Imperialism, Botany and Statistics in early Nineteenth-Century India: The Surveys of Francis Buchanan (1762–1829)

1986 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marika Vicziany
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Data Base ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Early Years ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Indian Economy ◽  
British Rule ◽  
The People

Buchanan arrived in India in 1794 and left in 1815. He was employed by the East India Company for these twenty years in a number of capacities but he is chiefly remembered today for two surveys he conducted: the first of Mysore in 1800 and the second of Bengal in 1807–14. These surveys have long been used by historians, anthropologists and Indian politicians to depict the nature of Indian society in the early years of British rule. Recently economic historians, Bagchi in particular, have used the ‘statistical’ tables compiled by Buchanan as a data base against which later statistical evidence about the Indian economy is measured. Bagchi believes that by doing this he can furnish firm proof of the extent to which British rule was detrimental to the people of India in the nineteenth century.

Administrator-scholars and the Writing of History in Early British India: A review article

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 826-843
Author(s):  
JAMES LEES
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
British India ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
British East India Company ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Times

AbstractThe histories of Asian peoples penned by British East India Company officials during the early years of colonial rule—rightly—have long been considered to be doubtful source material within the historiography of South Asia. Their credibility was suspect well before the middle of the twentieth century, when Bernard Cohn's work began to present the British colonial state as one that relentlessly sought to categorize Indian society, and to use the distorted information thus gained to impose its government.However, the histories of these administrator-scholars still retain value—not as accurate studies of their subjects, perhaps, but as barometers of the times in which they were written and also in the unexpected ways in which some continue to resonate in the present. To illustrate that point, this paper will review three recent monographs which deal with the writings and historical legacies of some of the Company's most prominent early nineteenth-century administrator-scholars. These are: Jason Freitag's Serving Empire, Serving Nation: James Tod and the Rajputs of Rajasthan; Jack Harrington's Sir John Malcolm and the Creation of British India; and Rama Mantena's work centred around the antiquarian pursuits of Colin Mackenzie, The Origins of Modern Historiography in India: Antiquarianism and Philology, 1780–1880.1

Bentinck: Humanitarian and Imperialist—the Abolition of Suttee

1965 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy G. Cassels
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
East India Company ◽  
The Self ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Western India ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Considerable Length ◽  
Self Immolation

The conscience of British humanitarians of the early nineteenth century was troubled by many practices which they regarded as inhumane — none more so than the practice in India of suttee or the self-immolation of widows. The prevailing humanitarian drive for the abolition of suttee drew its strength from an alliance between evangelical and utilitarian propagandists who urged upon the British public a sense of responsibility for the welfare of their brethren across the sea. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, the efforts of these reformists were offset by what amounted to a determined indifference on the part of the East India Company to all aspects of Indian society. At the turn of the century the practice of suttee was well protected by the Company's policy of noninterference with native “religious usages and institutions” established in 1772. Governor-General Cornwallis refused to allow a Collector at Shahabad to dissuade a suttee victim. Yet his successors, Lord Wellesley and Lord Hastings, pondered at considerable length the possibility of abolishing suttee. With the Regulations of 1813 the Supreme Government in Bengal began a consistent policy of prescribing strict limitations upon the practice of suttee. Although interpreted by some as official government approval of suttee, these regulations were continued sine die by the superior court in Calcutta. Encouraged in part by the example set by the Supreme Government, Governors Elphinstone and Malcolm in Bombay were less inclined than the Supreme Government itself to seem to interfere with native socio-religious custom, and therefore in western India toleration of suttee was more apparent than its restriction.

The Languages of Petitioning in Early Colonial India

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Jaffe
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western India ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Levels

With relatively few exceptions, personal petitions from individuals have received much less attention from historians than those from groups in the public political sphere. In one sense, personal petitions adopted many of the same rhetorical strategies as those delivered by a group. However, they also offer unique insights into the quotidian relationship between the people and their rulers. This article examines surviving personal petitions to various administrators at different levels of government in western India during the decades surrounding the East India Company’s conquests. The analysis of these petitions helps to refine our understanding of the place of the new judicial system in the social world of early-nineteenth-century India, especially by illuminating the discourse of justice that petitioners brought to the presentation of their cases to their new governors. The conclusion of this article seeks to place the rhetoric of personal petitioning within the larger context of mass political petitioning in India during the early nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Socio-Religious and Political Changes in Punjab during the Second Half of Nineteenth Century

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karanbir Singh
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
The State ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Precautionary Measures ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Anglo Indian

<div><p><em>After the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the East India Company defeated the Khalsa Army of Lahore Darbar in two Anglo-Sikh Wars. Being astute political masters, the British felt the lurking fear of simmering discontent among the Punjabis against their rule. For safeguarding the logistics of administration, efficacious precautionary measures were undertaken by them to satisfy the grievances of certain sections of the society so that British rule would face lesser political instability and enmity of the natives. After 1857, the British conducted a thorough study of ethnographic, fiscal, geographical, political, social and religious conditions of Punjab and oriented their administrative policies to suit the best interests of the Empire.  Far-reaching political, economic and social changes were introduced by the British to strengthen their hold over all branches of administration. A new administrative hierarchy, composed of Anglo-Indian elements was firmly established and it embraced every activity of the state.  </em></p></div>

GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC CHANGE IN SINGAPORE

2015 ◽  
Vol 60 (03) ◽  
pp. 1550028 ◽  
Author(s):  
SOO ANN LEE
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Foreign Population ◽  
British Rule ◽  
The People ◽  
British Colony ◽  
Modes Of Governance

The Singapore economy went through several changes due to changes in its mode of governance from being a trading outpost of the East India Company (EIC) to being part of the colony of the Straits Settlements, and more recently to being a British colony by itself, then to being part of Malaysia and now an independent republic. These modes of governance enabled the economy to grow until Singapore became more important and also more closely linked to the outside world. British rule, British capital and the response of the people who came, enabled Singapore to integrate technological change so that it is now part of a global network. However a declining rate of births and a large foreign population now compel Singapore to make further changes.

Chapter 6 Decline in the North in the Early Nineteenth Century

2004 ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Gordon Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Sudden Expansion ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The North

The ending of the Napoleonic war in 1815 was not followed by the same sort of bounding activity as followed the ending of the previous war in 1783, for two very obvious reasons. The sudden expansion after 1783 had resulted chiefly from the changed relationship between Britain and America; and the last few years of the Napoleonic war had themselves witnessed both "recovery" and prosperity in the whaling trade which preceded the normal return to peace-time activities. The year 1808 had been one of appalling depression in overseas trade when, because of restrictions imposed for war purposes, ports all over the country came virtually to a standstill. The whaling trade had suffered with the rest, and the prosperity of the early years of the century was briefly interrupted. Only fifty-six ships sailed for the Northern Fishery in 1808, and only nineteen for the Southern, though the aggregate value of their catches - as usually happened - remained disproportionately high....

scholarly journals “No former travellers having attained such a height on the Earth’s surface”: Instruments, inscriptions, and bodies in the Himalaya, 1800–1830

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lachlan Fleetwood
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
East India Company ◽  
British India ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Himalaya ◽  
Colonial Science

East India Company surveyors began gaining access to the high Himalaya in the 1810s, at a time when the mountains were taking on increasing political significance as the northern borderlands of British India. Though never as idiosyncratic as surveyors insisted, these were spaces in which instruments, fieldbook inscriptions, and bodies were all highly prone to failure. The ways surveyors managed these failures (both rhetorically and in practice) demonstrate the social performances required to establish credible knowledge in a world in which the senses were scrambled. The resulting tensions reveal an ongoing disconnect in understanding between those displaced not only from London, but also from Calcutta, something insufficiently emphasized in previous histories of colonial science. By focusing on the early nineteenth century, often overlooked in favor of the later period, this article shows the extent to which the scientific, imaginative, and political constitution of the Himalaya was haphazard and contested.

Chronological Problems in C.G. Okojie's Esan Narrative Traditions

1997 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 345-362
Author(s):  
James B. Webster ◽  
Onaiwu W. Ogbomo
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The People ◽  
Edo State

The Esan who presently inhabit four local government areas of Edo State, Nigeria, share an exclusive feeling of being one people. In language and custom they are akin to the Edo people of Benin. The name “Esan” is an Edo word meaning “jump” or “flee,” which explains the manner in which they departed the Benin kingdom. The Esan region is divided roughly into the plateau—about one-third the total area but containing three-fifths of the people—and the lowlands. The plateau chiefdoms, originally seven of them, have been classed as Esan ‘A’ and include Irrua, Ekpoma, Uromi, Ewu, Ubiaja, Udo, and Ugboha. The lowland chief doms, originally eight, are known as Esan ‘B’ and consist of Ewohimi (Orikhimi), Ohordua, Emu, Ebelle, Okalo, Amahor, Ezen, and Okaigun.According to Esan traditions all the ancestors of the people, royal and commoner alike, came from Benin, the first groups being escapees and pioneers, the royal groups coming into the region later, during the reign of Ewuare, ca. 1455-82. Closer interviewing of clans, neither royal nor holding titles, demonstrates that many do not hold to this popular tradition, claiming either to be indigenous or to have migrated from elsewhere. Even in the intelligence report on the Esan, a significant number of clans reported origins other than in Benin. It seems that Esan ‘A’ chiefdoms on the plateau were the earliest established, and paid tribute to Benin through the Onojie (chief) of Irrua, who was therefore roughly the paramount of the Esan province of Benin. As the chiefdoms grew in numbers and spread on to the lowlands, he remained their overlord or governor. However, by the early nineteenth century the Oba of Benin installed the chief of Ewohimi as paramount over the lowland or Esan ‘B’ chiefdoms. By the advent of the British in the 1890s the earliest fifteen chiefdoms had grown to thirty.

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