Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T19:20:27.571Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Warriors and States: Military labour in southern India, circa 1750–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2018

MESROB VARTAVARIAN
MESROB VARTAVARIAN*
Affiliation:
Independent scholar Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The consolidation of numerous regional polities in the aftermath of Mughal imperial decline presented favourable socioeconomic opportunities for South Asian service communities. Protracted armed conflicts in southern India allowed a variety of mercenaries, soldiers, and war bands to accumulate resources in exchange for mobilizing manpower on behalf of states with weak standing armies. This article focuses on British imperial efforts to obtain sufficient quantities of military labour during its struggle with the Mysore sultanate. As the sultanate assumed an increasingly hostile attitude towards independent warrior power, local strongmen sought more amenable arrangements with alternate entities. The British East India Company received crucial support from autonomous warrior groups during its southern wars of conquest. Warriors in turn utilized British resources to consolidate local sovereignties. Thus, the initial British intrusion into peninsular Indian society further fragmented the political landscape by patronizing petty military entrepreneurs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 313 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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.)

Footnotes

The general arguments of this article benefited enormously from several conversations with Victor Lieberman. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. Any errors or shortcomings that follow are mine alone.

References

1 Bayly, C. A., Rulers, Townsmen, and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770–1870, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983Google Scholar; Washbrook, D., ‘Land and Labour in Late Eighteenth-Century South India: The Golden Age of the Pariah’, in Dalit Movements and the Meanings of Labour in India, Robb, P. (ed.), Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1993, pp. 68–86Google Scholar; Ahuja, R., ‘Labour Relations in an Early Colonial Context: Madras, c.1750–1800’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 36, no. 4, 2002, pp. 793–826CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Kolff, D. H. A., Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990Google Scholar.

3 Alavi, S., The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition in Northern India, 1770–1830, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1995Google Scholar.

4 Stein, B., Peasant, State, and Society in Medieval South India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1980Google Scholar; Subrahmanyam, S., The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500–1650, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Karashima, N., A Concordance of Nayakas: The Vijayanagar Inscriptions in South India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2002Google Scholar.

5 Narayan Rao, V., Shulman, D., and Subrahmanyam, S., Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka Period Tamilnadu, Oxford University Press, Oxford and Delhi, 1998Google Scholar.

6 Stein, Peasant, State, and Society, pp. 50–51.

7 Subrahmanyam, S., Penumbral Visions: Making Polities in Early Modern South India, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 2001, pp. 87–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Bayly, S., Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 49–50Google Scholar; Bayly, S., Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ludden, D., Peasant History in South India, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1985Google Scholar.

9 Wink, A., Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics Under the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Svarajya, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986Google Scholar; Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings, p. 51; Price, P., Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 16–17, 25Google Scholar.

10 Faruqui, M., ‘At Empire's End: The Nizam, Hyderabad, and Eighteenth-Century India’, in Expanding Frontiers in South Asian and World History: Essays in Honour of John F. Richards, Eaton, R. M., Faruqui, M. D., Gilmartin, D., and Kumar, S. (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013, pp. 23–28Google Scholar.

11 Bayly, Saints, Goddesses, and Kings, pp. 61–62; Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics, pp. 164–168.

12 The most complete history of Mysore to date remains M. Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India in an Attempt to Trace the History of Mysoor; from the Origin of the Hindoo Government of that State, to the Extinction of the Mohammedan Dynasty in 1799, 3 vols, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, London, 1810–1817.

13 Subrahmanyam, Penumbral Visions, pp. 61, 67, 69–71, 87–88, 90–91.

14 Robinson, F., The Life of Hyder Ally with an Account of his Usurpation of the Kingdom of Mysore and other Contiguous Provinces. To which is annexed, A Genuine Narrative of the sufferings of the British Prisoners of War Taken by his Son, Tippoo Saib, S. Hooper, London, 1786, pp. 11–12Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., pp. 25–27.

16 Wilks, Historical Sketches, Vol. 1, pp. 155–156, 247–248, 353.

17 Coote to the Committee of Correspondence, 1 December 1780, British Library, India Office Records (hereafter IOR), Home Miscellaneous (hereafter HM) 330, ff. 39–43.

