, Van Vliet was to request permission for the construction of a stone house at Adirampatnam (art. 3); confirmation of the prohibition of the shipping of Malabar arecanuts via Pamban Channel (art. 4); the payment of tolls either at

82 voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 169r–170r, Transl. ola Teuverhr. Regoenade aan commt. van Tuticorin, 15.12.1682; Idem, ff. 167r–168r, Transl. ola Teuverheer aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 24.12.1682. 83 voc 1373, obp 1683, ff. 172r–172v, and 175v–176r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 4.1.1683; Idem, ff. 177v–178r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin, 6.1.1683; Idem, ff. 94v–95v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.1.1683; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 426v, Transl. antwoord den marca Perietambij op de overgegeven rol van klachten der wederwaardigheden, 15.11.1684.

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Rameswaram or Adirampatnam at one place only (art. 5); exclusion of all other European nations (art. 6); freedom of trade in the lands of the Tevar and permission to deal with Company debtors in accordance with the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 (arts. 7 and 8); the stationing of a Dutch resident at Pamban Channel ‘to facilitate the transhipment of Company goods’ (art. 9); permission to cut firewood on the Madurai Coast (art. 10); and satisfaction in respect to all insults and incidents at Vaippar and Tuticorin (art. 11). Van Vliet was to return the accomplices to the murder of the Company lascorin Chinna, deferring punishment in accordance with Article 7 of the treaty of 1674 to the Tevar. While these accomplices were to be pardoned (‘in order not to appear too hateful and cruel against his people’), he was to insist on the capture of the main Marava culprit Tirumalai Kulantha still at large. Finally, if the Tevar intended to gift 200 oxen and cows to the Company, which it had requested to purchase in his lands, he could promise a tusked elephant in return. Before proceeding to Ramnad, however, Van Vliet was first to visit Adirampatnam and Kilakkarai in order to explore the commercial potential of the region by examining the composition and size of local trade, the level of tolls and duties, and so forth.84 Van Vliet’s mission turned out to be an utter failure. In his three audiences with Van Vliet, Raghunatha Tevar claimed, to the surprise of the Dutch envoy, that the Company had already promised him all the chanks during the talks at Jaffnapatnam in October 1682. When Van Vliet offered him half of the chanks and added that, in case of refusal, the Company would abide by the agreement of 1674, the Marava ruler showed his dissatisfaction, ‘swearing on heaven and his rifle not to be held in the least to the said contract’ as it had been concluded by Chandra Cervaikarar and Sivasankara Pillai, ‘two traitors and scoundrels, without his orders’. Raghunatha Tevar insisted on having all the chanks ‘without handing over one single shell’. If the Company were to refuse him a safe conduct, moreover, ‘he would burn his ship and each could remain with his goods in one’s own lands without having any further correspondence with the other’. If these blunt words were not plain enough, the Tevar further elucidated his position in a following audience, informing Van Vliet that ‘it would cause great

84 voc 1387, obp 1684, ff. 1757r–1764v, Memorie voor koopman Van Vliet gaande naar Adirangapatnam aan de heer Teuver, 15.4.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 20v–21r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 22.6.1683; Idem, f. 552r, Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtinge aan het hof van de vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683. In November 1683, Batavia expressed its dissatisfaction with the fact that the exclusion of other Europeans had not been emphasised enough in Van Vliet’s instructions and that the Tevar could have been offered two-thirds of all the chanks ‘and to temporise somewhat in these and other small affairs as long as Ekoji Raja holds these lands in alarm’. voc 910, bub 1683, ff. 1769–1770, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 13.11.1683.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 555 dishonour if matters were disputed which his predecessors had never been denied, especially since he far surpassed them in glory, splendour, power, and might’. Therefore, he added, any refusal ‘would always eat his heart like a worm and be considered as scorn by his successors, who would forever speak of it with contempt and reproach that he, who had been so much more powerful than the previous Tevar, had to endure this matter obscuring the lustre of his reign…’. However, trusting in the friendship of the Company, he did not expect that the Company would deny him such a trifling affair. He confirmed his address with an oath on the head of his pradhani Deva Kanakkapillai, stating that this request ‘was only aimed at the completion of his glory without any consideration for profit’. The Tevar’s commissioners, Ulagappa Cervaikarar and the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, subsequently intimated to Van Vliet that ‘if the Hon. Company were to refuse these things, they did not believe the Tevar would continue to live in friendship with the Hon. Company nor tolerate the presence of any of its servants in his lands’. But, of course, they were quick to add, they could not imagine that the Company would ever deny the request of such an old ally.85 In response to Van Vliet’s request, Ulagappa Nayaka and the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar presented their counteroffer: the Tevar was to keep all the chanks caught along his coast to himself; the Company was to be permitted to build a stone house at Adirampatnam; all other European nations would be excluded; no Malabar arecanuts would be allowed to pass through Pamban Channel; freedom of trade was granted, while the Tevar would provide assistance in the retrieval of outstanding debts; the debt of the Tevar himself would soon be repaid in cash at Tuticorin; the uriyakkarar Kuttichathan would be sent to direct the cutting of firewood and to give the Company complete satisfaction regarding all insults, including the arrest of Tirumalai Kulantha, the murderer of the Company lascorin Chinna; the Company would be held to pay the same tolls as everybody else at Pamban, but no more than one-third at Adirampatnam; and the 200 oxen and cows would be handed over to the Company. In response to the request for a Dutch resident at Pamban, the commissioners intimated to Van Vliet that it would never be conceded and that they did not dare to propose it ‘since the Tevar is of the impression that the Hon. Company has always had an eye on Rameswaram and that these residents would merely be acting as spies’. Realising the utter incompatibility of the two positions, Van Vliet informed the commissioners that his further stay was useless since the Tevar insisted on exporting all the chanks himself. Having been granted permission to leave, he returned to

85 voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 552r–566r, Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtinge aan het hof van de vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683.

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Tuticorin in June 1683 along with Loquet, whose presence at Adirampatnam was deemed premature and potentially provocative to the Tevar.86 Confronted with the failure of Van Vliet’s mission, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon recognised that, due to the Tevar’s recent conquests, he deserved to be humoured somewhat. His control of the Madurai Coast, however, was deemed tenuous (‘his poles are by no means well-established’) for it was felt that as soon as the aranmanai had expelled Mysore from its territories, it would focus its efforts on the recuperation of the lowlands. Therefore, it was decided to refuse the Tevar’s offer and to abide by the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674, especially in view of his recent unreasonable behaviour and his unwil- ligness to reimburse his debt to the Company. As before, the export of chanks was to be prevented by keeping Company vessels cruising north of Pamban Channel. In November 1683, the Ceylon government informed Batavia of its decision to keep matters in suspension. Though the Tevar deserved to be taught a ‘proper lesson’, they were ‘somewhat hesitant’ to impart it in view of the ambiguous instructions of the High Government. In December 1682, Batavia had given permission to exact revenge in the case of a new insult, provided, however, that only the insulters themselves were to be punished and that any actions would remain without further consequences. As Pijl and the Council pointed out clearly, to limit punishment to the insulters alone would be impossible, while there was no guarantee that any punitive actions would remain without consequence. As a result, they concluded, ‘we will be forced to hold back and accept the insults of that insolent and conceited people without taking any revenge, merely pointing out the injustice in the form of protests’.87 There were to be plenty of occasions on which the Company felt it had to send such letters of complaint to Ramnad. In December 1683, Raghunatha Tevar dispatched his envoy, Ulagappa Cervaikarar, to the coast of Madurai along with some 4,000 troops. Visiting Lucas Pool, the Company resident of Vaippar, in the night of January 2–3, 1684, ‘the drunk ambassador’ behaved pro- vocatively and threatened ‘that if he were not given permission to export the chanks, the Maravas would ruin and kill everything on this coast’. The Ramnad ‘diplomat’ regarded the Tuticorin fort as ‘a cowshed, easily to be captured’, and

86 Ibidem. 87 voc 908, bub 1682, ff. 1434v–1435r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.12.1682; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 230v–231v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 8.8.1683; voc 909, bub 1683, ff. 1432–1433, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.8.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 263r–263v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.9–2.10.1683; Idem, ff. 132r–133v, and 152r–152v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683; Idem, ff. 316v–317r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 557 boasted that ‘if they were able to defeat Mysore and Tanjore, they surely could master the Company’. He concluded his diatribe by reiterating that if a safe conduct were denied, ‘it would mean total war between the Hon. Company and the Tevar and that they would either chase the Hollanders from this and the Malabar Coasts or the name of Maravas would no longer be known in the world. If not, he would have his beard pulled out’. On January 12, Ulagappa Cervaikarar visited Tuticorin and informed Chief De Heijde that the Company should give satisfaction to his master. If friendly relations were not maintained, he warned De Heijde, the trade in textiles along the Madurai Coast might be halted. On February 2, Ulagappa Cervaikarar handed De Heijde two olais from Raghunatha Tevar. In accordance with the official anti-commercial ethos of Indian rulers, the Marava ruler again stated pontifically that he was not motivated by material considerations since his ship was merely to return with some curiosities from Bengal, offering the Company half of the chanks caught in the past 2–3 years. Starting next year, however, he desired all chanks for himself since they could scarcely fill a quarter of the cargo space of a ship. If this request were not granted, he would also concede nothing. In response, Governor Pijl and Council of Ceylon on February 5 decided to reinforce the Tuticorin garrison with another 60 soldiers under Lieutenant Abraham Vernie in order to defend the factory and maintain the respect of the Company.88 The raising of the stakes and the removal of any restraint on both sides was the direct result of the addition of a new element to the old bones of contention. Due to the Tevar’s control of the Madurai Coast and the subsequent farming out of the revenues to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives, Dutch-Ramnad rivalries became inexorably bound to the conflict between Muslim Maraikkayars and Christian Paravas. These Muslim-Christian tensions on the Madurai Coast cannot be reduced to simply religious rivalries, but must be viewed in their proper political and socioeconomic frameworks as well. A religiously vibrant and expanding Islam was stimulated by the local activities of various Sufi mystics and pir saints (often known as bava, vali, or antavar, ‘lord’),

88 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 326r–327r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.1.1684; Idem, ff. 296r–298v, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 2.2.1684; Idem, ff. 143r–144r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 5.2.1684; voc 1383, obp 1684, f. 602r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 21.2.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 15r–15v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684. On January 12, 1684, the maniyakkarar of Melur, Tiruvambala Pillai, apol- ogised to De Heijde for Ulagappa Cervaikarar’s behaviour, claiming that the envoy had been intoxicated and ‘that we should not take offense, keeping in mind that people have tripped often due to drunkenness’. voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 327v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.1.1684.

558 chapter 7 founding mosques (masjids), hospices or teaching foundations (khanaqas), and tomb shrines (tarkas) at ports with substantial Muslim populations, such as Kayalpatnam and Kilakkarai. They were confronted by an equally militant Counter-Reformation Catholicism in the form of the Jesuit members of the Madurai Mission, the so-called ‘storm troops of the Pope’, and indigenous catechists, founding residences, chapels, churches, and colleges at Tuticorin and the other Christian settlements along the coast. Politically, the Madurai Coast was the stage for a three-cornered struggle between the central authorities of Madurai, its nominal tributary the Tevar of Ramnad, and the Company with each party attempting to shore up its claims to authority by sponsoring different client communities. While the Nayakas of Madurai and the Tevar of Ramnad patronised the Maraikkayars of Kayalpatnam and Kilakkarai, respectively, the Dutch became the patrons of the Paravas. The material base for the Muslim-Christian tension was provided by the competition over local resources, in particular the pearl and chank or conch shell fisheries along the Madurai Coast. The coastal Muslim community, consisting of Labbai fishermen and divers and élite Maraikkayar trading families, was engaged in fierce rivalry with their Christian counterparts, the kamarakkarar or common Paravas and the wealthy mejaikarar élite. In fact, this rivalry had been one of the reasons why the originally Hindu Paravas had converted to Catholicism in the sixteenth century, seeking Portuguese support against Maraikkaya r encroach- ments, to become a ‘Christian caste in Hindu society’. Contemporary (optimistic) estimates put the capital value of the pearl and chank fisheries in the 1660s and 1670s at 5–6 million guilders and 200,000 guilders, respectively. In the seventeenth-century pearl fisheries, consisting of 400 to 500 vessels and 12,000–16,000 men, the Paravas accounted for 55 to 65 percent of the diving stones, while Muslim divers made up 30 to 40 per cent of the stones (see Table 30)89 Parava-Maraikkayar rivalries became inexorably linked with the hostile, ‘Christo-centric’ sentiments among the overwhelming majority of Dutch Calvinist Company servants toward Asian Muslim traders or ‘Moors’ in general, and the political, commercial, and religious competition with local ‘portfolio capitalists’, most notably the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars. As a rule, the Christian Paravas could count on the sympathies of the Company personnel along the Madurai

89 The following account is largely based on: Vink, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’; Idem, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Conquest of the Fishery Coast’; Idem, ‘Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia’. See also: Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, pp. 71–86 and 321 et seq.; Bayly (née Kaufmann), ‘A Christian Caste in Hindu Society’; Roche, Fishermen of the Coromandel Coast, pp. 36–40.

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Coast in their conflict with the ‘evil Moor’ incarnate, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. In April 1684, even the Ceylon government itself observed that the Company residents were too much biased towards the Paravas and prejudiced against the Muslims, warning Chief De Heijde and Council of Tuticorin not to interfere in indigenous affairs on behalf of the Paravas beyond mere intercession.90 Following a period of ‘contained conflict’, Dutch-Ramnad tensions and Parava-Maraikkayar conflicts came to a violent eruption during the temporary occupation of the Fishery Coast by Ramnad forces. In 1682, Raghunatha Tevar had gained control of the Madurai Coast in recompense for his expenses incurred in the recent war against Mysore and the Marathas of Tanjore and Gingee. The next year, in 1683, the Tevar decided to farm out the revenues of the Fishery Coast to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar in an arrangement similar to the one made several years earlier, in which the Periya Tambi had become the tax farmer of the Ramnad Coast. In January 1684, his two sons, Cervai and Setu Abd al-Qadir, along with his brother, Shaykh Abd al-Qadir, subsequently set up residence at Kayalpatnam and Kulasekharapatnam, two important centres of Muslim settlement on the Fishery Coast, to take over the administration of the area.91 As true political merchants or so-called ‘portfolio capitalists’, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives immediately set out to exploit their new- found powers in order to maximise their fiscal and commercial profits. Maximising their fiscal revenues, however, proved to be highly problematic in the face of widespread opposition from local Christians, Muslims, and Hindus alike. According to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, the Parava patangattins of Tuticorin refused to pay the customary 120 pardaus a month in tribute (pakuti) and customs (chungam) as in the times of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai and only paid 30 pardaus instead, while the Paravas of Punnaikayal, who were held to pay 22 pardaus a month, were unwilling to contribute more than 18 pardaus.92

90 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 177r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684. 91 There is some confusion about the exact time Raghunatha Tevar started to farm out the revenues of the Madurai Coast to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and the actual extent of his domains. See: voc 1373, obp 1683, f. 170r, Transl. ola Teuverhr. Regoenade aan de commt. van Tuticorin, 15.12.1682; voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 327v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.1.1684; Idem, ff. 179r, and 180r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.4.1684; Idem, f. 13v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, f. 378v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684. 92 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 179r–179v, Transl. ola Perie Tambij aan gouvr. Pijl, 15.3.1684; Idem, ff. 379v–181r, Transl. ola Perie Tambij aan de bramine Timemersa, 15.3.1684; Idem, ff. 378v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684.

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177 7 (0.54) 4,711 1.305 1,266 (97.01) 32 (2.45) 1698 28,000 1670, f. 942v, Monture Monture f. 942v, obp 1670, 1270, 1270, voc 385 204 (6.51) 204 3.132.5 1,690 (53.95) 1,238.5 (39.54) 1,238.5 1694 11,157 81,000 118 (4.56) 349 2.587.5 8,878 1,429 (55.23) 1,040.5 (40.21) 1,040.5 1690 73,365 1691, ff. 565r–565v, Dagelijkse aantekening van het voorgevallene in het voorgevallene van aantekening Dagelijkse obp 1691, ff. 565r–565v, 1479, 1479, 555 224 (4.38) 224 voc 5,115.5 3,317.5 (64.85) 3,317.5 1,574 (30.77) 1,574 17,530 1669 132,714 483 225.5 (4.66) 225.5 4,842 3,172 (65.51) 3,172 1,444.5 (29.83) 16,359 1668 125,040 ones, and diving stone revenues in the pearl fisheries along the Madurai Coast and in the Gulf along the Madurai fisheries 1667, in the pearl of revenues stone and diving ones, Mannaar, 412 221.5 (5.53) 221.5 4,003.5 2,633 (65.77) 2,633 1,149.5 (28.71) 14,000 * 1667 102,987 1668, 1690, 1694, and 1698 (in guilders) Number of st men, diving boats, 1669, f. 159v, Monture der thonis, stenen en personen in de parelvisserij van Tuticorin, 27.6.1668; 27.6.1668; Tuticorin, van en personen in de parelvisserij stenen der thonis, Monture 1268, obp 1669, f. 159v,

voc Table 30 Year size. crew based on the actual number of* Approximation thonis and average Sources: der thonijs, stenen en personen in de parelvisserij van Tuticorin, 16.7.1669; Tuticorin, van en personen in de parelvisserij stenen der thonijs, 149–150. pp. the Sea’, From Harvest ‘Noble 20.6.1690; Subrahmanyam, Madure, op de kust van de parelvisserij thonis Participants Revenue stone tax stone Revenue Total stones Total Christian stones Christian stones (percentage) Muslim stones Muslim stones (percentage) Hindu stones Hindu stones (percentage)

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Similar to strong-arm tactics previously employed by the Madurai tax farmers, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar responded by attempting to cajole the inhabitants into submission by cutting off supplies of provisions from the interior, forbidding the drawing of water from neighbouring wells, and prohibiting the gathering of firewood. These measures also affected local Company personnel along the Madurai Coast. It is telling in this respect that the only places where these tactics were not employed, Vaippar, Vembar, and Mukkaiyur, did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayars, but were administered by independent Cervaikarars and Marava heads.93 Reacting to Dutch complaints, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar retorted that the Company had previously condoned the equally harsh regime of the Madurai tax farmers, adding that ‘these lands cannot be governed through benevolence’.94 Though the fiscal activities of the Periya Tambi bore great resemblance to those of the Madurai central authorities, there was a great distinction regarding their commercial policy. As we have seen, the rulers of Madurai actively pursued an ‘open door’ policy, provided the ordinary tolls and customs were paid, whereas the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar attempted to monopolise the local import and export trade in textiles, arecanuts, salt, rockfish skins, chanks, rice and nel, chaya roots, tamarind, and so forth. As the Company quickly recognised, previously the aranmanai had extorted money from merchants and pedlars and local officials had participated in the trades in, among others, food grains and salt, but had allowed them to exercise their respective professions. Now, however, both the Company and Christian, Muslim, and Hindu merchants, weavers, washermen, and others, regardless of their religious orienta- tion, were subjected to a systematic, consistent policy of persuasion and harrassment in the form of confiscations, arrests, physical abuse, and fines. This policy of ‘persuasion’, which, by the way, bore close resemblance to the measures applied by the Dutch, was intended to make the merchants averse to dealing with the Company and force it to trade with the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar alone, ‘and, thus, to act like the political merchant on the Kanara Coast’.95

93 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 412v–413r, Resol. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin, 21.3.1684; Idem, ff. 169v–170v, 171v, and 174r–174v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684; Idem, f. 312r, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.5.1684; Idem, f. 339v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 16.6.1684; Idem, ff. 13v–14r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, ff. 419r–420r, and 422r–423v, Rolle der wederwaardigheden aan d’E Comps. dienaren en koopl. &a. door sTeuverheers palligares, manigares als Moorse regenten aangedaan, 28.10.1684. 94 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 182v, Ola Perie Tambij aan de bramine Timmersa, 15.3.1684. 95 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 393r–393v, and 396r–396v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 23.11.1684.

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Earlier complaints about the behaviour of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar at the Ramnad Coast were now followed by similar complaints on the Madurai Coast. The ‘great obstacle’, for instance, monopolised the local salt trade and prohibited the export of 200 lasts from Punnaikayal by the Dutch. Moreover, the Company washermen at Attur were told not to bleach any more textiles for the Dutch or their hands and legs would be cut off. A shipment of arecanuts was held up at Melur under pretext tolls had to be paid first, while an order was issued that nobody but the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar would be allowed to ship rice or nel from the lands of the Tevar to the south, which could only be disem- barked at Kayalpatnam.96 The Company was not alone in falling victim to the practices of the ‘portfolio capitalist’. Christian, Hindu, and Muslim merchants alike felt the impact of the Periya Tambi’s persuasion. In March 1684, for instance, the rice and nel purchased by some Parava pedlars at Valinokkam, Mariyur, and other places in the lands of the Tevar on behalf of the Company were placed under arrest along with the vessel dispatched from Tuticorin to collect it and only released after six months to the great detriment of the traders, who claimed to have lost 25 per cent in the process.97 The Hindu merchant and muppan of Kulasekharapatnam Karuppa Chitti, refusing to pay his ordinary tribute and proper obedience to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, was also accused of collusion with the local maniyakkarar and

96 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 333v–334r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 14.2.1684; Idem, ff. 169v–170v, 174v, and 175v–176r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684; Idem, f. 345v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.7.1684; Idem, ff. 97v–98v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 11.7.1684; Idem, ff. 420r et seq., Rolle der wederwaardigheden aan de d’E Comps. hare dienaren en koopl. &a. door sTeuverheers palligares, manigares als Moorse regenten aangedaan, 28.10.1684; Idem, ff. 387v–388r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 30.10.1684; Idem, ff. 390r, 391r–391v, and 396r–397r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 23.11.1684. For complaints about the Periya Tambi’s commercial proceedings at the Ramnad Coast: voc 1387, obp 1684, ff. 1751r–1751v, Relaas De Heijde van de presente gestalte der Madurese kust, 31.3.1683; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 553v et seq., Rapp. Van Vliet wegens zijn verrichtinge aan het hof van de vrijheer Tiroumale Chedoepaddi Catte Teuver, 1.7.1683; voc 910, bub 1683, f. 1770, Miss GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 13.11.1683. Van Vliet’s failure to get safeguards against these monopolistic procedures was one of the reasons why it was deemed inopportune to establish a Dutch resident at Adirampatnam. 97 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 170r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684; Idem, f. 376v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1674; Idem, f. 422r, Rolle der wederwaardigheden aan d’E Comps. hare dienaren en koopl. &a. door sTeuverheers palligares, manigares als Moorse regenten aangedaan, 28.10.1684.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 563 inciting others to follow his example. Outmuscled by his more powerful rival, the Madurai ‘little portfolio capitalist’ was subsequently forced to seek refuge at Tuticorin in the house of one Mukappa Cervaikarar [the Company head peon, Mukkapa Nayaka?].98 Chegu Pillai, a local Muslim trader and one of the Company merchants on the Fishery Coast, was forced to flee Kulasekharapatnam when, according to Dutch reports, he refused to give Abd al-Qadir Maraikkayar, the brother of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, 1,000 pardaus in cash and 30–40 fine kachchais to recruit 300 Muslim lascorins from Vadakara north of Calicut. The textiles and cash of the Company stored at warehouses near Kulasekharapatnam and money put out among the local weavers were confiscated, Chegu Pillai’s kanak kapillai, Aruna Kiri Pillai, killed, and his brother, Babu Pillai, and nephew arrested. According to the Company, all these actions were in flagrant violation of Article 15 of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674, stipulating that the debtors of the Company, in particular the head weavers and merchants, fell under its special jurisdiction and authority. The total value of the cash and commodity seized was said to be 3,226 rixdollars or 9,678 guilders. Abd al-Qadir had reportedly told bystanders that Chegu Pillai had been subjected to this treatment ‘since he had put his trust in the Company, yes, that he would like to see what the Hon. Comp. could do in his favour’. According to the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, however, Chegu Pillai had con- spired with Arta Pillai and had killed the muppan of Kulasekharapatnam, Kumaravel (something the Company considered as trumped up charges) and had subsequently stirred up trouble so that, for almost six months, he had not received a single penny in tribute from Kulasekharapatnam and the neighbouring villages. As a result, he had been forced to arrest the brother and brother- in-law of Chegu Pillai. Moreover, the value of the confiscated property did not exceed 200 pardaus or 600 guilders.99

98 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 182v, Transl. ola Perie Tambij aan de Bramine Timmersa, 15.3.1684. 99 Idem, ff. 309v–310r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.4.1684; Idem, ff. 13v–14r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, ff. 98v–99r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 11.7.1684; Idem, ff. 378v–379r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1678; Idem, ff. 420v–412v, Rolle der wederwaardigheden aan d’E Comps. hare dienaren en koopl. &a. door sTeuverheers palligares, manigares als Moorse regenten aangedaan, 28.10.1684; Idem, ff. 425r–426v, Transl. antwoort den marca Perietambij op de overgegeven rol van klachten, 15.11.1684; Idem, ff. 389r–389v, and 392r–394v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 23.11.1684. In October 1684, while at Alvar Tirunagari, Chief De Heijde of Tuticorin met Chegu Pillai, recounting ‘with numerous tears rolling from his eyes’ the evil treatment received from the Periya Tambi

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In September 1684, the brother of Adam Pillai, a Muslim Company merchant from Kulasekharapatnam, who reportedly had supplied the Company with some jaggery sugar during one of the various temporary blockades imposed by the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, was flogged with tamarind branches and forced to pay a fine of 6 pardaus or 18 guilders. Mahmud Nayinar Pillai, a Muslim Maraikkayar Company merchant of Kayalpatnam, underwent a similar fate, being tormented and fined 200 pardaus or 600 guilders for having traded with the Company and the Paravas. Thus, when it comes to maximising his commercial and fiscal revenues, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar meted out ‘justice’ indiscriminately to Christians, Hindus, and Muslims alike.100 While political and economic factors played an important role in the even- tual outbreak of communal violence of 1684, the religious aspect should not be neglected. En route from Kayalpatnam to Tiruchendur, for instance, the older son of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar on February 12, 1684, allegedly forced the Paravas from Virapandiyapatnam ‘to show him reverence similar to the way they were used to worshipping the Virgin Mary, not only by folding their hands, but also by bending their knees on the ground…’. The Paravas considered the performance of these ‘divine honours’ to one of the Periya Tambi’s relatives a mockery of their religion in general and of their patroness deity, the Virgin Mary, in particular. In a subsequent olai to Timmarasa Ayya in April 1684, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar dismissed this whole episode categorically as ‘false and fabricated rumours’.101 On Shrove Tuesday, February 13, 1684, these complex political, economic, and religious-based tensions came to a violent eruption. According to the Dutch version of the events, a drunken mob of common Paravas removed the roof of the local mosque or masjid at Tuticorin before being restrained and dispersed by their headmen. Contrary to the Company image of spontaneous acts of undirected anger by the kamarakkarar or lower-class Paravas, the Periya Tambi

and his relatives. voc 1936, obp 1685, f. 373r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684. 100 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 318v, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.9.1684. Adam Pillai’s brother and the local Muslim (Labbai?) community were described as ‘poor people who gather and produce the rockfish skins, kerseys [coarse woollen cloth], and mats for the Hon. Company’. voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 318v, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.9.1684; Idem, f. 423r, Rolle der wederwaardigheden aan d’E Comps. hare dienaren en koopl. &a. door sTeuverheers palligares, manigares, als Moorse regenten aangedaan, 28.10.1684; voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 174v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 8.1.1685. 101 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 332v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 14.2.1684; Idem, f. 181r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.4.1684.

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Maraikkayar viewed the incident as organised violence, openly led by the Parava leadership, who had appeared in full regalia ‘under their quitasols [umbrellas]’, and who were secretly directed by the local Company personnel. According to him, his bangsal or storehouse had been damaged (something vehemently denied by the Dutch) and robbed of its treasure chests (3,000 pardaus, elsewhere 12,000 pardaus, and even 200,000 pardaus), wounding his nephew in the process. Thereupon, the roof of the mosque had been torn down by a crowd of 200–300 common Paravas. Finally, the plundering of the temporary residences of the Kayalpatnam Muslims at Tuticorin was accompanied by the raping of the women inside, which the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar prudishly described as ‘such shameful and unbearable violence, which I deem inappropriate to relate further either in writing or by word of mouth’.102 Five weeks later, on March 19, the Muslims in retaliation plundered the Chris tian settlements of Palaiyakkayal and Korkai, raping in turn the Parava women and their daughters. Reportedly, the old Jesuit priest of Korkai was forced to witness the pillaging of the local church, including his vestments and all other possessions inside, receiving several blows in the process. On hearing this news, the Paravas of nearby Punnaikayal reportedly ‘turned into a raging mob’ and has- tened to the rescue of their brethren flock and shepherd in distress. Armed with rifles, sticks, and clubs, they managed to retrieve several of the women and children taken as prisoners along with part of the stolen goods.103 Three days after the sacking of Palaiyakkayal and Korkai, on March 22, Setu Abd al-Qadir Maraikkayar, the younger son of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, along with the maniyakkarar of Melur, Kandappa Nayaka, and a body of lascorins descended on Tuticorin. According to the Dutch, a dozen or so soldiers with burning dolls attempted to set fire to the local Parava church, the Periya- or Mata Kovil, ‘Our Lady of Snows’ (Nossa Senhora das Neves), containing a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, the patroness deity of the Paravas. When some Paravas near the ‘great’ or ‘mother’ church attempted to stop the arsonists, a skirmish ensued in which one member of each side was killed and three wounded. Again the Periya Tambi’s version is rather different. According to him, his son had been accompanied by five or six soldiers at the most. On his way to inspect the nearby

102 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 333r–333v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Ceijlon aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 14.2.1684; Idem, ff. 181v–183r, Transl. ola Perie Tambij aan den Bramine Timmersa, 15.3.1684; Idem, ff. 168v–169r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684; Idem, ff. 184v–185r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.4.1684; Idem, ff. 378v–379r, and 380v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684. 103 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 414v, Resol. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin, 21.3.1684; Idem, ff. 171r–171v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684.

566 chapter 7 saltpans (sic), he found himself surrounded by a crowd of bloodthirsty Paravas, who allegedly attempted to kill him. In an effort to protect him, one member of his younger son’s retinue, a so-called casta ragia, was murdered.104 At the suggestion of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon in April 1684 decided to send the two former Madurai Chiefs, the Company Senior Merchant and Head Administrator Thomas van Rhee and the Merchant and Cashier Joan Fauconnier (‘the most able and experienced on the Madurai Coast for having resided there’), as arbiters to Tuticorin. Their mission was to settle the dispute between the Paravas and Maraikkayars and investigate the Periya Tambi’s accusations, ‘though hardly plausible and believable’, that Chief De Heijde had been complicit in the hostile actions against the Muslims. The effort at mediation, however, was broken off as De Heijde pledged his innocence and neither party was willing to coming to terms. The Periya Tambi Maraikkayar himself demanded via an olai that the culprits be forced to pay 12,000 pardaus or 36,000 guilders in fines along with reimbursing the value of the stolen goods, while Sankara Tevar and the Periya Tambi’s brother and son handed over several letters of complaint concerning the Paravas without being authorised to delegate anything definitive to the two Company investi- gators. The Paravas, on the other hand, submitted a list of their ‘gravamina’ or grievances, declaring that they ‘would not compromise and would rather move away or die than to remain under the authority of the Moors’.105 The Parava response indicates that communal conflict and coexistence or cohabitation across the subcontinent was contingent upon the intersection of a set of particular dynamics differing from locality to locality, the spark often times being provided by the political component. Identification with the own group and the likelihood for conflict increased when the hierarchy of two groups became unstable and perceived as illegitimate, and crossing between the groups difficult.106

104 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 172v–174r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684; Idem, f. 427r, Transl. antwoort den marca Perietambij op de overgegeven rol van klachten, 15.11.1684. 105 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 309v–310r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.4.1684; voc 1405, obp 1685, ff. 1839r–1839v, Transl. ola Teuverheer Tiroemallij Chedoepadde Katte Teuver aan de Bramine Timmersa, 26.4.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 310r–311r, Extract miss. Van Rhee en Fauconnier van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 28.4.1684; Idem, ff. 335r–335v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl, 19.5.1684. 106 Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, pp. 66–71, and 112–114; Idem, The Origins of Nationality in South Asia, pp. 63–97; Idem, ‘The Pre-history of “Communalism”?’. See also: Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 39–40.

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Even before this avenue was closed off, Governor Pijl and Council of Ceylon had already opted for a more direct approach. On March 31, 1684, the Ceylon government decided to dispatch the Jaffna Brahmin Timmarasa Ayya to Ramnad in order to seek redress against the ‘evil machinations’ of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and to conclude a new agreement with Raghunatha Tevar to settle the differences. This conciliatory attitude was the result of the recognition that the Marava ruler would never agree to observe the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 and was eager to have it ‘somewhat aug- mented, elucidated, and changed’ before granting the Company any special privileges in his lands. In addition, there was the very real danger that he would use the English to realise his ambitions. Although the Company was justified in avenging the various insults resulting from the oppression of the tax farmers, ‘times are presently not favourable, nor we qualified to undertake any acts of violence against the indigenous rulers, while on Ceylon we have to continuously keep a watchful eye on the evil plots of Raja Sinha and his court nobles’. In case the Tevar should prove to be ‘obstinate’ and insist, Pijl and the Council were willing to offer him all the chanks caught along the Ramnad Coast in view of their small quantity and limited value and the Tevar’s present control of the Madurai Coast. Moreover, he could also dispose of all the local chaya roots of the islands, which were of inferior quality and no longer desired at Coromandel, while the Company had never been able to derive any profit from the chaya roots since they were smuggled away by the local inhabitants. The rockfish skins were to be for the Tevar, provided they were handed over to the Company against the prices offered at Nagapatnam. The prohibition of shipping of Malabar arecanuts via Pamban Channel, however, was to be reaffirmed. Pijl and the Ceylon Council were even willing to grant the Tevar’s repeated requests to buy some cannon for cash from the Company in order to win his favour, because, as had been shown, he could also be supplied by the French or English. Moreover, they claimed that the Marava ruler merely considered them as curiosities and would be unable to actually operate them without artillerymen (a claim which was proven false in the Dutch-Ramnad wars!). Therefore, Timmarasa Ayya should inquire how many guns he would like to have, while in the meantime permission would be asked from Batavia to sell the guns. Finally, the Brahmin mediator was to present the Tevar with a manifesto compiled by Chief De Heijde and the Council at Tuticorin, consisting of a list of wrongs suffered by the Company since the Madurai Coast had been under his authority. Using this list as a guide, Timmarasa Ayya should point out that these actions were proof ‘that little trust could be placed in His Excellency’s

568 chapter 7 word, contracts, and promises, and that the Company lacked neither might nor means to repay everything and take revenge’.107 Two weeks later, on April 13, 1684, Pijl and Council observed that due to his recent acquisition of the Seven Ports, the Tevar ‘desires to have everything conceded in accordance with his wishes’. Timmarasa Ayya was instructed that, if the Tevar were to use his rise in power to justify his demands, he should be reminded ‘that the Hon. Company was at peace with all European and Indian rulers, and that it had made no small progress through the conquest of Bantam and other lands and kings’. He was to add that ‘in many years, the affairs and times had never been more favourable to wage war in these districts as now, especially since we are living in good understanding and harmony with the king of Ceylon’. Of course, this statement was not mentioned as a threat, ‘but merely to show that the Hon. Company did not lack the power to enforce the contracts it has concluded, which some were to find out shortly’. However, since the Tevar had always been one of the Company’s oldest and best allies, the Company would be hesitant to become estranged from ‘His Excellency’. He should also be informed ‘that he has never had more enemies than today, who are only waiting for the Honourable and illustrious Company [to deal with him]’. As soon as the Company ‘would draw its sword against the Lord Tevar, Ekoji, and Madurai would not hesitate to attack him along with others’. In such a situation, Rameswaram could be easily taken and all overseas supplies cut off. ‘If the other rulers were to fight him on land, he would be completely surrounded, where otherwise His Excellency could receive all assistance and supplies by sea’.108 In May 1684, Timmarasa Ayya left Tuticorin for Ramnad on a fateful mission to conclude a ‘further contract’ with the Tevar and settle the ‘Parava problem’. An initial welcome reception quickly turned sour, after his attempt to remove

107 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 155v–163v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.3.1684; voc 1405, obp 1685, ff. 1834v–1837r, Artikelen en punten dewelke vanwege d’E Comp. door de bramine Timmersa gepresenteerd zullen worden aan Terremaloe Chedepadij Catta Teuver, 13.4.1684. In July 1684, the Ceylon government wrote Batavia that if the Tevar were to behave reasonably, he could be sold some of the poor iron guns, five or six up front and more on request since those guns ‘served more for the name rather than actual defense’. voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 15v–16v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684. Though the High Government subsequently permitted the sale of 5–6 or more of the worst iron pieces in November 1684, the transaction did not materialise due to the outbreak of hostilities in January 1685. voc 911, bub 1684, f. 525v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.11.1684. 108 voc 1405, obp 1685, ff. 1828v–1829r, Instr. voor Timmersa Aijen gaande van Comps. wegen gecommittt. aan de vrijheer Tiremalloe Cheudepaddij Catte Teuver, 13.4.1684.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 569 the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar (‘a harmful thorn’) from power backfired. As a wealthy Brahmin wholesale trader on a mission for the Company, Timmarasa Ayya was a dangerous commercial, political, and religious rival of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. Like the Periya Tambi, Timmarasa Ayya, the son of a Konkani Brahmin with extensive land holdings in the Jaffnapatnam Peninsula, was a wholesale merchant, trading in elephants, arecanuts, pearls, and other local products with the Asians and Europeans on the Malabar, Madurai, Ramnad, Coromandel, and Bengal littoral. In March 1684, Timmarasa Ayya had even entered into a contract with the Periya Tambi Maraikkkayar, and the Muslim merchant Hassan Nariyan Maraikkayar, to purchase all the arecanuts from Kalpitiya (15,000 amanam) for 3½ rixdollars per amanam from the Company. The Kalpitiya arecanuts were to be sold at the coasts of Madurai and Coromandel, provided the Company would not import any arecanuts here in addition. In return, the triumvirate promised to supply Ceylon annually with 600–700 lasts of rice at market rate. In October 1684, however, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar complained that the factors of Timmarasa Ayya at Kalpitiya had been refusing to hand over any arecanuts to his people for 8 months, ‘but if they from now on tolerate each other in the trade of commodities, he, on his part, would not create any obstacles’. Asking Timmarasa Ayya on what conditions he would like to provide him with the 4,000 bois or 5,000 amanams of arecanuts (his ⅓ share in the contract), the Jaffnapatnam Brahmin referred the matter to Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, but subsequently let it be known that he had ‘no intention whatsoever to enter into any contract with the Periya Tambi, let alone to rely on him one little bit’. Having been denied participation in the Ceylon arecanut trade, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar made preparations to establish a free market for Malabar arecanuts at Attur, while recalling his factors from Jaffnapatnam, Mannaar, and Colombo. Timmarasa Ayya also competed with the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar in the political sphere. Using ‘four persons of influence with the Tevar’, probably leading courtiers such as Raja Surya Tevar, disaffected by the power wielded by the Periya Tambi and his relatives, and the financial leverage of the Parava heads as security, Timmarasa Ayya attempted to farm the revenues of the Fishery Coast by outbidding the Periya Tambi, offering (according to the Periya Tambi) 25,000 pardaus more for the lease to the Pradhani Deva Kanakkapillai.109

109 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 164r–165v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.3.1684; Idem, f. 375r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684; Idem, ff. 386r–386v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.10.1684; Idem, ff. 396r, and 399v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 23.11.1684. In November 1684, the ‘areca contract’ was subsequently

570 chapter 7

Finally, as far as religious tensions are concerned, there are a few obscure references, which indicate some rivalry on this terrain too. Thus, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar claimed that the Jaffnapatnam Brahmin, while residing at the Ramnad court, had uttered ‘some dark words’ against his brother Shaykh Abd al-Qadir. However, taking the moral high ground, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar promised that he instead would refrain on his part from blacken- ing the name of ‘the Brahmin’. On June 17, 1684, Timmarasa Ayya, forewarned by Raja Surya Tevar, barely saved his skin when an armed Raghunatha Tevar, who according Dutch sources while ‘exceedingly drunk’ had been stirred up against the Company by the ‘evil machinations’ of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, tried to kill him. Allegedly, the Periya Tambi had recounted to the Tevar that Timmarasa Ayya was seeking to diminish the Tevar’s revenues and even aimed at taking over his rule, ‘sufficient to agitate an insensible, insolent man such as the Tevar’. The following day, the Tevar, reportedly sobered up, showed remorse and had his Pradhani Deva Kanakkapillai look for the Company envoy, who was escorted back to his residence with full honours ‘including his palanquin, honour cloth, and turban’.110 The incident points not only to the agency of supposed intermediaries, but also to the ambivalent status of Maravas (and Kallars) in mainstream Hindu Tamil society as ‘bandits’ and ‘kings’ (see Chapter 1). European observers conveniently and readily tapped into these pre-existing prejudices to dehumanise and demon- ise their perceived opponents. In 1683, for instance, the Jesuit Father Rodrigo d’Abreu reported from Mulipatti that the Marava ruler, a staunch opponent of the

declared invalid by Batavia due to the ‘canniness of the contractors’, including Timmarasa Ayya, ‘that cunning Gentile’. Timmarasa Ayya, the Periya Tambi, and Hassan Nayinar Maraikkayar were all ‘familiar characters, who from time to time have been mentioned in the correspondence, but hardly ever in a favourable sense’, while the contract ‘would create a great monopoly, to the detriment of the people and the Company’. The High Government even questioned the integrity of the Ceylon government in the matter. voc 911, bub 1684, ff. 525r–525v, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.11.1684; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, pp. 731–732. 110 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 335r–335v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 19.5.1684; Idem, ff. 311r–311v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 20.5.1684; voc 1405, obp 1685, ff. 1853r–1854v, Transl. mondeling rapp. bramine Ramen belangende het voorgevallen resconter tussen Timmersa bij den Teuverheer, 22.6.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 312r–313v, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 23.6.1684; voc 1405, obp 1685, ff. 1854v–1856r, Protest ola gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon aan de vrijheer Tiroemale Chedoepaddij Catte Teuver, 29.6.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 88r–91v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, ff. 96v–97r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 11.7.1684.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 571

Christian religion for political reasons, when performing his regular sacrifice to the mother goddess, ‘did not fail, in accordance with custom, to liberally satisfy his devotion to palm wine, which he piously calls the milk of the goddess’. D’Abreu added that the Maravas ‘do not believe they are held to observe the rule, which strictly forbids the use of intoxicating drinks to all honourable castes. Therefore, they deem it fit to ennoble the name of this liquor, which the other castes call pey- tannir or devil’s water’.111 Thus, according to Governor Pijl of Ceylon, the incident at Ramnad clearly showed that the Company was dealing with a ruler ‘who neither listens to reason nor moderation, and who lets himself be carried to irregularities due to the excessive use of hard liquor’. A slightly different interpretation of the Tevar’s ‘evil behaviour’ was voiced by Rutgert de Heijde. In a letter to Batavia of July 1684, the Company chief of Tuticorin believed that the ‘highly savage and tyrannical administration’ of the Tevar was not always the result of impulsive, excessive drunkenness, but rather part of a premeditated and intentional policy. Counting on his ‘good luck and fortune’, De Heijde asserted, the Tevar acted out of ‘arrogant, shameless haughtiness’. In September 1684, however, he depicted the Tevar as ‘that drunken animal in his puffed up pride’.112 The similarities to the previous dehumanisation of Raja Sinha II by the Van Goenses and the imperialist faction are obvious. The initial reaction of Governor Pijl and Council of Ceylon to the incident was to remonstrate in serious terms with the Tevar against the violation of the law of nations regarding the immunity of envoys. The embassy was to be revoked unless there was a significant change for the better and a new contract concluded. In July 1684, they pleaded with the High Government ‘to finally order us to settle the issue by inspiring respect for the Hon. Company via the display of its arms’. A few hundred soldiers from Batavia, they argued, supplemented by the same number from Ceylon, would suffice to take Rameswaram, ‘the best and most valued treasure of the Tevar’. The Ceylon governor and councillors assured the High Government that there would be no danger for Ceylon since all the field posts would be sufficiently defended against a Sinhalese attack. Not only would it serve to stop the Tevar’s evil proceedings

111 Bertrand, La Mission du Maduré, III, p. 357. The Jesuit letters of the Madurai Mission are interspersed with references to the activities of ‘les voleurs’. Dirks, The Hollow Crown, pp. 72–74; Shulman, ‘On South Indian Bandits and Kings’, pp. 300–306. 112 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 90v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, ff. 345v–346r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.7.1684; Idem, f. 319r, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.9.1684.

572 chapter 7 and force him to moderation, but it could also lead to the restoration of the lowlands to the Nayaka of Madurai, who would then be inclined to conclude a favourable contract with the Company.113 When informed, however, that progress was being made in the negotiations and that the Tevar reportedly would not let Timmarasa Ayya leave the Ramnad court before his ship with chanks had sailed for Bengal, Governor Pijl and Council on August 9, 1684, decided to change their tune. The chanks from the Ramnad Coast were of small value, they argued, while if the Tevar were to agree to hand over half to the Company, it would more than likely be the poor leftovers. Moreover, no military assistance was to be expected from Batavia, making peace and harmonious relations with the indigenous rulers imperative. Chief De Heijde of Tuticorin was therefore ordered to send the safe conduct to Timmarasa Ayya in order to be presented to the Tevar, who should be urged to conclude the contract within fourteen days.114 The Ceylon government did not have to wait that long. The following day, on August 10, 1684, Timmarasa Ayya managed to conclude a treaty with Raghu natha Tevar, who now styled himself ‘free lord of Rameswaram, Pandiya mandalam [Pandya country] and further subordinate lands’. Confirming the eternal ‘peace, love, and trust’ (art. 1), the annual exchange of envoys was to preserve the friendship and settle all occurring differences in the future (art. 4). Trade between each other’s lands and ports was subject to the payment of the customary duties (including the arecanut tolls in the lands of the Tevar, which were described in detail) and observation of all orders and laws of the country (art. 2). The Tevar and his inhabitants would be granted safe conducts to all friendly ports, the rulers of which were allies, ‘not at war or engaged in any other dispute’ with the Company (art. 6). Runaway murderers, traitors, and others were to be handed over to their respective authorities in order to receive proper punishment (art. 7). The Company would be permitted to establish a

113 voc 1405, obp 1685, ff. 1854v–1856r, Protest ola gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon aan de vrijheer Tiroemale Chedoepaddij Catte Teuver, 29.6.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 90v–91v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 3.7.1684; Idem, ff. 223r–223v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.7.1684. The belligerent stance of the Ceylon government was shared by Chief De Heijde and the Council at Tuticorin, who insisted on the necessity to inflict a ‘painful blow’ on the Tevar. voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 346r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.7.1684; Idem, ff. 100r–100v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 11.7.1684; Idem, f. 351r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 28.7.1684. 114 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 230r–231v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.8.1684. See also: Idem, ff. 314r–315r, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 4.8.1684.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 573 stone residence covered with tiles with a guard posted nearby provided by the Tevar ‘in order to secure the Company commodities against damage and theft’. In return, the Tevar could establish a residence at Mannaar, provided it was not occupied by ‘Moors’, but by his own people (i.e., Maravas) (art. 9). Other European nations would be excluded from the Ramnad Coast, the Company being obliged to assist the Tevar upon request against any European nation in times of war ‘according to might’, whereas the Tevar would be held to help the Company against any nation, regardless of their identity, with his entire armed forces. All expenses, however, were to be paid for by the other side (arts. 10 and 11). The restrictive commercial clauses of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 became obsolete: the Tevar would be allowed all the chanks and chaya roots north of Valinokkam, while the rockfish skins were to be delivered at Tuticorin against the current market price at Nagapatnam (art. 12). Malabar arecanuts and any other prohibited commodities from Malabar, which managed to evade the ordinary inspection, would not be allowed to be shipped through Pamban Channel. In return, the Company promised to supply the Ramnad market with sufficient arecanuts (art. 15). Finally, the Tevar would enjoy the same number of free thonis as in the time of his predecessor, and, since he was presently controlling Tuticorin, Kayalpatnam, and other places, he would also be granted the same privilege in the pearl fishery previously held by the aranmanai (arts. 5 and 16).115 In early September 1684 Timmarasa Ayya returned to Tuticorin with an olai from Raghunatha Tevar accompanied by Ulagappa Cervaikarar, who was to be followed shortly by the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. Commenting on the agreement, the Marava ruler promised to observe the new contract ‘as long as sun and moon would last’. He was happy to have received the safe conduct for his vessel, which, he claimed, ‘had only been made to return with several good horses, shields, swords, and other curiosities, and, therefore, had cost him a lot of money’. However, since the monsoon had now almost expired, indigenous pilots would not be able to bring the ship around Ceylon to Bengal. If the Company did not provide him with a Dutch pilot and three or four sailors, ‘the voyage could not be made and he would subsequently not enjoy the respect of the indigenous rulers’. In addition, Raghunatha Tevar intimated to De Heijde that he had dispatched Ulagappa Cervaikarar to inform himself of the insults inflicted on the Company and its servants, such as the issue of Chegu Pillai, the

115 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 404r–406v, Contract tusschen gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon ende Chedupadde Cata Teuver, vrijhr. van Rammanacoijl, Pandijmandelan ende de verdere ondergehoorende landen, 10.8.1684; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerland-Indicum, III, pp. 370–377.

574 chapter 7 killing of the Company lascorin Chinna, and the matters of the Paravas. Ulagappa Cervaikarar was to administer justice ‘lawfully and reasonably’, and ensure that such differences would occur no more. Finally, he promised to deliver the 200 oxen and cows within a month and repay his debt to the Company by next April. Commenting on Raghunatha Tevar’s olai to Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, Chief De Heijde recommended to the Ceylon government that ratification should be delayed until the Tevar had given the Company satisfaction regarding the insults suffered, ‘for it is not enough to merely sing his old song to be certain that it would not happen again’. However, he suggested that the Tevar’s request for a Dutch pilot and sailors should be granted ‘because otherwise he would seek to be accommodated by the English, French, Danes, or other nations, and subsequently dispute the exclusion of other Europeans [from his lands]’. De Heijde observed rather bitterly that the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar wielded great influence over his master, ‘leaving the honour of dispatching the ship with chanks for Bengal to the Tevar, while the best profits are enjoyed by that Moor’. The Dutch chief of Tuticorin was convinced that the Marava ruler would not go to war with the Company, but that no improvements were to be expected upon the arrival of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar. De Heijde was certain that the Tevar ‘could not be trusted…and that the Hon. Company would never be properly treated until he would get a proper taste of the strength of the Company’s arms’. In response, Governor Pijl and Council on August 25, 1684, decided to delay ratification of the treaty until the satisfaction promised by the Tevar had been given, but to provide him with a pilot and an ‘obliging sailor’.116 As a result of the ‘great Gentile festival’ or ‘weapon feast of the Lord Tevar’ (probably the Navaratri or Nine Nights’ Festival), the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar himself did not arrive at Palaiyakkayal until October 14 along with Sankara Tevar, Chokkanatha Cervaikarar, Raghunatha Kattapa Nayaka, and Nollu Cervaikarar accompanied by 5,000 soldiers.117

116 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 363r–364v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 19.8.1684; Idem, ff. 233r–234r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.8.1684; Idem, ff. 236r–237r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 25.8.1684; Idem, ff. 315r–315v, 316v–317r, 318r, and 319r, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.9.1684. 117 voc 1396, obp 1685, f. 367r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 24.9.1684; Idem, ff. 248v–249r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 15.10.1684; Idem, ff. 369r, and 374v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684.

