Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T03:56:04.740Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Colonial Urbanism: The Development of Madras City in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Susan M. Neild
Susan M. Neild
Affiliation:
Rochester, New York
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The colonial port cities of Asia have recently attracted renewed attention not only from students of European imperial expansion, but also from others concerned with urban growth and change. These cities, founded by Europeans or developed by them as central links in worldwide colonial political and economic networks, stood apart from precolonial urban centers. Their foreign origins or control, their coastal locations, their central positions within European colonial systems, their emphasis on commercial rather than ritual activities, and their ethnic and cultural heterogeneity are important features which distinguish them from most indigenous cities in Asia. Many possessed a dual social and spatial structure, furthermore, which contrasted with the more unitary and often ritualized order of the noncolonial centers. Products of a changing political world order, these colonial cities became recognized centers of change in their own societies.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1979 , pp. 217 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AAS Pacific Coast Annual Meeting in June 1974. Funds for my research were provided by the Foreign Area Fellowship Program.

1 Murphy, Rhoads, ‘Traditionalism and Colonialism: Changing Urban Roles in Asia,’ Journal of Asian Studies, 28:1 (11 1969), p. 68.Google Scholar

2 Madras Presidency, Census of the Town of Madras, 1871 (hereafter 1871 Census) (Madras: Government Press, 1873), p. 68.Google Scholar

3 See Raman, K. V., Early History of the Madras Region (Madras: Amudha Nilayam Publishers, 1959).Google Scholar

4 Stein, Burton, ‘Brahman and Peasant in Early South Indian History,’ Adyar Library Bulletin (Madras), 31–32 (1967–1968), pp. 236–7.Google Scholar

5 Srinivasachari, C. S., History of the City of Madras (Madras: P. Varadachary & Co., 1939), pp. 112–14, 154.Google Scholar

6 Madras Presidency, Board of Revenue Proceedings (hereafter B.R.P.), 14 June 1804: from Collector, 11 June 1804.Google Scholar

7 Madras Presidency, Board of Revenue Records, Misc. Vol. 14, No. 232, ‘Replies of Mr. Ellis on the Meėrasi Right,’ 30 May 1816 (hereafter Ellis, ‘Meerasi Right).’Google Scholar

8 Ellis, , ‘Meerasi Right.’Google Scholar

9 Dodwell, Henry, The Nabobs of Madras (London: Williams and Norgate, Ltd, 1926), pp. 14, 39, 125;Google ScholarFurber, Holden, ‘Madras in 1787,’ Essays in Modern English History (Cambridge University Press, 1941), p. 287.Google Scholar

10 Furber, , ‘Madras in 1787,’ pp. 273, 289.Google Scholar

11 Madras Presidency, Public Consultaions (hereafter P.C.), 13 July 1786: from Committee of Police, 8 July 1786; Madras District Records (hereafter M.D.R.), Vol. 1021, Replies of Mr Ellis to questions on village inams, 20 April 1817; Ellis, ‘Meerasi Right.’Google Scholar

12 Love, H. D., Vestiges of Old Madras, Indian Record Series (London: J. Murray, 1913), Vol. 2, p. 505.Google Scholar

13 Ellis, , ‘Meerasi Right’; B.R.P., 19 March 1801, Minute of Board of Revenue; Bd. Rev. Misc., Vol. 14, No. 231, Reply of Sankariah on Meerasi Right, 2 August 1814; B.R.P., December 1795; from Bd. Rev., 24 December 1795.Google Scholar

14 M.D.R., Vol. 1021, 20 April 1817; B.R.P., 14 November 1831; from Collector, 9 November 1831.Google Scholar

15 P.C., 2 January 1810: Petition from mirasdars.Google Scholar

16 B.R.P., 12 March 1807, ‘List of maniams in the Madras villages,’ 28 February 1807; M.D.R., Vol. 1021, 20 April 1817: Ellis on village inams.

17 Ellis, , ‘Meerasi Right’; M.D.R., Vol. 1029, 19 April 1820; M.D.R., Vol. 992, 24 March 1821; M.D.R., Vol. 993, 23 April 1821.Google Scholar

18 Barnett, Steve, ‘Urban Is As Urban Does: Two Incidents on One Street in Madras City, South India,’ Urban Anthropologist, 2:2 (1973), p. 133.Google Scholar

19 Nayudu, W. S. Krishaswami, Old Madras (Madras: Solden, 1965), pp. 24–5.Google Scholar

20 Madras, 1871 Census, p. 13.Google Scholar

21 ‘A New and Improved Plan of Madras and Its Suburbs, executed in 1837–39 for the use of the Justices in Sessions,’ India Office Library and Records.Google Scholar