18 Tipu to Mahomed Amen Arab, 15 April 1791, The National Archives, United Kingdom (hereafter NA), Public Record Office (hereafter PRO) 30/11/43, f. 143.

19 Kirkpatrick, W., Select letters of Tippoo Sultan to Various Public Functionaries: Including his Principle Military Commanders; Governors of Forts and Provinces; Diplomatic and Commercial Agents. . ., Black, Parry, and Kingsbury, London, 1811, pp. 369–371, 375–376Google Scholar.

20 Beatson, A., A View of the Origins and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultan; Comprising a Narrative of the Operations of the Army under the Command of Lieutenant-General George Harris, and the Siege of Seringapatam, W. Bulmer and Co., London, 1800, pp. 27–30Google Scholar.

21 Mornington to the Court of Directors, 20 March 1799, IOR, HM 255 pt. 1, ff. 1–57, esp. 33–34.

22 Kirkpatrick, Select letters, pp. 13–14.

23 Brunton to Oakeley, 4 January 1791, IOR, Madras Military Consultations (hereafter MMC) P/252/57, f. 103; Cornwallis to Medows, 2 February 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/58, ff. 712–14; Auchmuty to ?, n.d., IOR, MMC P/252/61, ff. 2259–60.

24 Wilks, Historical Sketches, Vol. 3, pp. 51–53.

25 Extract of Intelligence, 18 October 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/67, ff. 5329–30.

26 Accounts of the Seringapatam Campaign, 25 July 1791, IOR, HM 251, ff. 504–05; Scoot to ?, 9 September 1791, ibid., f. 616; Leith to his mother, 8 July 1791, British Library, European Manuscripts (hereafter MSS Eur.), Photo Eur. 138.

27 Subrahmanyam, Penumbral Visions, pp. 87–88, 91–92.

28 Brittlebank, K., Tipu Sultan's Search for Legitimacy: Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1998Google Scholar.

29 Parthasarathi, P., The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720–1800, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 127–130CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Ross, C., Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis, J. Murray, London, 1859Google Scholar, Vol. 1, pp. 268–269, 299–300.

31 For Hanoverian troops, see Bruce to Townsend, 14 December 1782, IOR, HM 174, ff. 79–80. On Swiss mercenaries, see Erskine to the Secretary of the East India Company, 5 July 1781, IOR, HM 244, f. 37.

32 Instructions to Captain Toone, ? August 1781, IOR, HM 244, ff. 40, 43–47; Erskine to ?, 1 February 1782, ibid., ff. 90–91. Swiss troops were being dispatched to India as early as the 1750s: see Letter to Fort St David, 22 November 1751, ibid., ff. 106–07; Letter to Fort St George, 6 December 1751, ibid., ff. 109–12; Letter to Fort St George, 24 January 1753, ibid., ff. 115–17.

33 Hanoverian Regiments in India, ? September 1787, IOR, HM 389, f. 331.

34 Apsley to Wangenheim, 27 January 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/57, ff. 437–38; Oakeley to Crisp, 14 March 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/77, f. 1260.

35 Pocock to Pitt, 9 October 1758, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, Historical Manuscripts 1000, ff. 39–40.

36 Ross, Correspondence, Vol. 1, pp. 225–226.

37 Cockburn to Jackson, 16 June 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/62, ff. 2936–40.

38 Montgomery to Kennaway, 10 October 1790, IOR, MMC P/252/51, ff. 4755–56.

39 Massey to Jackson, 18 November 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/68, f. 5869.

40 Field Operations Journal, 25 August 1780, British Library, Additional Manuscripts (hereafter Add. MSS) 29215, f. 9; Field Operations Journal, 13 September 1780, ibid., ff. 21–22; Field Operations Journal, 18 March 1781, ibid., f. 34.

41 Bridges to Jackson, 9 March 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/59, ff. 1258–59.

42 Fredrick to ?, 29 January 1790, IOR, Bombay Military Council (hereafter BMC) P/353/55, ff. 72–74; Farran to his father, 14 August 1791, MSS Eur., Photo Eur. 081; Farran to his father, 5 June 1792, ibid.; Memoirs of Robert Bell, MSS Eur., Photo Eur. 310, ff. 6–7.

