Timeline of the English East India Company and language contact

2.2 The East India Company and language contact

2.2.1 Timeline of the East India Company and language contact

The aim of this timeline is to highlight events in the history of the English East India Company that proved significant in terms of language contact. These include first contact with a region, the opening of trade (intermittent contact) and establishing of factories (permanent Company presence), and the closing of factories and abandoning of trade. The timeline also lists some general developments in the period of European expansion, events relating to relations with other European trading companies and states, and of course significant changes and developments in the being of the Company itself. This timeline should not be taken to be a record of English, never mind European contact with the East Indies.

It should be noted that while the timeline does cover the entire geographical span of Company contact in the East Indies, it is by no means comprehensive. The dates given should not be treated as definitive, for the beginning of Company presence in a region can be difficult to determine, and the establishing of factories can be taken by one source to mean when a Company agent first arrived at a place, and by another to when the Company officially opened a trading post – events which may be separated by years, decades, or even centuries.

A brief explanation of the organizational structure of EIC trading posts is in order. Over the first century, the Company’s factories came to be divided under four principal factories, called Presidencies, which oversaw all the factories in the region. Each Presidency was ruled by a Governor or President, with a large council of senior merchants. The first Presidencies were established in 1614 at Bantam on Java, overseeing trade in Southeast and East Asia, and Surat in Gujarat, which oversaw trade in west India as well as in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The third Presidency arose at Madras, which by 1641 was the headquarters of the Company’s trade on the Coromandel Coast, but took until 1684 to be established as a permanent Presidency. Madras initially oversaw Bengal as well, but the factory at Calcutta, established in 1689, was made an independent Presidency in 1700, overseeing Bengal and Orissa.

By this time, the first two Presidencies had moved: the Presidency at Bantam was moved to Bengkulu on Sumatra in 1685, and Surat gave over to Bombay in 1687. The Indian Presidencies were consolidated under Calcutta’s Governor-Generalship in 1773. A separate, independent Presidency was founded in Penang as late as 1805, to which Singapore and Malacca were added in 1826.

(This timeline was compiled primarily from Bowen et al. (2002); Canny (1998); Farrington (2002); Foster (1919); Hall (1928); Karttunen (1992); Moir (1988); Morse (1926); and the IOR online catalogue at TNA’s Access to Archives <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/> (now defunct: see instead the TNA Discovery catalogue <discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk> and the BL manuscripts catalogue <searcharchives.bl.uk>).)

Timeline

(Spans of dates ending in 1858 do not (necessarily) indicate the ending of the organization or of English presence in the place named. In all the dates below, short gaps in Company presence are ignored in favour of recording long-term contact with regions.)

1498 Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut on the Malabar Coast, opening the sea route from Europe to India

1505 Estado da Índia founded, Portuguese settlement at Cochin (Kerala, India)

1510 Portuguese settlement in Goa (1510–1961); 1511 in Malacca (Malay Peninsula); 1515 in Hormuz (Persian Gulf); 1520 in Bantam (Java)

1535 Portuguese take over Bombay (1535–1661)

1557 Portuguese settlement in Macao

1579 First English ships reach the East Indies: Sir Francis Drake on his circumnavigation passes through the Malay Archipelago

1596 Dutch expel Portuguese from Bantam

1600 31 December: royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I to “The Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies”

1601 First voyage of the EIC, destination Java and Sumatra

1601 Cape of Good Hope, South Africa: Saldanha Bay and Table Bay used as stopping points from the first EIC voyage; 1793 EIC agent at Cape Town (1793–1836)

1602 Dutch East India Company chartered

1602 Java: factory established at Bantam (1602–1682; Presidency 1614); factory (and Presidency) at Batavia [Jakarta] 1621–1628, agency 1758–c.1830

1602 Sumatra: trade at Acheh, short-lived factory from 1612; also short-lived factories at Tiku, Priaman, Jambi, Indragahiri (most closed by 1623); 1649 short-lived factories at Padang, Indrapore

1603 St Helena: a stopping point from the first EIC voyage; in Dutch hands 1645–1652; under EIC control 1652–1833 (1673 granted to EIC by Charles II)

1608 Gujarat, India: first EIC visit to Surat; 1612 factories established at Surat and Cambay [Khambhat] (both 1612–1858); Presidency 1614–1687

1609 Yemen: trade with Yemen; 1618 factory established at Mokha (1618–1662, c.1700–1752); also trade to Sana, Ties and Aden

1611 Coromandel Coast, India: first EIC visit; 1614 factory established at Petapolo [Nizampatnam] (1614–1687); 1615 factory established at Masulipatam [Machilipatnam] (1615 to at least 1709)