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During the subsequent ‘conference’ of Tuticorin with the plenipotentiaries of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, his brother Setu Abd al-Qadir and brother-in- law Cervai Nayinar Maraikkayar, Chief De Heijde and the Council of Tuticorin quickly concluded that the differences were irreconcilable since ‘they stick to their guns like a thief to his loot’. According to De Heijde, the plenipotentiaries had spoken very ‘proud and arrogant words’ and ‘so brusque and sharp that it was difficult to describe and hard to bear for an honest man, which they apparently had learned from their insolent and drunken master’. The Tuticorin chief, therefore, in November 1684 requested Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon to send a ‘good recruitment and absolute orders’ in order to rectify all the insults and damage suffered and to curtail the arrogance, ‘exceeding all decency and civility’, of the envoys of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and the Tevar, who ‘want to force the Hon. Company to dance to their piping’.118 In response to De Heijde’s letter, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon passed a resolution on December 3, 1684, that, since no military assistance was to be expected from either Batavia or Commissioner Reynier Casembroot (head of a punitive expedition to Persia, which had been reinforced with part of the Ceylon militia), only a defensive posture could be assumed against the Tevar focused on the protection of the Tuticorin fort. Talks, however, with the aranmanai in the person of Governor Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, who had arrived at Sattur (one and a half days’ travel from Tuticorin) with 1,500 horse and 10,000 foot, were to be revived to join forces against Ramnad, so that ‘we will receive reinforcements from elsewhere and thus be able to attack the Tevar, without fearing or feeling anxious for that worthy island [of Ceylon], and not sheath the sword until the Hon. Company has complete satisfaction’.119 Contacts with Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya had been entertained in secret via ‘merchant-official’ intermediaries, such as Chidambaranatha Chitti, Chegu Pillai, and Karuppa Chitti, since late 1683, but did not become serious until October 1684. Until then, the Company recognised the recovery of the aranmanai, but still deemed it unable to seriously challenge the Tevar. The resolution of December 3, however, called for the revival of these contacts by informing the aranmanai of the ‘dissatisfaction’ of the Company with the Tevar and that ‘when the time was right’ his evil actions would be avenged. For the moment, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya should be diverted from taking any unilateral action.

118 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 389r–396v, and 397v–399r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 23.11.1684. 119 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 261r–263r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.12.1684; Idem, ff. 117v–121v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1685.

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On January 2, 1685, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon subsequently informed the Directors that the Company had been repeatedly asked by the Madurai governor to declare war on the Tevar. Although these requests had been declined so far, ‘the invitations would be accepted to some degree and would be given more attention than before’.120 The ultimate breakdown of the conference talks at Tuticorin would remove the Company’s last reservations. On January 2, 1685, when De Heijde called Ulagappa Cervaikarar’s attention to the privileges of the Company on the Madurai Coast, the Tevar’s envoy reportedly burst out to the Chief of Tuticorin: ‘Privileges? It was his privilege to wage war’. When asked whether he had the authority to commit violence, Ulagappa responded: ‘Yes, and that would become apparent shortly’, threatening to throw his shin guards at the Dutch representation. On January 8, 1685, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon decided to take up the gauntlet (or rather: shin guards) and, ‘in God’s name’, declare war on the Tevar and conclude a defensive and offensive alliance with the aranmanai, ‘not expecting that the work would be of any further consequence’ since trade along the Madurai Coast had already come to a complete standstill. Typical for the ‘age of contained conflict’,121 Pijl and the Ceylon councillors believed, moreover, that hostilities would neither last long nor cost many lives since they could be waged with few troops at sea. In view of the prevailing peace on the island of Ceylon and the covert attempts of the aranmanai to join forces with the Company, the present opportunity should be seized to repay the Tevar and curtail his ‘extreme arrogance and oppression’. A small armada of yachts, hookers, and sloops would suffice to ‘clear the bay and coast of Madurai of all vessels, including fishermen, to undertake small campaigns on land, forcing everybody to desert the coasts, stop the Periya Tambi’s trade and great extortion, and inflict serious damage on the Tevar. His insolent and arrogant glory would thus be curtailed and he would be forced to abandon Tuticorin for his thorny forests’.122

120 voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 321r–322r, and 323r–323v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 13.1.1684; Idem, ff. 314v–315r, Extract miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 4.8.1684; Idem, f. 231v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.8.1684; Idem, ff. 371r–371v, and 376v–377v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 18.10.1684; voc 911, bub 1684, ff. 525v–526r, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.11.1684; Idem, ff. 120r–120v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 2.1.1685. 121 Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce, p. 254. 122 voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 174r–177v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 8.1.1685; Idem, ff. 8v–9v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.1.1685. For a justification of this decision to Batavia, the Ceylon government intimated to the High Government that,

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 577

In early February 1685, Pijl and the Council decided that, at least for the moment, Rameswaram should not be attacked since the Tevar had concentrated his forces on the island, while it might jeopardise any support of the neighbouring rulers, such as the Nayaka of Madurai and ‘Ekoji’ (read: Shahaji Bhonsle of Tanjore), who both considered the island-shrine ‘a special sanctuary’. Moreover, it was likely that, ‘as usual’, they would ‘stall and stay behind… and observe the work from a distance, especially since they, in accordance with their superstitious nature, would not plunder or violate their temples and sacred places’.123 Initially, the overall land forces of the Company on the Madurai Coast consisted of 334 men, almost half (150) of whom were dispatched on an expedition overland under Captain Adam Sleght, which burned the village of Melur along with the residences and bangsals of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his sons at Kayalpatnam. Reportedly, some relatives of the Periya Tambi were captured, who were put in chains to be used at the fortifications. However, upon rumours that the Tevar’s army was approaching, its kettle drums already being heard at Mukkaiyur, the Ceylon government decided to place the overall command of land operations under the command of Major Marten Scholten, a veteran of the Tuticorin War of 1669, who was sent along with the Predikant Frederick Stumphius and another four companies of 54 soldiers each from Colombo.124 Following the overland expedition against Melur and Kayalpatnam, on January 27, 1685, a small Company armada, consisting of 1 hooker, 1 yacht, 2 sloops, and 5 thonis, manned with 36 soldiers and some sailors under Joan van Vliet and Lambert van Buuren managed to sink and burn a number of vessels

while acknowledging ‘that peace and free trade suit the Hon. Company better than war’, the ‘foul, insulting treatment’ of the Tevar ‘could no longer be tolerated by any honest man’. Idem, ff. 17r–19r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 5.3.1685. For the response of the High Government to the ‘war forced on us by the Tevar’: voc 912, bub 1685, f. 714, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.9.1685; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, p. 822. 123 voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 184r–184v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 4.2.1685. 124 Idem, ff. 181r–181v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 24.1.1685; Idem, f. 428r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan provl. gezaghebber Van Dielen en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 26.1.1685; Idem, ff. 426r–426v, Miss. Van Vliet en Van Buren aan opperh. Papinauw van Mannaar, 28.1.1685; Idem, ff. 10r–10v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 28.1.1685; Idem, ff. 126r–126v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 8.1.1686.

578 chapter 7 at Kilakkarai, despite heavy resistance of the local Marava troops entrenched on the beach.125 Fearing a two-front war, Raghunatha Tevar attempted to quickly end hostilities with the Company in order to concentrate on the impending hostilities with the aranmanai and Shahaji Bhonsle. In an olai to Chief De Heijde, the Marava ruler feigned ignorance regarding the reasons causing the rupture, promising that he would rectify all complaints in order to maintain the fixed friendship with the Company. Informing the Tevar of the ‘insults, vicissitudes, scorn, mockeries, threats, and damage’ suffered by the Company, De Heijde demanded no less than the execution of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, observing rhetorically: ‘how can good friendship and peace be maintained as long as the Periya Tambi (and others who are the greatest culprits) are alive?’126 The request for peace by the carriers of the Tevar’s olai, the Brahmin envoys Nambi Alagiri Ayya and Thalavatta Pillai, was partially granted. While insisting on the execution of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and Ulagappa Cervaikarar as a precondition for peace, Major Scholten and Chief De Heijde demanded a reply from the Tevar within 8–10 days, during which time there would be a cease-fire south of Rameswaram starting February 2.127 North of Rameswaram, an expeditionary force was dispatched on February 8 from Kays (Hammenhiel) on the Jaffna Peninsula, under Captain Jacob Witsenburgh, consisting of 5 sloops and 5 indigenous vessels with 137 Euro peans, 14 topazes, and 88 indigenous sailors. Witsenburgh’s force wreaked havoc along the Ramnad Coast, burning some 100 large and small vessels, raz- ing several villages and hamlets, and destroying large quantities of stored rice, nel, and arecanuts. On February 19, the leadership of the expeditionary force

125 voc 1414, obp 1686, ff. 426r–426v, Miss. Van Vliet en Van Buren aan opperh. Papinauw van Mannaar, 28.1.1685; Idem, f. 425r, Miss. Van Dielen en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 26.2.1685. 126 voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1180v–1181r, Transl. ola Chedoepaddij Catte Teuverheer aan commt. De Heijde te Tuticorin, 22.1.1685; Idem, ff. 1181r–1182v, Ola commt. De Heijde aan den Teuverheer, 1.2.1685. According to one of the two envoys, the Tevar, upon hearing about the final breakdown of negotiations, had initially prepared to meet the challenge by force. Being informed, however, of the start of hostilities by the Company and simultaneous preparations of the aranmanai, he became ‘surprised and frightened’ and halted his advance, deciding instead to sue for peace with the Dutch. voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 185v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.2.1685. 127 voc 1414, obp 1686, f. 429r, Miss. sergt. majoor Scholten, commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan provl. gezagh. Van Dielen en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 4.2.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 12v–13r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 22.2.1685; Idem, f. 185v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.2.1685.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 579 gleefully reported ‘that (praise be to God!) we have cleared and cleansed the entire coast of the bay between Adirampatnam and Tondi, being a 15 miles [1 Dutch mile=4.7 English miles] distance, burning everything in between’. Thereupon, the fleet continued to cruise the bay in an attempt to intercept the Tevar’s vessel, which had left in September 1684, on his expected return from Bengal. Meanwhile, on the Malabar Coast, another vessel of the Tevar, dispatched to Ormuz with pearl grit in order to purchase some Persian horses, was captured at Cochin.128 Despite the truce south of Rameswaram, Ramnad troops in early February attacked and burned the Company factory at Manappad and destroyed several Parava churches along the Madurai Coast. In response, Major Scholten and Chief De Heijde and the Council at Tuticorin decided to set fire to Kulasekharapatnam, which, until then, had been left unharmed. However, on February 25, Nambi Alagiri Ayya and Thalavatta Pillai arrived at Tuticorin with an olai from the Tevar, giving them full powers to negotiate a peace settlement. Prior to the actual talks, the two envoys requested that the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar would be allowed to stay in power for another two months after which he would be deposed and punished. Scholten and De Heijde were eager to conclude peace since Tiruven katanatha Ayya, the governor of Tirunelveli, had still not followed up on his promises to wage war with the Tevar, while ‘Ekoji’ (Shahaji Bhonsle of Tanjore) could not be counted on. Despite strong reservations, they finally consented that the Periya Tambi could hold his office for another two months. Thereafter, he was to be kept out of government office forever, like all other ‘Moors’, when the Tevar could do with him whatever he pleased. When asked on what conditions peace could be concluded, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon resolved on February 28 that the damage caused by the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar was to be reimbursed. Tuticorin was to be placed solely under Company jurisdiction in return for the payment of pakuti or tribute and a recognition in the form of money or elephants. The customary privileges of the Company over the seaports and the Paravas should be preserved, while the Paravas should be treated with moderation and not burdened with heavier impositions. The damage inflicted after the declaration of war was to be carried by each side, and the chanks caught south of Rameswaram were to be handed over to the Company at market rate. The ‘villains’, the Periya Tambi

128 voc 1414, obp 1686, ff. 429v–431v, Miss. Jacob Witsenburgh et al. in de chaloup Manaer aan provl. gezagh. Van Dielen en raad van Mannaar, 19.2.1685; Idem, ff. 426v–427r, Miss. Witsenburgh op de rede van Paijelamela aan hoofdgebieder Van Dielen van Nagapatnam, 24.2.1685; Idem, ff. 424v–425r, Miss. Van Dielen en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 26.2.1685; Idem, ff. 247v–248r, Artikelen van de vrede gesloten met de Teuver, 15.3.1685.

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Maraikkayar, his brother, and his son, were either to be handed over to the Company as ‘perturbers of the general peace’ or at least removed from all offices and banished from the Tevar’s lands. All these conditions were to be concluded without diminishing the validity of the contract of August 1684. Without the promise of reimbursement of all damage and the deposition and banishment of the Periya Tambi and his following, no peace was to be concluded. If Scholten and De Heijde, however, were of a different opinion, they were to inform the Ceylon government of their reasons and motivations.129 On March 15, a peace agreement was reached according to which the ‘offenders’ of the Company, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, his two sons and brother, along with all other ‘Moors’ were to be kept out of office in the lands between Point Calimere and Cape Comorin (art. 2). Neither side would have claims regarding the damage inflicted by the other during the war, while the Tevar was to pay back his debt to the Company in April without any further delay (arts. 3 and 4). The relatives of Chegu Pillai were to be released and their stolen properties returned in exchange for the Tevar’s vessel arrested at Cochin, while the ship sent to Bengal was to be returned in case it had fallen in Company hands. If not, it was to be given free passage (arts. 5 and 9). The Parava nation was not to be held accountable for anything, while they were to be treated discreetly in matters of the pakuti and the like (art. 6); and the contract of August 1684 was to remain in force as a whole.130 Despite his obvious success in avoiding a two-front war through the rapid cessation of hostilities with the Company, in May 1685 Raghunatha Tevar was still forced to withdraw his troops from the Madurai Coast in the face of the combined armies of the aranmanai and Tanjore. From that time until the conclusion of the Madurai-Ramnad war in November 1685, both the aranmanai and the Tevar eagerly sought Company assistance, only to see their requests consistently turned down. At the same time, both the Company and the Marava ruler tried to enforce certain provisions of the peace agreement, while

129 voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 185v–187r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.2.1685; Idem, ff. 187v–188v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 6.3.1685; Idem, ff. 29r–30r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.3.1685. 130 voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 247r–248r, Artikelen van de vrede met de Teuver, 15.3.1685; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, IV, p. 822; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 377–380. Ten days later, on March 25, 1685, Governor Pijl and Council reported to Batavia, ‘hopefully, we have restrained the Tevar in such a way, that he will think twice before disadvantaging the Company again. We will work hard to accomplish this [goal], trying to expel and divert the evil and notorious Moor Periya Tambi completely from the lands of the Tevar so that he will not be able to cause us any further damage’. voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 31r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 25.3.1685.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 581 a mission under the Company head peon Mukkapa Nayaka was deemed necessary to congratulate Muttu Virappa Nayaka III on his coronation at Madurai. Apparently impressed by the effectiveness of the amphibious tactics and pyrotechnical skills of the Company during the First Dutch-Ramnad War, Raghunatha Tevar in June 1685 requested Chief De Heijde of Tuticorin for ‘several sloops provided with guns and white militia’ to be sent to Adirampatnam against the forces of the aranmanai in accordance with the treaty. Shortly thereafter, in July 1685, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya dispatched Chidambaranatha Chitti, Karuppa Chitti, and Venkata Krishna Nayaka with an olai to De Heijde, requesting four ‘gunners’ or ‘persons capable of handling large cannon’ and a loan of 10,000 rixdollars ‘under security of several ports and villages’. De Heijde referred both requests to the Ceylon government, which turned down Raghunatha Tevar ‘since the contract does not stipulate to wage war against the Lord Nayaka’. Moreover, the contract also stated that the expenses of military assistance should be paid for, and it was highly questionable that the Tevar would ever be able to do so ‘being already in arrears to reimburse not only the Company’s debt, but also the goods of the merchant Chegu Pillai in accordance with his numerous promises and the recently concluded contract’. Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya’s request met with the same response, since the Company did not intend to break the peace with the Tevar without legitimate reasons, while momentarily the Company’s treasure was not well-provided. However, the Company was ‘more than willing to be of assistance to the Lord Nayaka in any other matter.’131 The underlying reason behind the rejection of both requests was that the Company wished to continue its divide-and-rule policy on the Madurai Coast, wanting neither party to gain the upper hand. In a letter to the Company Directors of January 1686, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon explained that they had turned down the request of the aranamanai, ‘for if the Tevar were to be subjugated and vanquished by the aranmanai, the latter would become more formidable and would likely cause the Hon. Company much more trouble than at present’. The same argument could be as easily applied to the request of the Tevar.132

131 voc 1416, obp 1686, f. 1247r, Transl. ola Chedoepaddij Catte Teuver aan commt. De Heijde te Tuticorin, 28.6.1685; Idem, f. 1240r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 5.7.1685; Idem, ff. 1245v–1246r, Transl. ola landregent Tieroewengernader Aijen aan commt. De Heijde van Tuticorin, 10.7.1685; Idem, ff. 1244v–1245r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 88r, and 92r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; Idem, ff. 96r–96v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.9.1685; voc 1416, obp 1686, f. 1360v, Transl. ola Chedoepaddij Cate Teuver aan commt. De Heijde, 12.9.1685. 132 voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 127r–127v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 8.1.1686.

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Although the contract between the Company and the Tevar was agreed upon by each other’s representatives, its ratification turned out to be problematic. The Tevar insisted on having Timmarasa Ayya visit Ramnad with his copy of the signed agreement engraved on a copper olai along with a safe conduct for his vessel to Bengal. Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, however, decided to keep the Company envoy at Jaffnapatnam, insisting the Tevar should commence with the repayment of the Company loan, the reimbursement of the goods taken from Chegu Pillai, and the removal of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar from all government positions.133 In an attempt to force the issue, Raghunatha Tevar in August 1685 decided to take a calculated risk by sending his vessel with chanks to Jaffnapatnam in order to receive the safe conduct. In an accompanying olai, he claimed that the right monsoon had almost expired, ‘swearing on myself and the deceased great Tevar’ that the Company debt would be repaid and that satisfaction would be given in the matter of Chegu Pillai’. This bold move placed Commander Cornelis van der Duijn and the Council of Jaffnapatnam in a difficult position. To seize the vessel was not considered a viable option since the Company could expect excessive damage claims regarding the value of the cargo and vessel, which was ‘very old’, while the confiscation would be taken by the Tevar as an act of hostility and create a new rupture. To permit the vessel to sail without a Company safe conduct was hardly an alternative, since the Tevar could easily procure one from another European nation, destroying whatever respect the Tevar had left in this regard for the Company. Therefore, Van der Duijn and the Jaffnapatnam Council decided to grant the safe conduct, especially since the Tevar’s envoys, Thalavatta Pillai and Irula Pillai, were willing to sign an obligation, stating that if the Tevar had not given satisfaction within twenty days, this and another vessel of the Tevar would be liable to confiscation. Though the twenty-day deadline was not met, Raghunatha Tevar did repay the Company loan and, eventually, even reimbursed some of the cash and commodities taken from Chegu Pillai.134

133 voc 1410, obp 1686, f. 206v–207r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.6.1685; voc 1416, obp 1686, f. 1247r, Transl. ola Chedoepaddij Catte Teuver aan commt. De Heijde te Tuticorin, 28.6.1685; Idem, ff. 66v–67v, and 92v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; Idem, ff. 1231r–1232r, Ole gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon aan Chedoepadde Catte Teuver, 19.7.1685; Idem, f. 1360v, Transl. ola Chedoepaddij Catte Theuver aan commt. De Heijde, 12.9.1685. 134 voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1321–1321v, Transl. ola Sedoepadi Kate Teuver aan de commr. van Jaffnapatnam, 30.8.1685; Idem, ff. 1322r–1322v, Ola commr. Van der Duijn van Jaffnapatnam aan Chedoepatte Catte Teuver, 9.9.1685; Idem, ff. 1317r–1320r, Miss. commr. Van der Duijn en raad van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 18.9.1685; Idem, ff. 1362r–1362v, Ola commt. De Heijde van Tuticorin aan den Teuverheer, 8.10.1685.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 583

One sticky point, however, remained unresolved, that is, the removal of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, his relatives, and all other Muslims from all positions of power in Ramnad. In September 1685, the Company Assistant Nicolaes Welter was dispatched aboard the yacht ‘Colombo’ to visit Kilakkarai in order to corroborate Parava reports that a brother of the Periya Tambi, Mirza Pillai Maraikkayar, had started to monopolise trade at the Ramnad Coast in violation of the treaty. Bagumithran Maraikkayar, the ambalakkarar of Kilakkarai, claimed that there had been no maniyakkarar over Kilakkarai since the war and that Raghunatha Tevar had given the pradhani Deva Kanakkapillai control over the region, though the Periya Tambi, ‘having been raised in this village and acting as its head for many years, out of affection was still interceding somewhat on behalf of these poor inhabitants with the Lord Tevar by informing him of their poverty’. Welter, however, was unconvinced and came to the conclusion that it was ‘as clear as the sun shines at noon’ that the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives were still in full control of local affairs in flagrant violation of the peace treaty. The two issues, the reimbursement of the cash and commodities of Chegu Pillai along with the continuation of the Periya Tambi and his relatives in official positions, would continue to trouble Dutch-Ramnad relations for decades.135 The recovery of the aranmanai from the ‘time of troubles’ was celebrated in the coronation of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III in the city of Madurai. In July 1685, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon decided that it was imperative to congratulate the ‘young Lord Nayaka’ without offending him and the Madurai court. In September 1685, Mukkapa Nayaka, the Company head peon of Tuticorin, was subsequently sent to Madurai with an elephant, some fine textiles, an ornamented rifle, and a small gilded compass. Apart from congratulat- ing the Madurai ruler, Mukkapa Nayaka was also to request free trade for the Company in the lands of Madurai ‘as in the time of His Highness’ Lord father’

135 For Bagumithran Maraikkayar’s claims: voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1346r–1360r, Notulen gehouden door den adsistent Welter op Killekarre, 5.10.1685. In an olai to Chief De Heijde, Raghunatha Tevar asserted that ‘since the inhabitants of my lands and seaports had been dispersed and in the absence of maniyakkarars or regents governing them, I have ordered some of my ‘collecheweres’ [kolu, court of king, cervai, diminutive form of Cervaikarar, body of soldiers, subdivision of the Maravas?] to assume supervision. At this time, I have appointed Deva Kanakkapillai as regent over all of the seaports’. voc 1416, obp 1686, f. 1362r, Transl. ola Chedoepaddij Catte Teuver aan commt. De Heijde, 12.10.1685. See also: Idem, ff. 1362r–1362v, Ola commt. De Heijde van Tuticorin aan den Teuverheer, 8.10.1685; Idem, ff. 1341v–1342r, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 31.10.1685. See: Bes, ‘The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits’.

584 chapter 7 and exemption of the merchants from unreasonable treatment and arbitrary taxations.136 En route to Madurai, Mukkapa Nayaka encountered Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya and the Madurai army at Mandapasalai near Pallimadam. The Madurai pradhani promised to use his influence at the Madurai court, inquiring in turn whether the Company would provide military and financial assistance against the Tevar. Mukkapa Nayaka, however, replied not to have received any instructions regarding military assistance. Moreover, due to the poor trade the Company could dispose of little cash, stating that the Kayalpatnam ‘Moors’ (as part of the Company loan of 1675–1676) still owed a considerable sum of money to the Dutch. Not pleased with this non-committal, tightfisted response, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya complained that the Company had embarrassed the aranmanai by concluding peace with ‘the Marava’ while it had been preparing itself for war on the basis of earlier Dutch promises to attack the Tevar by sea. Mukkapa Nayaka, however, retorted that the Company had informed the aranmanai well in advance about its plans and that during the two months of hostilities the central authorities had undertaken no action whatsoever. Seeing that this conversation was leading nowhere, the Madurai pradhani shifted gears, asking Mukkapa Nayaka ‘whether anyone had ever been sent to the Nayaka in order to request permission for the construction of a fort [at Tuticorin]?’ To Mukkapa Nayaka’s disapproval of using the term fort for what was ‘merely a thin wall’ and his observation that ‘such misrepresentations to the court could produce nothing good’, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya replied that, though the Company envoy ‘was claiming otherwise regarding the fort’, previously ‘for what has been constructed now 20,000–30,000 pardaus had been offered’. He intimated to Mukkapa Nayaka that ‘it had only been condoned and not opposed in view of the mutual friendship and the prospect that His Highness the Lord Nayaka might be assisted by the Hon. Company, which so far had not materialised’. Upon arrival at Madurai together with Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, Mukkapa Nayaka was only to learn that Muttu Virappa Nayaka III had already left the day before for Trichinopoly in order to protect the Madurai capital against the approaching troops of the Maratha general Santoji Ghorpade. The Company envoy, however, was told by Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya that he would not be given permission to return to Tuticorin because of the ongoing peace negotiations

136 voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 88r–88v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 19.7.1685; Idem, ff. 97v–98v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 4.9.1685; Idem, ff. 127v–128r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 8.1.1686. For Batavia’s approval: voc 912, bub 1685, f. 714, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.9.1685.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 585 between the aranmanai and the Tevar. In fact, Mukkapa Nayaka’s presence was used as a ploy to extract more concessions from the Marava ruler. Meanwhile, the Madurai talavay Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka informed the Dutch envoy secretly, that in case the war should continue, he expected the Company to assist the aranmanai instead of the Tevar, ‘since more advantage could be expected from a large mountain than a small hill’. Peace, however, was concluded shortly thereafter, and in early November 1685 Mukkapa Nayaka was provided with three olais from Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, and Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka, all promising that the Company’s indigenous merchants would only have to pay their ordinary pakuti or tribute and that the ambalakkarars and inhabitants of Kayalpatnam were to reimburse the remainder of the money owed to the Company.137

Mare Clausum and Dual Policy, 1686–1690

Between 1686 and 1690, Dutch-aranmanai relations were complicated by the conflict between the ‘closed seas’ (mare clausum) policy of the Company and the traditional ‘open door’ policy of the reinvigorated and newly assertive Madurai’s central authorities (and, for that matter, similar policies of other indigenous rulers in the region). The conflict was spurred by the direct intrusion of the English and French in collusion with disaffected Asian merchants and rulers. In contrast, Dutch-Ramnad relations in the immediate wake of the war seemingly improved with the abrogation of the restrictive commercial clauses of the ‘advantageous contract’ of 1674 and the settlement of some of the remaining issues. Between late 1687 and 1690, however, under the direction of the Dutch Commissioner General Van Rheede, the Company pursued a dual policy, attempting to coopt the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives, while secretly preparing for a possible rupture. Through a surprise attack on

137 voc 1416, obp 1686, ff. 1342r–1342v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 31.10.1685; voc 1429, obp 1687, ff. 1212r–1212v, Transl. ola grote landregent Tiroewen gernaderaijen aan commt. De Heijde, 9.11.1685; voc 1410, obp 1686, ff. 249r–249v, Transl. ola Ranga Kistna Moetoe Virerapanaijck aan commt. De Heijde, 11.1685; Idem, ff. 249v–250r, Transl. ola Toepakele Anandapanaijck aan commt. De Heijde, 11.1685; Idem, ff. 251r–256r, Transl. rapp. sComps hooftpion Moecapanaijck op desselfs wederkomst van Madure, 20.11.1685; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 289v–290r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.2.1686; Idem, ff. 17v–18r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.2.1686; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 16. For the guarded reaction of the High Government to the outcome of Mukkapa Nayaka’s mission: voc 912, bub 1685, f. 1072, Miss. GG en R aan comms. genl. Van Rheede en gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 27.11.1685.

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Rameswaram or the Second Dutch-Ramnad War in August 1690, Van Rheede forced the Tevar into signing a ‘reputable peace’. Almost at the same time, an unexpected visit of the Nayaka of Madurai to Tuticorin in July 1690 led to the conclusion of a ‘contract of alliance’ with the aranmanai. The enforcement of both agreements, however, proved to be as elusive as Van Rheede’s attempt to consolidate Dutch politico-commercial hegemony in the region. Dutch-Ramnad relations seemingly started on a positive note with the removal of the restrictive commercial clauses of the 1674 ‘advantageous contract’, along with the elimination of some of the remaining bones of contention, such as the gradual repayment of the Tevar’s debt to the Company and the apparent settlement of the case of the Company merchant Chegu Pillai. Raghunatha Tevar may have decided to finally settle these issues for various reasons: to convince the Company to ratify the treaty of March 1685 and provide him with safe conducts for his two vessels, to ensure Company support in his struggle against the ‘rebel’ Raja Surya Tevar, and to lift the Company arrest on the goods of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar at Jaffnapatnam. Unaware of the fact that Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon had decided not to press the clauses of the contract of March 1685 ‘in order not to prevent him [the Tevar] from taking recourse with the French and English’, Raghunatha Tevar, via several installments, could claim to have paid off his debt in full by August 1686. At the same time, the Marava ruler petitioned for the ratification of the treaty on a copper olai and the issue of two safe conducts, one for a vessel with chanks to Bengal and another for a vessel to Aceh to return with horses and ‘something else’.138

138 voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 288r–288v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.1.1686; Idem, ff. 27v–28v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.2.1686; Idem, ff. 55v–56r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.5.1686; voc 913, bub 1686, ff. 267–268, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 31.5.1686; Idem, ff. 112r–113r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede en dir. Schagen en raad van Bengalen, 12.6.1686; voc 1429, obp 1687, ff. 1309v–1310r, Transl. ola Regoenade Chedoe Padde Catte Teuver aan opperh. Van Vliet te Tuticurin, 14.8.1686; Idem, ff. 1310r–1311r, Transl. ola Regoenade Chedoe Paddie Catte Teuver aan gouvr. Pijl, 15.8.1686; voc 913, bub 1686, ff. 551–552, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.8.1686; voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 79r–79v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 9.9.1686; voc 913, bub 1687, ff. 789–790, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.11.1686. One of the two ships, recently built at Kilakkarai, reportedly shipwrecked in a heavy storm along the Coromandel Coast on the night of October 17 and 18, 1687. Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon subsequently commented wishfully that the Tevar as a result ‘will desist from fitting out ships’ in the future. voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 200v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 587

The Tevar’s decision to pay off his long-standing debt to the Company proved to be a solid investment in the sense that the Dutch decided not to get involved in the civil strife in Ramnad following the revolt initiated by Raja Surya Tevar (see above). In November 1686, Raja Surya Tevar sent an olai to Timmarasa Ayya at Jaffnapatnam, requesting him to convince Commander Van der Duijn to provide him with 10,000 pardaus, gunpowder, lead, and assistance in the form of several sloops ‘to keep the coastal lands in turmoil and fear’. Moreover, any petition of his opponent, Raghunatha Tevar, was to be turned down. In return, Timmarasa Ayya and the Company would receive anything they desired ‘as far as our power would allow’. Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, however, ordered the Company servants at Jaffnapatnam and Turicorin to observe strict neutrality and to politely decline all offers, announcing that ‘the Company’s maxims were not to interfere with the differences of rulers, let alone to violate its contracts’.139 The ‘settlement’ of the issue of the cash and commodities taken from the Company Merchant Chegu Pillai proved to be even more agonising than that of squaring the Tevar’s debt with the Company. Though the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar sent several representatives to Tuticorin, no agreement could be reached as the parties haggled over technicalities, such as how the oath should be administered. Exasperated, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon decided in June 1687 to confiscate all belongings of the Periya Tambi and to sell them in public, a decision, which was questioned by the High Government as being perhaps somewhat ‘early and premature’. Referring to the example of Attingal, where the arrest of the ship of the Muslim merchant Uthman had incited the Rani to allow for the settlement of the English at Ruttera, Batavia in November 1687 urged the Ceylon government to act with circumspection and ‘not to jump further than our stick reaches’.140

van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; Idem, f. 134v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.1.1688. 139 voc 1420, obp 1687, ff. 458v–459r, Transl. ola Ragia Souria Teuver aan de bramine Timmersa Ajen, 23.11.1686; Idem, ff. 147r–147v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687; voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 13v–14r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.4.1687. 140 voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 56r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.5.1686; voc 913, bub 1686, ff. 267–268, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 31.5.1686; voc 1420, obp 1686, ff. 407r–408r, Bijeenstellinge van verscheijde saecken belangende d’cust Madure, 22.10.1686; voc 913, bub 1686, ff. 789–790, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.11.1686; voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 463v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 16.6.1687; Idem, ff. 41v–42r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 2.8.1687; Idem,

588 chapter 7

The confiscation of his belongings on the Jaffna Peninsula probably prod- ded the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar in November 1687 to send his brother Setu Abd al-Qadir to Commissioner General Van Rheede at Nagapatnam to come to terms with Chegu Pillai. Through the mediation of arbitrators appointed by Van Rheede, both parties managed to reach a compromise in January 1688. Van Rheede subsequently ordered Commander Cornelis van der Duijn of Jaffnapatnam to return the confiscated possessions of the Periya Tambi, while recommending Chegu Pillai to Governor Pijl as ‘a good Company merchant’.141 Despite the warning of the Ceylon government that the Periya Tambi Marai kkayar and his relatives were ‘filthy scoundrels’, who were great obstacles to the Company’s trade, Van Rheede, arrogant and self-righteous as usual, had his own ideas on the matter. In March 1688, the Dutch commissioner general advocated a dual policy, attempting to coopt the Periya Tambi and his relatives, while secretly preparing for a possible rupture with the Tevar:

We do not believe it is good to have an implacable enemy, who could cause great damage to the Hon. Company. Moreover, we hope to bring the Moor Periya Tambi over to the Hon. Company and to use his influence with the Tevar and his ability in many affairs to our benefit. Though

ff. 88r–89v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.9.1687; voc 914, bub 1687, f. 985, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 15.11.1687. 141 voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 437r–437v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede te Nagapatnam aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 23.11.1687; Idem, f. 133v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1688; voc 1449, obp 1689, f. 325r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede te Nagapatnam aan commr. Van der Duijn en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 23.1.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 132r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.2.1688; voc 1449, obp 1689, f. 350v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperk. Van Vliet en raad te Tuticorin, 4.3.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 16r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; voc 1449, obp f. 351r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Van der Duijn en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 9.3.1688; voc 1447, obp 1689, ff. 404r–404v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 13.3.1688. As usual, Van Rheede’s conclusion that the issue had been settled was rather premature. In 1694, the Company Merchant of Manappad, Yushua Muppan, the brother of the deceased Chegu Pillai, who was heavily indebted to the Company, handed over a list concerning the property extorted from the debtors of Chegu Pillai in 1684 by the servants of the Periya Tambi (totalling 12,728 fanams), requesting that the Company would collect the sum from the Periya Tambi. When summoned by the Company resident of Kilakkarai, the Periya Tambi replied ‘that this matter appeared very strange to him since the difference between him and Chegu Pillai had already been settled by mutual arbitrators at the orders of the High Hon. Commissioner Hendrik Adriaen van Rheede (R.I.P.)…’. voc 1544, obp 1695, ff. 944r–944v, Kort vertoog opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticorin der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter kuste Madure, 1.12.1693–30.11.1694.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 589

the Tevar seems to have become well-disposed and [willing to] satisfy the Hon. Comp. in everything…, it is good to know and to be properly informed about the strength and weaknesses of our friends in order to serve us in case they become our enemies…142

Similarly, when Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon informed Van Rheede in October 1688 that following the death of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, he had been succeeded by his older son in violation of the contract, the commissioner general’s initial response to the transfer of power was not unfavourable. Strict observation of the contract, he argued, ‘would create an entire family of enemies, which would be able to cause many disservices to the Hon. Company’. Moreover, Van Rheede (mistakenly) believed that the clause in the contract, excluding the Periya Tambi and his relatives from all positions of power, had become obsolete because of the recent death of Chegu Pillai, ‘merchant and adversary of the said Periya Tambi’.143 The dual policy initiated by Van Rheede was characterised by extensive commercial dealings with the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, while the commissioner general’s call for a reliable ‘map and description of the Tevar’s lands’ was answered by intelligence gathering and reconnaissance regarding the situation of Pamban Channel and the island of Rameswaram. For instance, lime delivered from the Ramnad Coast by the Periya Tambi was essential for the construction of the massive ‘castle with the golden walls’ at Nagapatnam. In August 1688, Commander Floris Blom of Nagapatnam observed that without the assistance of the Periya Tambi, who had supplied several hundred lasts of lime during the previous southwestern monsoon, work on the local fortifications would have proceeded very slowly in view of the deforestation of Mannaar. The Dutch commander, therefore, concluded that the Periya Tambi should be caressed, ‘since he lacks neither the power nor the means to burn the lime as he has informed us repeatedly via his representatives, assuring us that he would supply it in abundance’.

142 voc 1447, obp 1689, ff. 904r–904v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 13.3.1688. 143 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 211v–212r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 18.10.1688; voc 1448, obp 1689, ff. 300r–300v, Miss. commr. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan H. XVII, 20.12.1688; voc 1447, obp 1689, ff. 1223r–1223v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.12.1688. Governor Pijl subsequently accepted Van Rheede’s ‘ruling’, especially since the Periya Tambi was now rendering more services to the Company than before. However, he informed Van Rheede that Company correspondence showed clearly that the article excluding the Periya Tambi had not been inserted into the contract because of Chegu Pillai. voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 77v–78r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 7.5.1689.

590 chapter 7

Upon the death of the old Periya Tambi in late 1688, his son and successor promised to assist the Company no less than his father.144 In addition to lime, salt was another staple of the Ramnad Coast in great demand by the Dutch. In July 1688, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar offered to supply Ceylon annually with his own vessels with up to 600 lasts of salt from Kilakkarai between the months of September and April. The freightage of 3 pagodas per last plus various additional surcharges, however, was considered rather steep by the Company. Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, therefore, ordered Chief Van Vliet of Tuticorin to inquire whether it could be done for less. For the moment, negotiations should be stalled until peace with the new Kandyan ruler, Vimala Dharma Surya II, had been concluded and calculations were made as to how much salt could subsequently be sold on Ceylon to the Sinhalese population. Neither the peace with Kandy nor the salt deliveries from Ramnad ever materialised.145 Even in matters related to arecanuts, Dutch-Ramnad relations were seemingly cordial. In October 1688, two Company sloops intercepted several Calicut vessels from Ponnani with areca at the Pamban roadstead. The local maniyakkarar and adopted son of Raghunatha Tevar, Thiru Udaya Tevar, however, refused inspection and claimed that one of the ships had already been arrested since it carried no Company safe conduct. In a subsequent olai to Raghunatha Tevar, Van Vliet explained that the Company had decided not to press the issue of inspection ‘out of respect for the friendship between Your Highness and the Hon. Company’. But the Dutch chief of Tuticorin did ‘not doubt that Your Highness will act in accordance with the contract, not allowing any vessel without Company safe conducts pass and also to arrest this vessel’. He warned the Marava ruler to order his subordinates not to prevent inspection in the future and that the Company could not be held responsible in case any trouble would result from failure to do so: ‘It is a common truth that maritime affairs belong to the jurisdiction of the Hon. Company, which would not tolerate any insults’. Put on the spot, Raghunatha Tevar promised to arrest all vessels trying to sail through Pamban Channel without Company safe conducts in order to maintain the mutual friendship and that the confiscated vessel and its cargo

144 voc 1454, obp 1689, ff. 1012r–1012v, Miss. commt. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan Batavia, 21.8.1688; voc 1448, obp 1689, ff. 300r–300v, Miss. commt. Blom en raad van Nagapatnam aan H. XVII, 20.12.1688. 145 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 341v–342r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 1.8.1688; Idem, f. 423v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 19.8.1688; Idem, ff. 354r–354v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 591 would be split evenly between the Company and himself.146 Van Vliet subsequently dispatched the Company Assistant Adam Pluijmert and two indigenous servants to collect half of the spoils. They received strict orders, however, not to cause any ‘quarrel or dispute’ even if the Tevar would take somewhat more than his half, ‘it being enough for the Company that he will not let any arecanuts, pepper, or vessels pass without Company safe conducts’.147 Praising the Tevar for his observation of the contract, the Company accommodated the Ramnad ruler by allowing four of his representatives to travel aboard a Company vessel to Quilon in order to purchase two tusked elephants from the raja of Kayamkulam. At the same time, one of his arachchis, shot in the leg during the First Dutch-Ramnad War, was operated on by a Company surgeon at the request of the Tevar, ‘not trusting an indigenous [doctor] to remove the bullet’.148 Beneath all this external display of friendship, however, was an underlying tension focused on the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives, who, despite the contract of March 1685, continued to function as the Tevar’s political merchants, collaborating and competing with the Company. Ever suspicious of the activities of the ‘evil Moor’, the Ceylon government was highly sensitive to the affairs of the Kandyan court in the wake of the death of Raja Sinha II and the accession of Vimala Dharma Surya II in December 1687. In May 1688, all Dutch alarm bells went off when the Ganne Bandare or Maha Nayaka, the chief Buddhist priest of Kandy, and the other chiefs of Puttalam, requested a safe conduct for an areca vessel of one Sulayman [Mahmet?], a Chulia Muslim at

146 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 478r–479r, Ola opperh. Van Vliet van de Madurese kust aan de vrij heer Regunaden Teuver, 17.10.1688; Idem, ff. 479v–480r, Transl. ola Regunaden Teuver uit Ramanadewaram aan Van Vliet, opperh. der Madurese kust, 21.10.1688. 147 voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 479v, Ola Van Vliet, hoofd der Madurese kust, aan de vrijheer Regunaden Teuver, 26.10.1688; Idem, f. 432r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.11.1688; Idem, ff. 410v–411r, Transl. ola Oirea Theuver, manigar van Pembenaer, aan Van Vliet, opperh. der Madurese kust, 9.11.1688; Idem, ff. 409r–410r, Verklaring gecommitts. Moors vaartuig aangehouden door den Teuver, 16.11.1688; Idem, ff. 227v–228r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 26.11.1688; Idem, f. 412r, Rol van ‘t naar gespecificeerde twelck door des E. Comps. cannecappul Allaga Wrenga en Baddagan laute uijt het aengeslagen Moorse sluijckvaertuijgh is aangebracht, 27.11.1688; Idem, ff. 375v–376v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688; Idem, f. 100r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.12.1688; Idem, ff. 250v–251r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1689; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 279. 148 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 373v–375v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688.

592 chapter 7 the Kandyan court and (former?) servant of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, to sail to Kilakkarai. According to Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, the affair was sufficient proof that ‘the Periya Tambi intrudes into and opposes the Hon. Company in everything’. The Ceylon government informed Commissioner General Van Rheede that ‘this Chulia has had his creatures up at the court for a long time and has always undermined Company trade on this island, the ‘Opposite Coast’, and at Attingal on Malabar’. Therefore, the Tevar had been forced by contract to strip him of all government and offices. The Ceylon government warned that if the Periya Tambi were not be reigned in, ‘his evil tricks will become more and more apparent since that Moorish vermin is deceitful and extremely harmful’.149 The Periya Tambi Maraikkayar’s assurance to Van Rheede that Sulayman was a ‘disloyal servant, who had fled with his master’s money and had not rendered account in four years’, led the commissioner general to conclude that the whole affair was ‘a mystery’. However, it failed to convince the Ceylon government, which subscribed to the view ‘like master, like servant’. They were strengthened in their suspicions since the Periya Tambi reportedly, in addition to the ‘filthy swine’ Sulayman, also had a cousin at the Kandyan court. Nevertheless, at the request of the Kandyan court, Governor Pijl and the Council in August 1688 decided to provide the vessel with a safe conduct for the ‘Opposite Coast’ in order not to arouse the animosity of the ‘young king’ against the Company over such a trifling affair.150 Trying to counter this perceived Kandyan-Muslim joint venture to open the Ceylon ports, Chief Van Vliet of Tuticorin was ordered to request the Tevar to arrest any Kandyan vessels from Kalpitiya sailing without Company safe conducts, while religious differences between the Muslim merchants and the

149 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 162v–163v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 16.5.1688. 150 voc 1447, obp 1689, ff. 926r–926v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 29.5.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 175r–175v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 10.7.1688; Idem, f. 193v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 10.8.1688; voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 937r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 16.8.1688; Idem, ff. 65r–65v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.9.1688; voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 1219r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.12.1688; voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 74r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 7.5.1689; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 332. In October 1689, François Martin received information about the arrival of two vessels from the King of Kandy ‘at a Madurai port to the south of Nagapatnam’, observing ‘that there is a river in west Ceylon where the Hollanders have no establishments, through which the Sinhalese enter and leave…’. Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, p. 57.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 593

Buddhist Kandyan court were to be exploited in an attempt to create a rift between the two partners. The Dutch were clearly trying to capitalise on the recent conquests and the policy of religious intolerance of the ‘prayer-monger’ and champion of Sunni Islam, the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb or Alamgir (‘World Conqueror’). Aurangzeb’s policy of religious intolerance included the appointment of ‘censors of public morals’ (muhtasibs), the outlawing of Hindu religious fairs and prohibition of construction of new or the repair of rundown temples, the imposition of discriminatory duties on Hindu merchants, the diminishing of employment opportunities for non-Muslim mansabdari, and the reintroduction of the hated jizya (poll tax) on Hindus in 1679. As Van Rheede put it to Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon in October 1689, Vimala Dharma Surya II should be informed that the only reason why the Chulias and other Muslims pressed for the opening of the Ceylon ports was to be able to gather more intelligence regarding the lands of His Majesty. Pijl should point to the recent Mughal conquests of Karnataka, Bijapur, Golkonda, Arakan, and Pegu, and convince Vimala Dharma Surya II that Muslim merchants were merely stool pigeons, reporting to their real master, the Mughal emperor, ‘who, as a born enemy of Rama and Buddha, intends to exterminate and extirpate all Gentile and fellow-believers of His Majesty, planning to con- quer and bring the entire island of Ceylon under his rule’. The ill-disguised attempt to set up the Buddhist Kandyan court against the Chulia Muslims proved unsuccessful. In November 1689, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon reported that ‘it seemed as if one knocked on the door of a deaf man’. The court, however, appeared to be more receptive to the argument that trade would diminish the respect for His Majesty, who as a result was exposed, in sharp contrast with his predecessors, as ‘an areca Chitti’ because of the ‘evil Chulias’.151 In late 1689, two royal vessels with 297 amanam of arecanuts operated by Sulayman arrived at Adirampatnam to purchase curiosities and textiles. The cargo was subsequently purchased by the Company in order to prevent others from participating in the trade in Ceylon arecanuts. Meanwhile, the son of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar had silver ornaments and ivory-inlaid palanquins made at Kilakkarai, and was collecting horses, rams, and falcons for Vimala Dharma Surya II. To Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon this information

151 voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 92v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 4.7.1689; Idem, ff. 465r–465v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.10.1689; Idem, ff. 133v–134v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 14.11.1689.

594 chapter 7 merely confirmed their suspicions that the Ramnad ‘portfolio capitalist’ maintained close correspondence with the Kandyan court.152 Fearing that the vessels were loaded not simply with curiosities, but rather with popular Coromandel textiles, serving the Muslim Chulias for commercial purposes, Commissioner General Van Rheede in January 1690 ordered the Company chiefs at Kalpitiya that, if such were the case, the vessels and their cargoes should be arrested. Governor Pijl was subsequently to inform Vimala Dharma Surya II that, if he could not provide a logical explanation for the violation of the safe conducts, no more would be granted in the future as it would be equivalent to the opening of the port of Puttalam.153 Van Rheede’s suspicions were confirmed. In early February 1690 a vessel was arrested at Kalpitiya since its cargo consisted more of private textiles for the ‘Moors or dishonest Chulias’ than curiosities for the king. Pijl thereupon dispatched an olai to Vimala Dharma Surya II, warning the Kandyan ruler ‘that the Chulias do not seek but their private gain and will be the first to betray this state and ruler’. The Ceylon governor again pointed to the recent conquests of Aurangzeb, including the capture of ‘the son of Shivaji’ [Sambhaji Bhonsle in March 1689]. The Nayaka of Madurai had already retreated to the lowlands, while ‘the Mughal’ had set his eyes on Rameswaram, and, indeed, even on Ceylon itself. He therefore left it to Vimala Dharma Surya II to decide what would be best for his own well-being, ‘either to please some vile Moors, who possessed no other quality but treason, or to conclude a secure alliance with the Hon. Company’.154

152 voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 151r–151v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 29.12.1689; voc 1472, obp 1691, ff. 52v–53r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 6.1.1690; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 161v–162r, Miss. gouvr. Pjl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.1.1690. 153 voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 485v–486v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 9.1.1690; Idem, ff. 161v–162r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.1.1690. 154 voc 1459, obp 1690, f. 923v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 15.2.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 1085v–1087r, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 17.2.1690; voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 938r–938v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon aan Wimeladaham Sourij Maharagia en hofsgroten van Candia, 21.2.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 20v–21r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.5.1690. One year later, in January 1691, the confiscated textiles were still stored at a Company warehouse in Kalpitiya, falling prey to rats and white ants. It was, therefore, decided to write to Sulayman in order to have him collect the confiscated goods. voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 174r–174v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 31.1.1691; voc 1470, obp 1691, f. 966r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, mitsgs. commr. en raad tot Gale, 8.2.1691; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 193r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 13.2.1691. Arasaratnam styles this attempt to open the Ceylon ports a ‘desperate move’ by

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 595

While one element of Van Rheede’s dual policy was to attempt to coopt the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar, the other was to prepare secretly for a possible rupture. As early as February 1688, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon had unfolded their plans for a war against the Tevar to Commissioner General Van Rheede, which would serve as the blue print for the expedition against the island-shrine two-and-a-half-years later. Though coastal raids would damage the Tevar, the Ceylon government observed, the most effective strategy would be a surprise attack on Rameswaram during the southwestern monsoon, for ‘sniffing the least danger, he would concentrate his entire force there, being his only refuge against other rulers’. In addition, the Tevar carried the name of protector of the pagoda on the island, the Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple, ‘which…is held in high esteem and value by all Gentile rulers’. The Ceylon government considered the small fort on the corner of the island near the channel of little consideration and easily conquered, while advocating a blockade of the Ramnad Coast to prevent vessels from transporting troops to Rameswaram. In March 1690, Commander Floris Blom of Jaffnapatnam left Mannaar with four sloops and one rowboat on a tour of reconnaissance of Adam’s Bridge and Pamban Channel. Arriving near Adam’s Bridge at ‘Cruijs Aripi’ or Arippu Reef, located in the Gulf of Mannaar off the northwest coast of Ceylon, the Dutch commander observed, in a reference to the Ramayana epic, that ‘it is very highly regarded and honoured by the Gentiles since the brave and strong Rama cleansed himself in this river after having killed the ten-headed Ravanna’. Blom, in the name of the Company, claimed possession of the island, placing a guard of six-seven indigenous servants at Dhanushkodi on the easternmost point of Rameswaram, or, as he fittingly called it, ‘Observation Point’ (den Uijtkijk). The name was intentional, ‘for the pagoda and fort on Rameswaram can be easily viewed from here’. Blom asserted that his action would not be disputed by the Tevar since, he claimed, ‘there was no evidence that the Tevar had ever shown any concern for these places or sent anybody there on his behalf, especially nowadays’. Moreover, he argued, the establishment of the guard post would even benefit the Tevar as vessels would be forced to sail through Pamban Channel where the Marava ruler could collect tolls.155 Despite Blom’s claims to the contrary, this action was a clear provocation and considered as such by Raghunatha Tevar. In a protest olai to Commissioner

the Kandyan court. See: Arasaratnam, ‘The Kingdom of Kandy’, p. 121; Idem, ‘Vimala Dharma Surya II’, p. 64. 155 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 134v–135r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.2.1688; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 469v–476v, Rapp. commr. Blom van Jaffnapatnam wegens de visite van Adamsbrugh, 31.3.1690.

