IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/indeco/v55y2018i2p147-181.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Early years of East India Company rule in Chittagong: Violence, waste and settlement c. 1760–1790

Author

Listed:
  • Anandaroop Sen

    (Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town)

Abstract

This article probes the production of the uplands of Chittagong in the early years of British East India Company (EIC)rule in Bengal and its eastern frontiers. The South Asian debates around the nature of agrarian property relations have largely skipped places like Chittagong uplands, consequently, the uplands appear in academic and popular discussions as an already constituted outside to this agrarian historiography. The history of the uplands then become easily separated and consumed as part of frontier studies. The article seeks to address the constitution of this outside. Narrating a story where the protagonists range from influential Bengali middlemen in EIC retinue, Company officers responsible for Chittagong administration to mobile Arakanese men called ‘Magh zamindars’, brought together in a swirl of forged documents and contending claims to ‘wastelands’, the article glimpses into the complex interlocking between upland and lowland networks of Chittagong. It frames this narrative by unpacking the revenue categories of sair and kapas mahal; the two categories used for Chittagong uplands during this period. Disaggregating them allows one to see how the uplands were created in the image of the commodity cotton: the people who produced it, the way it was exchanged and the violence that marked the process.

Suggested Citation

  • Anandaroop Sen, 2018. "Early years of East India Company rule in Chittagong: Violence, waste and settlement c. 1760–1790," The Indian Economic & Social History Review, , vol. 55(2), pages 147-181, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:indeco:v:55:y:2018:i:2:p:147-181
    DOI: 10.1177/0019464618760449
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019464618760449
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0019464618760449?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stern, Philip J., 2011. "The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195393736.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dan Bogart, 2016. "The East Indian Monopoly and the Transition from Limited Access in England, 1600–1813," NBER Chapters, in: Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development, pages 23-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Tamina M. Chowdhury, 2016. "Raids, annexation and plough: Transformation through territorialisation in nineteenth-century Chittagong Hill Tracts," The Indian Economic & Social History Review, , vol. 53(2), pages 183-224, April.
    3. Roy, Tirthankar, 2019. "State capacity and the economic history of colonial India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100723, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Douglas Howland, 2019. "Sovereign Claims and Possessions – The Beginnings of the Territorial State," International Journal of Social Science Studies, Redfame publishing, vol. 7(6), pages 71-84, November.
    5. Richard J. Blakemore, 2017. "Pieces of eight, pieces of eight: seamen's earnings and the venture economy of early modern seafaring," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1153-1184, November.
    6. Joseph P. Garske, 2018. "Anglophone and Civilian Legal Cultures: Two understandings of human trust for the global age," Academicus International Scientific Journal, Entrepreneurship Training Center Albania, issue 18, pages 34-41, February.
    7. Thomas Leng, 2016. "Interlopers and disorderly brethren at the Stade Mart: commercial regulations and practices amongst the Merchant Adventurers of England in the late Elizabethan period," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(3), pages 823-843, August.
    8. Mama D. Ujuaje & Marina Chang, 2020. "Systems of Food and Systems of Violence: An Intervention for the Special Issue on “Community Self Organisation, Sustainability and Resilience in Food Systems”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-30, August.
    9. Nogues-Marco, Pilar, 2020. "Measuring Colonial Extraction: The East India Company’s Rule and the Drain of Wealth (1757-1858)," CEPR Discussion Papers 15431, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Nogues-Marco, Pilar, 2020. "Measuring colonial extraction: the east India company's rule and the drain of wealth (1757-1858)," Working Papers unige:144406, University of Geneva, Paul Bairoch Institute of Economic History.
    11. Lilian Kemunto Mogikoyo & Peterson Obara Magutu & Alvin B. Dolo, 2017. "The Link between Supplier Evaluation Attributes and Supply Chain Performance of Government Owned Entities: Perspectives from Commercial State Corporations in Kenya," Noble International Journal of Economics and Financial Research, Noble Academic Publsiher, vol. 2(1), pages 1-20, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:indeco:v:55:y:2018:i:2:p:147-181. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.