1612 Borneo: trade at Sukadana; 1614 trade at Sambas; factory at Banjarmasin 1699–1707 and 1738–1747; settlements at Balambangan (1771–1775) and Labuan (1802–1803)

1613 Japan: factory established at Hirado (1613–1623; EIC refused re-entry In 1673; and again in 1808)

1613 Celebes, Malay Archipelago: factory established at Makassar (1613–1667)

1613 Siam [Thailand]: factory established at Pattani (1613–1624); 1615 factory established at Ayutthaya (intermittently 1615–1684)

1614 Vietnam: trade, primarily from Japan, 1614–1619; 1672 factory established at Tonkin (moved to Hanoi 1679, closed 1697); attempt to settle Annam 1695–1696; embassy in Annam 1778–1779

1615 India: Sir Thomas Roe’s embassy to the Mughal Emperor (1615–1618)

1616 Persian Gulf and Persia [Iran]: trade from the 1610s; 1616 factories established at Shiraz, Jask and Ispahan (1616–c.1763); 1624–1759 factory at Bandar Abbas (“Gombroon”; the primary factory in Persia)

1617 Spice Islands, Malay Archipelago: factory established on Pulo Run (1617–1620)

1617 Pegu [Bago], Burma: attempt at trade with Pegu from the EIC factory at Masulipatam

1626 Coromandel Coast, India: factory established at Armagon; 1640 moved to Maderaspatam or Madras [Chennai], 1641 fortified and named Fort St George (1640–1858); 1684 Presidency

1633 Orissa, India: trade to Balasore, 1642 factory established at Balasore (1642–1687); 1668 factory established at Vizagapatam (1668–1746, 1794–1858)

1634 Bengal, India: trade to Hugli; 1651 factory established at Hugli (1651–1685); 1658 factory established at Kasimbazar (1658–1685); 1668 factory established at Dhaka (1668–1858)

1635 Persian Gulf [Iraq]: trade at Basra; 1723 factory established in Basra (1723–1858, primary factory in Persia from 1759); 1798 factory established at Baghdad (1798–1858)

1635 China: EIC ship calls at Macao, intermittent trade begun; 1637 first English ships reach Canton [Guangzhou], trade refused

1637 Maharashtra, India: factory established at Rajapur (1637–1679)

1638 Karnataka, India: factory established at Karwar, south of Goa, by the Courteen Association; 1649 united with EIC (1649–1720, 1750–1752)

1641 Dutch take Malacca from the Portuguese

1644 Collapse of the Ming Empire: over time, this leads to the Dutch losing their hold on Taiwan, the English getting a foothold in China, and thus eventually in the tea trade

1647 Burma: factory established in Syriam [Thanlyin, by Yangon] (1647–1657); country trade continued

1651 Cambodia: factory established near Phnom Penh (1651–1656)

1654 The East Indies trade is opened to private traders; 1657 trading privileges renewed by charter from Cromwell; 1661 confirmed by Charles II

1657 EIC shifts to permanent joint stock

1657 West Africa: trade on Guinea Coast, based (mainly) at Fort Cormantine in Ghana 1657–1662, when trade rights pass to the Royal African Company

1658 Dutch take Ceylon from the Portuguese

1658 Bihar, India: factory established at Patna (1658–1709, intermittently until 1813)

1661 EIC withdraws from the country trade, giving it over to private traders

1661 Maharashtra, India: Bombay passes to Britain as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, queen of Charles II; 1668 leased to the EIC; 1687 western Presidency moved from Surat to Bombay

1670 Taiwan: attempts at trade; 1675 factory established at Anping [Tainan] (1675–1684)

1674 Coromandel Coast, India: factory established at Cuddalore 1674, moved to nearby Conimere 1688, fortified and renamed Fort St David

1676 China: trade to Amoy [Xiamen] (factory 1676–1681 ) and Chusan [Zhoushan] (trade continued to 1730s)

1682 Java: Bantam captured by the Dutch, English move to Bengkulu on Sumatra

1683 Kerala, India: factory established at Tellicherry [Thalassery] (1683–1858); 1685x1697 factory established at Anjengo [Anchuthengu] (1697–1813)

1685 Sumatra: factory and settlement established at Bengkulu, Presidency moved from Bantam (1685–1825; named Fort York; renamed Fort Marlborough 1714)

1686 Bengal, India: Mughals seize Bengal factories: all close; 1686 factory at Hugli moves to Calcutta; 1689 Calcutta made Bengal headquarters; 1702 Fort William completed; 1707 Calcutta made a Presidency; 1756 captured by the Nawab of Bengal; 1757 recaptured by the British, fort rebuilt