596 chapter 7

General Van Rheede, the Marava ruler in April 1690 asserted that in view of these kinds of innovations, it would be hard to continue friendly relations. Nevertheless, assuming that Blom had acted without orders, he asked Van Rheede to punish those guilty. Rather than heeding the Tevar’s requests, Van Rheede was clearly set on a collision course and sent a counter-protest. More than two years ago, he argued, he had asked Raghunatha Tevar to prevent the Malabar ‘smuggler-pirates’ from shipping their contraband goods without Company passes through Pamban Channel, but had been told that their first passage had occurred due to ignorance of the local maniyakkarar, while on their return voyage they somehow had managed to escape between the islands. In order to plug this hole, Van Rheede continued, he had ordered the stationing of the guard on ‘the channel De Cruz’, which would also be beneficial to the Tevar as the Malabar traders would now be forced to sail through Pamban Channel: ‘This being the case, it is improper to say that the people could not stay there’. Realising that his attempt at diplomacy had failed, Raghunatha Tevar subsequently expelled the Company presence at Dhanushkodi by force.156 Further incidents in the pearl fishery of 1690 with the maniyakkarar of the Tevar and Shaykh Abd al-Qadir, ‘the brother of the deceased Periya Tambi or uncle of the present governing Moor, the young Periya Tambi’, merely strengthened Van Rheede’s determination to prepare for war. In March 1690, the Tevar’s maniyakkarar violated the free market of the pearl fishery by arresting a certain inhabitant of Nagapatnam, while in June 1690 he quietly sailed away with all five vessels of the Tevar, being dissatisfied with the Company’s refusal to allow for more than the Tevar’s customary three free thonis in the pearl fishery.157 The repeated ‘insolence, excesses, and treaty violations’ of the Tevar incited Van Rheede to punish the Marava ruler for his numerous ‘infractions’. In order to remove all suspicions against the gathering of Company forces at Tuticorin and Mannaar after May 1690, the commissioner general advocated the use of ‘covert strategies’. The rapid military buildup at Tuticorin was supposedly intended to ward off an expected invasion of 40–50 pirate vessels dispatched

156 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 392r–392v, Transl. ola Regunaden Teuver aan comms. Van Rheede, 4.4.1690; Idem, ff. 392v–393r, Transl. ola comms. Van Rheede aan zijn Extie. Regunaden Teuver, 12.4.1690. In a letter to Raghunatha Tevar of September 1690, Van Rheede complained about the forced expulsion of the Company servants from the island St. Cruz, ‘which indisputably belonged to the Hon. Company’. Idem, f. 395r, Minuut brief comms. Van Rheede aan de Teuver, 6.9.1690. 157 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 558v, 564r, and 565r, Dgl. aantekening van het voorgevallene in de parelvisserij op de kust Madure, 20.6.1691.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 597 by the Queen of Ikkeri (Kanara), Keladi Chennamma (r. 1672–1697), while the collection of forces at Mannaar reportedly merely served to accompany Commander Blom on a tour of inspection of the island.158 The unexpected arrival of the Madurai ruler Muttu Virappa Nayaka III in late July 1690 at Melur and a French squadron of six vessels under Admiral Abraham de Bellebat de Duquesne-Guitton during the Nine Years’ War only temporarily put off the execution of what Commissioner General Van Rheede called ‘our French designs’.159 On August 20, 1690, a large armada of 41 vessels (3 yachts, 3 hookers, 7 sloops, 4 prahus, and 24 rowing-vessels) set sail from the roadstead of Punnaikayal under Major Philippus Pijl, brother of Governor Pijl, manned with, among others, six companies of ‘white’ soldiers (324 men) from Ceylon, while another 150 were to follow from Mannaar under Commander Blom of Jaffnapatnam. The Second Dutch-Ramnad War was a fact. Pijl’s first objective was to capture and secure the small fortress near Pamban Channel, but not to approach the local Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple since Van Rheede hoped to bring it under Company protection by peaceful means. If possible, the troops were to spare everything on the island since Van Rheede intended to permanently claim the island on behalf of the Company. Meanwhile, a naval blockade of the Tevar’s ports of Kilakkarai, Periyapatnam, Vedalai, and Devipatnam was to prevent assistance from the mainland from

158 voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 848r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 24.5.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 76r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 4.6.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, f. 854v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 6.6.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 76v–77v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 15.6.1690; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 1148–1151, Secrete miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 20.6.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 860r–860v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 21.6.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 87r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 27.6.1690; Idem, f. 87v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 29.6.1690; Idem, f. 90r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 11.7.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, f. 867r, Miss. commt. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 19.7.1690; Idem, ff. 785v–787v, Lijst der aankomende en vertrokken schepen van Colombo, 2.1.1690–22.1.1691. 159 voc 1478, obp 1691, f. 1156, Secrete miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 29.7.1690; Idem, f. 538, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 23.9.1690; voc 1486, obp 1691, ff. 535r–536r, Miss. commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 5.10.1690; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 378–380, and 435; J. Sottas (ed.), Une Escadre Française aux Indes en 1690: Histoire de la Compagnie Royale des Indes Orientales, 1664–1719 (Paris: Pion-Nourrit, 1905); Kaeppelin, Les Origins de l’Inde Française, pp. 274–278; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, pp. 104–110.

598 chapter 7 reaching the island. Finally, several ships were to intercept the Tevar’s vessel with chanks, recently launched at Kilakkarai.160 Landing at Rameswaram on August 20, Pijl quickly managed to capture the fortress near Pamban Channel, but it took another few days to secure its vicinity in the face of strong resistance from the local Ramnad troops. Having been expelled from all their retreats and posts, the Marava army withdrew to the Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple. On August 25, at the instigation of Van Rheede, Babba Prabhu sent an olai to ‘the stanatars [stalattar, ‘leading temple officers’] of the pagoda, the inhabitants of the village, and the envoys of all Gentile rulers, foreigners, and saints assembled there’. The Konkani Brahmin requested all of them to urge the local Ramnad forces not to put up any more resistance as it might lead to the destruction of the temple, promising them they could leave unharmed. Moreover, he informed them of the Company’s intention to assume protection over the temple: ‘You are aware of the fact that the pagodas of Rameswaram and Kasi [Benares] are highly esteemed among all Gentile rulers and peoples of the 56 lands, but they should not be held by one. Therefore, the Hon. Company will take care of the said [pagoda]’. At the same time, Van Rheede himself wrote another olai to the Ramnad pradhani Deva Kanakkapillai, present at the temple, justifying the dispatch of the expedition. His apologia listed the continuation of the family of the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar in office in violation of the treaty of 1685, the expulsion of the Company guard at the island of St. Cruz, and some money taken from the people of Babba Prabhu by the son of the pradhani in July 1690. Van Rheede concluded piously by observing that ‘perjury and non-observation of a contract are sins’. Therefore, ‘the Tevar is to blame for all this, not the Hon. Company. May God protect Your Honour’.161 Initially, Van Rheede could optimistically report that the heads and supervisors of the pagoda ‘seemed to have been brought to our devotion’ as they informed the Dutch that the priests and their families, along with the pilgrims, had decided to abandon the temple precincts. However, they had second thoughts thereafter,

160 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 384r–388v, Instr. comms. Van Rheede aan majoor Ph. Pijl en verdere krijgsraad int uitvoeren van ‘t exploit opt eiland Ramanacoil, 19.8.1690. 161 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 393r–393v, Transl. ola Babba Prabhu aan alle tannataars of opzienders der pagood Ramanacoijl, 25.8.1690; Idem, ff. 394r–394v, Transl. ola comms. Van Rheede aan Deuve Kaneapulle, grootgouvr. van al des Teuvers landen, 25.8.1690; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 712–718, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 26.8.1690; voc 1470, obp 1681, ff. 871v–872r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 15.9.1690; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 536–540, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 23.9.1690; voc 1486, obp 1691, ff. 534r–536v, Miss. commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 5.10.1690.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 599 either because they deemed the Company forces too small or because they had been compelled by the Ramnad troops not to engage in further talks. The Marava militia itself, ‘these puffed-up rogues’, refused to accept surrender, and instead sent, in the words of Van Rheede, a ‘ridiculous olai and a sorry piece of work’, in response. The negative outcome of the negotiations forced the Company to formally besiege the temple and threw a monkey wrench in the works of Van Rheede’s calculations not to offend the religious sensitivities of indigenous rulers. Trying to reassure himself, the commissioner general matter-of-factly informed Commander Blom: ‘What will be will be. We can show to potentates and rulers our efforts to avoid all offences since our letters will be proof of our protests’.162 Van Rheede’s comments to Blom were soon exposed as wishful thinking as the Company received several threats from neighbouring rulers, such as the Nayaka of Madurai and the Marathas of Tanjore. In late August 1690, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III informed Babba Prabhu that he had dispatched Venkatadri Nayaka with an army to Kayalpatnam and Tuticorin in order to assist the Tevar. The Madurai governor allegedly had been provided with instructions ‘not to return without taking care of the affairs of Rameswaram’. He also intimated to the Konkani Brahmin that if the Company did not withdraw the army from the island, ‘it would be left with not even a spot to stand on’, adding that he ‘would have the fortress of Tuticorin destroyed and make sure that the very name of Hollanders would no longer be known in my lands’. Muttu Virappa Nayaka III’s olai was accompanied by one of identical import from Venkatadri Nayaka.163 Van Rheede considered these ‘two arrogant and haughty letters’ sufficient proof that Muttu Virappa Nayaka III was ‘governed by Brahmins in matters of superstition’. Moreover, they were the work of a ruler, ‘who apparently is not yet wise enough to behave decently in his administration, for, if he knew the power of the Hon. Company, he would not have written so reprehensibly’. At his instigation, Babba Prabhu replied to Muttu Virappa Nayaka III that he doubted whether the Madurai ruler had really written the olai himself, since the interview he had with him previously at Trichinopoly was very different from the contents of the letter. Moreover, the Konkani Brahmin complained that Venkatadri Nayaka’s olai had been written ‘as if I were his slave’. He defended the attack against Rameswaram by claiming that while en route to Pondichéry

162 voc 1478, obp 1691, f. 721, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 26.8.1690; Idem, f. 722, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 1.9.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 872r–873r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 15.9.1690. 163 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 395v–396r, Transl. ola Naik van Madure aan de koopman Babba Porboe, 8.1690; Idem, ff. 396v–397r, Transl. ola Bengeratrinaik aan de koopman Babba Pattare, 8.1690.

600 chapter 7 to wage war on the French, the Company forces had been fired at by the people of the Tevar from the Pamban fortress, killing one or two Company servants. Concerning the Nayaka’s threats to expel the Dutch from his lands, Babba Prabhu replied not to fear anything: ‘The whole world knows that the Hon. Company is both king of the sea and the lands between Cape Comorin and Vaippar’. In turn, Venkatadri Nayaka was told that he was uninformed of the real course of events and that actions would demonstrate that he was not his slave.164 The attack against the island-shrine also elicited a response from Baboji Pandidar, the Tanjore governor on behalf of Shahaji Bhonsle. In ‘rather more civil and polite terms’, Shahaji’s underling intimated to Babba Prabhu that he was ‘highly surprised’ about the attack since ‘Rameswaram is a holy place, situated in the centre of the world’. The past actions ‘would please few people, were unreasonable, and would produce few benefits to the Hon. Company’. Even if they were, as claimed, a response to the ‘sins of man’, Van Rheede ‘should turn his head away from it’ and continue to maintain friendly relations with the Tevar. If, however, he intended to harm ‘the said holy bathing place [tirttam], how could my king ever be able to live in friendship with Your Honour?’165 While the standoff at the temple continued, Van Rheede rather belatedly informed the High Government of his decision ‘to punish the Tevar for his wanton acts and, moreover, to see what advantage the Hon. Company could derive from it’. However, the Dutch commissioner general had to admit that he had bitten off more than he could chew as the intelligence reports on the island were proven to be highly inaccurate. Contrary to reports, Rameswaram was ‘not a small island, but so large that we would have been unable by far to gather sufficient people from the garrisons of Ceylon and Jaffnapatnam to occupy it properly’. He calculated that in order to safely control the island, the pagoda had to be conquered, ‘a massive construction of solid blue stones and high walls to which the entire force of the Tevar has retreated’. Even after its subjugation, the island would still have to be secured on two places, that is, the

164 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 397r–397v, Transl. ola Babba Porboe aan de naik van Madure, 13.9.1690; Idem, ff. 397v–398r, Transl. ola sComps. koopman Babba naar Madure aan Wengatadre Naijk, 13.9.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 872v–873r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 15.9.1690; voc 1478, obp 1691, f. 544, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 23.9.1690. 165 voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 544–545, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 23.9.1690; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 398r–398v, Transl. ola Babosie Pandiden aan de koopman Babba Porboe ontvangen tot Pembenaer, 12.1690. In response, Babba Prabhu retorted that ‘nobody would even think of causing any harm to such a holy place’. He justified the Company actions with the same reasons as those employed in reply to the olais of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III and Venkatadri Nayaka. Idem, ff. 399r–399v, Transl. brief Babba Porboe van Pembenaer aan Babosie Pandiden, 12.12.1690.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 601 fort and the temple, each to be held by a garrison of 200 for no less than three years. In the meantime, Company sloops and vessels would have to continuously cruise the waters between the Tevar’s coast and the island: ‘Taken together, currently we would not be able to effect these things’. Moreover, the conquest of the island would be offensive to all Hindu rulers and create obstacles to the Company’s trade in their respective lands. Effective supervision of the great crowds of visitors to the temple (according to François Martin, up to 200,000 per year) would be impossible and, as a result, treason would always be a viable possibility. The passage of Company vessels through Pamban Channel could be easily blocked as the waterway ran close to the mainland. Finally, the ‘dense vegetative thorn cover’ of the island was ideally suited for the guerrilla warfare techniques of the Maravas. In view of all these considerations, Van Rheede deemed it wise to push for a ‘reasonable satisfaction’ from the Tevar, who was frantically reinforcing his coast with thorn-hedges, trenches, and pagars (Malay, ‘fences, enclosures’). In the future, he asserted, the Company could rely more on the Tevar’s word ‘since it has become apparent to him what the Hon. Company is capable to effect when serious’.166 In an olai to Raghunatha Tevar of September 6, 1690, Van Rheede argued that the war had been forced on the Company, by the ‘manifold instances of perjury’ of the Tevar. Not only had he disregarded the articles of peace, but he had also chased away the Company servants from St. Cruz Island and fired shots at the fleet passing through Pamban Channel. Although the Company was capable of continuing the war vigorously and showing the world that it refused to be wronged, ‘we doubt whether the Tevar is well-informed of all these matters, or intends to continue the war’. If he were willing to reimburse the Company for the war damages and to conclude a new peace treaty under reasonable conditions, he could send two plenipotentiaries in order to commence negotiations.167

166 voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 540–543, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 23.9.1690. See also: voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 872v–873v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 15.9.1690; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, p. 123. According to Martin, the ‘sudden change’ of Van Rheede, ‘the author of the enterprise’, was his realisation, that if he were to press for the conquest of Rameswaram ‘he would bring down all of heathendom on him and that our vessels, joining them, would commence a war the outcome of which would perhaps not be favourable. It is certain that if they had conquered the island, that all the Gentile rulers of these coasts would have risen up in arms against them…’. Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, pp. 123. 167 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 394v–395r, Minuut brief comms. Van Rheede aan de Teuver, 6.9.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, ff. 873r–874r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 15.9.1690.

602 chapter 7

Raghunatha Tevar, meanwhile, had not sat idly. Apart from sending reinforcements to the coast, aware of Franco-Dutch hostilities due to the Nine Years’ War, he also dispatched envoys to the French at Pondichéry, informing François Martin that the Dutch ‘without any declaration of war’ had taken possession of the Rameswaram fort and were planning to seize the entire island. The envoys of Raghunatha Tevar (‘le naïque des Maravas’) made ‘great promises and advantageous offers’ to the French agent, but were told that they had arrived too late since the six vessel-squadron of Duquesne-Guitton had just left on August 25 for Madras in order to engage the English and Dutch. However, on their return, Martin promised, ‘we would employ ourselves in his service in accordance with the benefits the Nayaka would grant us’.168 As neither the direct military option nor French assistance were realistic options, Raghunatha Tevar decided to accept Van Rheede’s offer and dispatched two envoys, Raghunatha Pillai and Ramachandra Ayya. The result of subsequent negotiations was the so-called ‘reputable peace’. Friendly relations were restored while both parties were to provide mutual assistance against each other’s enemies ‘according to ability and present conditions’ (arts. 1, 2, 3, and 5). The small fort at Pamban was returned to the Tevar along with the island of Rameswaram. In return, the Company would be permitted to establish a small residence near the fort ‘to serve the vessels of the Hon. Company’, while the Tevar had to keep a guard at the island of St. Cruz, assisted by a Company peon, in order to intercept all smugglers. At the same time, all vessels without Company safe conducts trying to sail through Pamban Channel were to be confiscated and the spoils divided in half (arts. 6, 7, 17, and 19). The Company would be exempt from tolls at Pamban, while paying only half of the tolls in the lands of the Tevar (arts. 8 and 11). The Tevar was granted an annual safe conduct for a vessel with chanks to Bengal, but his divers would not be allowed to catch chanks in the district of Mannaar and were to hand over all chanks in excess of a ship’s cargo to the Company against the going market rate at Tuticorin (arts. 14 and 15). The Tevar would also enjoy the ‘customary privileges’ in the pearl fishery, meaning three instead of five free thonis (art. 17). The crucial article, however, dealt with the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives, who, in accordance with the treaty of 1685, were to be kept out of office ‘since those people have been the major cause of the differences and disputes between the Hon. Company and the Tevar’.169

168 Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, pp. 123–124. The squadron did not return to Pondichéry until January 12, 1691. 169 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 400r–402v, Contract en alliantie van vreede tusschen de generale Compe. ende Regnade Catta Teuver, 7.9.1690; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 531–536.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 603

Following the ratification by Van Rheede on September 11, Lieutenant Pieter Hoogenlinden and Ensign Claes Isaaksz. were sent to Ramnad. On September 12, the two Dutch commissioners met Raghunatha Tevar, sitting under a tamarind tree on a katif [Arabic, ‘carpet’], amidst several foreign ambassadors and thousands of curious onlookers. The treaty was read aloud twice, both in Dutch and Tamil. Reaching the clause regarding the exclusion of the Periya Tambi and his relatives (art. 4), the two Dutch envoys reported,

Raghunatha Tevar told the Periya Tambi’s son standing nearby “Do you understand?” He subsequently took an oath on his rifle, that the son of the Periya Tambi or any of his relatives would never assume any office in the future, but should maintain themselves as merchants. Thereupon, we replied: “In that case, everything would be fine”. He then took the said son’s hand and pressed it with ours as a sign of friendship.

Arriving at the article concerning the Company residence near the fort on Rameswaram, Raghunatha Tevar requested that all Company servants should first leave the island and that only thereafter residents should be sent. For, he argued, if the Dutch were to stay, ‘everybody would say that the island has not been returned to me’. When the Dutch commissioners assured him that all would leave, the Marava ruler seemingly well-pleased, retorting: ‘Let them come, I will prepare a decent house for them’.170 The enforcement of the ‘reputable peace’ of 1690 proved to be as elusive as the earlier treaties. One year after the conclusion of peace, in September 1691, Van Rheede gave Governor Pijl of Ceylon permission to present Raghunatha Tevar with his safe conduct, but under protest that ‘if he were to continue the way he started the first year by having the Company plenipotentiaries run after him and not giving them any response, one would have to believe that he did not intend to observe and follow the latest contract. As a result, he will be treated by the Company in its own way’. This veiled threat notwithstanding, the Periya Tambi Maraikkayar and his relatives were to hold office until 1710, when Raghunatha Tevar’s successor, Thiru Udaya Tevar a.k.a. Vijaya Raghunatha Setupati (r. 1710–1725), for various reasons had the ‘young Periya Tambi’, the son

170 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 402v–404v, Rapp. ltnt. Hoogenlinden en vaandrig Isaaksz wegens haar wedervaren bij den heer Teuver in het tekenen van ‘t contract, 13.9.1690; Idem, f. 389r, Memorie voor de sergt. majoor Ph. Pijl op desselfs vertrek van Ramanacoil na Tutucorijn, 15.9.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, f. 873v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 15.9.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, ff. 105v–106r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 24.9.1690; Idem, f. 143v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 16.12.1690.

604 chapter 7 of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir, removed from office. One year earlier, in July 1709, the Company had made the concession by finally agreeing to station only five indigenous lascorins under a mestizo near the fort of Pamban, ‘since the purity of the island, the temple or pagoda and the holy river would have been defiled and maculated if a permanent guard of Europeans had been placed there, who are polluted and made impure by the consumption of cow meat’.171 Dutch-aranmanai relations between 1686 and 1690 were to revolve around the conflict between the ‘open door’ policy of Madurai’s central authorities and the ‘closed seas’ policy of the Company. Initially, however, the Dutch had to deal with the repeated requests of Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya for financial assistance in the conflict between the aranmanai and the Tevar following the revolt of Raja Surya Tevar. The Madurai pradhani and governor pressed Chief Van Vliet of Tuticorin several times for a loan of 10,000 rixdollars along with some curiosities and presents. Having learned from past experience, however, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon, in accordance with instructions from Batavia, in January 1687 decided to politely turn down these requests, ‘for it would be, as the proverb goes, “who lends to his friend, summons his enemy”, of which the Tevar is living proof’. Moreover, the Ceylon government argued, the word ‘loan’ was merely used by indigenous rulers as a term of convenience, since it was never their intention to reimburse it. However, in view of the recent deposition of Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka and the full assumption of power by Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, Colombo did acknowledge the need to congratulate the Madurai Nayaka.172 At the instigation of Chief Van Vliet of Tuticorin, the Ceylon government decided in April 1687 that Muttu Virappa Nayaka III was to be presented with a tusked elephant, some lories (a type of parrot), and 350 rixdollars in cash ‘since His Highness was in a position to cause great obstacles and impediments in the trade and purchase of textiles in his lands’. Unfortunately, the planned mission

171 voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 1540–1541, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 15.9.1691. See also: Idem, ff. 1472–1473, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan koopman Urselings en raad van Tuticorin, 13.8.1691; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, VI, pp. 651–652; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, IV, pp. 146–150, and 328–330; Shulman and Subrahmanyam, ‘Prince of Poets and Ports’, pp. 518–519; Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 292–294; Bes, ‘The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits’, p. 552. 172 voc 1420, obp 1687, f. 331v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 12.4.1686; Idem, ff. 55r– 55v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 20.5.1686; Idem, ff. 79v–80r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 9.9.1686; voc 913, bub 1687, f. 790, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 22.11.1686; Idem, ff. 120v–121r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1687.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 605 had to be postponed since there was no tusked elephant, ‘that large and hollow-stomached animal’, without imperfections available due to the heavy rains in western Ceylon, which had prevented the elephant hunt. Moreover, all five lories sent from Batavia had died upon or shortly after arrival at Colombo, ‘those birds apparently being too tender to survive any journey for long’.173 The projected mission did not materialise until 1689 and would be more the result of the clash between the mare clausum policy of the Company and the traditional mare liberum policy of the aranmanai rather than merely to congratulate Muttu Virappa Nayaka III. The intrusion of the French and English, in collusion with disaffected Asian merchants and rulers, set off the long-overdue embassy of the Company Assistant Nicolaes Welter in June 1689. In August 1688, several parcels of arecanuts belonging to the Konkani Brahmin merchant ‘Pollecarre’ or ‘Poelicare’ Pattar and several other Muslim merchants from Kayamkulam were seized at Manappad. A few weeks later, in early September, some envoys of the raja of Kayamkulam, ‘that troubled spirit’, requested restitution. At the instigation of the Ceylon government, Chief de Heijde and the Council of Tuticorin granted the request.174 Almost at the same time, in late August 1688, the Dutch confiscated two vessels arriving at Kayalpatnam from Vizhinjam in Travancore, which had violated the conditions of their safe conducts. The vessels were partly owned by the ‘famous Moor’ Mahmut Sen, his brother-in-law Kunji Raja Ali, both residents from Vizhinjam, and Chegu Salauddin and Setu Abd al-Qadir Maraikkayar, reportedly two Muslim inhabitants from Kayalpatnam. A few days later, the maniyakkarar of Melur visited Chief Van Vliet of Tuticorin, requesting in the name of his master, Aranga Pillai, that the two vessel should be released ‘because the people of said village [Kayalpatnam] were complaining heavily, claiming that they were unable

173 voc 1433, obp 1688, f. 454v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 7.4.1687; Idem, f. 14r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.4.1687; voc 914, bub 1687, f. 985, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 15.11.1687; Idem, f. 206v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; Idem, ff. 132v–133r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 14v–15r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; Idem, ff. 178v–179r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 10.7.1688; Idem, ff. 357v–358r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688; voc 915, bub 1688, f. 791, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 23.9.1688. 174 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 424v–425r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 19.8.1688; Idem, ff. 354r, and 357r–357v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 241–242. For information on ‘Poelicar’, see: s’ jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. 54, 159, 189, 190, 201, 203, 205, 206, 208, 210-212, 270, and 271.

606 chapter 7 to pay taxes if maritime trade were prevented’. As a result, ‘his master would be unable to pay the promised rent and the governor would surely be sensitive to this issue, which might cause disasters and disputes’. Although Van Vliet replied that the vessels had violated the conditions of their passes and that the Company was therefore entitled to confiscate the ships and cargoes, the Dutch chief of Tuticorin did not deem the scenario painted by the Melur maniyakkarar unlikely. In a subsequent letter to Batavia, he therefore recommended that the two vessels should be released ‘under a warning not to do so again in the future’.175 A more serious threat posed to the Company’s dominium maris than the violation of Dutch safe conducts and merely ignoring or breaking the rules of the redistributive system dictated by the Company was the attempt to operate outside of it by creating an alternative system via a marriage of convenience between the Company’s European rivals and disaffected Asian rulers, such as Shahaji Bhonsle of Tanjore in southern Coromandel, the Rani of Attingal, the Signatti of Quilon, the rajas of Kayamkulam and Purakkad, the Adersia or Ali Rajas of Cannanore and Zamorin of Calicut in Malabar, and the king of Kandy on Ceylon, and merchants, most notably the local Mappila and Kunjali Maraikkayar communities. By using the protection of English, French, Danish, and other European safe conducts, flags of convenience, and personnel, these Asian merchants and rulers managed to circumvent the restrictions of the Company’s ‘passes and protection rights’ system. As early as 1680, the Company Directors concluded that ‘the legal value of the passes has expired and time will apparently bring no changes for the better’.176

175 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 366v–368r, and 369r–369v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688. Vizhinjam fell under the joint authority of Bariatte Pillai, a high-ranking Nayar living in the vicinity of Quilon, and the Ettuvittil Pillamar of Travancore. 176 voc 1353, obp 1681, f. 662r, Vervolg van het 54ste artikel [van het generaal reglement] sprekende van de pascedullen en de vaart der Moren, 1680. For a discussion of Company policy vis-à-vis the safe conducts: Gaastra, Bewind en Beleid, pp. 131–134 et seq.; Vink, ‘Passes and Protection Rights’. For discussion of the unusually militant frontier society of the Kunjali and Mappila Maraikkayar communities: R.E. Miller, Mappila Muslims of Kerala: A Study in Islamic Trends, second edn. (Madras: Orient Longman, 1992), pp. 1–84; S.F. Dale, Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier: The Mappilas of Malabar 1498–1922 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 1–91; Nambiar, The Kunjalis, Admirals of Calicut. Nambiar’s work unfortunately merely covers the sixteenth-century struggle of the Kunjali Maraikkayars and the Portuguese ‘pirates’ until the capture of the Kotta fortress by the combined Luso-Calicut forces in March 1600. For a recent revisionist interpretation on the Mappila Maraikkayars at Cannanore (Kolathunadu): Mailaparambil, Lords of the Sea. See also: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, passim; M.O. Koshy, The

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In May 1688, a mission by the Pondichéry interpreter Kulantha, a Tamil Christian from the vicinity of São Tomé, to the court of Shahaji Bhonsle at Tanjore led to the founding of a French factory at Kaveripatnam near Karaikal in late 1688. At the same time, the Compagnie des Indes Orientales was active in the pepper trade at the markets or pettais around Trichinopoly. In September 1688, the Hindu jewel and blood coral merchant Deva Raja Chitti, operating from Kanchipuram, Tegenampatnam, and Pondichéry, visited the Madurai court in order to have a dispute with some other merchants settled by the aranmanai. The coral merchant seized the opportunity by asking permission to establish a French factory near the Parava church of St. Stephen at Kayalpatnam, promising 50,000 pardaus plus an immediate pearl fishery. Despite objections from the pradhani Alagiri Nayaka that it would inevitably lead to disputes with the Dutch and that he would be unable to raise his rent to the aranmanai due to the resulting loss of coastal revenues, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III and the majority of his councillors were inclined to grant the request. However, it was decided to consult the former pradhani Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya, who corroborated Alagiri Nayaka’s account, adding that ‘the Nayaka of Tanjore had fared very poorly by allowing two particular white nations [the French and Dutch] to establish factories [in his lands]’, though the final decision of course would be that of His Highness! The French request was turned down. Having been honoured with an ivory palanquin, the Hindu Chitti was told that although this time the request would be denied, next time he should return with some horses as presents when the issue would be discussed once more. The French did receive invitations from the Rani of Attingal (‘la reine de Triboutencourom’) to establish a factory near Cape Comorin in October 1689 and March 1690. By this time, however, Martin had already decided to halt all commercial activities in view of the outbreak of the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697). Van Rheede, for once, was correct when commenting on the talks of Deva Raja Chitti with the aranmanai, that it would be ‘unlikely that the French would send their Chitti to that ruler for a second time’.177

Dutch Power in Kerala (1729–1758) (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1989), pp. 9–41; Sreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History, pp. 217–222, and 239–272; Panikkar, A History of Kerala, pp. 185–230. 177 voc 1472, obp 1691, ff. 120v, and 171v–172r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 5.12.1688; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 315v–316r, Dagreg. Welter, 9.9.1689; voc 1477, obp 1691, ff. 269v–270r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 13.10.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, f. 144r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 865r–865v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 276, and 367; Vink, Mission to

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Profiting from the same disaffection amongst Asian rulers and merchants, the English established themselves on the periphery and made occasional incursions into Madurai itself. Having been invited by the Rani of Attingal to establish themselves at Ruttera, one of the two local English servants, Caleb Travers, visited Kottar in October 1687, and negotiated with a local Hindu merchant, Sidambren Marankutti Chitti, to supply the English with several hundred kachchais. If these sample textiles were satisfactory, Travers promised, larger orders from the eic would follow.178 Travers, second-in-command of Ruttera, returned in force one year later, in October 1688, at Kulasekharapatnam along with Thomas Pattle, third-in-command of Calicut, and the Calicut Muslim Merchant Isaiah Maraiyakkarar along with four heavily armed manchuas with arecanuts, opium, saffron, sappanwood, and dried fish. Travers and Pattle claimed that they were on a private trade mission, merely collecting some tobacco, which their servants had purchased the previous year, and had been unable to ship before the change of the monsoon. Moreover, ‘they had no intention whatsoever to harm the trade of the Hon. Company’. These assurances did not assuage Dutch fears. The Company kanakkapillai Pudhumai Valangai Pirumal reportedly had learned from a Hindu Chitti, heavily involved with the English, that ‘those harmful neighbours had solely undertaken this voyage to undercut us in our local trade, become acquainted with the regents, and erect a factory at Kulasekharapatnam, albeit not this but next time when they would come here again’. Similarly, the Calicut Muslims used the English to circumvent the Company prohibition not to trade south of Cochin and in the Bay of Madurai. Dutch alarm about the ‘rodomontades and

Madurai, pp. 67, 492 n. 306, 506–508, 507 n. 343, and 578; Kaeppelin, La Compagnie des Indes Orientales, pp. 165–171, 191–195, 219–230, and 252–278; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 174, 177, 191, 292, 546–547, 554, 567, 571, and 573–574; Idem, III, pp. 30, 57–58, and 85. Apparently, the aranmanai had failed to settle the dispute. In January 1690, François Martin mentions the quarrels of two coral merchants living at Pondichéry, one of which may have been Deva Raja Chitti. See: Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, pp. 74–75. 178 On his return to Rettura from Kottar, Travers also visited Kadiyapatnam and Colachel, two villages in southern Travancore near Cape Comorin. voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 211v–214r, and 221v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl, 29.11.1687; Idem, ff. 128v–129r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 14v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; Idem, ff. 155r–156r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.5.1688; voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 930r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 29.5.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 58v–59r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1688; s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, pp. lxiii–lxiv.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 609 boasts’179 of the English were reinforced by the claims of Isaiah Maraikkayar that two large ships and six smaller vessels were to follow. Protests by the Dutch residents of Manappad, Pieter Roos and Hubert Caperman, to the local officials of the aranmanai were to no avail. The muppan of Kulasekharapatnam, Chidambaranatha Chitti, promised that he would explicitly forbid the English from exporting any tobacco ‘since he valued the friendship of the Hon. Company more than these European strangers, even if it were to cause him losses’. But he asked to be excused in case the armed Muslims would load the tobacco using force and disregarding his orders, ‘for he did not dare to assume responsibility for opposing the violence of the Calicut Moors, who would not refrain from using it, since many disasters would ensue, which he would be unable to prevent’. When pressed again a few days later, the muppan asserted that, though he had prohibited the English and Calicut Muslims from continuing to load their vessels, they had gone ahead without heeding his orders in the least. Dutch suspicions about the collusion between the local officials of the aranmanai and the visitors were fed by reports that the muppan had secretly collected the tolls of the tobacco and that the ‘European strangers’ had presented him and his councillors with some Bengal textiles and Spanish reals. Protests to the English (‘those unreasonable and quarrelsome tormenters’) were similarly ignored. When Roos and Caperman called the attention of Travers and Pattle to the 1668 Treaty of Commerce (‘Tractaet de Marine’) between England and the States General on behalf of the two East India Companies, the Company’s right of conquest on the Madurai Coast, and the explicit prohibition of the muppan, the English retorted that the Treaty of Commerce was only applicable to lands and places, where the Dutch could claim to exercise full possession, ‘and that they knew very well that they [the Dutch] had no ownership or possession in these lands at all, and that they [the English] were as free to trade here as we were when the ruler of the land was not opposed to it’. To the chagrin of the Dutch, on November 2, the English and Calicut Muslims left Kulasekharapatnam unharmed, carrying a large quantity of tobacco, along with some coarse and fine textiles and cotton yarn.180

179 Rodomontade, ‘boastful talk or behaviour’, a reference to Rodomonte, king of Sarza and Algiers and the leader of the Saracen army besieging Charlemagne in Paris, an arrogant and boasting character from the Italian Renaissance romantic poems Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo (1440/1–1494) and its sequel Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533). 180 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 448r–448v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 25.10.1688; Idem, ff. 449r–449v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 26.10.1688; Idem, ff. 450r–450v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 27.10.1688; Idem, ff. 451r, and

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To the self-righteous Dutch, the intrusion of the English was a breach of their proclaimed sacrosanct positive law of pacta sunt servanda (though, when convenient, the Honourable Company itself was never above disregarding this axiom of faith). As Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon observed to Batavia: ‘though the Malabar and other rulers have concluded exclusive contracts with the Hon. Company, it seems that they let themselves be corrupted and allow the English to trade in their lands as well’. Or, as Commander Isaacq van Dielen and the Council of Malabar put it to the Company Directors in January 1689, ‘where one speaks the language of gold, the violation of contracts and sworn loyalty is no longer deemed a sin’.181 In October 1689, an English pirate vessel, reportedly belonging to James Scott, the 1st Duke of Monmouth, called at Manappad, carrying 120 men and 36 pieces of cannon. The ship, however, left after having cruised the Bay of Madurai for several days in vain.182 During the same month, the Company resident of Virapandiyapatnam, Cornelis Huijs, was murdered by the crew of two

452r–452v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 28.10.1688; Idem, ff. 453r–455v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 29.10.1688; Idem, ff. 455v–456v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 30.10.1688; Idem, f. 472r, Miss. Travers en Pattle aan captn. Van Vliet te Tuticorin, 16.10.1688 (Old Style); Idem, f. 457v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 3.11.1688; Idem, ff. 458r–458v, Miss. residenten van Manapaar aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 4.11.1688; Idem, f. 426r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en secunde Kaperman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 6.11.1688; Idem, ff. 434v–436r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.11.1688; Idem, f. 97v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.12.1688; Idem, ff. 245r–245v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1689; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 278. For the Treaty of Commerce: Tractaet de Marine Tussen den Grootmachtigsten Prince Karel de II. Koning van Groot Brittanien, &c. Ter Eenre; En de Ho. Mog. Heeren Staten Generael der Vereenigde Nederlanden, Ter Andere Zijde, Gesloten in den Hage den 17 Februarij 1668 (Rotterdam: Joris Redelickhuysen, 1668). 181 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 98r–98v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.12.1688; voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 76r–76v, Miss. commr. Van Dielen en raad van Malabar aan H. XVII, 17.1.1689. 182 voc 1463, obp 1690, ff. 401v–402r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan Batavia, 13.10.1689; voc 1468, f. 129r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 14.11.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 151v–152r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 866v–867r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690. In November 1689, François Martin reported the arrival of an English corsair at the Gingeli coast [the Golconda coast], which had previously seized a Portuguese vessel from Goa. Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, III, pp. 62, and 83.

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Calicut vessels under the Muslim merchant Manik Chali.183 According to the Dutch version, Huijs was killed when politely asking the ‘Moorish pirates’ for their safe conducts. According to the Calicut account, however, Manik Chali, reportedly ‘a decent merchant’, had been given a severe flogging by the Dutch resident and was therefore forced to resort to ‘that extremity’ and kill Huijs.184 In March 1691, Venkatesa Ayya, the governor of Tirunelveli, permitted the English to establish a factory at Manappad, whereupon one boat and six manchuas from Calicut visited the Madurai port. Authorised by the Zamorin, the Company set out to intercept these vessels, but merely managed to capture one, while the others successfully beached their vessels at Manappad. Pressed by the English at Calicut, Van Rheede in November 1691 ordered that the vessels and commodities of the English should be given free passage, unlike those belonging to the Calicut Muslims.185 The incursions of the Europeans, ‘these harmful neighbours’ and their close collaboration with disaffected indigenous merchants and rulers, was particularly worrisome to Company servants, who considered the partnership ‘one of the most damaging incidents which can befall the Hon. Comp. on this coast’. Not only did the European-Asian marriage of convenience render the ‘passes and protection rights’ system obsolete and undermine existing Company privileges at the Madurai Coast, but the Dutch feared that the proximity of the Europeans to Ceylon would incite the young ruler of Kandy and the ‘malevo- lent’ court nobles against the Company. As Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon put it in November 1688 to Van Rheede: ‘If we cannot oppose them with force, the Company’s respect, reputation, trade, and prerogatives [on the

183 ‘Sjalij’, ‘Chialij’, possibly from Chulia, Tamil Muslim merchant class, and/or from Chaliyam, port settlement at the mouth of the Beypur (Beypore) River near Calicut controlling the inner waterways between the Zamorin ports of Calicut and Ponnani. 184 voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 327r–332r, Vijf verklaringen wegens de aankomst van 2 Moorse vaartuigen op Wirandepatn. en moord op Cies. resident Cornelis Huijs, 29.10.1689; Idem, ff. 128v–129r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 14.11.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, f. 151v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 867r–867v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 370; Instr. comms. Van Rheede voor commr. Van Dielen en raad van Malabar, 23.11.1691, in: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 245; Memorie comms. De Roo voor comms. Van Ommen en raad van Malabar, 11.4.1695, in: s’Jacob (ed.), De Nederlanders in Kerala, p. 275. 185 voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 1466–1467, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan koopman Urselings en raad van Tuticorin, 13.8.1691; Idem, ff. 1546–1547, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticorin, 14.11.1691; Idem, ff. 1549–1550, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticorin, 28.11.1691.

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Madurai Coast] will collapse and we would undoubtedly get embroiled in war with the Sinhalese since they are a faithless and fickle nation’. Or, as the High Government warned the Company Directors, ‘today or tomorrow he [Vimala Dharma Surya II of Kandy] would use one of these [European] nations to chase the Dutch from the island in the same manner as [Raja Sinha II had used us to expel] the Portuguese’.186 Subsequent diplomatic protests to the English and aranmanai had little effect, where the Company, in its own words, seemed to ‘knock on a deaf man’s door’. The English heeded neither the Company’s alleged right of conquest nor the contract, the Peace of Kayatar, which the Dutch had concluded with the aranmanai in December 1669 excluding other European nations from the Madurai Coast, and referred the Dutch to those who had made these agreements with them.187

186 voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 426r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en secunde Kaperman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 6.11.1688; Idem, f. 230r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 26.11.1688; Idem, ff. 99r–99v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 27.12.1688; Idem, f. 246v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1689; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 237. 187 In fact, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon were doubtful about the legality of the Company’s claims to the exclusion of other European nations based on the right of conquest and the Treaty of Kayatar (1669): ‘It is true that the Portuguese have always claimed that right [of conquest], but when the Hon. Company had a residence at Kayalpatnam [between 1645 and 1648], their [the Portuguese] claim has been contested [by a protest of Governor Joan Thijssen of Ceylon, 1640–1646]. Concerning the contract concluded with Governor Vadamalaiyappa Pillai [in 1669], it is true that it does exclude all other Europeans. However, the governor can merely be viewed as a temporary tax farmer of the lands and until now the said [contract] has not yet been ratified or approved by the landlord or Nayaka. If we disputed the right of conquest in the times of the Portuguese as being an unlawful claim, how can we rightfully argue now that we have succeeded them?’ Van Rheede did not share the qualms of the Ceylon government. In July 1689, the Dutch commissioner general replied that the Company should use the arguments previously employed by the Portuguese in their reply or counterprotest to the letter of Governor Thijssen adding: ‘If we in this century were to refer to the law of nations in Brazil, the English and French West Indies, Nova Hispania, and even in France and England, one would surely laugh at us, since everyone claims to have acquired a singular right similar to the one which the Portuguese previously enjoyed in the Bay of Madurai with regard to the sea. This fact is shown in the pearl fisheries, which after all constituted a public right and belonged undisputedly to them. However, let us hope that the occasion will never arise when the Hon. Company will be forced to finally settle and maintain that right by force of arms’. voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 78r–78v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 7.5.1689; Idem, ff. 449v–450r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 12.7.1689. See also: voc 1447, obp 1689, ff. 1234r–1234v, Miss. comms. Van

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Venkatadri Nayaka, the governor of Tirunelveli and brother of the pradhani Alagiri Nayaka, was told that ‘if he did not deny entrance to the foreign nations in accordance with the contract, we intended to maintain [our rights] by force’. The Madurai official was informed of the Company’s resolution, ‘so that he could contemplate the ensuing ruin and destruction’. Recognising that the Company was in no position to make good on its threat to enforce the exclusive clause of the 1669 Treaty of Kayatar, the governor’s written reply was ‘very feeble’, arguing that ‘no other nation would be given precedence over and sur- pass’ the Dutch. According to Van Vliet, the olai, written in Tamil, had been worded in such an ambiguous way, that ‘in no way one can conclude that His Honour would turn away other Europeans’. The Dutch chief of Tuticorin was of the opinion that the officials of the aranmanai and other indigenous rulers ‘would try to have it both ways’. Thus, they would never contradict any of the Company protests, but would merely ‘proffer fine words and not accede to our desires unless expecting more profits from us through gifts and favours than from others or foreseeing more damage inflicted on them by us than advantage derived from the English’. The option of force, however, was rejected as being unprofitable and not in line with the current mercantile policy of the Company. In shrill contrast to the ‘Coen doctrine’, the High Government in October 1689 reminded the Ceylon government that there was a fundamental conflict and ‘incompatibility between war and trade’.188 As the use of actual violence against the English themselves (and until the outbreak of the Nine Years’ War the French as well) was out of the question because of diplomatic repercussions in Europe and ‘persuasion and protests’ had been proven ineffective, other peaceful venues to assert Company claims to the right of conquest and possession of the Madurai Coast needed to be found. In November 1688, Van Vliet proposed that the seat of the Madurai Coast itself was to protected by the placement of three heavy guns on one of the two islands in front of Tuticorin (‘t Haseneijlant’ or Muyal Tivu and ‘Polanes eijlant’ or Punnaiyadi Tivu) in order to properly salute visiting foreign vessels and visibly demonstrate Company possession, while the other Parava seaports

Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.12.1688; voc 1478, obp 1691, ff, 128–129, Secrete miss. Van Rheede aan gouvr Pijl van Ceijlon, 28.12.1688. 188 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 228v–229r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 26.11.1688; Idem, ff. 388v–391r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688; Idem, f. 247r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1689; voc 916, bub 1689, ff. 833–834, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 10.10.1689.

614 chapter 7 were to be effectively claimed by stationing Dutch Company servants and erecting flagpoles waving the flag of the Prince of Orange. In addition, Governor Pijl and the Council of Ceylon suggested that the two holes in Van Vliet’s system, Kayalpatnam and Kulasekharapatnam, ‘the doors to their [the English] bold entrance into these lands’, should be plugged by leasing them from the aranmanai. Van Vliet and the Council of Tuticorin, however, believed that Pijl’s suggestion to lease these two ports did not stand a chance from the very start. In December 1688, they argued that there was ‘no hope whatsoever’ that the aranmanai would ever concede this request. First, they cited the great ‘distrust and envy’ of the Tirunelveli governors, fearing that the Company would gain too much influence on the coast. Van Vliet and Council referred to a recent incident, in which the Madurai officials ‘caused great commotion and turmoil’ over the pillars raised at one of the islands in front of Tuticorin to construct a warehouse for the storage of lime. Repeatedly, the Tirunelveli governor had dispatched Brahmins to keep an eye on its progress, while the maniyakkarar of Melur had prohibited the bricklayers from continuing their work. Second, the lease of Kayalpatnam and Kulasekharapatnam would constitute ‘no small wound in the body politic of the regedor [governor]’ since it deprived him from drawing extraordinary revenues from these two villages through the arbitrary arrest of merchants, the rapid turnover and expulsion of maniyakkarars, and other subterfuges. Moreover, his councillors, clerks, and moneychangers would no longer be able to demand payment for their services and favours. The maniyakkarar of the district of Kulasekharapatnam, for instance, annually paid the governor 20,000 pardaus plus an undetermined amount in presents, the governor’s courtiers another 2,000 pardaus, while the maintenance of lascorins, kanakkapillais, and so forth, required 2,000 pardaus more. In turn, the maniyakkarar of the district of Kayalpatnam paid the gover- nor 6,000 pardaus in pakuti or tribute, 1,000 pardaus in ventikkol, and another 1,000 pardaus in gifts and presents, whereas the upkeep of his own military and civil staff amounted to 2,000 pardaus.189

189 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 428r–429v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en secunde Kaperman van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 6.11.1688; Idem, f. 229v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 26.11.1688; Idem, ff. 388v–394v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl, 11.12.1688; voc 1447, obp 689, f. 1234v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 28.12.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 247v–248v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1689; voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 1237r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 6.2.1689. Van Vliet and the Council of Tuticorin also produced a list of the privileges of the Company at each of the respective ports along the Madurai Coast: voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 391r–391v,

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The most effective and safest way to deny the European competitors entrance was indirectly via indigenous rulers. Simultaneous with missions to Tanjore and Travancore, the Company decided to dispatch an embassy with presents to Muttu Virappa Nayaka III. In December 1688, Van Vliet suggested to use the Company Assistant Nicolaes Welter and one or two soldiers provided with an elephant, a Persian horse, and other gifts in a mission to the aranmanai. The Dutch envoy was to request, among other things, the exclusion of all other Europeans by His Highness in accordance with the Peace of Kayatar of 1669 ‘since the residence of others often leads to disputes and disasters harmful to the country and its people’. Van Vliet, however, advised against pressing for the lease of Kayalpatnam and Kulasekharapatnam, which would also require a more substantial mission and a much larger present.190

Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688; Idem, ff. 398r–400r, Notitie van de gerechtigheden op Tuticorin bij d’E Comp. getrokken, 11.12.1688; Idem, ff. 400r–401r, Lijste van d’E Comps. gerechtigheid op Bai- en Bempaar, 11.12.1688; Idem, ff. 401r–403r, Notitie van de gerechtigheden van d’E Comp. tot Ponnekail, Caijl, en Wierandepatnam, mitsgs. Caijlveljo, 11.12.1688; Idem, ff. 403v–405r, Aenwijsinge van ‘t geen ten tijde der Portugeesen en nu ten huijdigen dage alhier in Mannapaer werd betaeld, 11.12.1688; Idem, ff. 405v–406r, Aenwijsinge van ‘t geene d’pattangatijns en basaer- meester der dorpen Manapaer, Tale, en Alandale comen te genieten, 11.12.1688; Idem, ff. 407v–408r, Notitie der gerechtigheden en tollen bij de voc gevorderd op de kust van Madure naar ‘t voorbeeld der Portugezen, 11.12.1688. For the belated approval of Batavia to attempt to lease Kayalpatnam and Kulasekharapatam: voc 916, bub 1689, ff. 833–834, Miss. GG en R aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 10.10.1689. 190 voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 394v–397r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688. For the missions of the Company kanakkapillai and interpreter Jean Picotti in November 1687 and October 1688, and Commander Isaacq van Dielen of Malabar in May 1689, and Dutch relations with Kerala Varma of Travancore, the Ettuvittil Pillamar, Bariatte Pillai, and the Rani of Attingal: voc 1433, obp 1688, ff. 212v–214r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 29.11.1687; Idem, f. 226r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 30.11.1687; Idem, ff. 130r–130v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 18.1.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, f. 14v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 7.3.1688; Idem, ff. 155r–156r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 6.5.1688; voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 930r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 29.5.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 58v–59r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 6.6.1688; voc 1449, obp 1689, ff. 456r–456v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperk. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 16.8.1688; voc 1446, obp 1689, ff. 366v–368r, Miss. opperk. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 3.9.1688; Idem, ff. 432v–434v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 7.11.1688; Idem, ff. 382r–384v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl van Ceijlon, 11.12.1688; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 242–243. For the ‘olai of promise’ from the Rani of Attingal

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Temporarily delayed by the incursion of Mysore into Madurai and the arrival of a Mughal envoy at Ramnad, in June 1689 the Company Assistant Nicolaes Welter departed from Punnaikayal accompanied by a retinue consisting of the Company soldier Jan Melisse van der Vaart and fifty indigenous servants, with presents including an elephant, a Persian horse, two civet cats, precious textiles, fine spices, sandalwood, ‘rose water’, and various preserves.191 Welter’s instructions were to request ratification of the ‘provisional treaty’ of Kayatar and the exclusion of all other Europeans. Trade at the Madurai ports was only to be conducted by vessels carrying Dutch safe conducts, while a written order should be issued that all merchants, painters, weavers, and washermen working for the Company would be subject only to the ordinary taxes. The lease of Kayalpatnam and Kulasekharapatnam was included in Welter’s original instructions. In June 1689, however, the Ceylon government ordered Tuticorin that this issue was not to be brought up in order not to jeopardise the issue of exclusion of other Europeans unless the governor himself would request a loan from the Company. In addition to the negotiations with Madurai’s central authorities, Welter was also to hold conversations with the local merchants and induce them to trade at Ceylon. Similar to the mission of Adolff Bassingh 12 years before, Welter’s assignment was also one of commercial and political reconnaissance. He was to inform himself of the indigenous trade in pepper and arecanuts, textiles, indigo, and other commodities, their sale prices, expenses of tolls and freightage they were subject to, the volume of trade, commercial routes, and so forth. Finally, he was to gather information about the political situation in the interior, in particular about the friends and enemies of the aranmanai and the recent progress of Aurangzeb.192

of May 1689, which was subsequently disregarded: voc 1464, obp 1690, f. 103v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 18.6.1689; Idem, ff. 129v–130r, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 30.6.1689; voc 1477, obp 1691, f. 258v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 26.7.1689; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, p. 335; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, p. 498. For the mission of Junior Merchant Arnoldus Zoolmans in 1688 to Shahaji Bhonsle of Tanjore: voc 1472, obp 1691, ff. 119r–120v, and 171v–172r, Miss. gouvr. Pit en raad van Coromandel aan H. XVII, 5.12.1688; Martineau (ed.), Mémoires de François Martin, II, pp. 563–564, 567–568, 571, and 573–574; Idem, III, pp. 30, and 57. For an earlier contract by Van Rheede with Shahaji in March 1688: Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 446–450. 191 The 1689 Welter mission is one of the three embassies discussed in detail in: Vink, Mission to Madurai, esp. pp. 381–590. 192 voc 1447, obp 1689, f. 1237v, Misss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin, 6.2.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 224r–238r, Instr. Van Vliet en raad van

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Upon his arrival at Trichinopoly, Welter was granted an audience with Muttu Virappa Nayaka III on July 7. The Dutch envoy found the Madurai ruler

in a room open in front sitting on a small katif wearing a white Moorish dress and pearl necklace (each one of them the size of a small pea) around the neck. The place where His Highness was seated was built 1½ feet above the front of the room. Its dome rested on several pillars, His Highness leaning against one of them. To the left and behind the ruler sat several court notables, while some servants were standing on both sides… During my audience with His Highness, none of the notables uttered a single word. The ruler himself did the talking using Vaduga [Telugu]…I must confess that nothing in the few words I have exchanged with His Highness, who is still only 18 years young and of a brave posture, indicated or made me come to the conclusion that he might be out of his senses.