22 P.C., 15 March 1821: from Collector, 7 March 1821;Google ScholarWheeler, J. Talboys, Madras in the Olden Times (Madras: J. Higginbotham & Co., 1882), Vol. 3, pp. 128–9.Google Scholar

23 Madras Presidency, Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency, by Maclean, Charles D. (Madras: C. E. Keys, 1893), Vol. 3, p. 448.Google Scholar

24 P.C., 14 June 1808 and 10 February 1832.Google Scholar

25 P.C., 10 January 1822; M.D.R., Vol. 4785; P.C., 29 May 1838; P.C., 14 June 1836 and 23 October 1832; P.C. 6 July 1847.Google Scholar

26 Madras, 1871 Census, Tables 1, 13, 16, 21.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., Table 13.

28 Ibid., p. 68.

29 Raman, K. V., Madras Region, pp. 14–24, 30–3, 230–1.Google Scholar

30 Ellis, , ‘Meerasi Right’; M.D.R., Vol. 993, 25 June 1821; M.D.R., Vol. 4781, 15 May 1822.Google Scholar

31 Brown, Hilton, Parry's of Madras: A Story of British Enterprise in India (Madras: Parry & Co., 1954), p. 28.Google Scholar

32 B.R.P., 14 June 1804: from Collector, 11 June 1804.Google Scholar

33 Madras State Inspector General of Police, The History of the Madras Police (Madras: Inspector General of Police, 1959), pp. 94–5.Google Scholar

34 B.R.P., 14 June 1804: from Collector, 11 June 1804.Google Scholar

35 M.D.R., Vol. 986, 17 January 1831.Google Scholar

36 Madras, 1871 Census, p. 68 and Table 31.Google Scholar

37 Love, , Vestiges of Old Madras, Vol. 2, pp. 90, 127.Google Scholar

38 Srinivasachari, C. S., ‘Right and Left Hand Caste Disputes in Madras in the Early Part of the Eighteenth Century,’ Indian Historical Records Commission Proceedings, Vol. 12 (12 1929), pp. 72–3.Google Scholar

39 ibid.

40 P.C. 6 March 1812: from Committee investigating caste disputes, 10 August 1810.Google Scholar

41 See P.C. 6 March 1812 for the challenge to Right Hand leadership posed by Manali Chinnia Mudaliar.Google Scholar

42 Madras Commercial Department, Reports on the Internal and External Commerce of Madras, 1802.Google Scholar

43 Love, , Vestiges of Old Madras, Vol. 3, pp. 161–3.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., pp. 508–9.

45 Madras, 1871 Census, Table 13.Google Scholar

46 ibid.

47 Tondaimandalam uyartuluva vellalar sarittira surukkam [The Short History of the Superior Tuluva Vellalars] (Madras: M.L.V. Press, 1911), pp. 7–15.Google Scholar

48 P.C., 18 February, 1799: Petition from inhabitants of Madras; Wheeler, , Madras in the Olden Times, Vol. 3, p. 71;Google ScholarB.R.P., 19 September 1799; P.C. 25 September 1801: Petition from Subbaraya Mudaliar.Google Scholar

49 Tondaimandalam uyartuluva vellalar sarrittira surukkam, p. 7.Google Scholar

50 P.C., 5 February 1839: from Chief Magistrate, 15 January 1839.Google Scholar

51 P.C. 25 August 1780.

52 Arasaratnam, S., ‘Aspects of the Role and Activities of South Indian Merchants, c. 1650–1750,’ Proceedings of the First International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies, 1966 (Kuala Lumpur: International Association of Tamil Research, 1968), p. 584–5.Google Scholar

53 Dikshitar, V. R. Ramachandra, ‘Around the City Pagodas,’ The Madras Tercentenary Commemoration Volume (Madras: Oxford University Press, 1939), p. 364.Google Scholar

54 Chalkin, C. W., ‘Urban Housing Estates in the Eighteenth Century,’ Urban Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (February 1968), p. 68.Google Scholar

55 King, Anthony D., ‘The Colonial Bungalow-Compound Complex: A Study in the Cultural Use of Space,’ Journal of Architectural Research, Vol. 3, No. 2 (05 1974), p. 35.Google Scholar

56 Munro, Innes, A Narrative of the Military Operation on the Coromandal Coast (London: By the Author, 1789), p. 58; Madras Board of Revenue Records, Misc. Vol. 14, No. 212, List of lands granted for gardens (1774–1803).Google Scholar

57 ibid.

58 ibid.

59 SirMunro, Thomas, Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras: Selections from His Minutes and Other Official Writings, ed. SirArbuthnot, Alexander J. (Madras: Higginbotham & Co., 1886), p. 157.Google Scholar