1689 Orissa and Coromandel Coast, India: Moguls seize factories at Vizagapatam & Masulipatam

1698 Charter granted by William III to the rival ‘new’ East India Company, named “the English Company Trading to the East Indies”

1699 China: factory established at Canton; focus of EIC trade in China shifted from Amoy and Chusan to Canton

1702 Merger of the old and new East India Companies; finalized 1709, resulting in the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies

1724 Pegu, Burma: factory settled at Pegu, destroyed in 1743; 1753 factory established in Negrais (1753–1759); 1760s trade resumed to Rangoon

1746 Coromandel Coast, India: In the First Carnatic War (1746–1748) the French capture Fort St George (Madras), and the English headquarters are temporarily moved to Fort St David (1746–1761); 1748 Fort St George restored to the EIC

1757 India: the Battle of Plassey establishes EIC military dominance in India

1757 China: an Imperial edict restricts foreign trade to Canton; 1770 EIC factors begin to reside at Canton all year round

1765 India: Treaty of Allahabad: The EIC receives taxation rights in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa

1773 India: EIC assumes monopoly of growing opium in Bengal; Bengal Presidency given supervisory powers over those of Bombay and Madras, effectively becoming the Company’s headquarters in Asia

1783 India: William Jones arrives in Calcutta; 1784 the Asiatic Society founded at Fort William

1784 Board of Control appointed by the British Government to oversee EIC civil and military government and Indian revenues

1784 Persian made the official language of EIC Indian territories (1784–1835)

1786 Malay Peninsula: factory established at Penang 1786, made a Presidency in 1805; Malacca occupied 1796; factory established in Singapore 1819

1791 India: Benares Sanskrit College established

1795 Dutch East India Company dissolved (31 December)

1796 Ceylon taken over from the Dutch

1800 India: Fort William College established

1801 Foundation of the East India Company Library (1801–1858)

1806 East India College opened; moved to Haileybury near Hertford in 1809 (1806–1858)

1809 Addiscombe Military Seminary established near Croydon (1809–1861, converted into the Royal India Military College in 1858)

1811 Britain takes over Dutch East Indies territories (Java, Sumatra, Celebes, etc) after the Anglo-Dutch Java War

1813 EIC loses monopoly of India trade

1819 Singapore founded

1825 Straits Settlement [Malay Peninsula]: factory established in Malacca, in exchange with the Dutch for Bengkulu

1833 EIC loses monopoly of China trade (agent remains in Canton until 1840); transition to administrative function

1835 Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education

1842 End of First Opium War (1839–1842): Hong Kong becomes a British colony

1857 Bengal army revolt

1858 British Crown assumes control of India from the EIC (British Raj)

1874 EIC dissolved

2.2.2 An overview of the East India Company and language contact

The history of the English East India Company has been looked at through the economic, political, and to a lesser extent social, impact it had on regions, peoples and states, locally, regionally and globally. The linguistic impact of the Company’s history has seen little attention. Simply considering the number of languages the EIC came into contact with over 250 years makes the mind boggle. Many, indeed most of these contacts were but cursory; and some stretched over decades but left no lasting legacy. Based on the timeline presented above, this chapter discusses the development and the breadth and length of the Company’s language contact situations through an account of the extent and duration of their geographical reach.

The South Atlantic island of St Helena, and Saldanha Bay and Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope were used as stopping points by the EIC from the first voyage. St Helena had no indigenous inhabitants; a permanent English-speaking presence was established on the island in the late seventeenth century. The English spoken on St Helena was influenced by its non-native English-speaker members, such as slaves, and also developed in part due to its isolation (Royle 2007; Schreier 2008; Wright 2013). Although the Company did not establish a factory or permanent settlement at the Cape, there were English settlers there by the time an EIC agency was established in 1793. These were followed by settlers sent by the British government in the 1800s, who came to live next to the existing Dutch communities, as well as an extensive native population.

The Cape was not the only place where the Company touched the African continent. For a brief period in the mid-seventeenth century, the EIC had a factory in Ghana – another usual stopping point – but African trade became a monopoly of the Royal African Company which took over the factory in 1662. On the Indian Ocean side, Company ships often stopped for water in south-west Madagascar in St Augustine’s Bay (at the mouth of the Onilahy river), or in the Comoros, or at Zanzibar. Although there were several failed attempts to form English settlements on Madagascar in the 1630s and 1640s (Games 2008: 181–217), the EIC was not involved in them, and instead came to use the island as a source for slaves (Platt 1969; Bialuschewski 2007; Winterbottom 2016: 163–195). At the end of the seventeenth century, Madagascar had become a base for (European) pirates, further deterring plans of settlement.