In a second audience on August 18, Welter was escorted deeper into the palace to the private quarters of the Nayaka ruler, who was dressed in similar fashion as before, but without wearing any jewels or gold ornaments and without the presence of any of his councillors. Both times, the conversation merely consisted in the exchange of pleasantries and gifts with Muttu Virappa Nayaka III inquiring ‘whether there would be a pearl fishery anytime soon since there had been none in twenty years’. Reportedly, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III’s autocratic style of ruling originated from his attempt ‘to forcefully maintain his sovereignty and to personally govern his lands, which his predecessors and especially his father [Chokkanatha Nayaka] had administered by others to the great detriment of the realm…’. In addition, it probably was also a reaction to the usurpation by his uncle and talavay Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka between 1682 and 1686, followed by the ‘great conspiracy’ of 1686.193 A first round of talks with Muttu Mudaliyar, plenipotentiary of the pradhani Alagiri Nayaka, and the head uriyakkarar Venkatapati Nayaka as representatives of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III was hardly encouraging. To the request for renewal of the 1669 Treaty of Kayatar, Muttu Mudaliyar retorted that the Company had not kept its part of the bargain by not annually sending an

Tuticorin aan asst. Welter in zijn optocht naar Trichinopoli, 14.5.1689; Idem, ff. 299v–302r, Dagreg. Welter, 9.9.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 152v–153r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; voc 1459, obp 1690, f. 868v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 491–494, and 565–568. 193 voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 263r–264r, 274v, and 286v–287r, Dagreg. Welter, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 452–454, 462, 474–475, 539–540, 547, and 555.

618 chapter 7 elephant to the Nayaka. Thereupon, a surprised Welter countered that ‘he had never heard of such a request, asking His Honour to please inform him since he was unaware of the existence of such a contract, by whom and when it had been made?’ The two aranmanai delegates promised to suggest the exclusion of other Europeans to Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, while the ‘reasonable request’ for a written order of the Madurai ruler prohibiting the governors and maniyakkarars from imposing no more than the ordinary taxes led to a ‘protracted discussion’. In vain Welter asserted that it would lead to an increase in trade and subsequently more profits for the aranmanai. Using ‘many offensive arguments’, Muttu Mudaliyar responded that the request could not be permitted and ‘that everything should remain as the Hon. Company had contracted with Vadamalaiyappa Pillai’. Finally, Welter’s long exposé on the detrimental actions of the ‘Malabar pirates’ sailing without Company safe conducts and his request that they would not be granted access to the Madurai seaports apparently was left unanswered.194 The tone of the negotiations, however, improved dramatically following a palace revolution, involving the deposition of Alagiri Nayaka and the restoration of Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya as pradhani on August 13. A second round of talks with Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya’s commissioners, the merchants Venkatapati Narayanappa Ayya and Chidambaranatha Chitti, was quickly followed by the issue of an olai by Muttu Virappa Nayaka III six days later. Although the contents were not quite to the liking of Welter, he was forced to give up his attempt to insert some last-minute changes when his objections seemed to make the pradhani ‘somewhat peevish’ with his kanakkapillai asking rather irritatedly, ‘whether we had come here to make new laws?’ In his olai, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III expressed his satisfaction with the presents received and promised that the contract concluded in the time of Vadamalaiyappa Pillai would be maintained. No other ‘whites, regardless of what nation’ would be allowed residence in the lands of the aranmanai, while the merchants, painters, and washermen working for the Company would only have to pay ‘the tribute which they owe to the aranmanai’. The arrears of individuals indebted to the Company would be collected ‘in accordance with the law of these districts’, and the smugglers would be denied entrance at all ports ‘when pointed out by your Honour’. To ensure proper observation of this olai and to maintain friendly relations, however, the Company would be

194 Idem, ff. 299r–302v, Dagreg. Welter, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 490–495, and 565–567.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 619 obliged to send ‘sufficient presents in accordance with the requests of the aranmanai’.195 The outcome of Welter’s talks with several local merchants of Tiruman galampettai, the main market or pettai near Trichinopoly, such as Rengappa Chitti and Kayala Chitti, hardly went any better than the negotiations with Madurai’s central authorities. Tuticorin and the Madurai Coast were clearly not within the catchment area of Trichinopoly. Thus, the merchants declared that ‘to fetch the goods themselves from Tuticorin was beyond their ability and, if they were inclined to [trade with the Company], Nagapatnam would be much closer than Tuticorin’. They were willing to trade with the Company, but only if the goods were brought to Trichinopoly, especially since these imported commodities, for which there was only a very limited market, were already brought in from Srivilliputtur by several boieiros. Only Rengappa Chitti, who already had commercial dealings with the Company merchants André Fernando and Mardappa Chitti, was eager to trade with the Dutch, offering to buy 40,000– 50,000 pardaus in gold and silver from the Company at the time. However, when Welter had him checked out, the creditworthiness of the Hindu Chitti apparently was much smaller than his promises.196 The Ceylon government received the outcome of Welter’s mission with mixed emotions. Governor Pijl and the Council considered the ratification of the 1669 contract and the exclusion of other Europeans as positive outcomes. However, they regretted the fact that Welter had been unable to procure a ‘special act of ratification instead of the said olai.’ Moreover, they had little faith that the oppression of the merchants, weavers, painters, and washermen working for the Company would end anytime soon ‘since it was in the interest of the revenue farmer’s or governor’s interest, who will always claim that, no matter how heavy the people are being taxed, that it is the ordinary tribute’.197

195 Idem, f. 312v, Dagreg. Welter, 9.9.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 191r–192v, Transl. ola Ranga Kistna Muttu Virappa Naik, vorst van Madure, aan opperk. Van Vliet, 19.8.1689; voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 113v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 10.9.1689; Idem, f. 118r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.9.1689; Coolhaas (ed.), Generale Missiven, V, pp. 369–370; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 506–508; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 503–504, and 575–576. 196 voc 1468, obp 1691, ff. 291v, 317v–318r, and 320r–323r, Dagreg. Welter, 9.9.1689; Vink, Mission to Madurai, pp. 482, 510, 514–517, 558, 579–580, and 582–584. 197 voc 1468, obp 1691, f. 118r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.9.1689; voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 143v–144r, and 153r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689; voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 863r–865v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 26.1.1690. As early as November 1689, the Ceylon government complained to the High Government about the ‘tyrannious methods’ employed to oppress the

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Following the incursion of the Madurai army in Travancore, Welter was again called upon to visit Muttu Virappa Nayaka III at Srivaikuntam near Alvar Tirunagari. Though Welter himself did not meet the Madurai ruler in person, the Company interpreter on February 14, 1690, had ‘an undiplomatic encounter’ with Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya. When the Madurai pradhani was informed that Welter had brought neither elephants nor horses from Aceh to his master, he indignantly replied ‘that his lord was neither a beggar, nor had he come to receive an alms from the Honourable Company, which was conducting such great commerce in the ruler’s lands, and that [Welter] could better leave with the present’. The same night, the Madurai finance minister dispatched Karuppa Chitti, the maniyakkarar of Melur, to Tuticorin in order to request Chief Van Vliet for a considerable present and to have some oysters caught ‘since his lord was very curious about them’. Seizing the occasion, Van Vliet complained about the ‘indiscreet encounter’ of the Company interpreter at Srivaikuntam, adding the Dutch were ‘friends and no subjects of the Lord Nayaka, and should not be laid down the laws’. The next day, on February 15, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya visited the Company settlement in person. This time, the Madurai pradhani showed himself from his pleasant side. Expressing his affection for the Company, he assured Van Vliet that he would make sure that the contract with Vadamalaiyappa Pillai along with everything else the Company ever desired would be ratified and engraved on a silver olai. The pradhani added that ‘the factory was small and should be enlarged since it merely covered a space for the sowing of 2 kattha [1 kattha=80 square yards] of sand’. Coming to the point, the finance minister concluded his exposé with a request for a large present. Though he was given some fine textiles, spices, and ‘rose water’, he left evidently dissatisfied. Shortly after his departure, the pradhani sent two representatives, asking for a loan of 5,000 pardaus or 15,000 guilders and an Aceh horse for his private use. The request, however, was turned down ‘since the Hon. Company was in need of her own money in view of the impending pearl fishery and not provided with Aceh horses’. Though Van Vliet was willing to present the Nayaka with 650 pardaus or 1,950 guilders, Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya demanded 4,000 pardaus or 12,000 guilders, along with four Aceh horses and an elephant. Thereupon, the Dutch Chief of Tuticorin sent him an olai, informing the pradhani ‘that he had neither been qualified to donate such a large sum, nor did he dispose of what His Honour so eagerly asked for on behalf of the Lord Nayaka’.

indigenous merchants and weavers: voc 1464, obp 1690, ff. 143r–143v, and 152r–152v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 23.11.1689. For similar complaints: Anthonisz (ed.), Memoir of Thomas van Rhee, p. 33.

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The 1,500 oysters sent to Muttu Virappa Nayaka were gratefully accepted by the Madurai ruler, but Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya was highly displeased, claiming that, in view of the ‘coming down’ of the Nayaka, the Company was bound to present at least 100,000 pardaus or 300,000 guilders. Moreover, the Dutch were to do so on an annual basis ‘as the Hon. Company had constructed a fortress here and had established itself as regent of the beaches’. If the Company did not comply with his wish, the pradhani threatened, ‘he could raze everything and trample the fort’. Commenting on the ‘unsteady discourses of the Lord Pradhani’, Chief Van Vliet of Tuticorin argued that it was fuelled by greed, trusting that, on second thought, the aranmanai would not follow up on its threats ‘for it would be of too great a consequence and, as far as we can conjecture, not to the benefit of the ruler.198 Though Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya’s harrassment of the Company did not produce immediate results, his insistence eventually did pay off. He subsequently forced Karuppa Chitti, the maniyakkarar of Melur, to pay a fine of 15,000 pardaus or 45,000 guilders under the accusation of having turned a blind eye to the construction of a fort by the Company. Moreover, following the arrival of Van Rheede at Tuticorin in March 1690, the Dutch commissioner general realised it would be impossible not to present the Nayaka of Madurai with something substantive. In April 1690, he ordered the Ceylon government to provide him with two of the ‘most beautiful and largest tusked elephants’ along with ‘something peculiar’ from the Company warehouses.199 The opportunity to present these gifts came sooner than expected. On July 28, 1690, Muttu Virappa Nayaka III, in one of his characteristic spur-of-the- moment actions, paid another lightning surprise visit to Palaiyakkayal. As the Madurai ruler wished to speak with Van Rheede, the Dutch commissioner general jumped on the opportunity to conclude a ‘contract of alliance’ in order ‘to restore the trade in textiles and other commodities’. Apart from the two elephants and ‘something peculiar’ from the Ceylon warehouses, Van Rheede also subsequently lent the aranmanai 10 gunners and the accompanying pieces of artillery.200

198 voc 1459, obp 1690, ff. 941v–948r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.2.1690. 199 Idem, ff. 948r–948v, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan comms. Van Rheede, 19.2.1690; Idem, ff. 951v–952r, Miss. opperh. Van Vliet en raad van Tuticorin aan comms. Van Rheede, 27.2.1690; voc 1470, obp 1691, f. 844v, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan gouvr. Pijl, g’eligeerd gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 29.4.1690; voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 69r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Rheede, 22.5.1690. 200 voc 1478, obp 1691, f. 1156, Secrete miss. comms. Van Rheede aan commr. Blom en raad van Jaffnapatnam, 29.7.1690; Idem, f. 515, Miss. comms. Van Rheede aan Batavia, 23.9.1690.

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The ‘contract of alliance’ contained many of the articles of the ‘olai of assurance’ of August 1689, along with a few additional clauses. The Company was to pay only half of the tolls in the lands of Madurai (art. 2), while no other European nations would be allowed to reside or trade at the Madurai Coast (art. 3). The merchants and labourers working for the Company and provided with cash advances, would not be harmed or obstructed by any of the aranmanai servants (art. 5). The treaty also called for military cooperation as each party was to assist the other ‘as far as possible’ when attacked by enemies (art. 7). Finally, the revenues of Tuticorin (including Melur) and all its dependencies were leased to the Company for ‘merely’ 3,120 pardaus or 9,360 guilders per year, though reportedly the actual revenues amounted to 6,120 pardaus or 18,360 guilders. These revenues including the tribute of the neighbouring hamlets, the coastal and inland tolls and duties, and the income of the nearby saltpans (art. 8) (see Table 31).201 Van Rheede’s hopes, however, that the contract would bring the Company ‘a great advantage’ proved to be unfounded. Since Muttu Virappa Nayaka III left as suddenly as he had arrived, the contract was subsequently signed by his ambassador Vasantha Nayaka. The two copies sent after the Madurai ruler to Trichinopoly were never ratified. As Governor Pijl of Ceylon observed in his memorandum to his successor, Thomas van Rhee, in January 1692: ‘Despite the expectation that the trade would improve, Your Honour is fully aware of the outcome of the conference of his High Honour [Van Rheede] with the Lord Nayaka, who had been gifted such a wonderful present’. As a result, Pijl wryly observed, ‘the concept which his High Honour sought to achieve to place everything on a better footing…apparently has been thwarted’.202 In June 1711,

In May 1692, three of the ten gunners returned unexpectedly from Trichinopoly at Tuticorin, complaining about the continuous insults they had endured and the lack of payment during their stay at the Madurai capital. Their decision to leave the service of the aranmanai in April 1692 was made in the wake of the death of Muttu Virappa Nayaka III and the subsequent flight of the talavay Talakartan Tirumalai Nayaka to Ariyalur. They recounted that five of their comrades had already fled before them in March 1690 to Tanjore, while the other two had died while at Trichinopoly. voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 417v–418r, Relaas 3 bosschieters die voor dato door comms. Van Rheede aan de vorst van Madure geleend zijn, 14.5.1692; voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 1133r–1133v, Kort relaas opperh. Bergaigne der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter kuste Madure, 30.11.1692. 201 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 405r–405v, Contract van alliance tussen Renga Kistna Mouttou Wierapa Naick en Van Rheede, 29.7.1690; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando- Indicum, III, pp. 528–530. 202 voc 1491, obp 1692, ff. 511r–511v, Instr. Pijl, oud-gouvr. van Ceijlon, voor gouvr. Van Rhee en raad van Ceijlon, 28.1.1692. Reportedly, because of the non-ratification, Van Rheede subsequently held a ‘certain grudge’ against Muttu Virappa Nayaka III. voc 1505, obp

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 623 twenty-one years after the ‘contract of alliance’ of 1690, a new agreement was concluded with Vijayaranga Chokkanatha (r. 1706–1732) in another futile attempt to create safeguards against the oppression of the aranmanai and the intrusion of other European nations. Thus, neither ‘the reputable peace’ with the Tevar nor the ‘contract of alliance’ succeeded in solidifying the Company’s position in the region. In fact, observation of these agreements in practice proved to be as elusive as the preservation of Company hegemony in the region despite the construction of a massive fort at exorbitant costs, the ‘castle with the golden walls’ at Nagapatnam, the new seat of the Dutch governor and council of the Coromandel Coast the same year. Ironically, it was the mercantile, ‘Batavia-centric’ faction, which did manage to realise two of the main objectives of the imperialists, that is, the construction of a fort at Tuticorin and the final incorporation of the Parava leadership into the Dutch patronage network. The ‘final settlement’ of the Parava problem was initiated by the concession of religious freedom in 1679 and ended with the lift- ing of restrictions on the Indo-Ceylon trade in 1697. Liberalisation of the Company’s economic and religious policies, combined with the political instability along the coast and the increasing rapacity of the local tax farmers, resulted in the incorporation of the Parava trading elite or mejaikarar into the Dutch patronage network. Even the so-called ‘first persecution’ of 1690–1691, followed by a policy of freedom of conscience, could not upset this rapprochement characterised by the division of temporal and spiritual authority over the Paravas between the Dutch and the Jesuits of the Madurai Mission.203 In contrast to the active patronage of their Parava ‘subjects’ during the Van Goens’ years, the mercantile faction in the 1680s followed more of a ‘hands-off’ policy. During the communal conflicts between the Paravas and the local Maraikkayars in early 1684, for instance, Governor Pijl of Ceylon informed the Paravas that they ‘had to reconcile themselves with their administrators or else would be left to sink or swim’. In addition, Pijl assured the local authorities that the Company ‘did not want to have anything to do with the Paravas and that they were free to deal with them as they pleased’. Although not unwilling to put in a good word for the Paravas, Pijl and his subordinate, Chief Rutgert de Heijde of Tuticorin, defended their stance by arguing that the Paravas were tributaries of the aranmanai and that, if the Company wanted to force the issue of jurisdiction

1693, f. 351r, Cort vertoogh opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticorin waerom d’E Comp nu eenigen tijd geleden op Tutucorijn niet (als voor desen) van gewilde en genoegsame cleden gediend is geweest, 12.3.1692; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando- Indicum, IV, pp. 377–381. 203 See: Vink, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’; Idem, ‘The Temporal and Spiritual Con quest of the Fishery Coast’; Idem, ‘Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia’.

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Table 31 The farming out of the annual revenues of the Tuticorin district by the aranmanai to the Company according to the ‘contract of alliance’, 1690

The taxes of the inhabitants of Melur 300 pardaus The taxes of the Paravas of Tuticorin 920 pardaus The taxes of the hamlets called Kurukkuchalai, Kootudankadu, Nayinapuram, Matattur, Sankarapperi, Mappilaiurani, [Keela] Arasadi, Kovankadu, and Kalloorani 1,000 pardaus The import and export duties, and the inland tolls 2,400 pardaus The saltpans of Tuticorin, Korampallam, and [Keela] Arasadi 1,500 pardaus Total 6,120 pardaus

Sources: voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 405r–405v, Contract van alliance tussen Renga Kistna Mouttou Wierapa Naick en Hendrick Adriaan van Rheede, 29.7.1690; Heeres (ed.), Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, III, pp. 528–530. and exempt the Paravas from paying their taxes, ‘we would have to be constantly ready sword in hand against the ruler of the land’. Not only would this policy affect Company commercial profits negatively, but it would also generate no additional revenues to the Company. The Paravas, moreover, save for a few favourable exceptions, in general were an ungrateful lot, who, instead of reciprocating Company protection, would rather move into the interior than to be under Company jurisdiction.204 Despite these mercantile reservations, the liberalisation of the Company’s commercial and religious policies contributed greatly to the final incorporation of the Parava community, including its mejaikarar leadership, into the Dutch patronage network. For one thing, the rapidly expanding volume of Company trade in Madurai in the 1680s was accompanied by the creation of so-called ‘associations of indigenous merchants’ at Tuticorin, Manappad, Alvar Tirunagari, Kayalpatnam, and Kottar. Under this arrangement, individual merchants would pool resources into a joint-stock company holding a monopoly of local trade with the Company. In order to prevent internal competition and ensure the price and quality of the commodities delivered to the Company, each association was accorded exclusive trading rights in a clearly circumscribed area (see Chapter 2).

204 voc 1364, obp 1682, ff. 55v–56r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 10.7.1681; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 168v–178v, Resol. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 3.4.1684; voc 1396, obp 1685, ff. 307r–308v, Miss. commt. De Heijde en raad van Tuticorin aan gouvr. Pijl, 13.4.1684.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 625

In May 1680, the first ‘associations of indigenous merchants’ were formed at Tuticorin and Alvar Tirunagari, the former consisting of five Parava merchants. Although a list of the original members is no longer existent, they must have been all part of the Parava trading elite. In January 1682, for example, its local membership consisted of the pattangattim-mór of Tuticorin Pedro Vaz, the head accountant Mattheus Martinho, and the ordinary pattangattins Joseph da Cruz and Manuel Stephanus.205 Company support was crucial in shoring up the faltering credit and prestige of the Parava leadership, greatly impoverished by the continued absence of a pearl fishery and the resulting overfishing of the chanks, combined with the alleged extortions and heavy taxations of the aranmanai. In January 1682, for instance, it was calculated that 200 rixdollars or 600 guilders a month were necessary to relieve the widespread poverty among the Paravas. Moreover, two reports of late 1683 and early 1684 respectively, estimated that the current number of thonis or vessels owned by the Paravas was only one-third to one- fourth compared with the level of previous times. As it lacked the necessary funds, the Company subsequently decided to leave it to the Paravas and the Jesuit priests themselves to organise the charity effort.206 The tottering fortunes of the Parava headmen were quickly restored by the rapid expansion of Company trade in Madurai during this period. Between the financial years 1678–1679 and 1690–1691, for instance, Company investments increased 346 percent from 159,000 to 550,000 guilders. Together with the subsequent removal of the restrictions on the Indo-Ceylon trade in September 1696, the creation of the ‘associations of indigenous merchants’ was therefore an important step in the final incorporation of the Parava leadership in the patronage network of the Dutch, both as free merchants and as Company brokers.207

205 voc 1361, obp 1681, ff. 385v–386r, Miss. Van Rhee en Van Vliet van Tuticorin aan Batavia, 10.5.1680; voc 904, bub 1680, f. 1123, Miss. GG en R aan 1e commr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon, 2.10.1680; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 359v, and 371v, Memorie Van Rhee voor De Heijde, opperk. en geëligeerd opperh. der Madurese kust, 31.1.1682. 206 voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 377v, Memorie Van Rhee, 31.1.1682; voc 1383, obp 1684, ff. 134r–134v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan Batavia, 24.11.1683; Idem, f. 315v, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan H. XVII, 12.1.1684. 207 voc 11297, Bijlagen tot de consideratiën over den generalen handel ter Custe Madure, 1738. No. 5 Samentreckinge van het geheele beloop der negotie die voor de reekeninge van de generale Nederlandsche Compagnie op de Custe van Madure tsedert hare eerste establissementen aldaar gedreven is…, Ao. 1659–60 tot 1737–1738. For a discussion of the liberalisation of the Indo-Ceylon trade by the Company: Arasaratnam, ‘Dutch Commercial policy in Ceylon’; Idem, Dutch Power in Ceylon, pp. 159–177; Idem, ‘Aspects of the Role and Activities of South Indian Merchants’; Idem, ‘Mare Clausum, the Dutch and Regional Trade’.

626 chapter 7

While liberalisation of the economic policy and the rapid increase in the volume of Company trade on the Madurai Coast provided the material incentive for the Parava trading elite to accept the worldly authority of the Company, the concession of right of worship within the areas under Company jurisdiction confirmed the spiritual authority of the Jesuits of the Madurai Mission. In April 1679 religious freedom was granted after the Paravas had to ransom one of their headmen, the pattangattim Pedro da Cruz. Having attended mass at the improvised church (described as a ‘thatched hut and residence’) outside of Tuticorin, Da Cruz had been arrested by the aranmanai and subsequently released upon the payment of 1,000 pardaus or 3,000 guilders. A Parava request to the Dutch Chief Thomas van Rhee to be permitted the right to celebrate mass at their ‘Great’ or ‘Mother Church’ (Periyakovil or Matakovil), ‘Our Lady of Snows’ (Nossa Senhora das Neves) in Tuticorin under their padre vigário or vicar priest was subsequently granted by Governor Van Goens Junior of Ceylon.208 This final settlement was only temporarily disturbed by a combination of special circumstances, leading to the so-called ‘first persecution’ (a primeira perse- guição) of 1690–1691, ‘aimed at extinguishing the very name of Catholicism’.209 Anti-Catholic sentiments resurfaced in Company circles in the wake of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), the outbreak of the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697) with France in Europe, and the French diplomatic, military, and commercial offensive in Asia, as for example in Siam. The French challenge coincided with the revival of Catholicism in Ceylon through the activities of the ‘Apostle of Ceylon’ Father Josef Vaz (1651–1711) of the Goan Oratory, who, in 1687, managed to land at Mannaar and thence marched overland to the Jaffna Peninsula. The discovery of large numbers of Catholic churches near Jaffna on Christmas Eve 1689 incited Commissioner General Van Rheede to establish the Protestant seminaries at Nallur (1690–1722) and Colombo (1696–1796) for the training of indigenous clergymen, to restore the dilapidated fortifications of Ceylon and, arguably, to construct the infamous star-shape ‘castle with the golden walls’ at Nagapatnam, along with the rigid enforcement of existing anti-Catholic legislation.210

208 voc 1469, obp 1691, f. 60r, Miss. gouvr. Pijl en raad van Ceijlon aan comms. Van Reede te Tuticorin, 30.3.1690; voc 1505, obp 1693, ff. 424r–424v, Rekest van de pattangattins en verdere Paravase gemeente aan gouvr. Van Rhee van Ceijlon, 3.5.1692; voc 1506, obp 1693, f. 859r, Dagreg. gouvr. Van Rhee op de voijagie naar Tuticorin, 12.8–8.9.1692. 209 ‘A primeira perseguição foi do Comisario Henrique Vanrey, qui em o anno de 1689 per- tendeo extinguir en Ceylão o nome Catholico…’. Letter Father A. Freyre, Jesuit Provincial of Cochin, to D. Miguel de Almeida, governor of the Estado da India. Cf. Boudens, The Catholic Church in Ceylon, p. 93 n. 7. 210 Van Goor, Jan Kompenie as Schoolmaster, pp. 1–59; Boudens, The Catholic Church in Ceylon, pp. 89 et seq.; S.G. Perera, Life of the Venerable Father Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Ceylon (Ranchi: Catholic Press, 1943), pp. 49–96.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 627

Irritated by the open presence of the Jesuits within Tuticorin, Van Rheede on March 14, 1690, issued an edict of expulsion against the three local priests, two Europeans (probably Jeronimo de Moraes and Vicento Suares) and one ‘native’ catechist, informing them that they were to leave Company jurisdiction within 24 hours. The following day, a huge riot arose in which a large Parava crowd pelted the Dutch commissioners and their armed escort with stones, while verbally and physically abusing the Company servants present at the scene. Only after the priests and the images of the church had been released and allowed to be taken away by the crowd did order and quiet return.211 In an apologia to Batavia of September 1690, Van Rheede argued that he had merely removed ‘a viper from the Company bossom’. Referring to the widely adhered to principle of cuius regio, eius religio or jus reformandi of the post- Augsburg period (1555) and confirmed and extended at the Peace of Westphalia (1648), Van Rheede asserted that Roman Catholicism was ‘a bloodthirsty, sedi- tious, and ungodly religion, which for reasons of security was never to be tolerated by any Protestant princes, rulers or states’. Despite Van Rheede’s blunt assurance to the Parava leadership that the prohibition to use any priests, ‘either natural Portuguese or subjects of Portuguese bishops’, was not temporary, ‘but would continue as long as the Company would exercise jurisdiction over the Seven Ports’, his decree was revoked, or rather moderated in practice, shortly after his death in December 1691.212 In May 1692, the Parava mejaikarar once more petitioned the visiting Van Rhee, now in his capacity as Governor of Ceylon, ‘prostrating for the second time at Your Honour’s feet’, to be allowed to worship in the village, since ‘the injustices of the Gentiles are increasing daily to such an extent that nobody but a few poor and miserable people [kamarakkarar] are able to attend mass,

211 voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 407r–407v, Notificatie comms. Van Reede aan alle Europese priesters e.a. geestelijkheid, 14.3.1690; Idem, ff. 408r–408v, Ordonnantie voor opperk. Alebos, kapn. Caesar de Theil en gecommitteerdens tot bekendmaking aan dezelve priesters en uitvoering van bovenstaande, 14.3.1690; Idem, ff. 409v–411v, Rapp. gecomms. aan comms. Van Reede wegens haar verrichting en wedervaren in de commissie om de Europeaanse papen haar binnen het district van d’E Compe ophoudende aan te zeggen binnen de tijd van 24 uren buiten ‘s Comps limieten te moeten vertrekken, 15.3.1690. 212 voc 1478, obp 1691, ff. 509–510, Miss. comms. Van Reede te Jaffnapatnam aan Batavia, 12.9.1690; voc 1479, obp 1691, ff. 413r–413v, Notificatie comms Van Reede aan alle opper- hoofden der Parruas onder het district van de Ned. Oost-Indische Compagnie ter kuste Madura, 20.12.1690. During an inspection tour of the Company settlements along the Fishery Coast in August 1692, Governor Van Rhee of Ceylon mentioned the presence of the two (Portuguese?) Jesuits, Jeronimo de Moraes and Vicento Suares, at Tuticorin. voc 1506, obp 1693, f. 787r, Dagreg. Van Rhee, 12.8–8.9.1692.

628 chapter 7 depriving the others from their great happiness’. The Parava headmen reassured Van Rhee that they would ‘serve the Hon. Company faithfully as they had done before, expecting therefore Your Honour’s mercy and clemency’.213 On September 1, the Ceylon governor was again called upon by the Parava political and mercantile leadership of Tuticorin, complaining about the edict of expulsion issued shortly after the arrival of Van Rheede and the ‘enemy of the Christians’ Babba Prabhu. Forced to worship at Sivantha Urani214 on the outs kirts of Tuticorin under the ‘tyrannical rule’ of the Madurai governors, they had fallen victim to the oppression of the aranmanai, which extorted money under various pretexts. As a result, and because of the vexations of Babba Prabhu in the last two pearl fisheries, they were now ‘completely destitute’ and did not dare venture outside the village. Therefore, they humbly requested ‘that their priest would be allowed to come inside the village on Saturday evening and return Sunday evening to his palhota [‘thatched hut’] and residence, allowing them the happiness to celebrate the day of the Lord religiously’. Not unsympathetic to the request of the Parava headmen, Van Rhee promised to forward their petitions to Batavia along with a letter of recommendation. For the moment, however, they should remain patient until the High Government would undoubtedly reach a positive decision. Seemingly content with this response, the mejaikarar also requested to be granted the ‘missing link in the chain of benefactions’ from the Company in the form of the expulsion of the ‘Moors, Gentiles, Maravas, and other rogues, subjects of the aranmanai’. In fact, the expulsion would confirm the principle of territoriality or spatial segregation on which the authority of the Parava leadership was based. Recognising the ‘rea- sonableness and high necessity’ of this measure, Van Rhee on September 5 had a placard issued ordering the expulsion of the non-Parava population from Tuticorin within two months. First-time offenders were to be fined 25 pardaus or 75 guilders, while repeat offenders would be subject to judicial correction.215 Contrary to Van Rhee’s expectations, the High Government was unwilling to grant freedom of religion. Having forwarded the petition to Batavia in June 1692, Governor Van Rhee and the Council of Ceylon were informed in November 1692 that ‘for specific reasons’ religious freedom ‘could not be conceded’. In March 1693, the Ceylon government informed Chief Alexander Bergaigne and the Council of Tuticorin of the decision of the High Government, leaving the

213 voc 1505, obp 1693, f. 424r–424v, Rekest patangatijns en verdere Parruase gemeente, 3.5.1692. 214 A combination of Sivantha Kulam, a locality nowadays within the city of Tuticorin, and urani, ‘spring, well’. 215 voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 859v–860v, and 868v–869r, Dagreg. gouvr. Van Rhee, 12.8–8.9.1692; Anthonisz (ed.), Memoir of Thomas van Rhee, p. 36.

Splendid Isolation, 1680–1690 629

Paravas no choice but to continue their worship at Sivantha Urani. The Parava mejaikarar did not give up that easily. In February 1697, however, Governor Van Rhee of Ceylon informed his successor, Gerrit de Heere, that, in accordance with the official guidelines from Batavia, he had recently denied a second petition to the same effect submitted by the Parava headmen.216 Yet, despite official intolerance and the refusal to grant freedom of religion, the religious relations on the Madurai Coast, like the situation in the Dutch Republic, were characterised by unofficial toleration or freedom of conscience. Thus, upon his tour of inspection of the Madurai Coast in August 1692, Governor Van Rhee of Ceylon was greeted by the two ‘Tuticorin Fathers’ Jeronimo de Moraes and Vincento Suaris. Seven years later, in September 1699, his successor, Gerrit de Heere, was welcomed at Tuticorin by two locally resident Jesuit priests, the Portuguese Manuel Roche and the German Sebastian Chevrolet. As a result, by the mid-1690s the long and painful process of accommodation and rapprochement between the Dutch Calvinists and the Roman Catholic Paravas, started in the late 1650s, had been completed by the division of the temporal and spiritual administration between Company officials and the Jesuit Fathers of the Madurai Mission, respectively. Although not one of choice and forced upon the parties by reasons of state, in the era of cuius regio, eius religio or jus reformandi, this informal understanding was indeed a remarkable achievement.217 Like the apparent recovery of the aranmanai from the ‘time of troubles’, the construction of a small fort at Tuticorin (1681–1682) along with its massive counterpart at Nagapatnam (1690) and the final solution of the ‘Parava problem’ proved to be hollow victories. Both Madurai’s central authorities and the Company were forced to gradually withdraw into ‘splendid isolation’ and focus on affairs in the Far South, leaving the scene to their more powerful Asian and European rivals to the north. Despite the aranmanai’s reconquest of the majority of its lost territories and the rapid expansion of Company operations along the coast, changing external circumstances would not allow for ‘business as usual’. Increasingly marginalised in the larger Indian theatre, the erstwhile leading actors of the seventeenth century were condemned to play mere supporting roles in the eighteenth century. The final acts in the unfolding drama of Dutch-Madurai relations are the topic for another study.

216 voc 1525, obp 1694, f. 1176r, Kort relaas der voornaamste zaken voorgevallen ter Kuste Madure bijeengesteld door opperk. en opperh. Bergaigne en raad van Tuticorin, 30.11.1693; Anthonisz (ed.), Memoir of Thomas van Rhee, p. 36. 217 Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 649–653; voc 1506, obp 1693, ff. 787r, 859v–860v, and 868v–869r, Dagreg. gouvr. Van Rhee, 12.8–8.9.1692; voc 1615, obp 1700, f. 473r, Dgl. aantekeningen gehouden door gouvr. De Heere van Ceijlon in zijn visite ter kuste Madure, 8.9–2.10.1699.

Personalia

Nayakas of Madurai

Tirumalai Nayaka 1623–1659 Muttu Virappa Nayaka II 1659 Chokkanatha Nayaka 1659–1682 Muttu Linga Nayaka a.k.a. Muttu Alakadri (1677–1680) Nayaka Rustam Khan (1680–1682) Muttu Virappa Nayaka III 1682–1691

Tevars of Ramnad

Sadaikka Tevar II a.k.a. Talavay Setupati 1635–1645 Raghunatha Tevar a.k.a. Tirumalai Setupati 1645–1673 Raja Surya Tevar 1673 Raghunatha Tevar a.k.a. Kilavan Setupati 1674–1710

Governors of Ceylon

Joan Thijssen (Payart) 1640–1646 Joan Maetsuycker 1646–1650 Jacob van Kittensteijn 1650–1653 Adriaen van der Meijden 1653–1662 Rijckloff van Goens Sr. 1662–1663 Jacob Hustaert 1663–1664 Rijckloff van Goens Sr. 1665–1675 Rijckloff van Goens Jr. 1675–1679 Laurens Pijl 1679–1692

632 personalia

Governors of the Coromandel Coast

Arnold Heussen 1643–1650 Laurens Pit 1650–1651 Jacob de With 1651 Laurens Pit 1652–1663 Cornelis Speelman 1663–1665 Anthonij Paviljoen 1665–1676 Jacques Caulier 1676–1679 Willem Carel Hartsinck 1679–1681 Jacob Jorisz. Pits 1681–1686 Laurens Pit Jr. 1687–1698

Chiefs or Commanders of the Madurai Coast

Pieter van Bart* 1645–1648 Adriaen van der Marckt* 1657–1658 Eduart Ooms 1658–1659 Cornelis Valckenburgh 1659–1663 Willem Bo(e)sem 1663–1664 Jo(h)an Nieuhoff 1664–1665 Laurens Pijl 1665–1672 Robert Padtbrugge 1673–1674 Ma(a)rten Huijsman 1674–1678 Joan Fauconnier** 1678 Pieter Vorwer*** 1678–1679 Thomas van Rhee 1679–1682 Rutgert de Heijde 1682–1685 Joan van Vliet 1685–1690 Jacobus Urselings 1690–1691

* Resident at Kayalpatnam (Kayalpattinam), all others are chief (opperhoofd) or commander (commandeur) with their seat at Tuticorin (Thoothukudi). ** Chief of the Madurai Coast following the departure of Huijsman between November and December 1678. *** Pieter Vorwer (or Verwer), commander of Nagapatnam (Nagapattinam), also served as interim commander of the Madurai Coast for about two months between December 1678 and January 1679.

Currency, Weights, and Measures

Currency

Madurai currency Madurai equivalents Dutch equivalents 1 Madurai pagoda 2 Madurai pardaus 2 rixdollars (rijksdaalders) 20 Madurai fanams 6 guilders (guldens) 120 stuivers 1 Madurai pardau 1/2 Madurai pagoda 1 rixdollar (rijksdaalder) 10 Madurai fanams 3 guilders (guldens) 60 stuivers 1 Madurai fanam 1/20 Madurai pagoda 1/10 rixdollars (rijksdaalder) 1/10 Madurai pardau 0.30 guilders (guldens) 6 stuivers (until 1679); 0.3375 guilders (guldens) 6 3/4 stuivers (after 1679)

Dutch currency Dutch equivalents Madurai equivalents 1 rixdollar (rijksdaalder) 3 guilders (guldens) 1/2 Madurai pagoda 60 stuivers (after 1656) 1 Madurai pardau 10 Madurai fanams 1 guilder (gulden) 1/3 rixdollar (rijksdaalder) 1/6 Madurai pagoda 20 stuivers 1/3 Madurai pardau 1 stuiver 1/60 rixdollar 1/120 Madurai pagoda (rijksdaalder) 1/20 guilder (gulden) 1/60 Madurai pardau

16 penningen 1/6 Madurai fanam (until 1679); 4/27 Madurai fanams (after 1679)

634 currency, weights, and measures

Weights

1 kandi 500 pounds (ponden) 1 bahar 480 pounds (ponden) 1 boi ca. 220 pounds (ponden) 1 heavy quintal 117.4 pounds (ponden) 1 light quintal 102.8 pounds (ponden) 1 man 24 pounds (ponden) 1 tolam 100 palam or 16.5 pounds (ponden) 1 palam 1/100 tolam or 0.17 pound (pond) 1 (Amsterdam) pound (pond) 0.494 kilograms or 494 grams

Measures

Arecanuts 1 boi amanam 30,000 pieces 1 large amanam 24,000 pieces 1 small amanam 20,000 pieces

Chanks or conch shells 1 cour 120 pieces 1 cour sortiados 40 pieces cabeça, 40 pieces barriga, and 40 pieces pé (until 1679); 30 pieces cabeça, 30 pieces barriga, 30 pieces pé, and 30 pieces fourth variety (after 1679)

Food grains 1 last 15 kottais 75 parras 3,000 pounds (ponden) 1 kottai 1/15 last 5 parras 200 pounds (ponden) 1 parra 1/75 last 1/5 kottai 40 pounds (ponden)

Glossary

ab(b)asi Persian silver coin, named after Shah Abbas I acarya spiritual preceptor adappam murrain, various infectious diseases affecting cattle and sheep Adaviyar Tamil-speaking weaving caste found in the Tanjore and Tinnevelly districts adhikari, atikari ‘one possessing authority’, local officer in charge of an adhikara, atikaram or administrative subdivision of a taluk or district Adil Shah ruling dynasty of the sultanate of Bijapur agalam spreads, bedding Ahambadiyan, Agumadaiyan Tamil cultivating caste akaram, iracam, iracatam quicksilver alam saltpan aldeia village Alvar Tamil Vaisnavite poet-saint amanakku castor (Lat., Ricinus communis) amanam Indian measuring unit used for arecanuts; 1 boi amanam = 30,000 pieces, 1 large amanam = 24,000 pieces, 1 small amanam = 20,000 pieces ambalakkarar revenue official, village head amman South Indian goddess annatanam, annadanam offering or sharing of food anaikkattu ‘dam building, construction’, anicut, dam made in a stream for maintaining and regulating irrigation arachchi indigenous military officer in command of a small company of lascorins araniyam, aranya wilderness aranmanai palace, central authorities ar ur ‘intermediate ports’ of the Fishery Coast attam, attikam, catikkay, kiricciram nutmeg

636 glossary attar fragrant essential oil, especially of rose petals avataram, avatar ‘descent’, appearance, manifestation of a deity from heaven to earth Ayya honourific title, man worthy of respect; priest, teacher, preceptor; title of Smarta Brahmin bahar ‘a load’, weight used in large transactions; 1 bahar = 480 pounds Balija Telugu-speaking merchant caste bangsal warehouse barqueiro boatsman beatilha ‘veil’, fine, muslin veil-like cloth used as clothing bhakti ‘devotion’, devotional theistic Hinduism boi ox, bullock; standard of weight or measurement; 1 boi = ca. 220–300 pounds, 1 boi amanam of areca = 30,000 pieces boieiro herdsman, cattle driver, cow puncher botiqueiro shop- or stall-keeper brahmateyam, brahmadeya land endowment to Brahmins cabaya ‘vestment’, muslin surcoat calapa, calaku Indian pearl oyster or pictada (Lat., Margarita vulgaris) calapam, calapa-k-kuli, calapa-t-turai pearl fishery camara bunch of peacock feathers used as a fan campannotti boat owner cancaram, samsara cycle of reincarnation or rebirth canku chank or conch shell (Lat., Turbinella rapa) cantai, santhai market, fair cantaka-putpam, tivviya-kantam, cloves teva-kucumam, vaciyam, karuvay), capitão-mór captain-major cartar, sartar officer, commander carkkar, sarkar ‘government’, lands directly administered by the aranmanai unlike those held by palaiyakkarars

glossary 637 carvamaniyam, sarvamanyam rent-free lands, lands exempt from all kinds of tax cattiram, shattiram ‘abode’, in South India a house or choultry where pilgrims and traveling members of the higher castes are entertained and fed gratuitously for a day or two cempu copper cenkol sceptre, one of the regalia Cervaikarar ‘chieftain, general’, mostly affinal relatives of the royal family with large estates and numerous retainers chaloupe launch, ship’s boat chappa vari stamp tax on textiles chatim ‘trader’, used in a derogatory sense for unscrupulous Portuguese traders chaya, sayaver ‘colour root’, dye root (Lat., Oldenlandia umbellata) cheri outcaste colony outside the main village chiavony, chavony fine veil- or muslin-like cloth chintz colourful embroidered cotton or silk cloth mostly used for turbans or girdles Chitti, Cetti, Chetti, Chittiyar South Indian merchant caste, divided into several subcastes cholam sorghum (Lat., Holcus sorghum) chungam customs, custom post cilli ‘small broken pieces of stone’, coral stone cira wealth, abundance cirappu, carappu shroff, moneychanger, banker-trader cirpacaris, cirpams, karkottis stone cutters cornac, karnak elephant driver cour Indian measuring unit used for chanks; 1 cour = 120 pieces cour sortiados Indian measuring unit used for assorted chanks; 1 cour sortiados = 40 pieces cabeça, 40 pieces barriga, and 40 pieces pé (until 1679); 30 pieces cabeça, 30 pieces barriga, 30 pieces pé, and 30 pieces fourth variety (after 1679)

638 glossary cuius region, eius religio ‘whose realm, his religion’, the religion of the ruler dictates the religion of the ruled ( jus reformandi, right to reform) cura shark curan mollusc curma, surma black eye pigment curuttu cheroot, cigar, cigarette Devanga, Devangalu Telugu-speaking weaving caste diving stone tax in the pearl and chank fisheries, named after a pear-shaped stone used by divers to quickly reach the seafloor dungaris cheap cotton cloth used as sailcloth, simple clothing, or wrapping material el sesame (Lat., Sesamum Indicum) eri large tank, reservoir for irrigation, lake ettiri, catippu, vacuvaci mace fanam small gold coin in South India used extensively for ordinary commercial transactions; 1 Madurai fanam = 1/20 Madurai pagoda or 1/10 Madurai pardau; 6 stuivers or 0.30 guilders until 1679, 6 ¾ stuivers or 0.3375 guilders after 1679 faujdar ‘military commander’, title awarded by Mughal and other Muslim rulers in South Asia to garrison commanders furza Mughal customs house at Surat gingangs, ginghams simple chequered or striped cotton cloth gopuram monumental tower, usually ornate, at the entrance of any temple, especially in Southern India guilder Dutch coin, 1 guilder (gulden) = 20 stuivers or ⅓ rixdollar hakim Muslim doctor, medicinal healer ilavenil ‘light warmth’, spring, one of the six seasons of the Tamil year from mid-April to mid-June ilingkam vermillion iraniyakarppa, hiranyagarbha one of the mahadana (‘great gift’) royal rituals, depicting the birth from a golden embryo

glossary 639 inam tax-free lands given by kings as benefices for religious or charitable purposes or for services rendered; gift from a superior to an inferior, present, reward indigo large genus of flowering plants, but especially the Indigofera tinctoria used to produce the blue dye indigo irandavatu pattam heir apparent irattapali blood sacrifice iravuttan, irauttan, irauttar ‘cavalier, horseman, trooper’, title of certain class of Tamil-speaking Muslims Isvara the Almighty; Siva; chief, leader, head, lord itankai, idankai left-handed caste groups iyam lead jaggery coarse sugar made from the sap of various palms jagir ‘land revenue assignment’, temporary fiscal rights Jambudvipa the ‘island’ (dvipa) of the terrestrial world as envisioned in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain cosmology jang di pertuan, yang di-pertuan ‘head of state’, royal title in the Malay world jati ‘kind, type’, term used for endogamous corporate groups, which form the basic units of Indian caste jati talaivan caste headman jus naufragii right of shipwreck kachchai, kaccai ‘coarse, raw, unripe, uncooked’, simple cotton cloth from Coromandel, often used as loincloth Kadaiyar Tamil-speaking low-caste coastal community kadalkatti hereditary shark charmer kadarambam dry farmland Kaikolar, Kaikkolar Tamil-speaking weaving caste kalankatti type of fishing net used in shallow waters kalavai reef cod, grouper, esp. spinycheek grouper (Lat., Epinephelus diacanthus)

640 glossary

Kallar royal, dominant caste in Pudukkottai, with a reputation as a warrior caste, settled in parts of Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Tiruchirappalli, and Pudukkottai kamarakkarar ritually inferior sub-division of Paravas Kambalattar, Tottiyar, Tottiyan, Totti ‘slave, dependant, menial’, Telugu- speaking warrior-cultivating caste, settled especially around Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, and Tirunelveli Kamma Telugu-speaking warrior-cultivating caste kampu, kambu bullrush millet (Lat., Holcus spicatus) kanai, kanna, tippali long pepper (Lat., Piper longum) kanakkapillai accountant, bookkeeper; a subcaste hereditarily performing accountant functions kandi weight used in large transactions; 1 kandi = 500 pounds kar ‘dark clouds, rain’, rainy season, one of the six seasons of the Tamil year from mid-August to mid-October; a kind of paddy grown during the southwest monsoon, a season of harvest between September and November Karaiyar Tamil-speaking low-caste coastal community karma ‘act, action, performance’, the consequences or fruit of one’s actions karppakkirukam, garbha griham ‘house of the womb’, inner sanctum of a temple karttakal title, meaning lord and agent, used by the Nayakas of Madurai karukkana-panam newly minted money karuva, nakam cinnamon katif carpet kattalai temple endowment kattanar, katanar ‘chief’, priest of the Syrian Church of Kerala katuvettis, virakuvettis lumberjacks kaval protection

glossary 641 kavalkarar ‘chiefs of protection’, local person/chief empowered with rights of protection kayal backwater, lagoon, mouth of an ebbing stream kersey coarse woollen cloth named after the village of Kersey in Suffolk kettiram, ksetra territory, sacred place, shrine; guardian deity of sacred places Khan-i-Khanan ‘Lord of Lords’, title given to the commander-in-chief of the army of various Muslim states killattu dress ceremony involving a cloth of honour killikkay wingshell, a type of mollusc, Lat., Avicula) kiramam, grama village kirttanam song, psalm koban oval-shaped Japanese gold coin Koliyar, Koliyan Tamil-speaking weaving caste kottai fort; Indian measuring unit; 1 kottai = 1/15 last or 5 parras or 200 pounds kottam, kottamalli coriander (Lat., Coriandrum sativum) kotumai wheat (Lat., Triticum vulgare) kovil, koyil ‘temple, palace’ kucantanam, calliyam, Kalatore or red sandalwood (Lat., ciwappuccantanam Pterocarpus santalinus) kulam family, lineage; caste, tribe, nation; and community kulir ‘chill, cold’, autumn, one of the six seasons of the Tamil year from mid-October to mid-December kuliyal diver kumara varkkam the special group of ‘adopted sons’ attached to the Nayakas of Madurai: the elite corps of the southern palaiyakkarars kummayan, man lime kumpapisekam ceremony of consecration or purification in a temple kuppam village, small village of fishermen and other low-caste people

642 glossary

Labbai Tamil-speaking Muslim coastal community, usually used of non-élite fishing and labouring people lakh one hundred thousand or 100,000 lascorin indigenous soldier last measuring unit used for bulk commodities; 1 last = 15 kottais or 75 parras or 3,000 pounds lingam ‘mark, sign’, phallic representation of the Hindu deity Shiva, symbol of the Lingayat sect; also considered a symbol of male creative energy, often presented with the yoni lungi, Guinea cloth longcloth used as loincloth or scarves mahmudi local Surat silver coin makkam loom man ancient unit weight measurement; 1 man = 24 pounds manchua ‘a cot’, large single-masted cargo boat with a square sail, much used on the Kerala Coast mandapam, mantapam ceremonial hall, ante-chamber to the inner sanctuary of a South Indian temple maniyakkarar ‘overseer’, local official, holder of maniyam right or land honour maniyam honour, often referring specifically to a grant of tax-free land and other associated privileges mantakkam assistant of kuliyal diver Maraikkayar élite Tamil-speaking Muslim trading people Marava Tamil-speaking caste group in Ramanathapuram, Tirunelveli, Madurai, and Pudukkottai; often grouped with Kallars because of their warrior reputation mare clausum ‘closed sea’ mare liberum ‘free, open sea’ masjid mosque meirinho bailiff

glossary 643 mejaikarar ‘people of the table’, ritually superior sub-division of the Paravas melvaram proportion of the crop or produce claimed by the landholder milakay chillies or chili peppers (Lat., Capsicum) milaku black pepper (Lat., Piper nigrum) Minaks(h)I, Meenakshi goddess of the Madurai temple, as fish-eyed, form of Parvati, consort of Siva miracu, mirasi ‘inheritance’, hereditary rights Mir Jumla ‘treasurer’, title of the chief minister of Golconda morador inhabitant, settler Mudaliyar title taken by Vellalas, a high peasant- agricultural caste, in the northern Tamil country Mudaliyar Pillai Maraikkayar honourific title conferred by the Nayakas of Madurai to the heads of the Muslim community of Kayalpatnam mula murtti main, immovable stone image of a deity munpani ‘early dew’, early winter, one of the six seasons of the Tamil year from mid- December to mid-February muppan Tamil caste notable muri simple blue cotton cloth, principally manufactured in the districts of Nellore murai, mucai ‘rule, tradition’, cross-cousin marriage Murugan, Murukan, Subrahmanya, Hindu god of war Skanda, Kartikeya mutasaddi local Mughal governor of Surat mutuvenil ‘harsh warmth’, summer, one of the six seasons of the Tamil year from mid-June to mid-August muventar the ‘three crowned kings—Chera, Chola, and Pandya—of the ancient Tamil country myrabolan certain dried fruit and kernel of astringent flavour used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine nacar return gift

