Conclusion

Summary

The most famous story of interracial intimacy on the Indian subcontinent between a European man and a local woman was that of Job Charnock, founder of Calcutta and his unnamed female companion. Job Charnock was reputed to have rescued a sati from the funeral pyre, brought her home and lived with her as his wife. In the years before his death in 1693, they reportedly lived very happily and produced three children. His eldest daughter married Charles Eyre, who became Charnock's successor as the Governor of Bengal and head agent of the English East India Company and its commercial affairs in Bengal.

Alexander Hamilton, a free-trader of the early eighteenth century, described how Charnock came to the rescue:

[he] went one Time … to see a young widow act that tragical catastrophe, but he was so smitten with the widow's beauty, that he sent his Guards to take her by force from the Executioners, and conducted her to his own lodgings. They lived lovingly many years, and had several children, at length she died, after he had settled in Calcutta, but instead of converting her to Christianity, she made him a Proselyte to Paganism, and the only Part of Christianity that was remarkable in him, was burying her decently, and he built a Tomb over her, where all his Life after her Death, he kept the anniversary Day of her Death by sacrificing a Cock on her Tomb, after the Pagan manner …”

As the origin narrative of the founding of Calcutta, the Job Charnock story suggests that British overseas commerce and territorial expansion was linked with the rescue of local women and interracial intimacy.