The next stage on the EIC route to the Indies was the Arabian Peninsula. Many Company merchants had experience in trade to the Levant or North Africa, and could capitalize on their knowledge of lingua franca Arabic on the Indian Ocean side of the Arabic world – albeit trade was of course usually conducted via dragomans. From the first voyages, ships visited Yemen; a factory was established at Mokha on the Red Sea in 1618 and maintained intermittently to 1752, and trade was extended to other towns in Yemen. On the other side of the peninsula, the EIC encountered another lingua franca: Persian. Trade with Persia was started in the 1610s, and factories set up both inland at Shiraz and Isfahan, in the Strait of Hormuz at Gombroon (Bandar Abbas), and at Jask just outside the Strait. The Persian factories were closed in the mid-eighteenth century, and EIC trade in the region shifted to Iraq: trade at Basra had been initiated in the 1630s but a factory was not established until 1723, with another in Baghdad set up in 1798; both lasted until the end of the Company.

At the outset, the primary target of the EIC was the spice market of the Malay Archipelago. To this end, the first EIC factory was set up in Bantam on the island of Java in 1602. The factory survived until 1682, and served as the Company’s principal factory in Southeast Asia, overseeing the network of other factories east of the Indian subcontinent. From Bantam, the EIC spread its tendrils across the Malay-speaking world and beyond (Malay was another lingua franca). Trade with Sumatra and Borneo began at once, and smaller factories, many of them short-lived, were established at suitable locations, such as Pulo Run in the Spice Islands (1617–1620). Some factories survived longer, such as in Makassar on Celebes (1613–1667). The English merchants also ventured into mainland Southeast Asia: there was intermittent trade with Burma and Siam from the 1610s, and the factory at Ayutthaya (capital of Siam) survived until 1684. The mid-century saw factories established in Burma (1647–1657), and at Phnom Penh in Cambodia (1651–1656), although both were, once again, short-lived. Relations with the Dutch East India Company (VOC) varied from competitive to hostile, as the VOC proceeded to conquer territory by force. In the end the EIC was forced to retreat from not only the Spice Islands in 1620, but also from Java in 1682. The English factory at Bantam was moved to Bengkulu on Sumatra, which was fortified and renamed (first Fort York, and in 1714 Fort Marlborough); it served as the Presidency for Southeast Asia until 1825. By that time, British imperial expansion onto the Malay Peninsula had resulted in EIC factories being established at Penang in 1786, at Malacca in 1796, and in Singapore in 1819.

One long-standing problem the EIC struggled to solve was the vexed matter of bullion exports from England. The Company soon learned that there was no great demand for European goods in maritime Asia (although most sold tolerably well over time), and in order to be able to purchase Asian goods, it was forced to pay for them with gold and silver. Not only was this not felt to be as cost-effective as trading for European goods, but seventeenth-century mercantilist theory saw the export of bullion as a direct means of impoverishing the state (Chaudhuri 1963). But the Company’s factors in the East Indies also soon learned that there was one means of increasing profits – indeed, the very key to successful business there was what was called the “country trade”, that is, intra-Asian trade. Indian cloth (especially that from the Coromandel Coast) sold well in Southeast Asia, and Chinese silk sold well everywhere, including Japan. One perfect illustration of just how profitable the country trade could be was the annual voyage made by the Portuguese from Macao to Nagasaki. Using their access to the Chinese market to fill a great carrack with silk, the Portuguese sailed it to Japan and sold all the cargo for silver, which Japan was justly famous for.

The success of the Portuguese trade with Japan had not gone unnoticed by the Dutch and the English, and was the primary reason for the East India Companies of both nations to establish factories in Japan (the EIC had a factory there 1613–1623). But where the English attempted to tap into the supplies of Japanese silver by engaging in the country trade between Japan and Southeast Asia – while also trying to open trade with China, but with no success – the Dutch began to use Japan as a supply base for their Indies fleets. In the event, the English withdrew from Japan after ten years. The Dutch, however, managed to retain a factory in Japan through its period of isolation – although it never generated serious profits.

Another legacy of a century of Portuguese influence in the East Indies was the spread of lingua franca Portuguese across the region, from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan. It was probably the most widely-spoken language in the region, for it had established itself as the primary language of communication between Europeans and Asians. Interpreters did not translate speech between Asian languages and various European vernaculars, such as English and Dutch. More often than not, they interpreted between lingua franca Portuguese and a local vernacular, or between two lingua francas – such as Persian and Hindustani, which were used on the Indian subcontinent, particularly within the sphere of Mughal influence.