644 glossary nadam-parutti, nattan-parutti Coconada cotton (Lat., Gossypium nadam); intensive cotton cultivation on regur soils Nakarattar Tamil-speaking trading caste in northern Ramnad nakkumin Indian sole (Lat., Pleuronectidae solea), or spiny turbot (Lat., Psettodes erumie) nakuta, nakhuda captain of a ship nanateci, nanadesi ‘traders from other kingdoms’, international merchant guild nanjai, nansey, nancey irrigated fields or crops nanjai-mel-punjai ‘dry crops on wet land’ nankura-vatakai anchorage dues narkkayiru coir rope Navaratri, Navarattiri festival of the nine nights celebrating Devi, the great Goddess Nayaka generic term meaning lord, or general; adopted by the ruling ‘viceroys’ of Vijayanagara constituting the principal foci of political power in early modern South India nayakkarar ‘civil judge’, title for caste notable used by Paravas Nayanar Tamil Saivite poet-saint Nayar ruling caste in Malabar nel, nellu, neli rice (Lat., Oryza sativa) nirarambam wet farmland nirru to slake, as lime nutanam novelties, curiosities olai palm-leaf strip used as a writing surface, hence a manuscript or document in general pacta sunt servanda ‘agreements must be kept’, basic principle of civil and international law padre vigário vicar priest pagar enclosure, palings, hedge; fortification enclosed by palings or a hedge pagoda Hindu temple; regional gold coin in South India; 1 Madurai pagoda = 2 Madurai pardaus or 20 Madurai fanams

glossary 645 pakku arecanuts (Lat., Areca catechu) pakuti tribute, impost, royal revenue (see peshkash) palai wilderness palaiyakkarar holder of a palaiyam or fortified centre; ‘little king’, or chief palam Tamil unit of weight; 1 palam = 1/100 tolam or 0.17 pound (pond) palanquin covered sedan chair (or litter) carried on four poles palhota thatched hut Palla, Pallar, Pallan dependent agricultural labourers in the service of Vellalas and others panci cotton par pearl bank Parangi ‘Frank’, generic name for Europeans Parava Roman Catholic Tamil-speaking maritime caste pardau regional gold coin in South India; 1 Madurai pardau = 1/2 Madurai pagoda or 10 Madurai fanams Pariah, Paraiyan, Paraiyar ‘large drum’, low-caste or outcaste groups obliged to perform menial and degrading, ‘polluting’ work parra Indian unit of measurement; 1 parra = 1/75 last or 1/5 kottai or 40 pounds parri, paddy unhusked rice paru small ship, sailing vessel parutti cotton plant (Lat., Gosyppium herbacaeum) pasisir northeastern coastal region of Java patacho brigantine patnam, pattinam mercantile town Patnulkarar Gujarati-speaking weaving caste found in all of the Tamil districts ‘pattai shaya’ tree bark tree, antiaris (Lat., Antiaris toxicaria) pattamar, pattimar footrunner, courier pattangattim Tamil caste notable

646 glossary pattapisekam, pattabhisekam coronation, installation of king’s title Pattar Brahmin temple priest payacam a semi-liquid food prepared of milk, rice, sago, etc. mixed with sugar or jaggery peon indigenous foot soldier Periya Tambi Maraikkayar ‘great brother’, honourific title conferred by the Tevars of Ramnad on the leader of the Kilakkarai (Keezhakarai)-based family of Maraikkayar Muslims of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir peshkash tribute, tax (see pakuti) pettai extramural suburb of a fortress, or town attached and adjacent to a fortress; fortified market town pey lesser ‘demonic’ being and destructive spirit pey-tannir ‘demon’s water’, liquor Pillai title taken by Vellalas, a high peasant- agricultural caste, in the southern Tamil country pinpani ‘late dew’, late winter, one of the six seasons of the Tamil year from mid- February to mid-April piranapiratistai ‘breath ceremony’, vivification ceremony of a deity as in a newly-built temple pisanam, picanam a kind of paddy grown during the northeast monsoon, a season of harvest between February and March pokam, bhoga sensual enjoyment portepee leather sword belt povo ‘district head’, title for caste notable used by Paravas Prabhu ‘lord, chief’; honourific title pradhani finance minister predikant Dutch Reformed minister, pastor pucai, puja ‘reverence, honour, adoration’, divine worship pukaiyilai tobacco (Lat., Nicotiana tabacum) punjai, punsey, puncey unirrigated crops or fields putam, pudam ‘demon altar’ dedicated to local spirits and cult deities

glossary 647 qaul ‘word, promise’; any written agreement quevee Chinese merchant-broker quintal ‘hundredlike’, unit of weight; 1 heavy quintal = 117.4 pounds, 1 light quintal = 102.8 pounds Qutb Shah ruling dynasty of the sultanate of Golconda ragi, iraki finger millet (Lat., Eleusine Coracana) rayasam secretary, clerk; title of secretary of the king real, real de a ocho ‘royal, real of eight’, Spanish silver coin used in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, 1 real = c. 3 guilders Reddi, Kapu caste title of prominent Tamil-speaking landowning, farming, and mercantile group, especially around Madurai regedor regent regur rich black cotton soil rixdollar Dutch coin, 1 rixdollar (rijksdaalder) = 3 light guilders or 60 light stuivers after 1656 rumal thin silk cloth used as handkerchief salampuri chintz textile variety named after the town of Salemporis or Serampore south of Calcutta Sale Telugu-speaking weaving caste Saliyar, Saliyan Malayalam-speaking weaving caste samai, camai little millet (Lat., Panicum miliaceum) samprokshanam ‘reconstruction’, renewal consecration ritual sanambu hemp (Lat., Crotalaria juncea) sati, suttee ‘true’, self-immolation of widow along with her deceased husband Seniyar, Seniyan Tamil-speaking weaving caste Setupati ‘guardian of the bridge’; title of the line of Marava rulers of Ramnad (Ramanathapuram) Shanars, Shanans toddy-drawing and petty trading caste in southern Tamil country shappu, cappanki ‘red wood’, sappanwood (Lat., Caesalpina sappan)

648 glossary shayaver ‘colour root’, chaya plant (Lat., Oldenlandia umbellata) Signatti, Desinganadu title of the rulers of Quilon (Kollam) simai, cimai province sinna turai, cinna turai ‘junior master, small gentleman’; younger brother sippi pearl sitati, sittatti ‘mayor’, title for caste notables used by Paravas Siviyar ‘palanquin bearer’, occupational name applied to those employed in that capacity sreni, shreni merchant guild srikariyam, srikaryam ‘holy preceptor’, manager of temple, mutt, etc. stalattar, talattar, stanatar, tanatar leading temple officers stalapuranam account of a Hindu temple’s powers, myths, and origins stanikar a temple manager or officer with administrative and ritual responsibilities stuiver Dutch coin, 1 stuiver = 1/20 guilder or 1/60 rixdollar subahdar Mughal provincial governor or viceroy Sundaresverar ‘Beautiful Lord’, form of the Hindu god Shiva Susuhunan, Sunan title used by the rulers of Mataram on the island of Java takaram tin takkavi, taccavi advance of money made by the government to cultivators, agricultural loan talakartan, dalakartan commander of the fort; captain, general, marshal, commander-in-chief talavay, dalavay commander-in-chief tamarind ‘date of India’ (Lat., Tamarindus indica), products used in Tamil cuisine and medicine tambi, tampi younger brother tanam, dana generosity, giving, form of alms tank reservoir, artificial pond or lake tantam, danda ‘stick, tusk, handle; kingly justice’, force toraga, taraku, talali broker fees

glossary 649 taragador, tarakan supervisor taricanam, darsana ‘vision, perception, view’, philosophical system in Hinduism tarka, dargah Muslim saint’s tomb shrine tarmam, dharma ‘duty, righteousness, virtue’, the first and foremost aim of humankind based on one’s class and stage in life tarmatanam, danadharma ‘the duty of the gift’, redistributive, gifting activity tarumaracakkal, tanmaracca, the duty of a king rajadharma tavazhi branch of a taravad, the joint family consisting of males and females, all descended matrilineally from a common ancestress teri red sandy soil Tevar title meaning godly, or godlike, often used by the Maravas tevataci, devadasi ‘maid servant, slave-girl of the gods’, dancing girl devoted to temple service, commonly a prostitute t(h)erutsavam car-pulling festivals thoni a boat of shallow draught with one to three masts used in the pearl and chank fisheries, loading or unloading ships, and coastal navigation tirttam ‘water’, holy place of pilgrimage and bathing tirukkai ray- or rockfish (Lat., Trygon seption; Trygon sephen; Pastinchus sephen) tirukkaittol ray- or rockfish skin, used in polishing tirukkai valai ray- or rockfish nets tolam Tamil unit of weight, widely varying based on region and commodity; 1 tolam = 100 palam topaz Indo-Portuguese Christian Toppikkarar ‘Hat-Wearers’, generic name for Europeans Trimurti ‘Three Forms’, the Hindu Trinitarian concept of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer tunkamuttu, tungamuste, muttakacu ruinas root (Lat., Cyperus juncifolius)

650 glossary tupasi, talal broker, Indian agent attached to an European mercantile firm Tuppaki gun, musket, matchlock; to load or fire a gun; honourific title of a leading Madurai court family tupetis double-width cloth used as single clothing by lower-class women turukkam inaccessible place; mountain fortress, stronghold, fastness, rampart turam representative, agent tuttam, tuttunagan zinc or spelter uppalam saline land, saltpan uppalavaras, alavars salt manufacturers uppam-parutti Indian cotton plant (Lat., Gossypium herbaceum); extensive cotton cultivation on teri soils urcavam, ursavam, utsavam processional Hindu temple festival urcavam murtti, utsavam murtti processional image of deity urani spring, well; wet, marshy land uriyakkarar ‘one who performs service’, palace guard, court servant uriyam servitude, forced labour Vaduga, Vadaga ‘northerner’, usually referring to a Telugu-speaker in Tamil country valampuri canku, chanco del rei ‘conch of Vishnu, royal conch’, conch whose spirals turn to the right, which was considered auspicous ulu-ilir upstream-downstream vaikuntha Vishnu’s heaven valankai right-handed caste groups vali share of an inheritance or produce vallal person of unbounded liberality, liberal donor vamcavali, vamsavali, vamicavali genealogical tree, family history Vannar ‘washerman’, Tamil-speaking caste group, providing laundry services and special domestic ritual services Vanniya, Palli Tamil-speaking subordinate peasant caste varai plantain (Lat., Musa paradisiaca)

glossary 651 varaku kodo millet (Lat., Paspalum frumentaceum) varnam, vannam, varna colour vellai vavval white pomfret (Lat., Pampus argenteus) Vellala high peasant-agricultural caste of the Tamil country, assuming the title of Mudaliyar in the north and Pillai in the south ventikkol alms, request, supplication vigiador supervisor, guard vira hero, warrior wazir ‘burden’, vizier, prime minister in Muslim regimes Wodeyar, Udaiyar ruling dynasty of Mysore Yama Hindu god of death and justice (tarmam, dharma) yamalokam the abode of Yama, hell yelu ur ‘major ports’ of the Fishery Coast yoni vagina-shaped symbol of the Goddess or of Shakti, female creative energy, often presented with the lingam zamindar ‘landholder, landlord’, tax farmer Zamorin, Samudri ‘one who has the sea for his border’, title of the rulers of Calicut (Kozhikode) zebu Indian ox (Lat., Bos Indicus)

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Index

Abd al-Qadir Maraikkayar (see also ‘age of commerce’ 24, 42, 504 Citakkati) 87, 88n158, 90, 434, 494, 563, ‘age of contained conflict’ 4, 42, 444, 559, 576 570, 596, 604, 646 ‘age of mercantilism’ 1, 16, 18, 74, 86, 118, 149, Abdullah Qutb Shah (r. 1626–1672) (see also 315, 535 Golconda, and Qutb Shah) 321 ‘age of partnership’ 42 Abreu, Fr. Rodrigo d’ 570, 571 agilwood (see also aromatic woods) 171 Abul Hasan Qutb Shah (r. 1672–1687) (see also ‘A’in-i-Akbari’ (see also Akbar ‘the Golconda, and Qutb Shah) 33, 428 Great’) 159 Abyssinia 359n2 Ainnurruvar (see ‘Five Hundred Lords of Abyssinians 84, 84n145 Ayyavolu’) acariyan 54, 55 Ajmer 189, 211n2, 533 Aceh 39, 74, 75, 88, 280, 291, 317, 352, 461, Akbar ‘the Great’ (r. 1556–1605) (see also 510, 586, 620 Mughals) 159 Achyutappa Chitti, Astrappa Chitti, Alagiri Nayaka 607, 613, 617, 618 ‘Malayya’ 87 Alangakulam 162 Achyutappa Nayaka 67, 191, 529 Alantalai 91n165, 162, 163, 164, 387 Adam Pillai 271, 564, 564n100 Alebos, Claes 511 Adam’s Bridge 284, 456, 458, 595 Alexander vii 384 ‘Adegondun’ xxv ‘Aligarh school’ 8, 8n13 adhikari 63n90, 328, 344, 635 Ali Husain Maraikkayar 464 Adil Shah (see also Bijapur, and individual Ali Nayinar Pillai 221 rulers) 170, 321, 424, 635 al-jannah (see also Islam) 131 Adi Narayana Tevar 82, 322n14, 529n44 Almeida, Simão d’ 462n94 Adirampatnam, Adirampattinam xxv, 84, Alvares, Francisco 343 85, 88, 162, 169, 205, 220, 225, 263, 271, Alvarez, Susanna (see also Vliet, Joan van) 116 280, 284, 290, 419n13, 431n36, 433, Alvar Kurichi, Alwarkurichi xxv, 197, 206, 433n39, 440, 450, 454, 456, 457, 457n83, 220, 262 458, 458n85, 473, 523n38, 526, 551, 553, Alvar Tirunagari, Alwarthirunagari xxv, 36, 554, 555, 556, 562n96, 579, 581, 593 51n61, 59, 104, 104n202, 168, 169, 198, 219, Adisaivas (see also Pattars) 52 220, 221, 385, 443, 467, 469, 536, 538, ‘adopted son’ 1, 80, 80n135, 83, 361, 419, 641 545, 547, 550, 563n99, 620, 624 advance contract system 167–168, 213, 222, eic factory at (see also Travers, 223, 328, 333, 477, 622, 648 Walter) 104, 104n202, 385 ‘advantageous contract’ (1674) 22, 24, 25, Amangkurat i (r. 1646–1677) (see also 208, 248, 267, 268–269, 272, 275, 282, Mataram) 317, 349, 416 284, 315n2, 334, 413, 451, 451n71, 454, Amangkurat ii (r. 1677–1703) (see also 455, 459, 461, 472, 474, 476, 492, 495, Mataram) 416, 509, 510 505, 535, 538, 539, 543, 549, 550, 553, Amangkurat iv (r. 1719–1726) (see also 554, 556, 563, 567, 573, 585, 586 Mataram) 44n46 ‘Afgoderye der Oost-Indische Heydenen’ (see Amaral, António de 93n169, 384 also Baldaeus, Philippus) 133–134 ambalakkarar 328, 344, 469, 583, 585, 635 Africa 37, 117, 141, 152, 229, 318 Ambalakkarar Kallar (see also Kallar) 32, Africans 12, 117 33n18 agalams (see also textiles) 224, 226, 635 Ambasamudram 260, 281n124 Ageng, Tirtayesa (r. 1651–1683) (see also Ambayaraiya, Ambaya Raiya, Ambaya Bantam) 317, 509 Talaivar (see also Mysore) 545, 546

708 Index

Ambon 29, 287, 364n10 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, Ambonese 366, 398, 510 398, 399, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 408, the Americas (see also New World) 43n41, 410, 411, 412, 413, 418, 419, 421, 422, 423, 61, 106, 167, 178, 229, 463, 647 423n20, 428, 429, 430, 431, 431n36, 433, amman 50, 52, 465, 635 433n39, 434n40, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, Ammanpettai 208 440, 441, 442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, Ammapatnam 162 448, 449, 451, 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, Ammayappa Pillai 536, 537 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 464n99, 465, Amsterdam 10, 101, 120, 120n243, 124, 125, 466, 467, 468, 468n109, 469, 471, 472, 142, 143, 167, 196, 246, 257, 259, 273, 415, 473, 474, 481, 482, 483, 484, 487, 489, 507, 508, 634 490, 491, 492, 496, 497, 499, 501, 503, ‘Amuktamalyada’ 58n78, 72 505, 519, 519n30, 520, 522, 524, 525, Anaimalai Hills 156 525n40, 526, 527, 530, 531, 531n48, 533, Anaipar Tivu, Anaipar Island 274 535, 537, 538, 538n55, 538n56, 544, 545, Anantagiri, Ananthagiri 421 548, 549, 550, 556, 561, 573, 575, 576, 578, Ananta Pandidar 362 578n126, 580, 581, 583, 584, 585, 586, anchorage dues 37, 644 604, 605, 607, 608n177, 609, 612, 613, Andagala 344 614, 615, 616, 618, 619, 621, 622, 622n200, Andaman Islands 551 623, 624, 625, 626, 628, 629, 635, 636 Andhra, Andhra Pradesh 58, 151, 273 Arantangi 361 Andur 421 Arasanagaripatnam, Arasanagari xxv, 162 Angel, Philip 142 Arcakas (see also Pattars) 52 Angola 341 ‘archaic globalisation’ (see ‘early modern anicuts (see also Grand Anicut, irrigation globalisation’) technology, and tanks) 154, 156, 635 Arcot 178, 280n121 Anjengo 515 arecanuts 16, 17, 37, 85, 149, 171, 193, 200–210, ‘Annadanamahanatakamu’ 70 209n111, 225, 257, 284, 299, 367n17, 381, ‘Apenijck’ xxv 382, 438, 454, 455, 456, 457, 460, 462, Appanar xxv, 433 472, 473, 474, 480, 486, 492, 493, 494, Appanar Nattu Maravas (see also 535, 539, 540, 541, 542, 551, 553, 555, 561, Kulavaipatti Maravas, and Raja Surya 562, 567, 569, 569n109, 572, 573, 578, Tevar) 82, 433, 523, 528, 529n44 590, 591, 593, 605, 608, 616, 634, 635, Appa Tivu, Appa Island 274 636, 645 Arab 17, 32, 34, 43, 131, 152n8, 234, 314, 603 Arippu 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 492, 595 Arabia 24, 75, 273, 504, 522 Ariyalur 69, 197, 205, 207, 425, 426n26, 431, Arabian Sea 522 622n200 arachchis (see also indigenous soldiers) 200, Ariyalur Malavaraja 69 293, 294, 367, 399, 403, 409, 409n125, Ariyanatha Mudaliyar 157 488, 499, 542, 591, 635 Ariyanatha Pillai (see also Tirunelveli, Arakan 74, 289, 289n137, 289n138, 511, 593 governors of) 63, 66, 486, 487 Aramboli xxv, 153, 422n19, 531 ‘armchair traveler’ 16, 137, 140, 141, 141n292 Aranga Pillai 267, 605 Arnold, Christoph 145 aranmanai 3, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, aromatic woods 16, 37, 171 25, 28, 36, 50, 56–79, 77n126, 85, 92, 97, ‘Artha Shastra’ 58 104, 172, 184, 231, 232, 233, 244, 260, 265, Arti Chitti 183 296, 315, 316, 322n14, 331, 332, 338, 340, Aruna Kiri Pillai 563 343, 350, 354, 356, 357, 358, 362, 366, Arung Palakka 363 367. 368, 369, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, Aruppukottai xxv, 257 377, 378, 380, 382, 385, 386, 386n68, 388, Aryankavu 153

Index 709

Asad Khan 533 Balija 6, 56, 57, 87, 334, 636 ‘Asia, of Naukeurige Beschryvinge van het Ryk Balinese 509 des Grooten Mogols’ (see also Dapper, Ballaria 189 Olfert) 142 Banda 29 ‘Asian Seas’ 152 Bandar Abbas, Gombroon 37, 178 Asiatica 141, 145 bandit (see also thief) 15, 35, 49, 57, 89, 90, Asiatic mode of production (see 279, 452, 570 proto-Orientalism) Bangalore 273 ‘associations of indigenous merchants’ 16, bangsal (see warehouse) 149, 168, 227, 227n34, 299, 514, 624–625 Banjarmasin 29 Asunda Rama Pillai 438 bankdaalders (see also ‘commercial coins’) Aswathi Thirunal Umayamma, Umayamma 178, 180, 181 Rani (see also Attingal) 531 Bantam, Banten (see also individual rulers) Athangarai, Attangarai xxv 87n156, 193, 317, 349, 349n80, 509, 510, attar of roses (see ‘rose water’) 568 Attingal 592 Banyans 234 Rani of 515, 517, 531, 541, 542, 587, 606, Baramahal (see also Salem) 214, 216, 532 607, 608, 615n190 Barentse, Arent 136 Attur 66, 154, 184, 264, 464n99, 467, 468, 469, Bariatte Pillai 542, 606n175, 615n190 483, 484, 486, 487, 488, 532, 546, 562, 569 bark cloth tree (see also chaya roots, and Augsburg, Peace of (1555) 34, 134, 627 other dyes) 273 Augsburg, War of the League of (1688–1697) Barneveld 141, 257 (see Nine Years’ War) Baros (see also Sumatra) 510 Aurangabad 522 barque (see also other ship types) 351 Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) (see also barqueiros, barcquiers 203, 257, 636 Mughals) 246, 358, 522, 527, 533, 593, Bart, Pieter van 75n119, 326, 351n83, 632 594, 616 Basava, Basavanna 52 avataram, avatar 57, 144, 636 baskets (see also palmyra palm) 37, 212, Aydayarpatnam xxv 255 Ayurvedic medicine 189, 643 Bassingh, Adolff xii, xvi, 37, 57, 58, 68, Ayuthya (see also Siam) 186, 241 69, 75n119, 76, 98, 102, 103, 120–121, Azhagankulam xxv 128, 134, 144, 145, 146, 403n107, 409n125, 428n30, 482, 483, 484, Babba Prabhu 56, 87, 217, 227, 449, 462n94, 485, 485n140, 485n141, 485n142, 494, 598, 599, 600, 600n165, 628 486, 490, 616 Baboji Pandidar, Varaboji Pandidar (see also ‘Bastiaen Paijen’, ‘Baijtia Paijen’ 549 Marathas) 46, 526, 600 Batavia (see also High Government) 23, 29, Babu Pillai 563 37, 40, 43n41, 101, 107, 110, 112, 114, 116, Baghdad 90 120, 121, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 128n260, Bagumithran Maraikkayar 583, 583n135 129, 176, 189, 190, 224n30, 225, 241, 285, Bahadur Khan 428 287, 289n137, 289n138, 290, 317, 325, Bahlul Khan 360, 378 330, 333, 334, 335, 340, 341, 344, 345, bailiff 243, 642 346, 348, 349, 353, 355, 366, 370, 372, Balabadraramapuram xxv 376, 377, 380, 383, 384, 387, 388, 390, ‘balance of blackmail’ 4, 42, 440 392, 394, 396, 397, 398n94, 404, 405, Baldaeus, Philippus (see also ‘Afgoderye der 406, 407, 407n119, 417, 440, 441, 444, Oost-Indische Heydenen’) 96, 129, 445, 445n58, 447, 449, 456, 458, 461, 129n263, 130, 133, 133n270, 134, 142, 144, 145, 463, 464, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, 146, 306, 383 472, 474, 478–485, 487, 488, 490, 492,

710 Index

Batavia (cont.) Bern 139 497, 500, 502, 508, 510, 511, 513, 537, 546, Bernier, François 104 548, 551, 554n84, 556, 567, 567n107, Best, George 117 570n109, 571, 572, 575, 580n130, 587, 604, Bett, James 552n81 605, 606, 610, 615n189, 627, 628, 629 Beuningen, Coenraad van 124, 125, 508 ‘Batavia-centric’ faction 10n19, 15, 21, 23, 24, Beypur River, Beypore River 611n183 25, 28, 118, 118n239, 119, 120n243, 121, bhakti 51, 95, 134, 636 124–129, 126n255, 128n260, 135, 202, Bhattacaryas (see also Pattars) 52 225n31, 258, 318, 294, 297, 370–371, 376, Bhatta Nayaka 82, 322, 322n14 378, 381, 396, 404, 405, 406, 407, ‘Biblical Exodus’ 106, 111 407n119, 412, 416, 417, 440, 441, 444, 445, ‘Bicham’ Tevar 433 447, 449, 456, 456n82, 461, 463, 464, Bijapur (see also Deccan sultanates, and 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, 472, 474, individual rulers) 17, 18, 19, 65n94, 83, 87, 478–485, 479n131, 487, 488, 490, 492, 170, 175, 289, 290, 315, 316, 320, 321, 322, 323, 497, 497n173, 502, 504, 505, 508, 509, 333, 339, 340, 356, 357, 358, 358n2, 359, 360, 511, 512n18, 513, 514, 535, 587, 613, 623 361, 362, 363, 372, 373n28, 378, 402, 421, 422, ‘Batavian Myth’ 106, 107, 107n211 425, 426n26, 428, 435, 439, 452, 470, 475, Batticaloa 114, 202, 225, 234, 284, 364, 458 494, 503, 523, 527, 532, 533, 543n65, 593, 635 bazaar, shop (see also botiqueiros) 111, governors of Gingee 62, 67, 340, 360, 223n27, 206, 208, 224, 232, 233, 242 362, 439, 470, 543n65 bazaar duties 37, 232 invasions of Madurai (1649; 1655; 1659; beatilhas (see also textiles) 17, 224, 227, 326, 1663) 636 19, 124, 124n250, 290, 320, 321, 322, 323, beef (see also buffaloes, bullocks, cows, and 340, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 363, oxen) 43, 488n149 372, 373n28, 378, 424, 424n22 Behr, Johann von der 137, 139, 305, 336, Mughal conquest of (1686) 24, 291, 336n46, 338, 338n52 321, 358, 358n2, 503, 522–523, 527, Bekker, Balthasar (see also Radical 532, 533, 593 Enlightenment) 143 siege of Gingee (see Gingee, Golconda and Bellanger de Lespinay, Louis Auguste Bijapur siege of) 446n59, 453, 454n78 bills of exchange 177, 180n62, 507n9 bellum iustum (see right of war) Bimilipatnam 222, 258 Benares, Varanasi 46, 56, 354, 598 birds of paradise (see also curiosities) 37, 40 Bencoolen, Bengkulu (see also ‘Black Legend’ (see also Casas, De Las) Sumatra) 177, 510 106–107, 107n208 Bengal 7, 8n12, 16, 29, 37, 38, 76, 85, 88, 159, Blaeu, Joan 108 166, 168, 172, 175n53, 176, 177, 181, Blom, Floris 589, 595, 596, 597, 599 185n69, 187, 191, 193n79, 204, 212, 212n3, blood sacrifice 95, 639 220, 240, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, Bodi Alagari Nayaka 452n75, 460, 463, 465 248n68, 249, 250, 251, 251n70, 256, 257, Bodinayakkanur 153 257n83, 289, 289n137, 289n138, 352, boieiros (see also bullocks, and oxen) 171, 417n9, 457n83, 495, 507, 508, 517, 539, 196, 208, 220, 267, 619, 636 544n66, 551, 557, 569, 572, 573, 574, 579, Bombay, Mumbai 176, 177, 183, 234, 514 580, 582, 586, 602, 609 Bone (see also Makassar) 363 Bay of 76, 256, 457n83 Bongaerts, Henricus 96, 129, 383 rupee 181 Boothalapuram xxv Bengarappa Nayaka 423n20 botiqueiros (see also bazaar) 208, 234, 636 benzoin (see also aromatic woods) 171 ‘bottom up’ vision (see also soldiers) 15, 28, Bergaigne, Alexander 628 135–140

Index 711 brahmateyam, brahmadeya (see temple campannottis (see also chank fishery, and endowment, and ‘gifting’ activity) pearl fishery) 234, 236, 237, 240, 242, 406, Brahmins 15, 28, 31n13, 36, 38, 39, 46, 46n50, 636 47, 48, 50–56, 52n65, 57, 58, 59, 59n80, camphor (see also aromatic woods) 148, 171 63, 63n90, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 84, 87, 95, Camphuys, Joannes 508 132, 133, 144, 146, 146n308, 195, 196, 217, cancaram, samsara (see transmigration 241, 255, 256, 262, 324, 332, 344, 354, of souls) 360, 419, 427n29, 428, 438, 448, 450, Candia Lappa, D. 367, 367n17 453, 455, 457, 460, 464, 467n107, 468, Cannanore, Kannur 123, 194, 207, 364, 468n107, 477, 483, 485, 488n149, 491, 606n176 526n40, 529, 538, 538n56, 545, 567, 569, Ali Rajas or Adersia of 606 570, 578, 598, 599, 605, 614, 636, 646 Kolathiris of 123, 194, 364 Brazil 318, 341, 342, 498, 612n187 cantai, santhai (see also market) 208, 281, Brielle, Den Briel 132 535, 636 British (see English) Canton, Guangzhou 189 Britto, Fr. João de 33, 33n18, 261n88, 528n43 Cape Colony (see Cape Town) brocade (see also textiles) 16, 37, 172 Cape Comorin, Kanyakumari 1, 91, 159, 162, broker fees 37, 167, 243, 649 164, 194, 195, 207, 208, 219, 256, 351, 364, brokers 16, 92, 93, 149, 167, 168, 189, 217, 222, 387, 438, 462, 492, 494, 517, 540, 541, 227, 227n34, 443, 514, 625, 647, 650 580, 600, 607, 608n178 Bry, Theodorus de 147 Cape of Good Hope (see also Cape Town) Buddhism 511, 591, 593, 639 2, 29, 43n41, 113, 143, 225, 500 buffaloes (see also bullocks, cows, and oxen) Caperman, Hubert 609 279, 280, 280n122, 281 Caperman, Krijn 475, 545 Bugis 363, 510 Cape Town (see also Cape Colony, and Cape ‘bullion for goods’ model (see ‘treasure for of Good Hope) 112, 113, 287 textiles’ model) Captain Jonker 510 ‘bullionist’ (see also ‘open door’ policy) Cardoso, Fr. Didaco 337 61n85, 74, 173n48, 177, 185 Caribbean 229 bullocks (see also buffaloes, cows, and oxen) ‘carkkar lands’, ‘sarkar lands’ 65, 79, 636 171, 196, 207, 216, 255, 281, 636 Carmelites 384 Bungaya, Treaty of (1669) (see also Makassar) Carnatic (see also Karnataka) 87, 168, 201, 364 218, 256, 286, 291, 321, 360, 373n28, 428, Burma, Myanmar 74, 186, 193 521 Butler, David 452n75 ‘Carnatic Partition Agreement’ (1646) Buuren, Lambert van 577 (see also Bijapur, and Golconda) 321 Carolinus, Godefridus (see also ‘Het cabinet (see lacquerware) Hedendaagsche Heidendom’) 141 Cabral, Jorge 366, 367 carpets 16, 37, 172, 603, 617, 640 Calcutta 43n41, 110, 647 car-pulling festivals (see also temple ‘calicoe craze’ (see also ‘Chinoiserie’, and festivals) 53, 55, 95, 339n53, 650 ‘consumer revolution’) 23, 165, 166, 227, cartar, sartar, sardar 430n32, 636 415, 503, 507 Carvalho de Mesquita, Fr. António 337 Calicut, Kozhikode 73, 515, 516, 563, 590, carvamaniyam, sarvamanyam (see also 608, 609, 611, 611n183, 651 pakuti, and tribute) 83, 323, 637 Zamorin of 123, 126, 194, 273, 398, 401, Casas, De Las (see ‘Black Legend’) 515, 606, 611, 611n183, 651 Casembroot, Reynier 513, 575 Calvinism (see Dutch Reformed Church) caste, jati (see also individual castes) 6, 15, camels 103 30, 43, 44, 47, 48, 51, 52, 57, 65, 68,

712 Index caste (cont.) 367n17, 369, 370, 376, 379, 381, 382, 388, 80n135, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97n185, 391, 392, 393, 393n82, 406, 407, 411, 412, 105, 111, 114, 218, 219, 221, 222, 223, 229, 413, 416, 417, 436, 437, 438, 440, 441, 444, 236, 242, 255, 256, 269, 277, 278, 293, 445, 446, 447, 449, 450, 451, 457, 458, 294, 347, 367n17, 384, 398, 399n98, 461, 462, 465, 473, 474, 476, 478, 479n131, 409n125, 558, 571, 635, 636, 637, 638, 480, 481, 482, 492, 493, 494, 497, 498, 639, 640, 641, 642, 643, 644, 645, 646, 498n176, 502, 504, 508, 511, 512, 512n19, 647, 648, 650, 651 513, 539, 540, 546, 551, 567, 568, 569, castizos 113 570n109, 571, 573, 575, 576, 590, 591, 592, ‘castle with the golden walls’ (see also 592n150, 593, 594, 594n154, 595, 597, Nagapatnam) 25, 297, 512, 512n19, 589, 600, 605, 606, 611, 616, 621, 631 623, 626 Catholicism on 96, 122, 127, 626 castor (see also oil seeds) 254, 635 Dutch conquest of (1638–1658) 18, 315, Catane, Fr. Valeriane 387 317, 319, 349, 350, 351, 353, 498n176 Catholicism (see also Christianity) 5, 15, 20, Dutch Reformed Church on 113, 133, 135, 28, 33, 50, 74, 76n122, 91, 94, 95, 96, 626 96n182, 101, 104, 109, 122, 123n248, 127, Muslims in 114, 123, 378–379 129, 131, 134, 134n275, 135, 357, 372, 378, Portuguese 18, 315, 351, 353, 382, 445, 383, 384, 386n68, 387, 448, 484, 490, 498–499 496, 497, 498, 558, 626, 627, 629, 645 Tamils in 114 cattiram, shattiram (see choultry) ‘Ceylon-centric’ faction (see also Rijckloff van Cauvery, Kaveri River 36, 64, 151, 153, 154, 155, Goens Junior and Senior) 10n19, 15, 17, 156, 158, 252n72, 253, 261, 457n83, 465 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 37, 40, 77, 78, 101, 103, cavalry (see also horses) 32, 60, 64, 74, 118–124, 118n239, 124n251, 125, 126, 127, 128, 75n119, 225n30, 333, 354, 360, 362, 427, 128n260, 129, 135, 172, 184, 195, 202, 203, 429–430n32, 431, 431n36, 526n41 204, 225, 245, 258, 261, 263, 281, 284, 285, ‘Celsikiriaijen’ 538 288, 297, 318, 357, 358, 378, 392, 405, cenkol (see sceptre) 411–412, 413, 416, 417, 441, 447, 449, 451, ‘censors of public morals’ 593 452, 461, 463, 465, 466, 470, 472, 474, Central Asia 31, 60, 151, 158 478–484, 496, 499, 501, 502, 505, 511, 514, ceremonial hall (see also temple architecture) 535, 571, 623 347, 642 ‘Ceytakati Nontinakam’ 88n158, 90 Cervaikarar (see also individuals) 82, 88, Chaliyam 611n183 418, 422, 433, 455, 485, 519, 539, 550, 551, chaloupe (see also sloop, and other ship types) 552, 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 557n88, 561, 136n280, 495, 637 563, 573, 574, 576, 578, 583n135, 637 Chandernagore 517 Cervai Maraikkayar 559 Chandra Cervaikarar 82, 418, 422, 433, 455, Cervai Nayinar Maraikkayar 539, 575 539, 554 Ceylon, Sri Lanka 3, 3n4, 7, 10, 10n19, 17, 19, Chandragiri 70, 161n25 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 47, 74, 76, 77, 88, 96, Chandra Tondaiman (see also Tondaiman Raja) 113, 114, 115, 118n239, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 433 125, 126, 128, 129, 133, 135, 136n280, 139, chanks 17, 37, 88, 150, 231, 235, 240–252, 140, 145, 159, 171, 191, 200, 201, 202, 203, 248n69, 250–251n70, 268, 299, 326, 327, 204, 205, 206, 208, 217, 225, 226, 235, 239, 328, 355, 379, 435, 454, 455, 458, 473, 245, 246, 249, 252, 256, 257, 257n83, 258, 474, 475, 476, 480, 492, 493, 495, 535, 262, 263, 265, 272, 273, 273n110, 281, 283, 539, 540, 541, 543, 544, 544n66, 550, 551, 284, 285, 287, 289n138, 290, 291, 293, 553, 554, 554n84, 555, 556, 557, 558, 561, 294, 296, 299, 314, 315, 317, 318, 319, 326, 567, 572, 573, 574, 579, 582, 586, 598, 327, 334, 338, 341, 349, 350, 357, 364, 366, 602, 625, 634, 636, 637

Index 713

divers 77n126, 91–97, 93, 232, 233, Chinnatambi Mudaliyar 68, 75, 191, 402, 234–237, 236n50, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 402n106, 403, 420, 422, 422n18, 430, 477 250, 251, 331, 406, 490, 540, 543, 558, ‘Chinoiserie’ (see also ‘calicoe craze’, and 602, 641, 642 ‘consumer revolution’) 507 fishery (see also pearl fishery) 17, 85, chintzes (see also textiles) 17, 224, 227, 637, 91–97, 240–252, 270, 296, 368, 374, 383, 647 385, 558, 638, 649 Chiormandelan (see also ‘Tanjore contract’) chaya roots (see also dye roots, and 452, 471n117, 481, 483 other dyes) 17, 37, 85, 88, 150, 211, Chittar River 158, 256 267, 272–278, 272n107, 389, 390, 435, Chittis, Cetti, Chetti, Chittiyar (see also 454, 455, 458, 459, 473, 475, 492, 494, individuals) 58, 73, 87, 87n154, 110, 168, 495, 535, 539, 540, 541, 561, 567, 573, 182, 183, 203, 234, 267, 324, 325, 334, 464, 637, 648 464n99, 464n100, 467, 469, 483, 487, Chedars 219 487n146, 491, 517, 518n28, 538, 546, 549, Chedu Abd al-Qadir 221 562, 575, 581, 593, 607, 608, 608n177, 609, Chedu Mahmud Nayanar 221 618, 619, 620, 621, 637 Chegu Pillai 563, 563n99, 573, 575, 580, 581, Chokkalinga Nayaka 191 582, 583, 586, 587, 588, 588n141, 589, Chokkanatha Cervaikarar 519, 574 589n143 Chokkanatha Nayaka (r. 1659–1682) Chegu Salauddin 605 (see also Madurai, Nayaka state of) 21, Chembaruthimedu xxv 28, 38, 49, 54, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, Chengalpet, Chingleput, Chengalpattu 6n8 69, 75, 76, 82, 102, 191, 358, 359, 360, 361, Chengamala Das 67, 424, 424n22, 425, 527, 361n6, 362, 363, 363n9, 367, 368, 373n28, 534 390, 391, 395, 397, 399, 401, 402, 403, 404, Cheras (see also ‘three crowned kings’) 154, 412, 419, 419n12, 420, 421, 424, 425, 426, 427, 159, 643 427n29, 429, 429–430n32, 435, 441, 446n59, Chevrolet, Fr. Sebastian 629 452n75, 453, 457, 465, 469, 470, 471, 485, chiavonys (see also textiles) 326, 637 518, 518n29, 520, 521, 521n35, 522, 522n36, Chidambaranatha Chitti 73, 260, 260n86, 528, 530, 530n45, 538n55, 617, 631 464, 464n99, 464n100, 467, 483, 487, Chokkanatha Pillai (see also pradhani, and 487n146, 491, 538, 546, 575, 581, 609, 618 Tirunelveli, governors of) 39, 488, 489, Chikkadeva Raja (r. 1673–1704) (see also 491, 499 Mysore, and Wodeyar) 421, 518, 520, 521, Chokkanatha Setupati (see Setu Ranga Raja) 522, 532, 534 Cholas (see also ‘three crowned kings’) Child, Josiah 118n239, 514 36, 154, 643 chili peppers 252, 254, 643 choultry 399, 637 China (see also Qing Empire) 16, 24, 39n33, Christendom (see also Christianity) 100, 133 151, 154n14, 165, 166, 172, 173, 177, 185n70, Christiaenss., Jan 245 189, 210, 268, 504 Christianity (see also Christendom, and Chinanna Chetti 87, 324, 325, 325n19, 334, individual denominations) 5, 20, 24, 27, 335 32, 33, 42n41, 43, 45, 45n46, 49, 94, 95, Chinappa Mudaliyar 48, 293, 409, 409n125, 95n178, 98, 99, 100, 101, 106, 109, 112, 114, 115, 439, 464, 464n100, 482, 483, 485 117, 122, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, chinaroot 172 136, 138, 140, 143, 144, 162, 163, 164, 168, 194, Chinese 72n113, 152n8, 187, 189, 190, 415, 507, 196, 203, 235, 236, 236n50, 237, 238, 242, 647 269, 278, 287, 288, 293, 316, 327, 337, 357, ‘Chinese colonial town’ 189 378, 384, 387, 395, 444, 452, 454, 467, 490, Chinna 552, 554, 555, 574 505, 517, 549, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 562, Chinna Kadiri Nayaka 521 564, 565, 571, 607, 628, 649

714 Index

‘Christo-centrism’ 15, 98, 101, 106, 117, 235, ‘Columbian exchange’ 43n41, 252 378, 470, 558 Commelin, Isaac 141n292, 147 Chulias 87n156, 90, 591, 592, 593, 594, ‘commercial coins’ (see also individual coins) 611n183 37, 178, 180 chungam (see also customs and duties) 326, ‘commercialisation of royal power’ (see also 559, 637 ‘royalisation of mercantile wealth’) cilli (see coral stone) 59–61, 86, 260, 267, passim cinnamon (see also fine spices, and wild commissioner general (see also Rheede, cinnamon) 16, 18, 149, 171, 191, 192, 315, Hendrik Adriaan van) 10, 47, 76, 96, 319, 334, 364, 414, 480, 640 120n243, 121n244, 168, 199, 227, 258, 272, cirappu, carappu (see shroffs) 276, 297, 304, 393n82, 403n107, 479n132, ‘Cirappuranam’ 89 508, 512, 514, 585, 588, 589, 592, 594, 595, cirpacaris, cirpams, karkottis (see stone 596, 597, 599, 600, 612n187, 621, 626 cutters) commission of ‘reform and budgetary Citakatti (see also Abd al-Qadir Maraikkayar) measures’ (1683) 508 87, 88, 88n158, 89, 90, 434 ‘community and states’ 229 Cittirai, Chaitra Festival (see also temple Compagnie des Indes Orientales (see French) festivals) 32, 281 Company Directors (see Gentlemen civet cats (see also curiosities) 616 Seventeen) clay soils 156, 158, 214, 264, 276 compass (see also curiosities) 38, 39, 583 Clebout, Barent 438 conch shells (see chanks) climatic determinism 15, 98, 105–106, ‘conflict-ridden symbiosis’ 4, 42 105n204, 117 ‘conspiracy of the uncles’ (1689) 67, Clinck, Gerrit Claesz. 228, 229n39 527–529 ‘closed seas’ policy (see mare clausum) ‘consumer revolution’ (see also ‘calicoe craze’, cloves (see also fine spices) 16, 149, 171, 176, and ‘Chinoiserie’) 24, 165, 176, 229, 504 191, 192, 193, 193n79, 327, 414, 636 ‘contract of alliance’ (1690) 25, 265, 505, ‘Cocceians’ (see also ’Voetians’) 107, 119, 129 586, 621, 622, 623, 624 Cochin, Kochi 110, 121, 136n279, 287, ‘co-operation or acquiescence’ 4, 42 289n138, 364, 377, 384, 385, 388, copper (see also non-precious metals) 16, 467n107, 513, 579, 580, 609 24, 37, 55, 148, 149, 164n27, 171, 175, 176, cockatoos (see also curiosities) 37, 40 180, 184, 185, 186–187, 188, 299, 450, 451, coconuts 212, 299 468, 468n109, 504, 582, 586, 637 ‘Coen doctrine’ 18, 109, 122, 315, 317, 317n4, coral stone (see also lime) 17, 37, 150, 211, 613 295–299, 328n26, 376, 459, 460, 462, 637 Coen, Jan Pietersz. 109, 109n217, 119, 315n2 cutters 296, 637 Coimbatore 6n8, 156, 161, 196, 214, 216, 218, coriander (see also oil seeds) 254, 641 278, 279n121, 532, 640 cornac (see elephant driver) coir rope (see also palmyra palm) 37, 212, Coromandel 3, 5, 7, 8n12, 10, 10n19, 17, 18, 25, 255, 355, 644 29, 38, 87n156, 88, 90, 118n239, 122, 146, Colachel xxv, 608n178 155, 168, 170, 176, 187, 193n79, 198, 202, Coleroon, Kollidam River 1, 151, 155, 253, 261, 203, 204, 206, 207, 211n2, 212, 212n3, 216, 271, 360 217, 221, 222, 224, 225, 227, 228, 246, Cologne, Electorate of 21, 144, 411, 414 252n72, 257, 257n83, 258, 268, 273, 275, Colombo 3, 10n19, 22, 40, 50, 101, 110, 113, 115, 285, 286, 288, 289, 290, 291, 297, 315, 317, 118n239, 121, 200, 234, 257, 264, 280, 285, 318, 319, 320, 326, 329, 330, 334, 353, 379, 287, 289, 294, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 381, 441, 446, 449, 470, 505, 507, 508, 385n63, 404, 413, 449, 450, 488, 489, 492, 512, 512n19, 513, 514, 517, 567, 569, 499, 500, 540, 551, 569, 577, 604, 605, 626 586n138, 594, 606, 632, 639

Index 715 coronation ceremonies 68, 427n29, 581, 583, Cunha, Pedro da 380 646 curas (see sharks) Corse, Fr. Simon 387 curiosities 30, 37, 39, 40, 76, 191, 268, 456, Costa da Pescaria (see also Fishery Coast, 460, 464, 557, 567, 573, 593, 594, 604, Madurai Coast, ‘Opposite Coast’, and 616, 644 Tirunelveli) 81, 162 curse of Ham 117 Costa d’Inchiado (see also Ramnad customs and duties 37, 37n27, 74, 78, 170, 174, Coast) 81, 162 184, 185n69, 189, 196, 199, 225, 233, 324, Costa, Fr. Balthasar da 71n107, 321n11 326, 351, 365, 367n17, 368, 374, 379, 381, Costa, Fr. Manuel Boniface da 387 382, 388, 389, 390, 395, 396, 399, 400, cotton (see also textiles) 36, 37, 150, 156, 165, 419, 436, 437, 440, 443, 472, 473, 474, 171, 211, 213–216, 217, 220, 227, 255, 267, 486, 487, 488, 489, 491, 494, 536, 540, 285, 644, 645, 647, 650 547, 551, 554, 555, 559, 561, 562, 572, 593, yarn 216, 219n16, 220, 223n27, 328n26, 595, 602, 609, 616, 622, 624, 637, 638 355, 458, 609 ‘cotton’ soil (see regur) ‘Dagelijksche Huyscatechisatie’ (see also Counter-Remonstrants (see ‘Voetians’) Ridderus, Franciscus) 133 Courtallam 158 Dakhnis, Deccanis 358, 358–359n2, 428 Court, Johan de la (see also Radical Dam, Pieter van 124, 126n255, 230n40, 355, Enlightenment) 143 401n103 Court, Pieter de la (see also Radical Damarla Aiyappa Nayaka 362 Enlightenment) 143 Damarla Venkatadri Nayaka 362 Coutre, Jacques de 70–71n106 Danayakankottai 322 cows (see also beef, buffaloes, bullocks, dancing girls (see also temple ceremonies) and oxen) 17, 46, 47, 150, 211, 278, 90, 134, 649 281–284, 392, 554, 555, 574, 604, 636 Danish (see also Tranquebar) 27n4, 41, 81, Crackouw, Govert 324 165, 199, 325, 326, 335, 328, 453, 476n124, Cranganore, Kodungallur 122, 194, 364 574, 606 cross-cousin marriage (see also murai) 134, Dapper, Olfert (see also ‘Asia, of Naukeurige 643 Beschryvinge van het Ryk des Grooten Cruz Correia, João da 488, 499, 500 Mogols’) 141–144, 142n296, 145 Cruz, Francisco 385 ‘day of assembly’ (see also Islam) 131 Cruz, Henrique da 92, 97, 97n185, 332, ‘De Beschaemde Christen’ (see also Ridderus, 332n38, 337, 369, 384, 385, 386, 386n68, Franciscus) 132 387 Decalogue (see also Christianity) 134 Cruz, Henrique da, Jr. or Chinna 385 Deccan 6, 17, 19, 24, 33, 35, 57, 71, 159, 175, Cruz, João da, or Vikirama Aditha 191, 212n3, 273, 289, 315, 316, 320, 321, Pandya 94 358, 428, 503, 527, 532 Cruz, João da 92, 93n169, 384 Deccan sultanates (see also Bijapur, Golconda) Cruz, Joseph da 625 6, 17, 19, 24, 175, 315, 316, 320, 321, 358, Cruz, Manuel da 385 503, 527, 532 Cruz, Pedro da 626 ‘De Conversione Indorum et Gentilium’ Cruz Pinho Gago, Pedro da 500, 501 (see also Hoornbeek, Johannes) 132 Cuddalore 174, 216, 225, 475, 514, 539, ‘De Legatione Evangelica ad Indos 544n66 Capessenda Admonitio’ (see also cuius regio, eius religio 34, 134, 383, 627, Heurnius, Justus) 130 629, 638 Delft 228, 273 cumin 267 Demmer, Gerard 116 Cunha, Fr. Manuel da 387 ‘demon altars’ 95, 646

