Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History Of Corporations and Caste Heads: Urban Rule in Company Madras, 1640–1720 (original) (raw)

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which the colonial port city of Madras was envisioned and governed from its founding in the mid seventeenth century to the early decades of the eighteenth century. Early East India Company records suggest that Madras was conceived of as a global city, a crucial hub in a worldwide network of commerce with a multi-racial and multilingual population that set it apart from the Tamil hinterland. The city was imagined as a civic space that incorporated different sections of its heterogeneous population into the processes of quotidian lawmaking and enforcement. This urban vision with its assumption that the city's myriad inhabitants had a real investment in its welfare was underscored by a discourse of Protestant toleration and mercantile collaboration.

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