The first EIC factories in India were established around the same time as that in Japan. The oldest was also the most long-lived, at Surat in Gujarat, northwest India (1612–1858); it held the Presidency of EIC operations in western India 1614–1687. The next factories were set up specifically for access to cloth from the Coromandel Coast (southeast India): that at Petapolo (Nizampatnam) operated 1614–1687, and another (up the coast, in eastern India) at Masulipatam (Machilipatnam) 1615–1709. Over the seventeenth century, the EIC expanded along the coast of the Indian subcontinent, establishing factories in Maharashtra (west India) at Rajapur (1637–1679), and then at Bombay (1668), where the Presidency was moved from Surat in 1687; in Karnataka (southwest India) near Goa in 1649 (intermittently to 1752); south of Karnataka in Kerala at Tellicherry (Thalasery), 1683–1858, and at Anjengo (Anchuthengu), c.1690–1813. The same process took place on the east coast: factories were established, and frequently fortified (and renamed), on the Coromandel Coast (modern Tamil Nadu) at Madras in 1640 (Fort St George, modern Chennai), which held the Presidency for Coromandel Coast from 1682; at Cuddalore in 1674 (Fort St David); further up the coast at Vizagapatam (Visakhapatnam, in modern Andhra Pradesh), 1668 to 1858; and in Orissa (Odisha, up the coast from Cuddalore) at Balasore 1642–1687. Already in the 1630s the EIC had begun to trade into the Ganges estuary in Bengal. Factories were established at Hooghly (Hugli) 1651–1685, and further inland at Kasimbazar 1658–1685 – these were seized by the Moghuls in 1685, and the EIC established its Bengal base in Calcutta (Kolkata), which was fortified and renamed Fort William in 1702; it held the Presidency of Bengal from 1707. Finally, the EIC also held a factory further east in the great city of Dhaka 1668–1858; and inland in Bihar at Patna 1658–1709, and then intermittently to 1813.

By the end of the seventeenth century, then, the EIC had factories at strategic intervals around the coast of the Indian subcontinent. Several other developments had changed the Company’s reach from what it was at the end of the Jacobean era. From the start, each trading post was established with the understanding that if trade did not turn out to be profitable, it would be closed. This was the fate perhaps of most factories – although as related above, factories were also closed due to political developments or to escape hostilities. Another reason for closing smaller factories was the decision taken in 1661 to withdraw from the country trade, leaving it for others to conduct. Yet although the EIC no longer participated in the country trade, this does not mean that no Englishmen did: private traders extended the scope of English influence beyond that of the EIC explored in this study.

Dutch territorial ambitions had chased the EIC out of the Malay Archipelago, although it held a factory at Bengkulu on Sumatra, as noted above. Although the Company had withdrawn from Japan in 1623, and been refused access to China in the 1630s (except for occasional visits to Portuguese Macao), there was a recurrent desire to somehow open trade with China. This manifested in attempting or establishing trade with neighbouring states. The EIC set up a factory in Tonkin (north Vietnam) in 1672, holding it intermittently until 1697. At the same time, there was a failed attempt to reopen trade with Japan, but the Company did succeed in establishing a short-lived factory at Tainan in south Taiwan 1675–1684 (Paske-Smith 1930; Machin 1978). The importance of the Tainan factory waned when the Company finally got a foothold in mainland China: there was a factory at Amoy (Xiamen, in Fujian in southeast China, in the Taiwan strait) 1676–1681, and EIC continued to trade at Amoy, as well as Chusan (Zhoushan, in east China near Shanghai), until the 1730s. But in 1699, the English were allowed to establish a factory in Canton (Guangzhou in south China, on the Pearl River, up from Hong Kong and Macao) – although at first, the trade was seasonal, and no permanent residency was allowed for Europeans.

In the first century of its existence, the English East India Company had experimented with trade across maritime Asia, from the Persian Gulf (and beyond) to Japan. Two countries would come to dominate the rest of its life: India and China. In the end, the Company’s rapacity would lead to the accidental subjugation of most of the Indian subcontinent in the eighteenth century, and to forcing China to open its doors for trade by waging the Opium Wars in the early nineteenth century. In the process, the influence of the English language in India grew with Company power and influence over the eighteenth century. In China, although a permanent English settlement would not be founded until the end of the First Opium War in 1842 and the taking of Hong Kong as a British colony, there was a continuous English presence in Canton from 1699, with a year-round residency from 1770.