716 Index deserters (see also Heintze, Christoffel) 68, Duijn, Cornelis van der 275, 438, 582, 587, 75, 75n122, 82, 293, 389, 408, 423, 427, 588 433, 433n39, 441, 443, 488, 488n149, dungaris (see also sailcloths, and textiles) 509, 534, 572 17, 224, 229, 638 Deshima (see also Japan, and Tokugawa) 37, Duquesne-Guitton, Abraham de Bellebat de 186, 415 597, 602 Deva Chatira Ayya 332 Durganahalaksmi 58 Deva Kanakkapillai 555, 569, 570, 583, Durijn, Cornelis 458 583n135, 598 Dussen, Lucas van der 396, 397 Devakottai Tevar 322n15 Dutch East Indies xvi, 7, 10, 27n4, 112, 119, Devangas, Devangulus 218, 638 301, 302, 304 Deva Raja Chitti (see also French) 73, 517, Dutch Golden Age 98, 119 518n29, 607, 608n177 Dutch Reformed Church 5, 15, 28, 95, 96, 98, Deventer, Jacob van 108 100, 101, 104, 106, 109, 111, 112, 113, 117, 118, Devil 45n46, 132, 139, 144 119, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 146, Devipatnam, Devipattinam xxv, 162, 457, 287, 345, 444, 558, 629, 646 476, 494, 597 dye roots (see also chaya roots, and other dyes) Dhanushkodi, Danushkodi 595, 596 16, 200, 273 Dharapuram 65, 66, 171n44, 262, 363, 421 dye woods 16, 37, 171 Dharmapuri 532 diamonds (see precious stones) ‘early modern globalisation’ 24, 42, 61, 260, Dielen, Isaacq van 610, 615n190 503 Dielen, Johanna van (see also Pijl, Laurens) East Africa (see also East Africa) 152 Dielen, Willem van 122, 125 ‘Eastern Districts’ (see also Malacca) 3, 7, 19, Dindigul 66, 197, 205, 207, 214, 216, 252n72, 318, 357 262, 281n124, 518, 520, 524 Eastern Ghats 154 disava 114 Eastern Indonesia (see also Indonesia, and diseases 141, 240, 280, 284, 426, 430, 512, 635 Moluccas) 19, 23, 24, 37, 171, 191, 285, 317, diving stones (see also chank fishery, and 357, 363, 364, 503, 504, 507, 508, 513 pearl fishery) 77, 175, 232, 233, 235, 236, East India Company (eic) (see English) 237, 238, 240, 379, 558, 560, 638 Eggers, Christoffel 343, 344 Doddaiya (see also Mysore) 532 Egypt 103n201, 155, 262 dominium maris (see also ‘Ceylon-centric’ Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) 106, 119, 318 vision, mare clausum, and ‘passes and Ekoji Bhonsle (r. 1675–1684) (see also protection rights’ system) 22, 413, 458, Marathas) 39, 68, 124n250, 170, 170n42, 461, 606 419n12, 422, 424, 425, 427, 427n29, 428, 429, Dordt, Council of (1618–1619) 112 430n32, 431, 431n35, 431n36, 433, 433n39, Dortmund 98 452, 453, 466, 469, 470, 471, 471n117, 472, Dossa, Carolus de la 324 473, 474, 481, 484, 518, 519, 520, 522, 554n84, ‘drain’ (see also ‘silver sink’) 16, 165, 174, 210, 568, 577, 579 381, 381n53, 415, 504 elephants 37, 38, 39, 48, 74, 75, 88, 103, 246, Drakshavaram, Draksharama 168 282, 332, 334, 350, 362, 369, 371, 392, Dravidian 9, 146 399, 409, 409n125, 436, 437, 456, 460, dried fruit 16, 37, 40, 172, 643 464, 464n99, 466, 468, 468n109, 473, drought 156, 214, 254, 260, 261n88, 263, 275, 476, 477, 480, 483, 526, 531n48, 554, 569, 289, 290 579, 583, 591, 604, 605, 615, 616, 618, 620, ‘dry crops on wet land’ 157, 253, 644 621, 637 ducatons (see also ‘commercial coins’) 178, driver 399, 637 180, 181 ‘Ellia Nayaka’ 423n20

Index 717

Ellis, Francis Whyte 146 ‘European cotton revolution’ (see also Emaneswaram xxv Industrial Revolution) 164 English 5, 9, 13, 21, 25, 31, 33, 41, 43n41, 73, 81, Europeans (see also ’Franks’, ‘Hat-Wearers’, 97, 98n187, 104, 110, 115, 118n239, and individual nations) 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 134n275, 141, 142, 144, 146, 147, 154n14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32n16, 33, 165, 166, 167, 168, 175, 175n53, 176, 177, 34, 35n24, 37, 38, 40, 41, 41n38, 42, 43, 43n41, 195, 199, 210, 212n3, 220, 221, 234, 249, 44, 45n46, 47, 48, 48n54, 49n57, 60, 68n99, 280, 291, 293, 317, 325, 326, 328, 334, 349, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 81, 86, 91, 92, 99, 100, 354, 355, 355n95, 382, 385–386, 393, 101, 105, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 121, 133, 394, 410, 411, 414, 426n26, 445, 453, 454, 136, 138, 139, 141, 142, 146, 148, 149, 162, 164, 460, 472, 475, 476n124, 494, 494n165, 165, 165n29, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 505, 506, 506n8, 507n10, 510, 514, 516, 177, 178, 180, 182, 183, 185, 189, 193, 195, 199, 517, 539, 540, 542, 543, 544, 544n66, 551, 210, 220, 221, 223, 223n27, 227, 235, 245, 250, 552n80, 553, 567, 574, 585, 586, 587, 602, 256, 286, 299, 315, 318, 326, 334, 353, 354, 605, 606, 608–609, 610, 610n182, 611, 366, 367n17, 368, 371, 372, 374, 375, 391, 392, 612, 612n187, 613, 614 394, 399, 409, 414, 415, 415n18, 426n26, 438, interloper 514, 551, 552n80 440, 441, 443, 444, 445, 463, 466, 501, 510, pirates (see also Monmouth, 1st Duke of, 511, 519n30, 554n84, 569, 574, 578, 604, 611, James Scott) 514, 516, 610, 610n182 612n187, 613, 615, 616, 618, 619, 627, 645, 649 relations with Madurai 25, 81, 88, 97, 104, exclusion of other 353, 354, 368, 371, 372, 326, 354, 355, 355n95, 382, 385–386, 374, 375, 391, 399, 438, 440, 441, 443, 386n66, 393, 394, 410, 426n26, 445, 453, 444, 445, 547, 554, 554n84, 574, 612n187, 454, 472, 505, 514, 515, 516, 540, 585, 605, 615, 616, 618, 619 606, 608–609, 610, 611, 612, 613, 614 exotica (see curiosities) relations with Ramnad 81, 88, 475, 476n124, 494, 494n165, 514, 516, 539, falcons (see also curiosities) 593 540, 542, 543, 544, 544n66, 551, 552n80, famine 217, 219, 254, 261, 261n88, 288–290, 553, 567, 574, 585, 605, 606 289n136, 335, 430, 512 relations with Tanjore 325 ‘famine-slave’ cycle 288–290, 289n136 relations with the Mughals 246, 249 fasting 100, 131 relations with the Paravas 97, 382, Fauconnier, Joan 488, 489, 490, 566, 632 385–386, 386n66, 393, 394, 543 faujdar 533, 638 Enlightenment 105, 143 Fernandes, Gonçalo 48, 48n54 Erasmus 127 Fernando, André 619 Erode 362, 363 Ferreira d’Almeida, João (Johannes) 96, 383 Eruvadi xxv festival images 55, 95, 339n53, 650 escadre de la Perse (see ‘Persian squadron’) fine spices (see also cinnamon, cloves, mace, ‘l’Esprit des Lois’ (see Montesquieu, Baron de, and nutmeg) 16, 19, 24, 37, 149, 165, Charles-Louis de Secondat) 171, 175, 189, 191–193, 357, 363, 414, 415, Estado da India (see also Portuguese) 460, 504, 616 289n138, 318, 331, 442, 499 firearms 20, 32, 38, 39, 40, 64, 75, 76, 76n122, Ettayapuram xxv, 89, 323, 353 79, 88, 103n201, 294, 353, 361, 382, Nayaka of 89, 323, 353 403n107, 404, 406, 407, 408, 422n18, Ettuvittil Pillamar (see also Travancore) 531, 445, 449, 455, 456, 458, 462n94, 471, 481, 531–532n48, 606n175, 615n190 485, 516, 538, 539, 549, 550, 554, 565, Eurasians (see also mestizos) 43n41, 112, 113, 567, 568n107, 575, 581, 583, 587, 603, 610, 115 613, 621, 622n201, 650 Euro-Asian trade 16, 21, 23, 24, 149, 172, 176, fire tax (see also ‘punitive expedition’) 178, 180, 412, 414, 415, 503, 504, 506, 507n10 332n38, 337, 340, 342–343

718 Index

First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654) 317 552n80, 553, 567, 574, 585, 586, 597, 600, First Dutch-Ramnad War (1685) 23, 24, 41, 602, 605, 606, 607, 612n187, 613, 626 46, 81, 89, 118n239, 269, 270, 276, 505, relations with Madurai 25, 41, 73, 81, 410, 526, 549, 567, 576–580, 581, 585, 591 426n26, 436, 445, 445n58, 446n459, ‘first globalisation’ (see ‘early modern 447, 449, 453, 460, 484, 505, 514, 517, globalisation’) 519n30, 585, 605, 606, 607, 613 ‘first persecution’ (1690–1691) 25, 96, 127, relations with Ramnad 81, 498, 514, 517, 506, 623, 626 539, 539n57, 540, 542, 543, 551, 552n80, ‘First Shipping’ (1595–1597) 145 553, 567, 574, 585, 586, 602, 606, 607 Fishery Coast (see also Costa da Pescaria, relations with Tanjore 514, 517, 585, 606, Madurai Coast, ‘Opposite Coast’, and 607 Tirunelveli) 18, 19, 33, 74, 81, 88, 94, frigate (see also other ship types) 350, 351, 95n178, 97, 158, 162, 163, 164, 230, 250, 264, 351n83, 352, 366, 405 268, 269, 275, 316, 323, 330, 340, 349n80, furniture 40, 96, 139, 268, 460 350, 356, 366, 387, 438, 496, 499, 543, 548, furza (see imperial customs house) 559, 563, 569, 627n212, 635, 651 population of 162–163, 164 Gago, Gonçale 385 Seven Ports of 162, 237, 384, 385, 394, Gajelhutti Pass 322 407, 438, 440, 460, 568, 627 galiot (see also other ship types) 325, 326, ‘Five Hundred Lords of Ayyavolu’ 35 335, 343, 346, 366 Five Pillars of Faith (see also Islam) 131 Galisse, Andries van 394, 398 Fleetwood, Charles 552n80 Galle 55, 114, 122, 125, 200, 239, 246, 248, 249, flooding 154, 155, 156, 261, 261n88 250, 251, 257, 264, 285, 319, 326, 333, 335, flute (see also other ship types) 326, 335, 340, 344, 345, 346, 352 346 Ganges River 148 food grains (see also individual cereals) 37, Ganne Bandare, Maha Nayaka 591 150, 157, 164, 185n70, 214, 252–263, 267, ‘Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en Landreize’ 279, 299, 389, 561, 634 (see also Nieuhoff, Joan) 91n165, 164, 245, footrunners 447, 447n62, 449, 645 376 ‘forced departure’ (1648) 18, 316, 324, 329, general musterrolls 508 332, 332n38, 333–334, 337, 347 ‘General Regulation’ of 1680 508 Fort St. George (see Madras) ‘Gentile’ (see Hinduism) Fort York (see Bencoolen) ‘gentlemen of six weeks’ 145 Four Korales 364 Gentlemen Seventeen 21, 23, 29, 77, 107, 108, Franciscans 340, 398, 404, 410, 548 109, 110, 120, 120n243, 121, 122n247, 124, ‘Franks’ (see also Europeans, and 124n251, 126n255, 128, 128n260, 130, 167, ‘Hat-Wearers’) 9, 15, 30, 31, 38n30, 43–47, 193, 228, 230n40, 288, 317n4, 348, 349, 174, 294, 474, 645 394, 398, 405, 406, 408, 412, 414, 415, 417, freeburghers (see also Lindeborn, Hercules) 445, 460n89, 463, 465, 479, 479n131, 481, 245, 246, 385n63, 436, 437 482, 492, 502, 508, 544, 576, 581, 606, Freire, Fr. André 261n88, 402n106, 420n16, 610, 612 427, 430, 518n29, 520, 522n36 German (see also Hollandgänger) 9, 16, French 5, 9, 21, 22, 25, 43n41, 73, 81, 95, 104, 26–27n4, 98, 107, 135, 137, 147, 629 106, 107, 109, 134n275, 141, 142, 144, 147, Geus, Michiel de 161, 470 165, 166, 167, 168, 177, 199, 222, 241, 293, ghee 57 410, 411, 413, 414, 426n26, 436, 445, ‘gifting’ activity (see also temple endowment) 445n58, 446, 446n59, 447, 449, 451, 453, 32, 38, 39, 43, 44, 57, 58, 59, 70, 71, 460, 484, 498, 505, 506, 512, 514, 517, 71n109, 74, 76, 81, 82, 191, 213, 282, 325, 519n30, 539, 539n57, 540, 542, 543, 551, 326, 331, 332, 369, 371, 378, 399, 400,

Index 719

448, 489, 529n44, 532, 546, 547, 554, 384, 388, 390, 392, 393, 394, 396, 397, 398, 613, 614, 615, 617, 621, 622, 635, 638, 639, 401, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 410, 412, 413, 643, 644, 648, 649 416, 417, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, gingangs, ginghams (see also textiles) 17, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 224, 226, 638 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, 459, 460, 461, 462, Gingee, Senji 87, 161n25, 174, 201, 207, 286, 463, 465, 470, 474, 479, 479n132, 480, 320, 324, 325, 335, 339, 387 488n149, 497, 498, 498n176, 502, 505, 511, Bijapur governors of 62, 67, 340, 360, 571, 623, 631 362, 439, 470, 543n65 Goes, Daniel 409, 437, 438 city of 18, 24, 333, 533, 534 ‘going native’ (see also ‘whitening’) 34, 112 Golconda and Bijapur siege of (1648) 18, Golconda (see also Deccan sultanates, Qutb 316, 333, 339, Shah, and individual rulers) 17, 18, 22, 24, Maratha conquest of (1677) 428 61, 87, 170, 175, 201, 207, 211n2, 290, 315, 316, Maratha governors of 519, 527, 532, 559 320, 321, 333, 339, 396, 413, 421, 428, 451, Mughal siege of (1690) 24, 503, 527, 533, 484, 503, 523, 527, 530, 532, 533, 610n182, 534 643, 647 Nayakas of (see also individual rulers) 1, Mughal conquest of (1687) 24, 33, 291, 3, 5, 17, 61, 70, 170, 286, 315, 319, 320, 321, 428, 503, 522–523, 527, 532, 533, 593 324, 359, 360, 397, 439 siege of Gingee (see Gingee, Golconda and ginger 40 Bijapur siege of) girdles (see also textiles, and turbans) 17, gold (see also precious metals, silver, treasure, 224, 227, 637 and individual gold coins) 16, 24, 37, 40, Giri, Panembahan of 416 44, 74, 77, 139, 140, 164n27, 167, 172, 175, 178, glassware (see also curiosities) 38, 39, 190, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 224n28, 232, 326, 460, 583 330, 343, 347, 415, 440, 448, 456, 504, 507 Gluwinck, Hendrick 377n43 507n9, 543, 610, 617, 619, 638, 641, 644, 645 Goa 3, 43n41, 45, 122, 318, 319n8, 323, 330, ‘golden womb’ ceremony 83, 323, 638 331, 341, 341n57, 349, 355, 355n96, 522, Gombroon (see Bandar Abbas) 610n182 Gopalaraiya, Gopala Raiya (see also Mysore) Goan Oratory 127, 626 547 goats 279, 593 gopuram (see also temple architecture) 139, Godavari River 158 151, 336, 638 Goda Varma (see also Cochin, tavazhi, and Govindappa Ayya 521 Vettatu) 513 Graaff, Nicolaus de 26–27n4, 408n122 Goens, Rijckloff van, Junior (see also Graef, Pieter de 124 ‘Ceylon-centric’ faction) 15, 21, 23, 24, 77, Grand Anicut (see also anicuts, irrigation 101, 118–124, 129, 135, 146, 258, 260, 294, technology, and tanks) 154 386n68, 412, 413, 417, 446, 447, 448, 450, Grande, Fr. João Felipe 387 456, 457, 459, 460, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, ‘great conspiracy’ (1686) 62, 67, 82, 527–529, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, 472, 473, 474, 478, 528n43, 617 480, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 488, ‘great divergence’ 173, 421 490, 492, 494, 495, 496, 497, 501, 502, 505, ‘Greater Indian Ocean’ 151, 152 511, 535, 536n52, 537, 571, 623, 626, 631 Greek 99, 241 Goens, Rijckloff van, Senior (see also Grigby, Alexander 393 ‘Ceylon-centric’ faction) 10, 15, 19–20, 21, Groes, Sijbrandt 343, 344 23, 24, 77, 78, 96, 101, 110, 118–124, 126, 127, grouper (see also other fish) 270, 270n103, 128, 129, 158, 195, 258, 260, 281, 288, 302, 639 349, 355, 357, 364, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, guild (see also merchant guild) 35, 35n24, 371, 372, 373, 375, 376, 377, 378, 380, 381, 36, 166, 229, 644, 648

720 Index

Guinea cloth (see also textiles) 17, 166, 218, 572n113, 573, 574, 575, 576, 578, 579, 580, 222, 223, 226, 229, 642 581, 583n135, 605, 623, 632 Gujarat 8n12, 90, 141n292, 159, 176, 178, 194, Heintze, Christoffel (see also deserters) 75, 212n3, 252n72, 504, 645 75n122 Gujarati 645 hell (see also yamalokam) 132, 144, 651 gunny bags 37, 212, 219n16 Herport, Albrecht 137, 139, 139n285 gunpowder (see also saltpetre, and sulphur) Hesse 137 382, 455, 456, 549, 587 ‘Het Hedendaagsche Heidendom’ (see also guns (see firearms) Carolinus, Godefridus) 141 Gurukkals (see also Pattars) 52, 52n65 Heurnius, Justus (see also ‘De Legatione Gutti Mudaliyar 423n20 Evangelica ad Indos Capessenda Gyfford, William 521n35, 552n80 Admonitio’) 129, 129n262, 130 Heussen, Arnold 73, 319, 324, 325, 326, 330, Haarlem 167 334, 335, 340, 632 haec libertatis ergo 15, 98, 106 High Government (see also Batavia) 29, 120, Haidar Ali (r. 1761–1782) (see also Mysore) 6, 124, 124n251, 128, 334, 335, 340, 346, 348, 60 349, 366, 371, 388, 392, 394, 396, 397, Haji (r. 1682–1687) (see also Bantam) 509 398n94, 404, 405, 407, 444, 445, 456, hajj (see also pilgrimage) 131 460n89, 471, 472, 479, 480, 483, 487, 492, Ham, Cornelis van der 438 513n20, 535, 537, 537n55, 540, 556, 568n107, Hambantota 265 570n110, 571, 576–577n122, 585n137, 587, Hamparajaiya, Hampaiya (see also Mysore) 600, 612, 613, 619n197, 628, 629 322 Hinduism (see also Saivite, Vaisnavite, and Hamzah Fahruddin Kaicili Seram (r. 1689–1707) individual elements) 8, 8n14, 18, 27n5, (see also Tidore) 509 28, 32, 32n16, 33, 48, 49, 50, 52, 56n73, 59, handkerchiefs (see also rumals, and textiles) 59n80, 65, 71n109, 75, 89, 90, 94, 95, 95n178, 17, 224, 227 98, 101, 104, 105, 110, 124, 127, 129, 131, 132, Hanumathi River 158 133, 134, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 168, 175, Haraji Mahadik, Arasumalai Raja (see also 195, 203, 235, 236, 237, 238, 240, 241, 267, Marathas) 62, 67, 519, 520, 522, 524, 527, 294, 309, 316, 327, 343, 344, 345, 367, 376, 530, 532, 533 381, 395, 396, 452, 454, 472, 488n149, 517, Harrington, John 73, 393, 394 518, 534, 534n51, 549, 558, 559, 560, 561, Hartsinck, Willem 544n66, 632 562, 564, 570, 574, 593, 595, 598, 598n166, Hasanuddin (r. 1653–1669) (see also Makassar) 601, 607, 608, 619, 627, 628, 636, 639, 642, 363 643, 644, 648, 649, 650, 651 Hase, Philippus de 376, 378, 386, 387 ‘History of the Carnatica Governors Who Hassan Narayan Maraikkayar 88, 569, Ruled over the Pandya Mandalam’ 521 570n109 Hollandgänger (see also German) 16, 26n4, ‘Hat-Wearers’ (see also Europeans, and 137 ‘Franks’) 9, 15, 30, 31, 40, 43, 44, 649 ‘Holland Garden’ (see also ‘siege mentality’) havildar 544n66 106, 108 Haye, Jacob Blanquet de la (see also Holland War (1672–1678) 293, 411, 453, 498, ‘Persian squadron’) 416, 436, 446, 506 446n59, 498 honey 211, 212, 262, 299 heaven 39n33, 131, 132, 364, 554, 636, 650 Hoogelinden, Pieter 603 Heere, Gerrit de 548, 629 Hooghe, Romeyn de (see also ‘Spiegel der Heijde, Rutgert de 37n23, 77n126, 88, Fransse Tyranny’) 107 118n239, 448, 449, 464n99, 491, 552n80, hooker (see also other ship types) 481, 546, 553, 557, 557n88, 559, 566, 567, 571, 572, 576, 577, 597

Index 721 hookswinging 134 Indian Ocean World xix, 29, 41, 42, 42n41, Hoorn, Pieter van 124, 126n255, 478, 479, 44, 152n8, 162, 223n27, 287, 288, 299, 479n133 357, 363 Hoornbeek, Johannes (see also ‘De Indian sole (see also other fish) 270, 644 Conversione Indorum et Indic calendar 155 Gentilium’) 129, 129n263, 132 indigenous soldiers (see also arachchis, horses (see also cavalry) 17, 37, 39, 58, 64, 71, lascorins, and peons) 46, 47, 294, 393n82, 72, 74, 75, 75n119, 79, 88, 103, 121, 150, 211, 408, 463, 642 216, 278, 280, 282–283, 294, 360, 362, indigo (see also other dyes) 211, 299, 326, 371, 392, 406, 407, 429–430n32, 431, 616, 639 431n36, 436, 437, 456, 464, 468, 470, Indo-Ceylon trade 17, 20, 22, 25, 76, 88, 123, 485, 487, 529, 531n48, 546, 570, 573, 575, 123n249, 126, 126n256, 202, 202n99, 203, 579, 586, 593, 607, 615, 616, 620, 639 225, 257, 281, 184, 357, 378, 379, 381, 393, ‘Hortus Malabaricus’ (see also Rheede, 395, 413, 438, 442, 457, 496, 497, 506, Hendrik Adriaan van) 272, 304 539–540, 551, 592, 593, 594n154, 595, Huijs, Cornelis 610, 611 623, 625, 625n207 Huijsman, Marten 120, 121, 122, 386n68, 451, Indo-European 9, 165 452, 462, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, Indonesia (see also Eastern Indonesia) 7, 10, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 481, 484, 19, 23, 24, 37, 171, 191, 285, 317, 357, 363, 485n140, 485n141, 487, 496, 499, 632 364, 415, 503, 504, 507, 508, 513 Hulft, Gerard 350 Indrapura (see also Sumatra) 510 Huydecoper, Joan 124 Indus River 75n120, 148 Industrial Revolution (see also ‘European Ibrahim 530 cotton revolution’) 162, 165, 166, 172, 173, Ibrahim Khan Lodi (see also Sher Khan Lodi) 178 431, 494, 519n30 infantry (see also soldiers) 60, 333, 354, 360, Idaiseval 215 431, 431n36 Idindikarai, Idinthakarai xxv, 162, 163, 387 ‘inner frontier’ (see also ‘outer frontier’) 6, Ikkeri, Nayakas of (see also Kanara) 522, 15, 50 533, 534, 597 inner sanctum (see also temple ilavenil 155, 638 architecture) 45, 55, 139, 336, 339n53, Imhoff, Baron van, Gustaaf Willem xvi, 26, 640 111, 148, 149, 150, 211, 299, 314, 315, 356, interlopers 514, 551, 552n80 358, 411, 502, 503, 514 internalisation of protection costs 23, 198, ‘immoderate olai’ (1670) 419, 436, 436n45 199, 225, 318, 475, 493–494, 493n162, 502 immovable image 45, 55, 338, 339n53, 343 intra-Asiatic trade 21, 24, 177, 178, 180, 212n3, ‘imperfect agreement’ (1659) 20, 357, 366, 224, 319, 374n31, 412, 414, 415, 506, 507 374–375, 384 irandavatu pattam 67, 426, 639 imperial customs house (see also Surat) 170, iraniyakarppa, hiranyagarbha (see ‘golden 638 womb’ ceremony) imperialist faction (see ‘Ceylon-centric’ irattapali (see blood sacrifice) faction, and Goens, Rijckloff van, Junior, iravuttan, irauttan, irauttars 429n32, 639 and Goens, Rijckloff van, Senior) iron 139, 156, 212, 299, 382, 404, 543, 544, inam lands 262, 639 549n76, 568n107 independent fiskaals 508 ‘irrigated crops or fields’ (see also ‘unirrigated India, pre-modern population of 159–160 crops or fields’) 157, 252, 253, 644 Indian Ocean 29, 31, 41, 42, 44, 109, 149n4, irrigation technology (see also anicuts, 151, 152, 152n8, 158, 162, 178n60, 223n27, and tanks) 36, 154, 156, 157, 252–254, 255, 285, 287, 288, 289, 299, 357, 363, 504 256, 279, 635, 638, 644, 676

722 Index

Irula Pillai 582 Japanese 24, 40, 44n46, 176, 180, 181, 182, 187, Isaaksz., Claes 114, 603 212n3, 299, 415, 460, 504, 641 Isaiah Maraikkayar 608, 609 kobans 37, 175, 178, 180, 180n62, 181, 182, Islam (see also individual elements) 8, 15, 183, 507, 507n9 18, 20, 22, 24, 27n5, 28, 32, 32n16, 33, 34, jati (see caste) 44, 57, 67, 71, 73, 74, 75n119, 79, 80, 83, jati talaivan (see also patangattim-mór) 91, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 103, 106, 110, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97n185, 384, 639 114, 117, 117n129, 123, 124, 126, 127, 129, Java 19, 21, 22, 23, 29, 107, 128, 187, 287, 317, 130, 131, 140, 162, 163, 164, 168, 175, 180, 357, 363, 411, 412, 415, 416, 417, 436, 478, 181, 182, 191, 195, 203, 208, 232, 234, 235, 481, 502, 508, 509, 510, 511, 513, 645, 648 236, 237, 238, 242, 245, 246, 248, 249, Javadis 154 252n72, 269, 271, 290, 316, 317, 323, 326, Javanese 44n46, 225, 317, 349, 398, 416 327, 328, 331, 335, 338, 344, 352, 357, 362, Jesuits (see also Madurai Mission, and 373n28, 378, 379n46, 380n50, 381, 382, individual members) 20, 33, 43, 48, 393, 394, 395, 396, 398, 404, 412, 413, 49n57, 95, 95n178, 96, 97, 104, 127, 132, 416, 427, 429, 429–430n32, 430, 434, 135, 232, 261n88, 289n136, 332n38, 357, 437, 452, 454, 457, 466, 467, 470, 471, 362, 363n9, 368, 375, 378, 379, 383, 472, 474, 475, 485, 491, 494, 495, 496, 383n58, 384, 386, 386n66, 387, 388, 505, 510, 516, 518, 520, 521, 534, 541, 542, 388n70, 391, 402n106, 404, 409, 427, 430, 543, 544n66, 545, 549, 557, 558, 559, 497, 498, 500, 520, 528n43, 558, 565, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 564n100, 565, 570, 571n111, 623, 625, 626, 627, 627n212, 566, 569, 573, 574, 579, 580, 580n130, 629 583, 584, 587, 588, 591, 592, 593, 594, jewels (see precious stones) 596, 605, 608, 609, 611, 611n183, 617, 628, Jewish 106, 378, 379n46 638, 639, 641, 642, 643, 646, 649, 651 Jews 106 l’Isle, Guillaume de xxi jizya 593 Italian 9, 141, 384, 387, 609n179 João iv (r. 1640–1656) (see also itankai (see ‘left-handed’ caste groups) Portuguese) 331, 341 Johor 87n156, 291, 510 Jaffnapatnam, Jaffna 38, 40, 46, 48, 85, Joseph, Fr., Joseph a Sta. Maria de Sebastiani, 87n154, 113, 114, 122, 123n248, 136, 233, Giuseppi Maria Sebastiani 384 234, 237, 239, 246, 257, 275, 276, 284, 294, jus naufragii (see shipwreck, right of) 349, 350, 351, 351n83, 353, 366, 367, 369, jus reformandi (see cuius regio, eius religio) 370, 389, 436, 437, 444, 450, 454, 458, 460, 512n19, 550, 551, 554, 567, 569, 570, kachchais, kaccais (see also textiles) 17, 222, 582, 586, 587, 588, 595, 597, 600, 626 223, 224, 225, 226, 229, 326, 389, 563, Peninsula, Jaffna Peninsula 12, 237, 265, 273, 608, 639 273n110, 274, 275, 276, 283, 284, 351n83, Kadaiyars 236, 236n50, 237, 277, 278, 639 408n122, 409n125, 456, 569, 578, 587, 626 kadalkatti (see shark charmers) jaggery (see also sugar) 57, 564, 639, 646 Kadan Theti xxv jagir 428, 639 Kadiyapatnam xxv, 608n178 Jains 234, 639 Kaffir 45 Jakarta (see Batavia) Kaicili Goram 509 Jambi (see also Sumatra) 510 Kaicili Sibori Sultan Amsterdam (r. 1675–1690) Jansenism 384 (see also Ternate) 508 Jansz., Jan 245 Kaikolars, Kaikkolars 218, 219, 639 Japan (see also Tokugawa) 37, 61, 171, 175, Kalaiyarkovil, Kalaiyarkoyil 361, 529 176, 178, 179, 180n62, 186, 268, 319, 414, Kalakkad, Kalakkudu xxv, 262 415, 504, 507, 507n9 ‘Kalamadons’ xxv

Index 723 kalavai (see grouper) kappiyam 89 Kalavathi Adaviyar 221, 221n22 kar (see also pisanam, and rice) 155, 253, Kalingan Nattar 221 260, 261 Kalitiappa Pillai 7n126, 488, 491, 492 Karaikal, Karaikkal, Karikal 204, 263, 320, ‘Kalittokai’ 279 325, 328n26, 329, 329n31, 330, 331, 350, Kallakadu 169, 220 441, 452, 453, 465, 469, 471n117, 517, 607 Kallars 6, 32, 33n18, 48, 49, 49n57, 57, Karai Tivu, Karaitivu 273 80n135, 81, 89, 278, 279n118, 433, 522, Karaiyars 236, 236n50, 640 570, 640, 642 Karakulam 531–532n48 Kallidaikurichi 169, 197, 206, 220, 260 Karamboli, Karthikappalli 388 Kalloorani 625 Karankadu xxv, 162, 224n28 Kalpitiya 200, 202, 203, 231, 284, 450, 457, Kariappa Pillai 82, 433 540, 569, 592, 594, 594n154 Karia Shuli Tivu, Karaichalli Island 274 Kalrayans 154 Karkattar sect 63, 347 Kalutara 200 Karnataka (see also Carnatic) 35, 151, Kamalur 363 279n121, 518, 532, 593 Kamanayakanpatti 353 karppakkirukam (see inner sanctum) kamarakkarar (see also Paravas) 22, 25, 92, karttakal 1, 70, 640 236, 242, 269, 368, 413, 496, 497, 500, Karuppa Chitti 87n154, 267, 464n99, 469, 505, 558, 564, 627, 640 546, 549, 562, 575, 581, 620, 621 Kambalattars, Tottiyars, Tottiyans 255, 256, Karwar 160 640 Kasi Viranna 494, 494n164, 514, 543 Kambam xxv, 153, 524 ‘Kassagondo’ xxv Kammas 255, 256, 640 Kasturappa Nayaka 423n20 kanakkapillai 63n90, 280, 385, 406, 410, 488, Katappa Nayaka 423 550, 555, 563, 569, 570, 583, 583n135, katif (see carpet) 598, 608, 614, 615n190, 618, 640 Katikai Muttupulavar, Kadikai Muthu kanakkapillai-mór 63n90, 385 Palavar 89 Kanara (see also Ikkeri, Nayakas of) 52n65, kattalai (see temple endowment) 194, 257n83, 258, 467n107, 522, 533, 534, kattanars (see Syrian Christian priests) 561, 597 katuvettis, virakuvettis (see wood cutters) Kanchipuram 517, 607 kaval 49, 233, 256, 640 Kandadais 54 kavalkarar 399, 641 Kandappa Nayaka 565 Kavannur 63 Kandiyur xxv Kaveripatnam, Kaveripattinam 517, 532, 607 Kandy (see also individual rulers) 19, 22, 47, Kavinanjiraiya, Kavinansiraiya (see also 76, 128, 225, 263, 265, 281, 282, 284, 293, Mysore) 520, 544, 545, 546, 547 294, 314, 315n2, 319, 357, 364, 370, 401, Kavita Nayaka 424, 452, 452n75, 453, 456, 413, 416, 417, 440, 450n70, 511, 590, 591, 469, 471n117, 489 592, 592n150, 592, 593, 594, 594n154, Kayala Chitti 619 606, 611, 612 Kayalpatnam, Kayalpattinam xxv, 1, 3, 5, 18, Mahanuwara dynasty of 76 19, 20, 22, 26, 37, 63n90, 66, 73, 74, Nayaka dynasty of 76 75n119, 77, 88, 89, 93, 162, 163, 168, 203, Kangayam 281 237, 238, 271, 290, 316, 320, 323, 325, 326, Kannada 6, 6n8, 9, 27n6, 32, 69, 146, 255 327, 328, 329, 329n31, 330, 331, 332, Kannankudi xxv 332n38, 332n39, 333, 334, 337, 344, 345, Kannivadi xxv, 521 346, 347, 348, 352, 353, 355, 357, 367, Kanthirava Narasa (r. 1638–1659) (see also 373, 378, 380, 386n68, 413, 434, 440, 443, Mysore, and Wodeyar rajas) 322 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 484, 487,

724 Index

Kayalpatnam, Kayalpattinam (cont.) Kilavan Setupati (see Raghunatha Tevar) 489n151, 496, 517, 547, 558, 559, 562, kirttanam 90, 347, 641 564, 565, 573, 577, 584, 585, 599, 605, Kittensteijn, Jacob van 342, 345, 346, 348, 607, 612n187, 614, 615, 615n189, 616, 624, 349, 350, 631 632, 643 Kodumudi xxv ‘forced departure’ from (1648) 18, 63n90, Kokarasan xxv 316, 329, 332, 332n39, 333, 334, 337, 347 Koliyars, Koliyans 218, 641 founding of voc factory at (1645) 1, 3, 5, Kollankoil xxv 18, 26, 316, 323, 325, 326, 327, 328, 632 Kollukkadu-Anthionarpuram xxv, 162 Parava plunder of (1684) 559, 562, 564, Kombuthurai 238 565 Koneri Chitti 324, 325 re-establishment of voc factory at Kongarayankurichi 221 (1657) 19, 316, 353, 355 Kongunad 1, 278, 281 voc attack against (1685; see also Konkan Coast 56, 195, 217, 227, 569, 598, Dutch-Ramnad War, First) 577 599, 605 voc lease of (1676) 465, 466, 467, 468, Koodutalai, Kuddu Talai 163, 387, 461, 469, 487, 585 464n99 Kayamkulam 195, 201, 364, 449, 462n94, Koomapatti xxv 468n107, 488, 541, 542, 591, 605, 606, Kootudankadu 624 615n189 Korampallam 625 Kayasthas 63 Korkai 565 Kayatar xxv, 19, 21, 215, 356, 358, 406, 409, Koswari Tivu, Kasuwar Island 274 410, 436, 437, 438, 439, 441, 442, 489, Kotatenga, Kota Tenga (see also 612, 612n187, 613, 615, 616, 617 Sumatra) 510 Peace of (1669) 19, 21, 356, 358, 406, 409, Kottaippatnam xxv, 162, 163, 239 410, 436, 437, 438, 439, 441, 442, 489, Kottar, Kottaram 10n19, 36, 118n239, 168, 169, 612, 612n187, 613, 615, 616, 617, 618, 620 174, 196, 217, 220, 515, 531, 538, 608, Kays, Hammenhiel 578 608n178, 624 Keela Arasadi 624 Kottiyar 225, 284, 364, 416, 446, 450, 498 Keerandai xxv Bay of 446, 498 Keladi Chenamma (r. 1672–1697) (see also Kovalam xxv, 515 Ikkeri, Nayakas of, and Kanara) 597 Kovankadu 625 Kelakkallurani xxv kovil, koyil (see temple) Kerala (see Malabar) ‘Koyil Olugu’ (see also temple chronicles) Kerala Varma (see also Travancore) 615n190 53–54, 64n91, 465n101 kettiram, ksetra 54, 641 Krishnadeva Raja (r. 1509–1529) (see also khanaqas (see also Islam) 558 Vijayanagara) 65, 72, 79 Khan-i-Khanan (see Muzaffar al-Din Krishnarajapuram xxv Khan-i-Khanan) Krishna River 158 Khawas Khan 428 kruisdaalders (see also ‘commercial coins’) 178 Khoikhoi 143 Krusadai Tivu, Kurusadai Island 274 Kilakkarai, Keezhakarai xxv, 74, 83, 84, 85, Kshatriyas 58, 93 87, 87n154, 88, 90, 93, 162, 163, 168, 169, Kudimiyamalai 527, 528 208, 220, 234, 237, 238, 274, 297, 344, Kudiseri xxv 352, 369, 370, 376, 434, 435, 437, 450, Kulacekarar Pattars (see also Pattars) 52 451, 456, 458, 475, 494, 495, 514, 551, Kulantha 517, 607 552n80, 554, 558, 578, 583, 586n138, Kulasekharapatnam 66, 73, 88, 162, 163, 169, 588n141, 590, 592, 593, 597, 598, 646 195, 203n100, 208, 209, 220, 435, 447n62, killattu (see also robes) 43, 44, 213, 641 461, 462, 464n99, 468, 469, 484, 487,

Index 725

488, 489, 516, 526n40, 559, 562, 563, 499, 529, 550, 552, 553, 554, 555, 563, 565, 564, 579, 608, 609, 614, 615, 616 574, 604, 614, 635, 642 Kulavaipatti 523, 524n38, 525, 525n40 Latin 9, 95, 134, 142, 384 Maravas 523, 524n38, 525, 525n40 (see Latin Christians 95, 384 also Appanar Nattu) Lavradio, Count of, Luís de Mendonça kulir 155, 641 Furtado 498 kuliyals (see chank divers, and pearl divers) lead (see also non-precious metals) 149, 171, Kumaraiya, Kumara Ayya (see also 185, 186, 188, 189, 327, 455, 456, 549, 587, Mysore) 363, 518, 520, 521, 532, 544, 545 639 Kumara Muttu Nayaka 67, 76, 359, leasing of ports 66, 265, 349n80, 353, 371, 373n28 440, 451, 460, 465, 466, 467, 569, 614, Kumara Pillai 82, 528, 528n43 615, 615n189, 616 Kumarappan (see also Nakarattars) 267 leeuwendaalders (see also ‘commercial coins’) Kumara Rangappa Nayaka 68, 191, 402, 180, 181 402n105, 403, 403n108 ‘left-handed’ caste groups (see also Kumara Swami 469 ‘right-handed’ caste groups) 33, 57, 639 Kumara Swami Mudaliyar 41, 46, 66, 286, Leiden 10, 130, 167 422, 430, 435, 436, 439, 441, 442, 443, Leipzig 139, 336 445, 467, 468, 469, 482, 486 lemons 40 Kumara Swami Pillai 406, 410, 528, 528n43 Lesage, Salomon 482 Kumara Tatacarya 54 Letchuman Nayaka 534 kumara varkkam (see ‘adopted son’) Levant 31 Kumaravel 563 life-cycle rituals 95 Kumbakonam xxv, 174, 205, 234 Ligor 29 kumpapisekam (see temple purification) lime (see also coral stone) 17, 37, 88, 150, Kanagaraj Mudaliyar 409, 409n125 200, 211, 236n50, 295–298, 299, 328n26, Kunimedu 514 399, 437, 441, 443, 447, 460, 497, 547, Kunjali Maraikkayars 515, 606, 606n176 589, 590, 614, 641, 644 Kunji Raja Ali 605 Lindeborn, Hercules (see also Kunniyur xxv freeburghers) 245 Kuntur 421 linens (see also textiles) 16, 44, 172, 460 kuppam 219, 641 lingam (see also yoni, and Saivite) 134, 642, Kurukkuchalai 624 651 kurvanaci court drama 70 Lingama Reddi 423n20 Kuttankuli xxv, 162, 163, 387 Lingayatism 52 Kuttan Setupati (r. 1621–1635) (see also Linge-Gauda 322 Ramnad, Tevar of) 82, 322, 350 Linschoten, Jan Huygen van 145 Kuttichathan 555 liquor 44, 571, 646 Lisbon 129, 194 Labbais (see also Maraikkayars, and ‘little king’ (see palaiyakkarar) indivuals) 221, 236, 242, 269, 558, ‘littoral societies’ 151, 152 564n100, 642 livestock (see also individual animals) 17, lacquerware 40, 145, 268 37, 114, 139, 150, 211, 278–284, 281n125, lagoon 264, 641 299, 457, 552, 635 Langhorn, Sir William 210, 454, 472 loam soils 156, 158, 213, 254, 276 ‘languages of the gods’ 9 loans to indigenous rulers 22, 35, 126, 413, lascorins (see also indigenous soldiers, and 451, 456, 464n99, 465–466, 468–469, peons) 40, 47, 200, 243, 293, 294, 334, 335, 473, 477, 487, 488, 489, 492, 495, 538, 367, 399, 406, 408, 449, 458, 460, 488, 497, 539, 540, 581, 582, 584, 585, 604, 616, 620

726 Index

‘long eighteenth century’ (1680–1820) xi, 24, armed forces of (see also talavay) 38, 71, 165, 176, 180, 229, 503 74–75, 103, 339, 3359, 60, 361, 362–363, looms (see also textiles: weaving) 36, 151, 402, 404, 406, 407, 408, 410, 420, 421, 216, 220, 221, 223, 642 424, 429n32, 430n32, 460, 462, 470, Loquet, Willem 553, 556 488n149, 519n30, 526n41, 529, 531, 532, lories (see also curiosities) 37, 40, 604, 605 584, 620 Louis xiv (r. 1643–1715) (see also French) Bay of (see also Mannaar, Gulf of) 208, 96n182, 106, 107, 414 209, 257, 389, 445n58, 609, 610, 612n187 lungis (see Guinea cloth) Bijapuri invasions of (1649; 1655; 1659; Lutheranism 127, 137 1663) (see also Bijapur) 19, 124, 124n250, 290, 320, 321, 322, 323, 340, Macao 189, 190 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 363, 372, mace (see also fine spices) 16, 149, 171, 191, 373n28, 378, 424, 424n22 192, 193, 193n79, 327, 414, 638 city of 3, 32, 40, 50, 51n61, 52, 53, 54, 65, Mackenzie, Colin 146 70n106, 80, 83, 150, 151, 154, 156, 191, 207, ‘macroregion’ (see ‘perennial nuclear region’) 214, 281, 312, 332, 353, 367, 371, 373n28, Madalapuram xxv 427n29, 429, 484, 518, 519, 520, 544, 581, Madanna Nayanar Pillai 438 583, 584, 643 Madanna Pandit 428 conquest of Tanjore (1673) 21, 22, 64, Madapollam 168 290, 411, 412, 419–421, 426, 431, 446, 451, Madavarvalagam xxv 452, 453, 459, 460, 470, 471, 472 Madeira, Fr. Manuel 387 fanams 36, 164n27, 180, 182, 183, 184, 185, Madhuvanna, battle of (1673) 421 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 196, 198, Madras, Chennai 31n13, 33, 73, 110, 146, 151, 203, 204, 205, 208, 209, 215, 233, 237, 157, 160, 168, 175, 176, 177, 178, 182, 183, 240, 242, 243, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 187, 210, 212n3, 218, 291, 393, 420n26, 258, 259, 260, 262n90, 265, 266, 269, 454, 472, 475, 476n124, 485n142, 494, 270, 277, 294, 296, 297, 298, 368, 379, 514, 521n35, 539, 543, 544, 552n80, 602 409n125, 430n32, 448, 452n74, 453, 473, Madura (East Java) 416, 509 476, 477, 543, 546, 588n141, 633, 638, Madurai 1, 3, 6n8, 9, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 25, 644, 645 27n4, 29, 31, 32, 36, 37, 40, 41, 47, 50, fiscal system of 37, 57, 65–67, 79–80, 51n61, 52, 52n65, 53, 54, 64, 65, 66, 79n133, 106, 124, 170–171, 171n44, 184, 70n106, 72, 73, 80, 83, 87, 102, 110, 126, 262, 391n77, 423n20, 451–452, 452n74, 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 156, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 489n151, 499, 157n19, 159, 161, 165, 169, 170, 171, 174, 175, 525, 559, 569, 614 180, 185, 187, 191, 193, 195, 196, 197, 201, Nayaka state of (see also individual rulers, 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 211, 213, 214, officials, and aranmanai) 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 216, 217, 218, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 231, 233, 234, 237, 238, 251, 252, 257, 258, 27n4, 28, 32, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 46, 260, 261n88, 262, 263, 264, 272, 278, 46n50, 49, 51, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 59n80, 279n121, 280, 281, 281n124, 290, 299, 312, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 70n105, 314, 320, 325, 326, 330, 335, 338, 340, 71n106 70n106, 74, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 348, 349, 353, 359, 365, 366, 368, 369, 83, 84, 85, 86n105, 90n162, 102, 106, 123, 371, 374, 375, 378, 383, 386, 388, 390, 127, 135, 150, 154, 156, 161, 170, 172, 183, 396, 397, 404, 409, 410, 423, 434, 437, 184, 185, 191, 210, 214, 233, 235, 293, 296, 438, 442, 443, 444, 460, 463, 466, 481, 297, 298, 300, 304, 305, 315, 319, 320, 321, 483, 486, 505, 508, 513, 514, 515, 518, 519, 322, 322n14, 323, 325, 326, 331, 332, 333, 524, 527, 538, 543, 563, 583, 592n150, 334, 337, 339, 340, 342, 344, 345, 346, 608, 611, 616, 622, 624, 625, 640, 642, 647 347, 348, 350, 353, 356, 357, 358, 359,

Index 727

360, 361, 361n6, 363, 366, 367, 368, 369, 419–421, 426, 431, 446, 451, 452, 453, 372, 373, 373n28, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 459, 460, 470, 471, 472, 505, 559 387, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, relations with the English 25, 81, 88, 97, 402, 403, 403n107, 405, 410, 412, 413, 417, 104, 326, 354, 355, 355n95, 382, 385–386, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 424, 426, 427, 386n66, 393, 394, 410, 426n26, 445, 453, 428n29, 429, 430, 431, 434, 435, 436, 437, 454, 472, 505, 514, 515, 516, 540, 585, 605, 438, 439, 441, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 606, 608–609, 610, 611, 612, 613, 614 451, 452, 452n75, 453, 454n78, 457, 461, relations with the French 25, 41, 73, 81, 463, 464, 464n99, 465, 466, 467, 468, 410, 426n26, 436, 445, 445n58, 446n459, 469, 470, 471, 471n116, 472, 484, 485, 447, 449, 453, 460, 484, 505, 514, 517, 485n141, 486, 487, 501, 502, 503, 505, 517, 519n30, 585, 605, 606, 607, 613 518, 520, 521, 522, 526, 527, 528, 529, 533, relations with the Mughals 527, 533, 534, 534n50, 535, 537, 546, 549, 550, 558, 533n50, 534, 534n50, 534n51, 594 561, 568, 572, 576, 577, 579, 580, 581, 583, relations with the Portuguese 316, 323, 585, 586, 594, 597, 599, 604, 607, 613, 326, 330, 331, 332, 333, 335, 342, 348, 614, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 621, 622, 354–355, 367, 368, 373, 374, 375, 386, 622n200, 628, 629, 631, 640, 641, 643, 399, 401, 438, 538, 612n187 650 relations with Travancore 5, 23, 195, 196, pagodas 170, 170n42, 180, 182, 183, 184, 237, 239, 344, 422, 422–423n19, 503, 527, 204, 206, 225, 271, 290, 294, 367n17, 452, 531, 531–532n48, 605, 620 453, 470, 519n30, 590, 633, 638, 644, 645 Madurai Coast (see also Costa da Pescaria, pardaus 37, 59, 66, 67, 80, 170, 171n44, Fishery Coast, ‘Opposite Coast’, and 180, 183, 184, 206, 233, 236, 262, 263, 265, Tirunelveli) 3, 3n4, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 362, 388, 391n77, 419, 423n20, 424n22, 24, 29, 36, 44, 46, 48, 49, 73, 78, 88, 91, 92, 430n32, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 97, 115, 116, 118n239, 121, 123, 124, 126, 148, 486, 489n151, 495, 499, 501, 517, 525, 156, 157, 161, 164n27, 168, 174, 175, 178, 179, 526, 547, 553, 559, 563, 564, 565, 566, 181, 182, 183, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 569, 584, 587, 607, 614, 619, 620, 621, 195, 196, 197, 198, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 622, 624, 626, 628, 633, 638, 644, 645 207, 211, 212, 215, 219n16, 222, 225, 228, 231, population of 1, 3, 9, 15, 22, 27n4, 31–32, 236n50, 240, 241, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 55n70, 102, 104, 124, 126, 161, 161n25, 175, 251, 259, 265, 266, 268, 269, 270, 271, 275, 191, 314, 413, 538 276, 277, 278, 282, 283, 285, 286, 290, 291, relations with Mysore (see also Madurai- 292, 293, 294, 295, 303, 307, 315, 316, 318, Mysore wars) 19, 20, 23, 24, 49, 59, 65, 319, 324, 327, 328, 329, 331, 332, 338, 340, 78n130, 83, 171n44, 262, 322, 323, 357, 341, 342, 345, 349, 350, 351, 356, 357, 358, 358, 362–363, 363n9, 373n28, 391, 393, 364, 365, 366, 369, 372, 374, 375, 376, 377, 403, 405, 419, 420, 421, 429, 453, 463, 378, 379, 382, 383, 384, 386, 387, 389, 393, 503, 504, 518–519, 519n30, 520, 521, 394, 396, 401, 403, 405, 411, 412, 413, 417, 521n35, 522n36, 524, 527, 532, 535, 537, 434, 436, 441, 442, 445, 447, 449, 451, 452, 542, 544, 545, 548, 549–550, 556, 559, 466, 467, 481, 482, 484, 487, 488, 492, 497, 616 499, 502, 503, 504, 507n9, 514, 515, 516, 519, relations with Ramnad 19, 24, 293, 322, 523, 524, 526, 530, 530n45, 531, 535, 536, 322n14, 357, 361–362, 363, 378, 388, 390, 537, 540, 544, 548, 549, 550, 552, 552n80, 391, 420–421, 422, 423, 430–431, 453, 553, 554, 556, 557, 558, 559, 559n91, 560, 464n99, 465, 473, 477, 504, 519–520, 561, 562, 566, 567, 569, 572, 576, 581, 583, 525, 525n40, 526, 527, 530, 575, 580 609, 611, 612, 613, 614n189, 616, 618, 619, 622, relations with Tanjore 5, 17, 19, 21, 22, 39, 626, 629, 632 64, 67, 90n162, 197, 290, 321, 340, 357, communal riots (1684; 1697–1698) 24, 33, 360, 361n6, 363, 373n28, 411, 412, 418, 93–94, 127, 505, 523, 549, 557–566, 623

728 Index

Madurai Coast (cont.) 493, 493n162, 494, 498, 512, 513, 513n20, incursions by the Tevar (1680) 24, 504, 515, 515n23, 535, 539, 541, 542, 543, 553, 519–520 555, 557, 567, 569, 573, 579, 592, 596, lowlands (see Madurai Coast) 606, 610, 615n190, 618, 640, 642, 644 occupation by Mysore (1681–1682) (see Malacca, Melaka 3, 8, 19, 121, 187, 189, 225, also Mysore) 24, 49, 504, 519–520, 285, 287, 290, 318, 357, 531 535, 537, 544, 548 Straits of 318 occupation by the Tevar (1682–1685) 24, Malaiyappa Mudaliyar 439 505, 524, 526, 548, 549–58 Malayalam 218, 255, 647 Madurai Mission (see also Jesuits, and Malaysia (see also ‘tin districts’ of individual members) 20, 33, 43, 47, 48, Malaysia 29, 37, 171, 187, 225, 317, 317n3 49n57, 95–96, 95n178, 97, 104, 127, 135, Maldives 256 289n136, 337, 357, 362, 368, 372, 375, 378, Malhero, Francisco 332n38, 337 383, 385, 385n63, 386–387, 386n68, 388, Mallapuram xxv 388n70, 409, 427, 430, 497, 500, 501, 518n29, ‘Mamoedechamse’, ‘Mamodegamse’ pagodas 520n32, 528n43, 558, 571n111, 623, 626, 627, (see also Nasir Mahmud Khan) 543, 627n212, 628, 629 543n65, 544, 553 Madurai-Mysore wars (1654; 1656–1659; Manachanallur, Manachanallurpettai 174, 1667–1668/9; 1673; 1678–1683; after 1687) 197, 205, 207, 390, 390n76 19, 20, 23, 24, 49, 59, 65, 78n130, 83, 171n44, Manamadurai xxv, 361 262, 322, 323, 357, 358, 362–363, 363n9, Manamelkudi xxv, 162 373n28, 391, 393, 403, 405, 419, 420, 421, Manandia Ayya 468, 491 421n17, 429, 453, 463, 503, 504, 518–519, Manappad xxv, 36, 37, 66, 73, 91, 91n165, 93, 519n30, 520, 521, 521n35, 522, 522n36, 524, 162, 163, 164, 168, 169, 195, 198, 209, 527, 532, 534, 535, 537, 542, 544, 545, 548, 209n111, 237, 238, 387, 398, 461, 487, 514, 549, 550, 556, 557, 559, 616 516, 516n24, 541, 542, 547, 579, 588n141, Maetsuycker, Joan 75n119, 136, 136n280, 288, 605, 609, 610, 611, 624 301, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 340, Manapparai xxv 343, 349, 416, 631 manchua (see also other ship types) 270, Magelhães Coutinho, Manuel de 351 516, 540, 608, 611, 642 ‘Magellan exchange’ 43n41 Mandalakkottai xxv maize 252 Mandapam 274 Mahanuwara dynasty (see Kandy) mandapam, mantapam (see ceremonial hall) Mahmud Nayinar Pillai Maraikkayar 271, Mandapasalai 584 297, 564 Mandarsyah (r. 1648–1675) (see also Ternate) Mahmut Sen 605 317 Makassar, Gowa 19, 29, 156n87, 286n133, Mangammal (r. 1691–1706) 5, 61, 68, 69, 465 287, 357, 363, 398, 416, 510 mangoes 40 Makassarese 398, 416 Manigramam 35–36 makkams (see looms) Manik Chali 611, 611n183 Malabar, Kerala xxi, 7, 8n12, 10, 10n19, 19, 21, Manilla 43n41 29, 37, 48, 85, 87, 88, 118n239, 121, 122, maniyakkarar 65, 66, 88, 94, 124, 233, 267, 128, 139, 149n4, 151, 155, 159, 171, 174, 193, 297, 394, 395, 396, 397, 436, 448, 451, 194–199, 200–210, 216, 255, 256, 261, 272, 462, 465, 475, 489, 490, 495, 499, 541, 273, 279n121, 287, 289, 289n138, 299, 545, 550, 557n88, 562, 565, 583, 583n135, 304, 319, 326, 333, 336, 344, 349, 356, 590, 596, 605, 606, 614, 618, 620, 621, 357, 370, 377, 382, 384, 391, 398, 403, 412, 637, 642 417, 423n19, 454, 455, 456, 460, 461, 462, maniyam rights 65, 83 467, 473, 474, 479, 488, 488n149, 492, Manjikudi 219

Index 729

Mannaar 78, 231, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239, relations with the Mughals 23, 24, 291, 273, 275, 276, 278, 280, 284, 314, 349, 428, 503, 522–523, 527, 532, 533, 534, 593 350, 355, 355n96, 366, 369, 370, 377, 380, Marathi 9 389, 393, 394, 395, 400, 436, 437, 438, Maravas 6, 21, 32, 37, 46, 47, 48, 49, 49n57, 57, 447, 449, 454, 492, 512n19, 540, 543, 551, 74, 80n135, 81, 82, 84, 85, 89, 94, 178, 180, 589, 595, 596, 597, 602, 626 181, 183, 256, 268, 278, 279, 279n118, 280, Gulf of (see also Madurai, Bay of) 154, 282, 293, 293n145, 294, 322, 323, 349, 158, 208, 232n44, 233, 326, 372, 389, 393, 350, 351, 354, 361, 362, 366, 369, 370, 376, 400, 450, 560, 595 389, 393n82, 408, 412, 419, 420, 422, 423, Mannargudi xxv 423n20, 423n21, 430n32, 431, 431n36, Mannarkovil, Mannarkoyil 83, 205, 208, 323, 433, 436, 444, 450, 451, 456, 470, 475, 353 492, 493, 495, 522, 523, 525, 525n40, 526, Mannia Pillai Ayya 450, 451, 455, 473, 527, 528, 528n43, 529n44, 530n45, 543, 473n121, 477, 478 550, 550n78, 551, 552, 554, 556, 557, 561, Manoliputti Tivu, Manoliputti Island 274 567, 570, 571, 573, 574, 578, 580, 583n135, Manoli Tivu, Manoli Island 274 584, 585, 586, 590, 595, 596, 598, 599, mansabdar 593 601, 602, 603, 628, 642, 647, 649 mantakkam (see also chank fishery, and pearl fanams 37, 178, 180, 181, 183 fishery) 234, 237, 240, 641 Marckt, Adriaen van der 353, 355, 355n96, Manthoppu xxv 367, 396, 398, 399, 632 Manur 423n20 Mardappa Chitti 538, 619 Mappilaiurani xxv, 624 mare clausum (see also ‘Ceylon-centric’ Mappilas, Muppilahs 195, 208, 252n72, 398, vision, dominium maris, and ‘passes and 606, 606n176 protection rights’ system) 25, 123, 505, Maraikkayars (see also individual members) 585, 604, 605, 642 18, 20, 22, 24, 28, 33, 73, 74, 77, 83, 87, 88, mare liberum (see ‘open door’ policy) 93, 168, 195, 203, 208, 233, 236, 242, Mariyur xxv, 162, 163, 295, 562 252n72, 316, 323, 326, 328, 329, 330, 352, market, market town, pettai (see also cantai, 357, 378, 379, 380, 380n50, 381, 382, 394, and individual markets and market 413, 434, 435, 454, 466, 494, 496, 499, towns) 77, 78, 151, 174, 180, 182, 197, 205, 505, 515, 523, 549, 557, 558, 559, 566, 206, 207, 208, 233, 257, 390, 390n76, 395, 605, 606, 606n176, 623, 642 486, 517, 607, 619, 646 Mudaliyar Pillai (see Mudaliyar Pillai Marthanda Varma (r. 1729–1758) (see also Maraikkayars) Travancore) 52n65, 60, 75n122, 423n19 Periya Tambi (see Periya Tambi Martin, François 425n24, 427, 427n28, Maraikkayars) 427–428n29, 431n36, 446n59, 453, population of 87–88, 434–435 512n19, 517, 518n28, 519n30, 534, 552n80, relations with the Paravas (see also 592n150, 601, 601n166, 602, 607, Madurai Coast, communal riots) 24, 608n177, 610n182 33, 93–94, 127, 323, 328, 330, 380, Martin, Fr. Pierre 95, 95n179 382–383, 496, 499, 505, 549, 557–566, Martinho, Mattheus 625 568, 569, 574, 579, 580, 583, 623 Martinière, Bruzen la xxi marakkalam 87, 434 Martinz, Fr. Emmanuel 104 Marathas 5, 23, 24, 33, 52n65, 62, 67, Marudakutti 221 80n134, 86n150, 229n38, 286, 290, Maruthankinaru xxv 359n2, 403, 421, 422, 424, 428, 429n31, Mascarenhas, D. Felipe 330, 331, 332n29, 431, 431n36, 503, 522, 522n36, 523, 524, 340, 341, 341n57 526n41, 527, 528, 532, 533, 534, 559, Mascat 88 584, 599 masjids (see mosques)

730 Index

Master, Streynsham 168 mercury (see also non-precious metals) 149, Masulipatnam 116, 168, 187, 256, 352, 513, 517 185, 186, 190 Mataram (see also individual rulers) 22, Merklein, Johann Jakob 45, 141, 144 44n46, 128, 286n133, 317, 349, 349n80, mesnagie en mercantiele middelen (see also 413, 416, 417, 509, 648 ‘Batavia-centric’ faction) 126, 128, 508 Matattur 624 mestizos (see also Eurasians) 47, 112, 113, 115, matchlock (see firearms, and musketeers) 116, 355, 604 mats (see also plamyra palm) 31, 212, 255, Meurs, Jacob van 143 564n100 ‘military-fiscal’ states (see also ‘new model’ Mattur, Mathur xxv, 64, 464 states) 60, 65, 79 Mavilodai xxv ‘military Orientalism’ (see also proto Mecca 131 -Orientalism) 103, 430n22 Meijden, Adriaen van der 96, 325, 326, 327, ‘military revolution’ (see also firearms, 329, 331, 344, 345, 346, 348, 349, 349n80, ‘military-fiscal’ states, and ‘new model’ 351, 352, 353, 355, 370, 371, 372, 373, states) 103, 103n201, 108 373n28, 375, 376, 377, 378n44, 385n63, 631 millets (see also food grains) 17, 150, 157, meirinho (see bailiff) 211, 214, 252, 253, 254, 264, 285, 299, 640, mejaikarar (see also Paravas) 25, 92, 236, 242, 647, 651 385, 506, 558, 623, 627, 628, 629, 643 Minaksi 32, 50, 52, 53, 58, 151, 281, 312 Melapalaiyam 157 Minangkabau (see also Sumatra) 510 Melapattam 436, 437, 438 mint, minting 37, 74, 164n27, 167, 178, 182, ‘dialogue’ of (1670) 436, 437, 438 183, 184–185, 185n69, 186, 453, 471n117, Melaputhaneri 367, 373, 436, 439, 441 484, 486, 546, 640 Mela Sekkarakudi xxv coins 164n27, 167, 178, 183, 186, 453, 546, Melmandai xxv 640 Melo, António de 237 fees 37, 74, 184–185, 185n69 Melo, Joåo de 488, 499, 500 rights 184, 453, 471n117, 484, 486 Melo, D. Luís de 330 miracu, mirasi 52, 643 Melo, Fr. Luís de 528n43 Mir Jumla (see Mir Muhammad Sayyid Melo, Nicola de 488, 499, 500 Ardestani) Melo, Tomé de 93 Mir Muhammad Sayyid Ardestani 86, 333, Melur 87n154, 281n124, 337, 338, 376, 388, 339, 643 396, 406, 407, 448, 545, 546, 557n88, Mir Musa 317 562, 565, 577, 597, 605, 606, 614, 620, Mirza Murad Ali Beg 340 621, 622, 624 Mirza Pillai Maraikkayar 271, 583 melvaram 260, 262, 643 Mirza Raja Jai Singh 358n2 Mendes, António 343 Mithil 221 Mendes, Ignatio 293 Mleccha 57 ‘mentality of the interloper’ (see ‘siege Mocha 415 mentality’) Mochia Magra 189 mercantile faction (see ‘Batavia-centric’ Modhagam, Madagam 215 faction) Moluccas, Maluku (see also Eastern mercantilism (see also ’bullionist’, and ‘open Indonesia) 212n3, 317, 364n10, 508 door’ policy) 1, 16, 18, 72, 74, 86, 118, 149, Monmouth, 1st Duke of, James Scott (see 295, 315, 535 also pirates) 514, 516, 610, 610n182 merchant guild (see also guild) 35, 35n24, monsoon regime 155, 156, 157, 158, 199, 231, 648 242, 243, 253, 254, 257, 265, 266, 276, merchant network (see also trade diaspora) 164 296, 298, 535, 537, 573, 582, 589, 595, merchant-prince (see ‘portfolio capitalist’) 608, 640, 646

Index 731

Montanier, François 376 Mukkaiyur xxv, 162, 163, 239, 387, 561, 577 Montesquieu, Baron de, Charles-Louis de Mukkuvars 114 Secondat (see also ‘l’Esprit des Lois’) 105 mulams (see also textiles) 224, 224n28, 229 ‘Moorish’ ducats’ 180, 181, 182, 183, 507 mula murtti (see immovable image) ‘Moors’ (see Islam) Mulla Ahmad Nawayat 359, 378 Moraes, Fr. Jernimo de 627, 627n212, 629 Mullimunai xxv, 224n28 Morappanai 162 Mulli Tivu, Mulli Island 274 Moratte, Fr. Pedro 387 Mumpalai xxv mosques (see also Islam) 274, 558, 564, 565, munpani 155, 643 642 Münster, prince-bishopric of 21, 27n4, 144, Motte, João de 385 411, 414 ‘Mouare’ xxv muppan 73, 221, 447n62, 461, 468, 469, 487, Mudaliyandan Srinivasa Desikar 54 488, 489, 490, 526n40, 562, 563, mudaliyar (see also individuals) 48, 66, 68, 588n141, 609, 643 74, 75, 157, 191, 200, 282, 286, 293, 323, murai 52, 134, 643 328, 337, 344, 345, 346, 392, 402, 402n105, Muraiyur 459 402n106, 403, 406, 409, 409n125, 410, muris (see also textiles) 17, 222, 223, 226, 420, 422, 422n18, 423n20, 430, 436, 438, 229, 272, 643 439, 464, 464n100, 467, 468, 469, 477, murrain 280, 635 482, 483, 485, 486, 617, 618, 643, 651 Murugan, Murukan 45, 52n65, 55, 139, 338, Mudaliyar Pillai Maraikkayar 74, 323, 326, 339n53, 310, 343, 347, 643 337, 344, 346–347, 643 Musal Tivu 276, 456, 458, 473, 474, 541 Mugammodi Labbai 221 musketeers (see also firearms) 38, 293, 369, Mughals (see also individual rulers) 5, 8, 370, 392, 393, 393n82, 431, 431n36, 521, 8n13, 14, 23, 24, 27, 29, 33, 45, 103n210, 529, 650 142, 165n31, 176, 183, 234, 246, 249, 286, Muslims (see Islam) 289n138, 291, 315n2, 317, 321, 358, 358n2, muslins (see also textiles) 16, 37, 43, 166, 172, 409n125, 428, 503, 522, 523, 527, 532, 223n27, 224, 636, 637 533, 534n50, 534, 534n51, 593, 594, 616, Mustafa Khan Ardistani 333, 339 638, 643, 648 mutasaddi (see also Surat) 317, 643 conquest of Bijapur (1686) 24, 291, 321, Muthupet 456, 457n82 358, 358n2, 503, 522–523, 527, 532, 533, Mutta Mudaliyar 344 593 mutts 57 conquest of Golconda (1687) 24, 33, 291, Muttu Alagiri Nayaka (see also Muttu 428, 503, 522–523, 527, 532, 533, 593 Alakadri Nayaka) 403, 420, 424, 425, 431 relations with Madurai 527, 533, 533n50, Muttu Alakadri Nayaka (see Muttu Linga 534, 534n50, 534n51, 594 Nayaka) relations with Ramnad 616 Muttu Krishnappa Nayaka relations with the English 246, 249 (r. 1601–1609) 83 relations with the Marathas 23, 24, 291, Muttu Linga Nayaka, Muttu Alakadri Nayaka 428, 503, 522–523, 527, 532, 533, 534, 593 (r. 1677–1680) (see also Madurai, Nayaka Muhammad Adil Shah (r. 1627–1656) (see also state of) 22, 39, 67, 68, 69, 76, 403 Adil Shah, and Bijapur) 321 403n107, 412, 426, 427n28, 427n29, 429, Muhammad Azam 246 430n32, 472, 484, 485, 518, 518n29, 521, 527, muhtasibs (see ‘censors of public morals’) 529, 530, 530n45, 631 Mukappa Cervaikarar 563 Muttu Mudaliyar 617, 618 Mukappa Nayaka 39, 40, 47, 48, 293, 294, ‘Muttu Vicaya Rakunata Cetupati Mitu 482, 488, 489, 490, 500, 563, 581, 583, Cokkanatak Kavirayar Patiya Panavity 584, 585, 585n137 Tutu’ 83

732 Index

Muttu Vijaya Ranga Tirumalai 527, 532, 534, 535, 537, 542, 544, 545, 548, Nayaka 530n45 549, 550, 556, 557, 559, 616 Muttu Virappa Nayaka I (r. 1609–1623) (see also Madurai, Nayaka state of) 52, 54 Nadars (see also Shanars) 95n178, 255, 257 Muttu Virappa Nayaka ii (r. 1659) (see also Nagalapuram xxv Madurai, Nayaka state of) 67, 68, 359, Nagama Nayaka 70 373, 373n28, 631 Nagapatnam, Nagapattinam xxv, 5, 10n19, Muttu Virappa Nayaka iii (r. 1682–1691) (see 20, 25, 36, 37, 46, 118n239, 122, 168, 174, also Madurai, Nayaka state of) 5, 25, 39, 178, 181, 182, 184, 187, 198n91, 199, 203, 40, 44, 46, 54, 59, 61, 62, 64, 64n91, 66, 67, 204, 210, 219, 234, 237, 258, 263, 268, 271, 73, 74, 75n119, 76, 78, 86n150, 403n107, 465, 284, 289n136, 290, 291, 294, 296, 297, 465n101, 517, 519n30, 522, 527, 528, 529, 530, 298, 329n31, 349, 350, 351, 358, 369, 370, 531, 531n48, 533, 534, 581, 583, 584, 585, 597, 371, 382, 390, 390n76, 401, 437, 440, 441, 599, 600n165, 604, 605, 607, 615, 617, 618, 448, 449, 452, 452n75, 453, 455, 456, 620, 621, 622, 622n200, 623n202, 631 457, 457n83, 458, 461, 470, 471, 471n117, mutuvenil 155, 643 473, 481, 482, 483, 484, 489, 490, 492, muventar (see ‘three crowned kings’) 493, 495, 505, 512, 512n19, 521, 539n57, Muyal Tivu, Hare Island 274, 613 540, 541, 543, 544, 567, 573, 588, 589, Muzaffar al-Din Khan-i-Khanan 87, 321, 339, 592n150, 596, 619, 623, 626, 632 641 fanams 37, 178, 181, 453 Mysore (see also Wodeyar rajas, and pagodas 182, 453 individual rulers) 6, 19, 20, 23, 24, 49, 59, ‘Nagapatnam qaul’ (1665) 20, 358, 390, 437, 60, 65, 65n94, 78n130, 79, 83, 171n44, 191, 489, 490 262, 322, 323, 357, 358, 362–363, 363n9, Nagercoil xxv 373n28, 391, 393, 403, 405, 419, 420, 421, 425, Nagore 234 429, 453, 463, 503, 504, 518–519, 519n30, Naikenkottai, Nayakkankottai 518 520, 521, 521n35, 522, 522n36, 524, 527, 532, Nakarattars 267, 644 533, 534, 535, 537, 542, 544, 545, 546, 547, nakkumin (see Indian sole) 548, 549–550, 556, 557, 559, 616, 651 nakuta, nakhuda (see ship captain) occupation of the Madurai lowlands Nalla Tanni Tivu, Fresh Water Island 274, (1681–1682) 24, 49, 59, 503, 504, 295, 456, 458, 459, 540 518–519, 521, 524, 535, 537, 542, 544, 545, Nallur 626 546, 547, 548, 549–550, 556 Namaccivayappulavar 88n158 relations with Madurai (see also Mysore- Nambi Alagiri Ayya 578, 579 Madurai wars) 19, 20, 23, 24, 49, 59, Nambiyar River 158 65, 78n130, 83, 171n44, 262, 322, 323, 357, Nanguneri 281n124 358, 362–363, 363n9, 373n28, 391, 393, nanjai, nansey, nancey (see ‘irrigated crops or 403, 405, 419, 420, 421, 429, 453, 463, fields’) 503, 504, 518–519, 519n30, 520, 521, nanjai-mel-punjai (see ‘dry crops on wet 521n35, 522n36, 524, 527, 532, 535, 537, land’) 542, 544, 545, 548, 549–550, 556, 559, Nantes, Revocation of the Edict of (1685) 616 96n182, 626 Mysore-Madurai wars (1654; 1656–1659; Naoroji, Dadabhai 381n53 1667–1668/9; 1673; 1678–1683; after Narai (r. 1656–1688) (see also Siam) 1687) 19, 20, 23, 24, 49, 59, 65, 78n130, 83, Naranamangalam 219 171n44, 262, 322, 323, 357, 358, 362–363, Narasappa Ayya 32, 33n18, 64, 69 363n9, 373n28, 391, 393, 403, 405, 419, 420, Narasinha Ayya 549 421, 421n17, 429, 453, 463, 503, 504, 518–519, Narayana Mudaliyar 328, 344, 345 519n30, 520, 521, 521n35, 522, 522n36, 524, Narayappa Ayya 550

Index 733

Nasir Mahmud Khan (see also oils 16, 51, 140, 172, 636 ‘Mamoedechamse’, ‘Mamodegamse’ oil seeds (see also castor, coriander, and pagodas) 426n26, 428, 439, 470, 543n65 sesame) 214, 254 Navaratri, Navarattiri (see Nine Nights’ olai (see also ‘immoderate olai’) 56, 293, 327, Festival) 328, 336, 338, 344, 345, 389, 391, 404, nayakkarar 91, 644 419, 436, 436n45, 437, 438, 440, 441, 448, Nayana Pandya 354 449, 450, 451, 461, 464n99, 467, 469, Nayars 398, 531, 542, 606n175, 644 470, 475, 477, 486, 486n142, 489, 491, Nayinapuram 624 493, 499, 527, 528n43, 538, 544, 545, Nedun Tivu 273 549, 550, 551, 552, 557, 564, 566, 573, 574, Negombo 231, 280, 282, 319, 326, 335, 344, 578, 579, 581, 582, 583n135, 585, 586, 345, 352, 392 587, 590, 594, 595, 598, 599, 600n165, negotiepenningen (see ‘commercial coins’) 601, 613, 615n190, 618, 619, 620, 622, 644 ‘Negro cloth’ (see also textiles) 222, 246 Omalur 532 nel, nellu, neli (see rice) Onor, Honavar 194 Nenmeni xxv Ooms, Eduard 367, 368, 369, 371, 372, ‘neo-Europes’ 43n41 373n28, 632 ‘New Jerusalem’ (see ‘New Zion’) ‘Open-Deure tot het Verborgen Heydendom’ ‘new model’ states (see also ‘military-fiscal’ (see also Rogerius, Abraham) 133–134, states) 60, 65 133n270 New World (see also the Americas) 43n41, ‘open door’ policy (see also ‘bullionist’) 17, 177, 252, 499 20, 25, 72, 74, 85, 185, 296, 315, 354, 358, ‘New Zion’ 111 375, 376, 387, 393, 505, 561, 585, 604, Nieuhoff, Joan (Johan) (see also 605, 642 ‘Gedenkwaerdige Zee- en opium 40, 364, 480, 608 Landreize’) 91n165, 157, 164, 240, 241, 243, ‘Opposite Coast’ (see also Costa da Pescaria, 245, 303, 376, 389, 632 Fishery Coast, Madurai Coast, and Nieuwlandt, Adriaen van 351–352 Tirunelveli) 3, 6, 17, 29, 47, 101, 156, 159, Nijmegen, Peace of (1678) (see also 161, 294, 314, 315, 319, 350, 440, 592 Holland War) 506 Orange, Prince of 119, 130, 394, 614 Nilgiris 155, 156, 161, 279n121 ‘Orangist’ party-faction 119, 132 Nine Nights’ Festival (see also temple orangkaya 510 festivals) 83, 323, 427n29, 574, 644 Oriental despotism (see proto-Orientalism) Nine Years’ War (1688–1697) 73, 96n182, 506, Oriental personality (see proto-Orientalism) 517, 597, 602, 607, 613, 626 Ormuz 88, 579 Nobili, Roberto de (see also Madurai Mission) Othiyatur 238 41, 43, 47, 48, 48n54, 95n178 Ottapidaram xxv, 281n124 Nollu Cervaikarar 574 ‘Our Lady of Snows’ 501, 565, 626 non-precious metals (see also copper, lead, ‘outer frontier’ (see also ‘inner frontier’) 3, mercury, tin, vermillion, and zinc) 149, 6, 9, 15, 35, 49, 74 185–190, 299 oxen (see also buffaloes, bullocks, and cows) northeast coast of Java 29, 317, 349, 416, 509, 17, 46, 150, 174, 196, 206, 208, 211, 267, 510, 645 278, 279, 280, 280n122, 281–284, 392, Nossa Senhora das Neves (see ‘Our Lady of 456, 462, 473, 476, 477, 554, 555, 574 Snows’) ‘Notice of Chinna-Kattira-Naicker’ 521 Pachaimalais 154 Nürnberg 140, 401n103 Pachaiyar River 158 nutmeg (see also fine spices) 16, 40, 149, 171, packing twine (see also palmyra palm) 37, 191, 192, 193, 193n79, 327, 414, 635 212, 219n16

734 Index pacta sunt servanda 288, 314, 539, 610, 644 Palghatcherri 205 paddy (see rice) palhota 628, 645 Padmanabha 146, 146n308, 324, 531 Pallars, Pallans, Pallas 47, 219, 236n50, 278, Padmanabhapuram 531 645 padre vigário 501, 626, 644 Pallavaraja (see also Pudukkottai, and Padre Periyar (see Xavier, St. Francis) Tondaiman Raja) 523, 523n38 padroado real 129, 289n138, 340 Pallavas 35 Padtbrugge, Robertus 121, 450, 632 Pallimadam xxv, 584 Pães, Fr. Francisco 387 palmyra palm (see also baskets, coir rope, Pagani, Paganeri 528n43 mats, packing twine, and palm wine) pagar 601, 644 95n178, 157, 255 Pagavanna Mudaliyar 438 palm wine, toddy (see also palmyra palm) pagoda (see temple) 157, 255, 571, 647 Pakubuwana i (r. 1704–1719) (see also Palni Hills, Palani Hills 156 Mataram) 44n46 Pamban xxv, 46, 162, 163, 197, 234, 239, 350, Pakubuwana ii (r. 1726–1749) (see also 439, 440, 527n41, 590, 600, 602, 604 Mataram) 44n46 Pamban Channel 81, 84, 85, 195, 208, 325, pakuti (see also carvamaniyam, and tribute) 328, 350, 351, 369, 377, 388, 389, 390, 79, 469, 489, 489n151, 477, 490, 559, 579, 392, 439, 440, 443, 450, 454, 456, 473, 580, 585, 614, 645, 646 474, 475, 492, 494, 495, 527, 535, 539, palace (see aranmanai) 540, 541, 544, 553, 554, 555, 556, 567, 573, Palaiyakkayal xxv, 73, 97, 162, 163, 233, 238, 589, 590, 595, 596, 597, 598, 601, 602 355, 382, 385, 387, 393, 491, 565, 574, 621 Panagudi xxv, 196, 197, 206, 262 founding of eic factory at (1659) 73, 97, Pancartras (see also Pattars) 52 355, 382, 385, 393, 394 Panchalan 530 Muslim plunder of (1684) 565 Panchalankurichi xxv voc arrest of eic resident (1665) (see also Pandidars (see also pandit) 46, 362, 526, Harrington, John, and Second 529, 600 Anglo-Dutch War) 97, 393, 491, 565 pandit (see also Pandidars) 146, 428, 527n41 palaiyakkarar 1, 15, 28, 35, 49, 50, 60, 79–86, Pandyas (see also ‘three crowned kings’) 151, 267, 323, 353, 361, 373n28, 408, 423, 70n105, 154, 156, 234n48, 255, 354, 423, 423n20, 427, 434n40, 439, 451, 452, 460, 423n21, 521, 572, 643 470, 477, 519, 520, 521, 524n38, 526n40, Panjal xxv, 162, 163, 387 636, 641, 645 Panjja Nathikulam xxv palaiyam 1, 35, 49, 69, 79, 83, 451, 645 Papillon, Thomas 118n239 Palaiyamkottai, Palaiyam xxv, 17, 156, 157, ‘papist’ (see Catholicism) 169, 219, 220, 221, 224, 332, 354, 366, 367, Paraiyars (see Pariahs) 373, 423n21, 439, 524, 524n39, 534n50, Paramakudi xxv 545, 549 Paramatti 532 Palakollu 168 Parangi (see ‘Franks’) Palani 267, 281n124, 347 Parasika 75, 75n120 palanquin 83, 103, 323, 399n98, 403, 570, Paravas (see also kamarakkarar, mejaikarar, 593, 607, 645, 648 and individuals) 5, 15, 18, 20, 22, 24, Palar River 154, 253 25, 28, 33, 44, 50, 74, 78, 79, 91–97, Palatinate 13 97n185, 110, 122, 123n248, 127, 135, 168, Palayampatti 257 203, 233, 235, 236, 236n50, 237, 242, 250, Palembang (see also Sumatra) 510 251, 269, 293, 316, 323, 328, 330, 332, 333, Palestine 151 336, 337, 340, 342, 343, 346, 355, 356, 357, Palghat 153, 155, 196 358, 367, 368, 369, 372, 374, 375, 378, 379,

Index 735

380, 382–383, 384, 385, 385n63, 386–388, Patnulkarar 218, 645 389, 393, 395, 396, 404, 405, 413, 438, ‘patrimonial-sultanist’ regimes 64, 79 439, 444, 447, 448, 449, 452n74, 463, 466, Pattamadai xxv 467, 467n105, 481, 482, 483, 484, 487, pattamars, pattimars (see footrunners) 488, 489, 490, 496–501, 505, 523, 537, Pattanamaradur xxv, 162, 163, 231, 238, 248 540, 543, 544, 547, 549, 557–566, 568, pattangattim (see also Paravas) 91, 92, 96, 569, 574, 579, 580, 583, 607, 613, 623–629, 235, 237, 298, 337, 343, 368, 369, 385, 640, 643, 644, 645, 646, 648 489, 499, 500, 625, 626, 645 population of 91, 236, 387 pattangattim-mór (see also jati talaivan, and relations with Madurai 18, 78, 97, 316, Paravas) 91, 92, 93, 237, 380, 385, 489n151, 332, 333, 356, 357, 358, 367, 368, 372, 625 374, 378, 380, 386–388, 389, 393, 395, Pattars (see also temple officials) 15, 28, 396, 405, 413, 438, 439, 444, 447, 448, 50–56, 59, 196, 453, 538, 605, 646 449, 452n74, 466, 467, 467n105, 481, Pattikacuppulavar 88n158 482, 483, 484, 487, 488, 489, 490, Pattle, Thomas 73, 515, 608, 609 496–501, 623, 624, 626, 628 Pattukkottai xxv, 419, 419n13 relations with Ramnad 369, 389, 449, Pax Neerlandica (see also ‘Ceylon-centric’ 505, 523, 549, 550, 552, 557–566, 568, faction) 5, 22, 122, 372, 413, 441, 451, 465, 569, 574, 579, 580, 583 508 relations with the English 97, 382, payacam 57, 646 385–386, 386n66, 393, 394, 543 pearls 17, 37, 77, 91, 150, 211, 230–240, 241, relations with the Maraikkayars (see also 243, 251, 296, 299, 327, 379, 400, 458, Madurai Coast, communal riots) 24, 464n99, 474, 491, 492, 499, 553, 569, 33, 93–94, 127, 323, 328, 330, 380, 579, 617, 636, 648 382–383, 496, 499, 505, 549, 557–566, banks 230, 231, 235, 237, 244, 328, 331, 568, 569, 574, 579, 580, 583, 623 389, 393, 394, 437, 447, 447n62, 449, relations with the Portuguese (see also 454, 458, 466, 488, 491, 492, 499, 540, Paravas and Madurai Mission) 18, 20, 645 74, 92–93, 93n169, 94, 97, 127, 135, 316, divers 77n126, 93, 232, 233, 234–237, 323, 328, 330, 332, 333, 335, 336, 337, 236n50, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 250, 251, 340, 342, 343, 346, 355, 357, 372, 375, 331, 406, 490, 540, 543, 558, 602, 641, 642 382, 383, 384, 385, 386–388, 386n68, fishers (see also Maraikkayars, and 388n70, 409, 500, 623, 626, 627, 629 Paravas) 74, 78, 91–97, 232, 230–240, Pariah, Pariyas, Paraiyars 44, 219, 255, 256, 236n50, 308 293, 645 fishery (see also chank fishery) 18, 22, 74, Parthibanur xxv 77, 77n126, 78, 83, 85, 92, 95, 162–164, paru (see also other ship types) 462, 175, 179, 230–240, 242, 243, 247, 251, 270, 462n94, 475, 645 296, 307, 316, 323, 327, 328, 331, 353, 365, pasisir (see northeast coast of Java) 366, 368, 370, 374, 377, 379, 380, 383, 385, ‘passes and protection rights’ system 91, 97, 393, 395, 396, 399, 406, 407, 408n122, 189, 195, 208, 257, 328, 331, 344, 352, 410, 413, 435, 449, 450, 451, 451n71, 454, 374n31, 377, 385, 389, 393, 394, 413, 436, 490, 491, 492, 496, 512n19, 517, 540, 545, 449, 450, 451n71, 462n94, 475, 495, 515, 558, 560, 573, 596, 602, 607, 612n187, 617, 539, 539n57, 541, 542, 550, 551, 554, 557, 620, 625, 628, 636, 638, 649 572, 573, 582, 586, 590, 591, 592, 594, market 78, 233, 234, 395, 396, 435, 449, 602, 603, 605, 606, 606n176, 611, 616, 618 491 Pasuruan 509 ‘robbery’ of the pearl banks (1665; 1670; patacho (see also other ship types) 437, 645 1678) 244, 393, 394, 437, 449, 488, Pathans 429n32 490, 491, 499–500, 540

736 Index pedlars 50, 91, 200, 208, 267, 493, 561, 562 ‘Persian squadron’ (see also Haye, Jacob Pedro, D. (r. 1668–1706) (see also Blanquet de la) 22, 222, 293, 413, 416, 436, Portuguese) 499 446, 446n59, 447, 449, 451, 453, 460, 484, Pegu 187, 593 498 penghulu 510 Perumanal xxv, 162, 164, 387 Pennar River 321 Perundurai xxv peons (see also indigenous soldiers, and Perur 221 lascorins) 39, 47, 293, 294, 350, 433n39, ‘peshkash’ (see carvamaniyam, pakuti, and 461, 471, 482, 488, 489, 490, 500, 530, tribute) 552n80, 563, 581, 583, 602, 646 pettai (see market town) pepper (see also other spices) 16, 37, 148, pey 44, 50, 52, 646 149, 161, 165, 171, 175, 189, 193–199, pey-tannir (see liquor) 198n91, 200, 208, 210, 267, 299, 326, 364, Phaulkon, Constance (see also Narai, and 368, 374, 414, 415, 456, 458, 492, 493, Siam) 241 493n162, 494, 507, 507n10, 515, 517, 542, Philip ii (r. 1556–1598) (see also Spanish) 591, 607, 616, 640, 643 318 Perambadi Gap 153 Philip v (r. 1701–1724) (see also Spanish) 167 ‘perceived mutual advantage’ 4, 42 Picotti, Jean 615n190 Pereira, Salvador 282, 392 piece goods (see also textiles, and individual Pereira, Sebastião 293, 536, 537, 546 varieties) 16, 171, 211, 212, 216, 218, 222, ‘perennial nuclear region’ 148, 154, 154n14, 299 156 pigs (see also pork) 17, 279, 282, 283 Perianna Cervaikarar 433 Pijl, Laurens (see also Dielen, Johanna Perimbala Sinay, Verimbala Sinay 467, van) 21, 40, 73, 102, 105, 118n239, 122, 124, 467n107 125, 129, 241, 243, 246, 275, 393, 394, 405, Periyakulam 281n124 406n119, 408, 412, 417, 435, 436, 437, 438, Periyapatnam xxv, 162, 163, 238, 450, 451, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443, 445, 448, 449, 450, 457, 475, 597 480, 483n136, 500, 511, 512n18, 535, 536, 537, Periyar Gap 153 540, 542, 544, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, Periya Tambi Maraikkayar (see also 552, 553, 556, 557, 566, 567, 568, 569, 571, individuals) 14, 15, 23, 24, 25, 85, 87, 572, 574, 575, 576, 577, 579, 580n130, 581, 87n154, 87n156, 88, 89, 90, 92, 94, 237, 241, 582, 583, 586, 586n138, 587, 588, 589, 267, 271, 297, 298, 413, 434, 435, 473, 475, 589n143, 590, 592, 593, 594, 595, 597, 603, 494, 494n165, 495, 501, 505, 514, 526n40, 604, 610, 611, 612n187, 614, 619, 622, 623, 631, 539, 543, 544, 549, 552n80, 555, 557, 558, 632 559, 559n91, 561, 562, 562n96, 563, 563n99, Pijl, Philippus 86, 597, 598 564, 565, 566, 567, 569, 570, 570n109, 573, pilgrimage 131, 152, 267, 344, 546, 649 574, 575, 576, 577, 578, 579, 580, 580n130, Pillaiyarkulam xxv 582, 583, 585, 586, 587, 588, 588n141, 589, pirates 289n138, 437, 514, 516, 596, 606n176, 589n143, 590, 591, 592, 593, 595, 596, 598, 610, 611, 618 602, 603, 646 Piravi Perumal Pillai 489, 499 Persia (see also Bandar Abbas) 9, 29, 31, 34, Pires, D. Xavier 93, 237 37, 38, 43, 75, 85, 88, 151, 166, 172, 176, pir saints (see also Islam) 557 178, 180, 181, 204, 225, 256, 273, 280, 282, pisanam, picanam (see also kar, and 371, 392, 416, 430n32, 436, 437, 446, 453, rice) 253, 260, 261, 291, 646 456, 498, 504, 507, 513, 575, 579, 615, 616, Pit, Laurens 168, 288, 319, 330, 334n41, 635 335n44, 350, 355n96, 367n17, 513, Persian abasis 37, 178, 180, 181, 456, 507, 635 544n66, 632 Persian Gulf 31, 85, 256, 273 Pitti Nayaka 76

Index 737

Pits, Jacob Jorisz. 544n66, 632 354, 355, 356, 357, 364, 366, 367, 368, plantains 254, 650 369, 370, 372, 373, 374, 377, 378, 378n43, Pluijmert, Adam 546, 591 379, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 391, poet-saints, Alvar and Nayanar 134, 635, 644 399, 401, 403, 404, 405, 409, 411, 438, 441, Pogalur xxv, 83, 432 442, 443, 445, 445n58, 454, 455, 461, Point Calimere 227, 263, 271, 456, 551, 580 462n94, 489, 497, 498, 498n176, 499, pokam, bhoga (see sensual enjoyment) 500, 513, 522, 538, 543, 548, 558, political merchant (see ‘portfolio capitalist’) 606n176, 610n182, 612, 612n187, 627, ‘Pollecarre’ Pattar, ‘Poelicare’ Pattar 605, 627n212, 629, 637, 649 605n174 relations with Madurai 316, 323, 326, polygamy 130, 134, 138, 139 330, 331, 332, 333, 335, 342, 348, Pondichéry, Pondicherry, Puducherry 43n41, 354–355, 367, 368, 373, 374, 375, 386, 216, 324, 426n26, 427, 453, 512n19, 517, 399, 401, 438, 538, 612n187 518n28, 519n30, 539, 543, 552n80, 599, relations with Ramnad 349–350, 602, 602n168, 607, 608n177 351–352, 369–370, 377, 391, 454, 455, Ponnaiyar River, South Pennar River 154, 253 543, 558 Ponnani 590, 611n183 relations with the Paravas (see also Ponni Chitti 182 Paravas, and Madurai Mission) 18, 20, Pool, Lucas 552, 556 74, 92–93, 93n169, 94, 97, 127, 135, 316, Poolangulam xxv 323, 328, 330, 332, 333, 335, 336, 337, Poomarichan Tivu, Pumorichan Island 274 340, 342, 343, 346, 355, 357, 372, 375, Poovarasanpatti Tivu, Poovarasanpatti Island 382, 383, 384, 385, 386–388, 386n68, 274 388n70, 409, 500, 623, 627, 629 population 1–2, 3, 9, 27n4, 15, 22, 31–32, potatoes 285 55n70, 87–88, 91, 102, 104, 124, 126, povo (see also Paravas) 91, 489n151, 646 159–161, 161n25, 162–164, 175, 191, 314, Prabhu 345, 646 413, 434–435, 538 Prabhu Nayinar 237 Poravacheri xxv pradhani (see also Tirunelveli, governors of, porcelain 145 and individuals) 38, 39, 49, 55, 61, 63, 64, pork (see also pigs) 45 67, 68, 69, 78, 191, 260, 305, 344, 360, 368, porters 171, 174,196, 206, 208, 220, 399 399, 400, 401, 420, 452n75, 464n99, 465, ‘portfolio capitalist’ (see also individuals) 486, 489, 490, 517, 520, 525, 531, 555, 569, 14, 15, 23, 24, 28, 35, 35n24, 50, 60, 85, 570, 583, 584, 598, 604, 607, 613, 617, 618, 86–91, 87n154, 126, 172, 237, 267, 324, 620, 621, 646 379n46, 413, 434, 435, 452, 464n99, 466, Pradhani Nayaka (see Bodi Alagari Nayaka) 470n113, 494, 501, 505, 549, 558, 559, 561, prahu (see also other ship types) 597 562, 563, 591, 594 Pranadartihava Vaduladesikar 53, 54 Porto Novo, Paringapettai 174, 178, 187, 199, praxis pietatis 130, 133 210, 216, 225, 246, 250, 269, 324, 325, 327, prayer 100, 593 462n94, 494, 495, 514, 539, 541, 543, 544 precious metals (see treasure; see also gold, Portuguese 3, 9, 13, 18, 19, 20, 34, 41, 43, silver, and treasure) 16, 37, 61, 74, 149, 43n41, 48, 65, 71, 74, 76, 79, 81, 85, 92, 93, 150, 165, 167, 171–185, 175n53, 180n62, 93n169, 94, 96, 97, 101, 104, 115, 122, 123, 185n70, 210, 211, 299, 504 129, 136, 136n280, 141, 162, 187, 189, 190, precious stones 38, 50, 70n106, 73, 114, 140, 194, 211, 231, 231n43, 232, 241, 242, 243, 230, 232, 326, 367, 411, 517, 607 271, 289n138, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 323, predikant (see also Dutch Reformed Church, 325, 326, 327, 328, 330, 331, 332, 333, 335, and theocratic vision) 15, 28, 96, 98, 104, 336, 337, 338, 340, 341, 342, 343, 346, 118, 127, 129–135, 129n262, 129n263, 324, 348, 349, 350, 351–352, 351n83, 352, 353, 383, 577, 646

738 Index

Priaman (see also Sumatra) 510 Qadiri (see also Islam) 89 Proença, Fr. Antão (António) de 321n11, 362, Qasim Khan 533 387 qaul 17, 18, 19, 20, 35, 74, 314, 315, 316, 323, Propaganda Fide 129, 132 324, 325, 326, 327, 353, 353n91, 354, 355, protectionism 166–167 358, 375, 390, 435, 437, 473, 489, 490, proto-Orientalism 15, 33, 51, 51n62, 64, 98, 495, 647 101, 102, 103–104, 103n201, 105, 106, 117, Quaalbergen, Cornelis van 333, 342 146, 172, 173, 228, 314, 351, 398, 430n32 Queyroz, Fr. Fernão de 43, 104, 498 provintiedaalders (see also ‘commercial Qing Empire (see also China) 189 coins’) 178, 181 Quilon, Kollam 75, 195, 231, 237, 331, 364, pucai, puja (see also temple ceremonies) 52, 372, 377, 378n43, 387, 494, 541, 542, 591, 52n65, 57, 134, 646 606, 606n175, 648 Pudhumai Valangai Pirumal 608 Signatti of 372, 542, 606, 648 R. Pudipattinam xxv, 224n28 quitasol (see umbrella) Pudukkottai (see also Pallavaraja, Tondaiman Qur’an, Koran 130, 131 Raja) xxv, 81, 82, 169, 220, 278, 361, Qutb Shah (see also Golconda, and individual 470, 494, 523, 523n38, 527, 527n41, 528, rulers) 22, 33, 170, 321, 413, 428, 451, 484, 640, 642 530, 647 Pudupatnam xxv, 162 Pulicat, Pazhaverkadu 5, 10n19, 33, 37, 45, Radical Enlightenment 143, 143n299, 144 73, 87, 118n239, 133, 146, 168, 178, 180, 181, radix china (see chinaroot) 182, 184, 187, 325, 326, 327, 330, 334, 353, Raghava Ayya 69 367n17, 388, 512 ‘Raghunathabhyudayamu’ 70 pagodas 37, 178, 180, 181, 182, 184 Raghunatha Kattapa Nayaka 574 Pullivasal Tivu, Mosque Island 274 Raghunatha Nayaka (r. 1612–1634) (see also pulses 254 Tanjore) 70 Puluvunnichalli Island, Pulvinichalli Raghunatha Pillai 602 Island 274 Raghunatha Tevar, Kilavan Setupati ‘punitive expedition’ (1649) iv, 4, 18, 45, 55, (r. 1674–1710) (see also Ramnad, Tevar 136, 136n280, 139, 301, 305, 309, 310, 311, of) 5, 21, 28, 33, 46, 52n65, 56, 59n79, 67, 316, 329, 332n38, 334–340, 341, 341–347 82, 83, 84, 84n145, 85, 87, 88, 94, 412, 418, punjai, punsey, puncey (see ‘unirrigated crops 419n12, 421, 422n18, 430, 431, 433, 433n39, or fields’) 434, 434n40, 435, 454, 455, 456, 457, 458, Punnaikayal xxv, 37, 91, 91n165, 162, 163, 164, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 492, 495, 518, 519, 231, 233, 237, 238, 264, 265, 267, 296, 519n30, 520, 521, 523, 523n38, 524, 524n38, 297, 327, 373, 387, 400, 483, 483n136, 525, 526, 527, 528, 528n43, 529, 529n44, 484, 487, 489, 497, 497n173, 535, 536, 530, 535, 539, 541, 542, 543, 544, 550, 551, 536n52, 537, 537n55, 550, 559, 562, 565, 552, 552n80, 554, 556, 557, 559, 559n91, 567, 597, 616 570, 572, 573, 574, 578, 580, 581, 582, 583, Punnaiyadi Tivu 613 583n135, 586, 587, 590, 595, 596, 596n156, Purakkad 201, 364, 393, 542, 606 601, 602, 603, 631 Purchas, Samuel 147 Raghunatha Tevar, Tirumalai Setupati Purushottama Dikshitudu 70 (r. 1645–1673) (see also Ramnad, Tevar Purvachery 219 of) 18, 20, 82, 83, 322, 322n14, 333, 349, putams, pudams (see ‘demon altars’) 350, 351, 352, 353, 358, 361, 367, 369, 370, Puthur xxv 376, 388, 389, 392, 408, 419, 420, 434n40, Puttalam 114, 225, 265, 284, 370, 458, 591, 594 436, 449, 450, 631 Putten 141 Raghuvanna Mudaliyar 406, 410

Index 739

Raghuvanna Tevar 82, 433, 528 204, 207, 214, 216, 220, 224n28, 231, 234, rajador mór 467–468n107 256, 261n88, 264, 267, 274, 278, Rajakamangalam 238 279–280n121, 281n124, 282, 316, 322, 350, Rajapalaiyam xxv, 197, 206, 256 389, 391, 413, 423, 431n36, 435, 525, 551, Rajaram Bhonsle (r. 1689–1700) (see also 553, 573, 587, 594, 603, 644, 647 Marathas) 532, 533, 534 armed forces of 56, 84, 370, 392–393, Raja Sakti, Ahmad Syah ibn Iskander 510 393n82, 408, 418, 420, 422n18, 431, Raja Sinha ii (r. 1629–1687) (see also 431n36, 432, 432n37, 449, 525, 528n43, Kandy) 19, 128, 314, 315n2, 319, 350, 357, 552, 559, 574, 579, 598, 599 364, 370, 381, 401, 416, 417, 450n70, 451n71, city of 83, 84, 376, 392, 432, 455, 476, 477, 481, 497, 511, 540, 567, 571, 591 478, 528n43, 530, 542, 544, 551, 553, 554, Rajasthan 186, 189 567, 568, 570, 571, 582, 603, 616 Raja Surya Tevar (r. 1673) (see also Ramnad, Dutch loan to the Tevar (1675–1676) 126, Tevar of) 82, 420, 450, 457, 529n44, 631 282, 456, 473, 477, 492, 539, 540, 553, Raja Surya Tevar (see also Appanar Nattu 555, 556, 574, 580, 581, 582, 583, 586, Maravas) 82, 528, 529, 529n44, 569, 570, 587, 604 586, 587, 604 incursions of the Madurai Coast Rajputs 103, 429n32 (1680) 24, 504, 519–520 Rama 57, 593, 595 occupation of the Madurai Coast Ramachandra Ayya 602 (1682–1685) 24, 505, 524, 526, 548, Ramachandra Nayaka 423n20 549–585 Rama Krishna Cervaikarar 552, 553 relations with Madurai 19, 24, 293, 322, Ramanatha 46, 51n61, 52n65, 56, 81, 83, 312, 322n14, 357, 361–362, 362, 378, 388, 390, 528, 595, 597, 598 391, 420–421, 422, 423, 430–431, 453, Ramanathapuram (see also Ramnad) 156, 464n99, 465, 473, 477, 504, 519–520, 257, 279n121, 640, 642, 647 525, 525n40, 526, 527, 530, 575, 580 Rama Nayaka 294 relations with Tanjore 411, 412, 418, 419, Ramanuja (see Udayar) 435, 436, 444 Rama Palli 438 relations with the English 81, 88, 475, Ramappaiyan, Ramappayan 322n14, 323, 476n124, 494, 494n165, 514, 516, 539, 323n15 540, 542, 543, 544, 544n66, 551, 552n80, ‘Ramappaiyan Ammanai’ 323n15 553, 567, 574, 585, 605, 606 Ramappa Ayya 448 relations with the French 81, 498, 514, Rama Reddi 423n20 517, 539, 539n57, 540, 542, 543, 551, Rama Varma (r. 1662–1671) (see also 552n80, 553, 567, 574, 585, 586, 602, Travancore) 383n58, 387 606, 607 ‘Ramayana’ 57, 595 relations with the Mughals 616 Rameswaram 25, 46, 51n61, 52n65, 56, relations with the Portuguese 349–350, 59n79, 81, 83, 85, 86n150, 124n250, 158, 351–352, 369–370, 377, 391, 454, 455, 161, 207, 231, 236n50, 271, 274, 275, 312, 543, 558 322n14, 344, 369, 377, 388, 389, 391, 435, Tevar of (see also Setupati, and individual 439, 440, 441, 443, 444, 445, 448, 449, rulers) 1, 5, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 456, 458, 467, 474, 481, 494, 495, 498, 24, 25, 28, 32, 33, 35, 41, 46, 48, 52n65, 505, 529, 551, 554, 555, 568, 571, 572, 577, 56, 59n79, 67, 74, 79–86, 82n141, 87, 88, 578, 579, 586, 589, 594, 595, 598, 599, 89, 118, 211, 233, 235, 246, 267, 268, 272, 600, 601n166, 602, 603 282, 316, 322, 322n14, 323, 333, 350, 357, Ramnad, Ramanathapuram 1, 14, 18, 22, 87, 361, 366, 367, 369, 376, 378, 389, 391, 95n178, 153, 156, 157n19, 169, 197, 203, 392, 408, 409n125, 412, 413, 418, 420, 421,

740 Index

Ramnad, Ramanathapuram (cont.) ‘renewal consecration’ (see also temple 422, 430, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, 451, ceremonies) 45, 55, 339n53, 347, 647 453, 455, 460, 464n99, 467, 473, 474, Rengappa Chitti 619 476, 493n160, 503, 505, 517, 523, 525, ‘reputable peace’ (1690) 25, 56, 505, 586, 527, 527n41, 528, 530, 533, 539, 544, 549, 602–603, 623 550, 551, 552n80, 553, 556, 557, 558, 559, ‘revolt of the Southern Nayakas’ (1645) (see 567, 568, 570, 571, 572, 575, 579, 580, 581, also Velur, battle of) 71, 289, 315, 320, 321 582, 583, 585, 586, 587, 590, 591, 594, Reynst, Lambertus 124 598, 599, 603, 631, 646, 647 Rhee, Jacob van 353, 354, 367, 367n17, 369, Ramnad Coast (see also Costa 370 d’Inchiado) 46, 81, 88, 91, 158, 159, 161, Rhee, Maria van (see also Vliet, Joan van) 162, 163–164, 202, 203, 231, 237, 238–239, 116, 121, 125 248, 250, 250n69, 251n70, 264, 267, 268, Rhee, Thomas van 116, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 269, 271, 274, 275, 276, 278, 280, 284, 296, 174, 241, 251, 329n30, 491, 493n162, 495, 298, 389, 409n125, 434–435, 437, 456, 458, 501, 537, 538, 539, 540, 541, 542, 544, 459, 475, 478, 494, 495, 516, 525, 540, 541, 545, 546, 547, 548, 566 543, 553, 559, 562, 562n96, 569, 572, 573, Rheede, Hendrik Adriaan van (see also 578, 583, 589, 590, 594 commissioner general) 10, 20, 38, 47, 49, population of 87–88, 91, 162, 163–164, 50, 63, 68, 75, 76, 77, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 434–435 105, 110, 120n243, 121, 121n244, 168, 191, 199, Ramnad-Dutch hostilities (see First Dutch- 210n112, 227, 230n40, 258, 272, 276, 297, Ramnad War, and Second Dutch-Ramnad 304, 304n14, 327, 358, 369, 388, 391, 393n82, War) 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 402n105, 403, Rangaraiya, Ranga Raiya (see also Mysore) 403n107, 404, 406n119, 407, 408, 467n105, 545, 546 479, 479n132, 508, 508n12, 512, 512n19, 513, Rareesharaiya, Rareesha Raiya (see also Mysore) 514, 585, 586, 588, 588n141, 589, 589n143, 547 592, 593, 594, 595, 596, 596n156, 597, 598, rattan 212, 299 599, 600, 601, 601n166, 602, 603, 607, 611, Ratu Pakubuwana (see also Mataram) 612n187, 621, 622, 626, 627, 628 44n46 Ricci, Matteo (see also ‘Rites Controversy’) Ravanna 595 131 Ravi Varma vi (r. 1610–1662) (see also rice (see also food grains, kar, and Travancore) 344 pisanam) 17, 47, 57, 88, 150, 154, 156, 157, rayasam 61, 67, 360, 647 170n42, 202, 211, 246, 252–263, 262n90, 264, ‘Rayavacakamu’ 58n78, 70, 71n108, 72 267, 278, 279, 285, 291, 293, 299, 317, 326, rayfish skins (see rockfish skins) 327, 331, 346, 351, 355, 364, 368, 374, 381, Reael, Laurens 119 389, 394, 408, 464n100, 470, 487, 509, reals of eight 77, 178, 181, 182, 331, 332, 334, 512n19, 561, 562, 569, 578, 644, 645, 646 337, 338, 340, 343, 345, 346, 371, 379, 381, Ridderus, Franciscus 132–133, 138 382, 393, 395, 609 ‘right-handed’ caste groups (see also Reddis, Kapus 6n8, 57, 255, 256, 423n20, 647 ‘left-handed’ caste groups) 33, 650 red sandalwood (see also chaya roots, and right of war 288, 337 other dyes) 273, 641 rijksdaalders (see rixdollars) Red Sea 151, 256 ‘Rites Controversy’ (see also Ricci, Matteo) regedor 65, 367, 542, 614, 647 47, 131 regedor mór 367 rixdollars 66, 184, 190, 196, 198, 203, 204, 206, regur 156, 157, 213, 214, 254, 644, 647 207, 217, 225, 236, 241, 245, 249, 250, 251, Remonstrants (see ‘Cocceians’) 257, 260, 260n86, 261, 262, 263, 268, 271, Renesse, Abraham Daniel van 409 282, 291, 293, 294, 456, 460, 464n100,

Index 741

466, 469, 473, 477, 483, 487, 489, 495, sailcloths (see also dungaris, and textiles) 536, 538, 539, 541, 543, 546, 563, 569, 224n30, 229, 638 581, 604, 625, 633 Saivite (see also Shiva) 50, 51, 51n61, 52, 54, robes (see also killattu) 43, 44, 59, 213, 448 55n70, 64, 95, 134, 151, 267, 281, 644 Roche, Fr. Manuel 629 salampuris (see also textiles) 17, 218, 222, rockfish (see also other fish) 268 223, 226, 229, 647 nets 271, 649 Salem (see also Baramahal) 1, 8n6, 156, 161, skins 17, 37, 85, 88, 150, 211, 267–271, 326, 216, 218, 278, 280n121, 532, 640 328, 435, 454, 455, 473, 475, 492, 493, city of 174 494, 495, 535, 539, 541, 543, 561, Sales 218, 647 564n100, 567, 573, 649 Saliyars, Saliyans 218, 219, 647 ‘Rock Fort’ (see also Trichinopoly, and salt 17, 37, 88, 150, 202, 211, 264–267, 295, Turukkam) 3, 151, 313, 359, 530 299, 329, 352, 381, 382, 480, 561, 562, 590 Rogerius, Abraham (see also ‘Open-Deure tot manufacturers 266, 650 het Verborgen Heydendom’) 129, saltpans 264, 265, 566, 622, 624, 635, 650 129n263, 130, 133, 133n270, 134, 145, 146 saltpetre (see also gunpowder, and sulphur) Roman 99, 107 211n2, 212, 299, 325, 326, 382, 414, 477 Roman Catholic (see Catholicism) Samalapuram 363 Roos, Pieter 609 Samandi Ayya Venkatapati 529 ‘rose water’ 16, 37, 172, 616, 620 Sambai xxv, 281n124, 575 Rotterdam 132 Sambhaji Bhonsle (r. 1680–1689) (see also Rowthar Muppan 221 Marathas) 429, 518, 519, 522, 524, 527, ‘royalisation of mercantile wealth’ (see also 532, 534, 594 ‘commercialisation of royal sampan (see also other ship types) 202, 352, power’) 59–61, 86, 260, 267, passim 352n87, 389 ruinas roots (see also chaya roots, and other samprokshanam (see ‘renewal ceremony’) dyes) 273, 649 sandalwood (see also aromatic woods) 37, rumals (see also handkerchiefs, and 140, 171, 174, 273, 616, 641 textiles) 222, 647 sandy soils (see also teris) 156, 157, 158, 254, Rustam Khan 22, 67, 412, 429, 429–430n32, 255, 272, 276, 279, 459, 483, 649 470, 518, 518n29, 520, 521, 528, 529, 631 Sangamangalam 219 Ruttera, Kovalam 515, 587, 608 Sangam period 154, 279, 643 Sangra Mutti 447 Saar, Johann Jacob 137, 139n285, 140, 401n103 Sangra Tevar 82, 433, 434n40 Sabaragamuwa 364 Sankarankovil, Sankarankoyil, Sabbath 131 Sankarankoil xxv, 169, 281, 281n124 Sadaikka Tevar i, Udaiyan Setupati (r. 1605–1621) Sankarappanaikanpatti xxv (see also Ramnad, Tevar of) 83 Sankarapperi 624 Sadaikka Tevar ii, Talayay Setupati Sankara Tevar 519, 566, 574 (r. 1635–1645) (see also Ramnad, Tevar Sanskrit 9, 12, 31n13, 32, 51, 54, 56, 95n178 of) 82, 322, 322n14, 323, 323n15, 350, 631 Santoji Ghorpade (see also Marathas) 403, Sadaqatullah, Shaykh 89, 90 426n26, 428, 433n39, 472, 524, 584 Sadraspatnam, Sadras 45, 168, 199, 210, 258, São Joseph, Fr. João de 337 268 São Tomé, São Tomé de Meliapor, Mylapore, safe conducts (see ‘passes and protection Mayilappur 22, 182, 222, 268, 330, 349, rights’ system) 351, 413, 446, 451, 484, 517, 607 saffron 608 French occupation of (1672–1674) (see also Saifuddin (r. 1657–1689) (see also Tidore) French) 22, 222, 413, 446, 451, 484 509 pagodas 182

742 Index sappanwood (see also aromatic woods, chaya Seven Ports (see Fishery Coast, Seven Ports of) roots, and other dyes) 171, 273, 608, 647 Shafi’i (see also Islam) 28, 83, 87, 93, 323, 434 Sarmento, D. João Garcia 332, 336, 337 Shahaji Bhonsle (see also Marathas) 359, Sarvesvaran (see also Tampiran) 95, 95n178 360, 378, 428 sati, suttee 134, 138, 139, 144, 420, 647 Shahaji Bhonsle (r. 1684–1712) (see also Sattangudi 257 Marathas, and Tanjore) 46, 67, 86n150, Sattur xxv, 281n124, 575 90n162, 170, 517, 525, 527, 527n41, 529, 532, Savarimangalam 221, 387 534, 577, 578, 579, 600, 606, 607, 616n190 Satyamangalam, Sathyamangalam, Sathy Shahid Kalingi 221 65, 66, 104, 171n44, 261, 262, 322, 421 Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) (see also Mughals) saudagar raja 87n156 45, 315n2 Sayamalai xxv Shaistah Khan, Shaista Khan, Mirza Abu Talib scarves (see also textiles) 17, 224, 227, 642 246 sceptre 83, 427n29, 637 Shanars, Shanans 95n178, 255, 257, 647 Schermerhorn 132 shark charmers 95, 639 Schiedam 116, 121 sharks 95, 243, 268, 638, 639 Scholten, Marten 118n239, 577, 578, 579, 580 sheep 17, 150, 211, 278–284, 279n121, 635 Schoorl, Dirck 344 Shencottah Gap 153, 158, 160 Schouten, Wouter 45, 307, 308 Sher Khan Lodi (see also Ibrahim Khan Lodi) Schweitzer, Christoph 137, 139n286, 140 424n22, 426n26, 427n29, 428, 431, 435, Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667) 73, 470, 471n116, 475, 494, 519n 30 100, 175, 179, 382, 393, 506n8 Shevaroys 154 Second Dutch-Ramnad War (1690) 23, 25, Shingle Tivu, Shingle Island 274 41, 46, 56, 86, 89, 276, 505, 567, 586, ship captain 145, 246, 644 597–603 shipwreck, right of 325, 326, 409n125, 437, Sembaippatnam 162 441, 443, 447, 447n62, 461, 586n138, 639 ‘Seminarium Indicum’ (see also Walaeus, Shiraz wine 16, 172 Antonius) 130 Shiva (see also Saivite) 32, 95n178, 132, 354, Sendalaipatnam 162 642, 648, 649 Seniyars, Seniyans 218, 219, 647 Shivaji Bhonsle (r. 1674–1680) (see also sensual enjoyment 57, 58, 59, 72, 104, 134, Marathas) 33, 284, 403, 427n29, 428, 429, 646 431, 518, 532, 594 Senthalai xxv Shiyali (see also Trimelevas) 325, 325n19 Sequeira, Nicola 293 shroffs 182–183, 637 Serandai 162 Siam, Thailand 186, 187, 193, 241, 241n55, sesame (see also oil seeds) 254, 638 268, 269, 626 Setu (see also Stupati) 81 Gulf of 268 Setu Abd al-Qadir Maraikkayar 559, 565, Sidambren Marankutti Chitti 608 575, 588, 605 Siddis of Janjira 522 Setunga Cervaikarar 552 ‘siege mentality’ (see also ‘Batavian Myth’, Setupati (see also Ramnad, Tevar of, and ‘Biblical Exodus’, ‘Black Legend’, ‘Holland individual rulers) 5, 18, 20, 21, 52n65, Garden’) 15, 79, 98, 106–111, 117, 123, 351, 79–86, 87, 89, 322, 322n14, 323, 323n15, 333, 370, 404, 500, 510 349, 350, 361n6, 412, 418n12, 419, 421, 433, Sieur de Lesboris (see also ‘Persian squadron’) 434, 434n40, 436, 450, 527, 603, 631, 647 446 Seturanalingapuram 529 Sikandar Adil Shah (r. 1627–1656) (see also Setu Ranga Raja, Chokkanatha Setupati 82, Adil Shah, and Bijapur) 424 433, 434n40 ‘Sikkamanaickenpatty’ xxv Seven Korales 364 silks (see also textiles) 16, 37, 166, 167, 172

Index 743

Silva, D. António da 366 519n30, 520, 552, 553, 557, 565, 571, 574, 577, silver (see also gold, precious metals, treasure, 583n135, 597, 615, 616, 642, 646 and individual silver coins) 24, 37, 40, 44, somatic norm image 15, 44, 98, 111–117, 74, 139, 148, 164n27, 167, 170n40, 172, 176, 178, 112n223, 139 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 211, 326, 336, 415, Sooranur xxv 438, 504, 507n9, 593, 619, 620, 635, 642, 647 sorghum 214, 253, 254, 637 ‘silver sink’ (see also ‘drain’) 16, 165, 172, 178, Sousa Coutinho, António de 350 210, 504 Sousa Coutinho, Francisco de 341 simai, cimai 65, 156, 648 Sousa de Macedo, António de 341 Simons, Cornelis Joan 114 Southeast Asia 31, 36, 37, 87n156, 91, 151, 152, Singkil (see also Sumatra) 510 155, 159, 171, 172, 185n70, 186, 187, 189, Sinhalese 76, 113, 123, 200, 293, 294, 314, 335, 224, 256, 285 353, 355, 366, 367, 511, 571, 590, 592n150, Southern Nayakas (see also Gingee, Madurai, 612 and Tanjore) 1, 5, 17, 70, 71, 154, 289, 315, sinna turai, c(h)inna turai 67, 426, 648 321, 324, 339, 360 Sira 533 South India, pre-modern population of 160 Siruvalli 434n40 ‘South Indian Mediterranean’ 151 sitati, sittatti 91, 648 Southwest Asia 155 Sivacaryas (see also Pattars) 52, 52n65 Spanish 2, 19, 43n41, 106, 107, 109, 167, 178, Sivagalai xxv 181, 182, 318, 357, 363, 463, 498, 609, 647 Sivagangai, Sivaganga 82n141, 278, 281n124 Habsburgs 2, 106, 109, 318 Sivakasi xxv, 36, 169, 215, 220, 224, 257, spatial segregation 110, 162, 628 373n28 Speelman, Cornelis 124, 146n308, 388, 390, Siva Kurunathan 550 478, 479, 508, 632 Sivalaperi xxv spelter (see zinc) Sivalarkulam xxv ‘spendthrift Sudra king’ 57–59, 59n81 Sivanandiappa Pillai 293, 332 Spice Islands (see Eastern Indonesia) Sivantha Urani 501, 628, 628n214, 629 ‘Spiegel der Fransse Tyranny’ (see also Siva Ramanatha Pillai 526n40, 536 Hooghe, Romeyn de) 107 Sivasankara Pillai 82, 422, 430, 433, 539, 554 Spinoza, Baruch de (see also Radical slaves 17, 104, 114, 115, 117, 150, 211, 258, 278, Enlightenment, and ‘Spinozists’) 143 284–292, 289n137, 289n138, 325, 326, ‘Spinozists’ (see also Radical Enlightenment, 441, 443 and Spinoza, Baruch de) 143 Sleght, Adam 577 sreni, shreni (see merchant guild) sloop (see also chaloupe, and other ship types) Srikakulam 160 335, 338, 348, 459, 481, 540, 541, 544, srikariyam, srikaryam (see also temple officials) 546, 576, 577, 578, 581, 587, 590, 595, 53, 54, 648 597, 601 Srinivasa Desikar 54 Sokampatti 354 Srirangam, Thiruvarangam 54, 70n11, 75, 151, soldiers (see also ‘bottom up’ vision, 485 indigenous soldiers, and infantry) 2, 16, Sri Ranga Raya iii (r. 1642–1652) (see also 28, 28n8, 46, 47, 48, 57, 71, 75, 76, 79, 96, Vijayanagara) 5, 320n10, 320–321, 321n11, 103, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 130, 135–140, 322, 362–363, 373n28 136n280, 293n145, 294, 334, 335, 336, Sri Subrahmanya Swamy Devasthanam (see 336n46, 337, 338, 340, 343, 350, 351n83, 367, also Tiruchendur) iv, xviii, 4, 45, 45n49, 370, 371, 388, 391, 393n82, 394, 398, 399, 55, 74, 136, 139, 305, 309, 310, 311, 336, 347 401n103, 402, 403n107, 404, 407, 408, 427, Srivaikuntam xxv, 169, 221, 620 429–430n32, 441, 444, 453, 456, 460, 461, Srivilliputtur xxv, 17, 38, 51n61, 169, 208, 220, 463, 470, 471, 472, 481, 488n149, 497, 301n124, 374, 535, 536, 619

744 Index

Staat van Indië 126 Sweers, Jan 458 stalattar, talattar, stanatar, tanatar (see also Swiss 139 temple officials) 53, 54, 56, 344, 347, 598, Syrian Christians (see also St. Thomas 648 Christians) 375, 384, 640 stamp tax 232, 637 priests 375, 384, 385n63, 640 States General, Dutch 2, 130, 167, 341, 342, 609 Tack, François 509 States of Holland 341, 414 Tadiya Tevar 82, 433, 434n40 ‘States’ party-faction 107, 119, 124 Tahir Muhammad 45 St. Cruz Island 595, 596, 596n156, 598, 601, Taiwan 29, 189 602 loss of (1662) 189 steel 122n122, 212, 299, 382 takkavi, taccavi 213, 648 Stephanus, Manuel 625 Talai (see also Alantalai, Koodutalai, St. Helena 177 Periyatalai) xxv, 387 stone (see coral stone) Talaghat 532 stone cutters 296, 637 talakartan, dalakartan 67, 429, 518, 622n20, St. Thomas Christians (see also Syrian 648 Christians) 194, 196, 384 Talakartan Tirumalai Nayaka 69, 622n200 Stumphius, Frederick 577 talali (see broker fees) Stuttgart 140 talals (see brokers) Suares, Fr. Vicento 627, 627n212, 629 talavay, dalavay 32, 54, 61, 62, 67, 68, 69, 82, subahdar 246, 648 286, 322, 322n14, 323, 323n15, 324, 359, Subrahmanya (see Murugan) 360, 361, 363, 397, 402, 420, 421, 427, ‘subsidiary alliance’ system 76, 402 430n32, 452, 452n75, 518, 519, 521, 522, Sudra, Shudra 57, 58, 59, 59n81 527, 528, 530, 532, 544, 585, 617, Sufism (see also Islam) 89, 90, 557 622n200, 648 sugar (see also jaggery) 16, 37, 172, 211, 299, Talavay Setupati (see Sadaikka Tevar ii) 564, 639, 646 Talikota, battle of (1565) (see also Sulawesi, Celebes 19, 357, 363 Vijayanagara) 70 Sulayman 591, 592, 593, 594n154 Tamarasseri Gap 153 Sulayman Mahmet 271, 591, 592, 593 tamarind 88, 212, 267, 299, 561, 564, 603, 648 sulphur (see also gunpowder, and saltpetre) Tambi Periya Pillai, Chinna Vadamalaiyappa 382 Pillai (see also Tirunelveli, governors of) Sumatra 29, 74, 88, 177, 187, 193, 317, 510 59, 63, 520, 526n40, 537, 538 Sundaranpandianpatnam, Tambraparni River, Tamraparni River, Sundarapandiyapatnam xxv, 162 Thamirabarani River 59, 151, 154, 156, 157, Sundaresvara, Sundareswarar 50, 52, 53, 151, 157n18, 157n19, 158, 160, 219, 253, 260, 261, 281, 312 278, 326 Surapati 509, 510 Tamil 8n14, 9, 12, 15, 18, 27n5, 28, 31n13, 32, Surat 7, 29, 37, 38, 97, 165, 165n29, 170, 175, 33n18, 43, 48, 49, 51, 52, 52n65, 53, 54, 178, 180, 181, 191, 204, 206, 212n3, 273, 56, 57, 58n78, 64, 69, 70, 71n108, 83, 87, 317, 385, 396, 417n10, 447n62, 461, 88, 89, 90, 95, 95n178, 113,114, 122, 139, 519n30, 552n80, 638, 642, 643 140, 146, 151, 154, 155, 157, 165, 182, 196, mahmudis 178, 180, 181, 642 218, 221n22, 234n48, 236n50, 252, 255, rupees 178, 180, 181 256, 257, 271, 273n110, 274n111, 279, 293, Swahili Coast (see also East Africa) 151 316, 336, 347, 429n32, 434, 488, 488n149, Swarna Krishna Ayya (see also Tirunelveli, 517, 570, 603, 607, 611n183, 613, 635, 638, governors of) 64 639, 640, 641, 642, 643, 644, 645, 646, Sweden 186 647, 648, 649, 650

Index 745

Tamilnadu, Tamil Nadu, Tamil country 6, relations with the English 325 6n8, 13, 14, 15, 31n13, 32, 34, 36, 49n57, relations with the French 514, 517, 585, 57, 59, 59n81, 70, 95, 103n201, 134, 148, 606, 607 149n3, 149n4, 150, 151, 153–157, 159, 161, ‘Tanjore contract’ (1674) 452–453, 454, 459, 194, 218, 255, 278, 279, 280n122, 281, 461 281n124, 281n125, 409n125, 485n142, tanks (see also anicuts, and irrigation 650, 651 technology) 154, 156, 157, 157n19, 161, 252, Tampiran (see also Sarvesvaran) 95, 95n178 253, 256, 261, 638, 648 Tanakka Tevar 322 tantam, danda 71, 71n108, 81, 648 tanam, dana (see ‘gifting’ activity, and temple taraga, taraku (see broker fees) endowment) taragador, tarakan (see brokers) tanippatal 89 tarka, dargah (see tomb shrine) ‘Tanjavuri Andhra Rajula Citra’ 58, 71n108 tarmam, dharma 54, 57, 58, 59, 60n81, 649, Tanjore, Thanjavur 22, 47, 64, 65n94, 87, 651 148, 155, 157, 170n42, 174, 178, 196, 201, tavazhi (see also Vettatu) 513, 649 203, 207, 208, 221n21, 234, 239, 246, 258, tawhid (see also Islam) 130 261, 262, 263, 278, 289, 290, 291, 320, tea 24, 415, 504 320, 325, 335, 340, 357, 360, 397, 418, Tegenampatnam, Devenampatnam 168, 174, 452, 453, 456, 457n83, 459, 465, 471n116, 187, 199, 268, 269, 320, 324, 330, 424n22, 472, 514, 517, 635 440, 517, 543, 607 city of 21, 64, 174, 197, 205, 208, 261n88, Tekkumkur 488n149 420, 424–425, 425n24, 470, 471, 472, Tellicherri, Thalassery 515, 517 622n200 Telugu (see also Vadugas) 1, 6, 6n8, 9, 12, fanams 183 27n5, 32, 33, 33n18, 56, 57, 58, 58n78, 69, Madurai conquest of (1673) 21, 22, 64, 70, 71n108, 72, 146, 182, 218, 255, 293, 290, 411, 412, 419–421, 426, 431, 446, 451, 362, 427, 428, 452n75, 464n99, 617, 636, 452, 453, 459, 460, 470, 471, 472 638, 640, 647, 650 Maratha conquest and rule of (after 1675) temple 4, 15, 28, 36, 45, 46, 47, 50–56, 50n61, (see also individual rulers) 39, 46, 67, 52n65, 57, 59, 59n79, 74, 75, 81, 134, 136, 86n150, 90n162, 124n250, 290, 411, 418, 139, 151, 157, 189, 196, 229, 240, 241, 281, 422, 424–425, 424n22, 425n24, 426, 431, 309, 312, 336, 337, 338, 339n53, 340, 343, 466, 471, 472, 474, 517, 525, 526, 527, 532, 347, 354, 374, 439, 440, 444, 453, 465, 533, 534, 557, 559, 577, 579, 580, 599, 483, 485, 531, 538, 577, 593, 595, 597, 600, 606, 607, 615 598, 599, 600, 601, 604, 638, 640, 641, Nayakas of (see also individual rulers) 1, 641, 642, 643, 644, 646, 648, 649, 650 3, 5, 17, 19, 22, 23, 58, 67, 70, 76, 81, 82, architecture 45, 55, 139, 151, 336, 339n53, 154, 161n25, 170, 315, 319, 320, 321, 324, 347, 638, 640, 642 325, 340, 360, 361, 363, 372, 373n28, 387, ceremonies 45, 52, 52n65, 53, 55, 57, 90, 401, 401n103, 419, 420, 424, 439, 444, 134, 339n53, 347, 647, 649 454n78, 457, 465, 523n38, 527, 530n45, chronicles 53, 57, 648 534, 607 endowment (see also ‘gifting’ acitiv- relations with Madurai 5, 17, 19, 21, 22, ity) 54, 57, 58, 59, 354, 636, 640 39, 64, 67, 90n162, 197, 290, 321, 340, festivals 32, 52, 55, 83, 95, 134, 200, 281, 357, 360, 361, 361n6, 363, 373n28, 378, 323, 339n53, 347, 374, 427n29, 574, 644, 411, 412, 418, 419–421, 426, 431, 446, 451, 649, 650 452, 453, 459, 460, 470, 471, 472, 503, officials 15, 28, 50–56, 52n65, 59, 196, 453, 505, 559 538, 598, 605, 646, 648 relations with Ramnad 411, 412, 418, 419, purification (see also temple 435, 436, 444 ceremonies) 53

746 Index

‘temple-centric’ vision 15, 28, 50–56 Thévenot, Melchisédech 147 Tenasserim 186, 187 thief (see also bandit) 49n57, 90, 437, Tengapatnam, Thengapattanam xxv, 10n19, 550n78 188n239, 196, 267n17, 398 Thijssen, Joan 612n187, 631 Tenkalai (Southern Tamil) (see also Thikarankutti 221 Hinduism, Udayavar, Vadakalai, and Thiruthu xxv Vaisnavism) 51, 53, 54 Thiru Udaya Tevar, Vijaya Raghunatha Tenkarai 281n124 Setupati (r. 1710–1725) (see also Ramnad, Tenkasi 169, 197, 206, 220, 281n124, 354, 423, Tevar of) 87, 418, 418n12, 434, 519, 541, 423n21 590, 603 Tennur 151, 151n7, 486 Thiruvarur xxv Ten Years’ Truce (1642–1652, implemented in Thomasz., Willem 371 Asia only in 1645) 18, 315, 315n2, 316, 317, thoni (see also other ship types) 77, 136n280, 319, 319n8, 331, 336, 340, 342, 348 164, 232, 233, 234, 237, 239, 242, 244, teris (see also sandy soils) 157, 157n19, 213, 257, 270, 295, 296, 328, 331, 338, 350, 279, 296, 649, 650 369, 370, 377, 393, 395, 399, 400, 450, Ternate (see also Eastern Indonesia, and 451, 451n71, 454, 459, 490, 540, 560, 573, individual rulers) 19, 29, 317, 357, 363, 577, 596, 602, 625, 649 508, 509 Thoppur, Toppur xxv, 54, 71 Tesavalamai 114 Thovala, Thovalai xxv tevataci, devadasi (see dancing girls) ‘three crowned kings’ (see also Cheras, textiles (see also piece goods, and individual Cholas, and Pandyas) 154, 234n48, 643 varieties) 5, 16, 17, 23, 24, 36, 37, 59, Thuckanaickenpalaiyam xxv 74, 145, 148, 149, 150, 157, 164, 165, 167, Tidore (see also Eastern Indonesia, and 171, 172, 175, 176, 185, 202, 211, 212–229, individual rulers) 19, 357, 363, 508, 509 232, 233, 246, 272, 272n107, 273 Tikku (see also Sumatra) 510 painting, dyeing (see also dye roots, dye Timappa Nayaka 183 woods, and individual dyes) 166, 171, timber 212, 255, 295, 296, 297n151, 299, 317, 190, 212, 216–217, 224, 227, 228, 272, 273, 399, 400, 437, 438, 441, 443, 447, 461, 327, 328, 328n26, 333, 409n125, 449, 452, 481, 482, 509, 524n38, 537, 547, 554, 555, 616, 618, 619 561 spinning 36, 171, 212, 216, 220 ‘time of troubles’ (1680–1682) 5, 23, 24, 25, weaving (see also looms, and individual 503, 504, 518, 522, 535–549 caste groups) 17, 36, 95, 151, 166, 171, Timmarasa Ayya 38, 46, 48, 48n55, 87n154, 212, 216–229, 219n16, 221, 221n22, 448, 450, 458, 460, 463, 473, 564, 567, 223n27, 327, 328, 333, 354, 405, 409n125, 568, 569, 570, 570n109, 572, 573, 582, 587 437, 441, 449, 452, 457, 460, 561, 563, tin (see also non-precious metals) 29, 37, 616, 619, 620n197, 635, 638, 639, 641, 148, 149, 171, 185, 186, 187, 188, 327, 648 645, 647 ‘tin districts’ of Malaysia 29, 37, 87n156, 171, Thailand (see Siam) 187, 199n93, 317, 455n57 Thalaiyari Tivu, Talairi Island 274 Tipu Sultan (r. 1783–1799) (see also Mysore) Thalavatta Pillai 539, 578, 579, 582 60, 79 Thattaparai xxv Tiripattur 65, 66, 76, 262 The Hague, Peace of (1661) 315n2, 382, 383 tirttam 546, 600, 649 theocratic vision (see also Dutch Reformed Tiruchendur (see also Sri Subrahmanya Church, and predikant) 15, 28, 98, 99, Swamy Devasthanam) iv, xxv, 4, 45, 104, 118, 127, 129–35, 129n262, 129n263 45n49, 52n65, 55, 74, 162n90, 136, 139, 162, ‘theological Eighty Year’s War’ 231, 305, 309, 310, 311, 336, 337, 338, 339, (1640–1720) 119 339n53, 340, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 403, 564

Index 747

Tiruchirappalli (see Trichinopoly) Tirupparamkunram 63, 347, 401 Tirukkadavar, Thirukkadiyur 64, 464 Tiruppatur 361 tirukkai (see rockfish) Tiruppulaikudi xxv, 162 tirukkaittol (see rockfish skin) Tiruppulllani xxv tirukkai valai (see rockfish net) Tiruppuvanam xxv Tirukkalakudi 528 Tiruvenkatanatha Ayya (see also pradhani, Tirukkurungudi, Thirukurungudi, Thirukkkur and Tirunelveli, governors of) 38, 40, 54, ungudi, Tirukurungudi xxv, 220, 262 64, 64n91, 66, 69, 78, 260, 419, 422, 430, Tirumalacaryar Bhattar 53, 54 452n75, 463, 464, 464n99, 465, 465n101, Tirumalai Kulantha 552, 553, 554, 555 466, 467, 467n105, 469, 486, 517, 520, 525, Tirumalai Kulantha Pillai 38, 63, 322n14, 531, 532n48, 575, 579, 581, 584, 585, 604, 369, 388, 397, 402, 405 607, 618, 620, 621 Tirumalai Nayaka (r. 1623–1659) (see also Tittandadanam xxv, 162 Madurai, Nayaka state of) 18, 32, 52, 54, tobacco 73, 212, 252, 252n72, 285, 299, 331, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 312, 314, 321, 321n11, 355, 608, 609, 646 322, 323, 326, 332, 333, 338, 339, 340, 345, Tokugawa (see also Japan) 175, 212n3, 415, 347, 349, 353, 354, 355, 359, 371, 372, 507, 507n9 373n28, 631 tomb shrines (see also Islam) 558, 649 Tirumalai Setupati (see Raghunatha Tevar) Tondaiman Raja (see also Chandra Tirumalaraianpatnam, Tondaiman, and Pudukkottai) 81, 82, Thirumalairayanpattinam 452, 453, 458, 523n38, 528 469, 471n117 Tondi, Thondi xxv, 162, 163, 234, 239, 271, Tirumangalam, Tirumangalampettai 151, 284, 290, 326, 352, 440, 450, 451, 454, 174, 180, 182, 197, 206, 215, 257, 486, 619 457, 494, 579 Tirumayam xxv Tonkin 29, 204 Tirumunatha Pillai 419, 419n13, 433, 470 Toorzee, Jan Christiaansz. xxii, xxiv, 274 Tirunelveli, Tinnevelly (see also Costa da topazes 113, 327, 355, 471, 497, 578, 649 Pescaria, Fishery Coast, Madurai Coast, Toppikkarar (see ‘Hat-Wearers’) and ‘Opposite Coast’) xxiii, 1, 6n8, 16, 38, Toppur, ‘civil war’ of (1614–1617) 54, 71 39, 41, 45, 46, 59, 63, 64, 66, 72, 73, 77, totoks 116 77n126, 78, 79, 83, 148, 149n3, 150, 153, 156, trade diaspora (see also merchant network) 157, 157n19, 158, 159, 160, 161, 170, 171, 178, 35, 91, 123, 135 196, 197, 214, 216, 218, 220, 221n22, 227, Tranquebare (see also Danish) 204, 225, 351, 236n50, 252, 257, 262, 262n91, 264, 280n121, 453, 476n124 281, 281n124, 323, 353, 373n28, 439, 484, transmigration of souls (see also 550, 635, 640, 642 Hinduism) 144 city of 51n61, 156, 157, 157n18, 184, 216, Travancore (see also individual rulers) 5, 23, 281, 437, 464, 464n100, 467, 486, 488, 36, 52n65, 60, 65n94, 76n122, 91, 148, 520, 526n40, 532n48, 536, 544 159, 169, 178, 194, 195, 196, 220, 237, 239, governors of (see also pradhani) 38, 39, 262n90, 344, 383, 387, 398, 422, 41, 45, 46, 59, 63, 64, 66, 72, 73, 77n126, 422–423n19, 503, 515, 527, 531, 78, 79, 156, 170, 260, 262, 286, 328, 332, 531–532n48, 605, 605n175, 608n178, 615, 336, 346, 347, 353, 366, 378, 380, 388, 615n190, 620 397, 402, 405, 435, 439, 442, 448, relations with Madurai 5, 23, 195, 196, 452n74, 462, 464, 465, 467, 482, 486, 237, 239, 344, 422, 422–423n19, 503, 527, 487, 488, 490, 491, 499, 520, 526n40, 531, 531–532n48, 605, 620 536, 537, 538, 545, 550, 579, 611, 613, 614 Travers, Caleb 73, 515, 516, 608, 608n178, pre-modern population of 160–161 609 Tirupati 197 Travers, Walter 73, 97, 104, 385, 393

748 Index treasure (see also gold, precious metals, and tupasi, dubash (see brokers) silver) 16, 37, 148, 149, 162, 165, 173, 175, tupetis (see also textiles) 17, 224, 226, 229, 175n53, 176, 177, 183, 185, 211, 299, 427n29, 650 522n36, 531n48, 565, 571, 581, 643 Tuppaki (see also firearms, and individu- ‘treasure for textiles’ model 16, 37, 148, 149, als) 28, 650 162, 165, 175, 176, 211, 299 Tuppaki Anandappa Nayaka, Tuppaki Antapa Treaty of Commerce, Anglo-Dutch (1668) Nayaka 38, 39, 50, 61, 62, 62n86, 67, 522, 609 525n40, 526, 527, 529, 530, 585, 604, 617 Treaty of Defence, Anglo-Dutch (1619) Tuppaki Krishnappa Nayaka 28, 61, 68, 286, 315n2 324, 359 tribute (see also carvamaniyam, and Tuppaki Lingama Nayaka, Tuppaki Lingappa pakuti) 1, 5, 15, 24, 79, 80, 80n135, 83, 94, Nayaka 38, 61, 62n86, 67, 68, 359, 360, 261, 273n110, 286, 288, 323, 340, 360, 368, 361, 363, 390, 397, 402, 402n105, 403, 427, 391n77, 392, 419, 422, 424, 424n22, 432n20, 522 436, 438, 439, 443, 451, 457n83, 489, turbans (see also girdles, and textiles) 43, 489n151, 503, 522, 531, 531n48, 533, 534, 558, 44, 213, 224, 227, 570, 637 559, 562, 563, 579, 585, 614, 618, 619, 622, Turukkam (see also ‘Rock Fort’, and 623, 645, 646 Trichinopoly) 530, 530n46 Trichinopoly, Tiruchirappalli (see also ‘Rock Tuticorin, Thoothukudi 3, 5, 19, 20, 23, 24, Fort’, and Turukkam) xii, xvi, 1, 6n8, 66, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 46, 47, 49, 66–67, 156, 161, 216, 218, 261, 262, 640 77, 77n126, 78, 85, 88, 91, 91n165, 93, 96, city of xvi, 3, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 49, 50, 101, 116, 120, 121, 125, 127, 135, 136, 51n61, 54, 57, 59, 61, 65, 67, 68, 69, 136n280, 154, 157, 162–164, 168, 169, 174, 70n106, 75, 78, 98, 100, 110, 128, 145, 150, 179, 181, 182, 184, 190, 198, 203, 208, 228, 151, 151n7, 156, 174, 180, 182, 184, 191, 197, 228n39, 231, 232, 233, 233n46, 234, 235, 205, 206, 207, 208, 214, 215, 216, 217, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241, 250n70, 251, 263, 261n88, 278, 313, 332n38, 359, 360, 362, 264, 265, 267, 270, 274, 294, 296, 306, 363, 373n28, 390, 391n77, 397, 399, 307, 308, 327, 328, 330, 332, 332n38, 402n105, 403, 404, 418n12, 420, 427, 336–337, 340–343, 341n57, 348, 349, 427n29, 428, 428n29, 428n30, 429, 350, 352, 355, 355n96, 356, 358, 365, 430n32, 431, 436, 440, 441, 452n75, 460, 366–367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 462, 464, 471n116, 482, 483, 484, 485, 373–374, 376, 380, 385, 386, 387, 391, 485n140, 485n141, 486, 488, 489, 500, 393, 394, 396, 397–398, 399, 404, 405, 517, 518, 518n29, 520, 520n32, 521, 522, 407, 408n122, 409, 410, 413, 436, 437, 522n36, 525n40, 528n42, 530, 533, 545, 438, 441, 442, 443, 445, 447, 449, 451, 584, 599, 607, 617, 619, 622, 622n200 453, 455, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461, 462, governors of (see also talakartan) 429, 462n94, 463, 464, 464n99, 465, 466, 518, 520 467, 468, 469, 473, 476, 477, 478, 481, siege of 359, 360, 518, 520, 521, 522, 482, 483, 483n136, 484, 486, 488n149, 522n36 489, 490, 492, 493, 495, 497, 497n173, Trimelevas, Tirumullaivasal 174, 263, 320, 499, 500, 501, 505, 512n18, 512n19, 325, 329, 330, 454n78 535–536, 536n52, 537, 539, 540, 541, 542, Trimurti (see also Hinduism) 132, 649 543, 544, 545, 546, 547, 548, 549, 552, Trincomalee 22, 234, 284, 364, 413, 458 552n80, 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, Trinity (see also Christianity) 130, 131, 132 560, 562, 563, 564, 565, 566, 567, 568, Trivandrum, Thiruvananthapuram 531n48 573, 575, 576, 577, 579, 583, 584, 586, Trunajaya 416, 509 587, 596, 599, 602, 605, 613, 614, 619, ‘tulip craze’ (1636–1637) 411–412 620, 621, 622, 622n200, 623, 624, 625, Tulp, Dirck 124 626, 627, 628, 629, 632

Index 749

Dutch conquest of (1658) 19, 85, 356, ulu-ilir (see upstream-downstream) 366–367, 368, 370 Umaru Pulavar, Umurappulavar 89 Dutch lease of (1676; 1690) 22, 66–67, umbrella 293, 565 386n68, 413, 451, 465, 466, 467, ‘unirrigated crops or fields’ (see also ‘irrigated 468–469, 586, 604, 622, 624 crops or fields’) 157, 252, 646 fortification of (1681–1682) 5, 23, 24, 25, Uppathu xxv 35, 46, 49, 78, 85, 125n251, 349, 349n80, Uppu Tanni Tivu, Salt Water Island 274 353, 368, 370, 371, 372, 373–374, 376, 391, upstream-downstream 510, 650 393, 396, 397–398, 399, 404, 405, 409, Uraiyur 151, 151n7, 208, 528n43 410, 413, 437–438, 441, 442, 443, 445, urcavam murtti, utsavam murtti (see festival 447, 449, 453, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, images) 464, 465, 466, 481, 482, 483, 484, 490, urcavams, utsavams (see car-pulling festivals) 497n173, 501, 505, 512n18, 535, 536n52, uriyakkararars 401, 552, 553, 555, 617, 650 537, 545, 547, 548, 556, 575, 584, 599, uriyam service 278, 650 623, 629 Utappa Nayaka 423 ‘free mint’ at 184 Uthman 541, 542, 587 pearl fishery at (see also pearl fish- Utrecht 10, 131, 143, 384 ery) 77, 77n126, 78, 163–164, 179, Uttamananambi Bhattar 54 230–240, 233n46, 307, 308, 366, 374, Uttamapalaiyam, Uthamapalayam xxv, 380, 385, 393, 395, 408n122, 490, 512n19, 423n20, 524 560, 602 Uttumalai, Uthumalai xxv population of 91, 91n165, 162–164 Uvari xxv, 162, 163, 387 Portuguese at 328, 330, 332, 332n38, 336–337, 340–343, 341n57, 348, 349, Vaart, Jan Melisse van der 616 350, 352, 353, 355, 355n96, 366–367, Vadakalai (Northern Sanskritic) (see also 368, 370, 387, 497 Hinduism, Tenkalai, Udayavar, and ‘punitive expedition’ against Vaisnavism) 51, 54 (1649) 332n38, 336–337, 340–343, Vadakara 563 341n57 Vadamalaiyappa Pillai (see also pradhani, and revenue of 66, 67, 604, 622, 624 Tirunelveli, governors of) 38, 45, 49, 55, Tuticorin War (1669) 19, 20, 41, 85, 293, 356, 63, 63n90, 64, 64n90, 68, 72, 73, 79, 101, 191, 358, 386, 391, 393–409, 437, 461, 305, 311, 322n14, 328, 336, 344, 346, 347, 354, 488n149, 577 366, 367, 368, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 378, Twist, Johan van 141n292 380, 386, 387, 388, 388n70, 391, 393, 394, ‘two nation’ theory 31–34 396, 397, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 406, ‘two-way dependency’ 4, 42 409, 410, 423, 436, 437, 438, 439, 442, 448, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 559, 612n187, 618, Udaipur 189 620 Udaiyarpalaiyam, Udayarpalayam 423n20, Vadugas (see also Telugu) 6, 32, 57, 255, 256, 426n26 362, 617, 650 Udangudi 162 Vaigai River 151, 154, 157n19, 253 Udayavar, Ramanuja (see also Hinduism, Vaikhanasas (see also Pattars) 52 Tenkalai, Vadakalai, and Vaisnavism) 51, vaikuntha (see also heaven, and 54 Hinduism) 132, 650 Ulagan Nayanar 329, 352 Vaippar xxv, 91n165, 162, 163, 164, 237, 238, Ulagappa Cervaikarar 88, 550, 551, 555, 556, 248, 268, 387, 529n44, 540, 552, 554, 557, 557n88, 573, 574, 576, 578 556, 561, 600 ulama (see also Islam) 90, 131 Vaippar River 158 Ultramontanism 384 Vaishyas 90

750 Index

Vaisnavite (see also Hinduism, Tenkalai, Venad (see Travancore) Udayavar, Vadakalai, Vishnu) 50, 51, Venkata Deva Raja iii (r. 1630–1642) (see also 51n61, 54, 83, 151, 635 Vijayanagara) 54 Valai Tivu, Valai Island 276, 541 Venkatadri Ayya 536 valankai (see ‘right-handed’ caste groups) Venkatadri Nayaka 322 Valavanpuram 419n13 Venkatadri Nayaka 599, 600, 600n165, 613 Valavan Teruvan Veera Perumal (see Venkata Krishna Nayaka 183, 581 Tirumunatha Pillai) Venkata Krishnappa Nayaka, Venkatha Valavanthankottai xxv Kistnappa Nayaka 67, 420, 421, 427, Valckenburgh, Cornelis 120, 373, 375, 387, 430n32, 527, 528 632 Venkatapati 538n55 Valckenier, Gillis 120, 120n243, 124 Venkatapati Narayanappa Ayya 618 vali 237, 557, 650 Venkatapati Nayaka 617 Valigondapuram, Valikandapuram 197, 207, Venkata Pedi 470 424n22, 428n29, 431, 435, 470 Venkatappa Nayaka (r. 1625–1645) (see also Valinokkam xxv, 158, 162, 163, 231, 295, 459, Gingee) 324 540, 562, 573 Venkatesa Ayya (see also Tirunelveli, vallal 88, 650 governors of) 64, 532n48, 536, 611 Vallamkottai, Vallam 361, 361n6, 419, 420 Venkatri Nayaka 182 Vallimunai Tivu, Palliyarmunai Island 274 Venrimalai Kavirayar 347 Valliyur xxv ventikkol 489, 489n151, 490, 614, 651 Vamalur 363 vermillion (see also non-precious metals) Vanangamuddi 419 149, 174, 185, 186, 190, 638 Vanniyas, Pallis 255, 650 ‘vernacular millennium’ 9 Van Tivu, Van Island 274 Vernie, Abraham 557 varnam, vannam, varna 44, 54, 57, 93, 651 Vettatu (see also Cochin, Goda Varma, and Varusanadu xxv tavazhi) 513 vasana 14 ‘vicarious tourists’ 16, 140 Vasanappa Nayaka 182 Vicars Apostolic 384 Vasantha Nayaka 622 Vieira, António 498 ‘Vasco da Gama-epoch’ 41 vigiador 294, 651 Vattakkuddi 162 Vijayagiri 267 Vattanam xxv, 162 Vijayanagara (see also individual rulers) 1, 5, Vaz, Fr. Josef 626 6, 6n8, 8, 17, 19, 54, 58, 65, 70, 70n105, 71, Vaz, Miguel 385 71n106, 79, 80, 87, 154, 183, 211, 252, 289, Vaz, Pedro 625 315, 316, 320, 320n10, 321, 321n11, 360, Vedalai xxv, 162, 163, 231, 237, 238, 271, 328, 644 475, 544, 597 Vijayapati 163, 387 Vedanta 51 Vijayapuram 66, 262 Veeralapatty xxv Vijayaraghava Nayaka (r. 1634–1673) (see also Velamas 6n8, 57 Tanjore) 64, 67, 70, 325, 360, 361, 372, Velappa 293 373n28, 401, 419, 420, 454n78, 457, 465, 527 vellai vavval (see white pomfret) Vijaya Raghunatha Setupati (see Thiru Udaya Vellalas 47, 63, 68, 255, 256, 347, 409n125, Tevar) 452n75, 457, 643, 645, 646, 651 Vijaya Rajasinha (r. 1739–1747) (see also Kandy) Velur, Vellore, battle of (1645) (see also 76 ‘revolt of the Southern Nayakas’) 321 Vijayaranga Chokkanatha (r. 1706–1732) 69, Vembar xxv, 66, 91n165, 162, 163, 164, 238, 623 274, 387, 449, 561 Vikkira Pantiya Pattars (see also Pattars) 53

Index 751

Vilangu Shuli Tivu, Vilanguchalli Island 274 ‘War of Divine Liberty’ (1645–1654) Vimala Dharma Surya ii (r. 1687–1707) (see (see also Brazil) 342 also Kandy) 265, 294, 511, 590, 591, 593, washermen 36, 171, 212, 293, 547, 561, 562, 594, 612 616, 618, 619 Vinakuddi, Vinakudi 215 Watrap xxv ‘Vingboons Atlas’ 108 wax 211, 212, 223, 299 Vira Narendra Nayaka (r. 1707–1739) (see also wazir 533, 621 Kandy) 76 ‘weapons of the weak’ 385 Virapandiyapatnam, ‘Wedda’ Tevar 433, 433n39 Virapandianpatnam xxv, 37, 91n165, 162, weighing money 37 163, 164, 238, 336, 387, 399, 564, 610 Welter, Nicolaes 40, 41, 44, 44n80, 66, 68, 69, viras 84 73, 75n119, 78, 106, 110, 583, 605, 615, Viravanallur xxv, 169, 174, 220, 262 616–619, 620 Virgin Mary 564, 565 Wengurla, Vengurla 355 Virudhunagar 156, 257 West Africa 37, 229, 318 Vishnu (see also Vaisnavite) 59, 144, 241, West Asia 16, 74, 120, 155, 159, 187, 191 649, 650 ‘Western Districts’ (see also Malacca) 189, Visvanatha Nayaka (r. ca. 1530–1564) 70, 80 364, 411, 479, 513 Visvanathisvaran (see also Shiva) 354 Western Ghats, Sahyadri Mountains 1, 153, Viterbo, Annius of 117 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 174, 195, 197, 206, Vithoji 332 207, 216, 253, 255, 256, 262 Vithoji Pandidar 362 Westerwold Treaty (1638) (see also Raja Sinha Vizhinjam 605, 606n175 ii) 319 Vliet, Joan van (see also Alvarez, Susanna, West India Company (wic) 341, 342 Rhee, Maria van, and Witt, Wilhelmina West Indies 612n187 de) 40, 77n126, 85, 116, 118n239, 121–122, Westphalia 137 125, 228, 457, 489, 490, 491, 544, 553, 554, Peace of (1648) 34, 134, 627 554n84, 555, 556, 562n96, 577, 590, 591, Westphalians 27n4 592, 604, 605, 606, 613, 614, 615, 620, 621, wheat (see also food grains) 258, 267, 641 632 ‘whitening’ (see also ‘going native’) 34, 112 Vlooswijck, Cornelis van 124 white pomfret (see also other fish) 270, 651 ‘Voetians’ (see also Voetius, Gisbertus) 119, wild cinnamon (see also cinnamon) 364, 129, 132 456, 494 Voetius, Gisbertus 129, 129n263, 130, 131, 132 Winsheim 144 Vogel, Johan (Jean) de 136n280, 336, Winter, Sir Edward 393 336n46, 338 Wit, Frederik de 108 Vorwer (Verwer), Pieter 284, 470, 471, Witsen, Nicolaes 143 485n140, 493, 495, 539n57, 543, 544, 632 Witsenbrugh, Jacob 578 Vos, Jan 246, 303 Witt, Wilhelmina de (see also Vliet, Joan van) Vosch, Jorephaes 436 116, 122 Wodeyar, Udaiyar rajas (see also Mysore, and Walaeus, Antonius (see also ‘Seminarium individual rulers) 322, 421, 651 Indicum’) 129, 129n263, 130, 131 wood (see timber) Wammena 467, 467–468n107 wood cutters 296, 640 Wandiwash, Vandavasi 362 woollens (see also textiles) 175, 564n100, Wanni, Vanni 273, 273n110n107 641 warehouse 199, 210, 225, 296, 328n26, 396, ‘work of Tuticorin’ (see Tuticorin, 405, 442, 443, 547, 548, 549, 563, 565, fortification of) 577, 594n154, 614, 621, 636 Wrisberg, Christiaan van 136n279

752 Index

Xavier, St. Francis 92 yelu ur (see Fishery Coast, Seven Ports of) yoni (see also lingam, and Saivite) 134, 642, yacht (see also other ship types) 325, 331, 651 333, 335, 348, 349, 351, 351n83, 366, 398, Yushua Muppan 588n141 481, 576, 577, 583, 597 Yusuf Muhammad 328 yakshagana dance drama 70 yamalokam (see also hell, and Hinduism) Zeeland 101, 384, 414 132, 651 zinc, spelter (see also non-precious metals) yams 212 148, 149, 171, 185, 186, 189–190, 650 yavana 57 Zoolmans, Arnoldus 616n190 yawn al-jum’a (see ‘Day of Assembly’) Zulfiqar Khan Nusrat Jang 533, 534 ‘Year of Disaster’ (1672) (see also Holland War) Zwaardecroon, Hendrik 121n244, 107, 144, 414 513n20