43 Memoirs of Robert Bell, MSS Eur., Photo Eur. 310, ff. 20–21.

44 Letter from the Jagirdar of Arnee, 9 September 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/65, ff. 4526–27; Goldsworthy to his mother, 31 May 1791, IOR, HM 251, ff. 495–97; Bruel to de Wangenheim, 2 January 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/75, ff. 73–75; Oldham to Oakeley, 12 March 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/77, ff. 1275–80; Dent to Cornwallis, 11 May 1791, NA, PRO 30/11/43, f. 30; Brook to Cornwallis, 16 October 1791, NA, PRO 30/11/45, ff. 21–22; Burges to Cornwallis, 30 October 1791, ibid., ff. 27–28.

45 North to Mornington, 30 January 1799, IOR, MMC P/254/33, ff. 811–13.

46 Macalister to Oakeley, 12 March 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/77, ff. 1210–17; Reynolds to the Military Board, 1 May 1791, IOR, BMC P/353/56, ff. 277–78; Select Committee Proceedings, n.d., IOR, Bombay Select Committee Consultations, P/D/66, f. 19; Freeman et al. to the Board, 12 January 1782, ibid., f. 49.

47 Petition of Shaik Brawn, 11 January 1790, IOR, BMC P/353/55, ff. 23–24.

48 Capper to Oakeley, 11 November 1790, IOR, MMC P/252/51, ff. 4696–700.

49 Parthasarathi, Transition to a Colonial Economy, p. 121.

50 Sulivan to Lang, 6 March 1783, IOR, HM 179, ff. 605–07, 609.

51 Proclamation of Lieutenant-General George Harris, 5 March 1799, Add. MSS 13666, ff. 51–52.

52 Macartney to Coote, 22 April 1782, Add. MSS 22440, ff. 4–6.

53 Sulivan to Lang, 7 March 1783, IOR, HM 179, ff. 632–33.

54 Read to Mornington, 27 March 1799, Add. MSS 13666, ff. 41–43; Hudleston to Medows, 12 April 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/60, ff. 1736–38.

55 Coote to Macartney, 7 May 1782, IOR, HM 170, f. 197.

56 Coote to Sulivan, 19 May 1782, ibid., f. 243; Sulivan to Coote, 23 July 1782, ibid., ff. 401–03; Coote to Macartney, 30 September 1781, Add. MSS 22439, f. 48.

57 Coote to Macartney, 22 August 1781, IOR, HM 245, f. 55; Coote to Macartney, 24 August 1781, ibid., f. 57; Poligar of Gut to the Governor-General, 24 March 1791, IOR, HM 253, ff. 38–40; Read to Jackson, 15 September 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/65, ff. 4733–35; Dods to Cornwallis, 10 April 1791, NA, PRO 30/11/42, n.p.; Dods to Cornwallis, 11 April 1791, ibid.

58 Clive to the Rajah of Vencatagherry, 17 January 1799, IOR, MMC P/254/32, ff. 350–53.

59 Nuthall to Capper, 1 April 1791, IOR, HM 251, f. 441; Alexander Allan's Campaign Diary, 5 July 1790, MSS Eur., B102 (a), f. 6; McKerras to Chamier, 11 November 1790, IOR, MMC P/252/51, f. 4804; Hudleston to Medows, 16 June 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/62, ff. 2926–27.

60 Coote to the Court of Directors, 29 January 1782, IOR, HM 330, ff. 87–88.

61 Macartney to Coote, 10 May 1782, Add. MSS 22440, f. 34; Macartney to Coote, 3 August 1783, ibid., ff. 148–49.

62 Macartney to Coote, 2 September 1781, IOR, HM 245, ff. 233–34.

63 Torin to Petrie, 24 January 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/76, ff. 634–39; Diary Entry, ? 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/62, f. 2847.

64 Cornwallis to Kennaway, 16 April 1791, NA, PRO 30/11/43, ff. 99–100; Kennaway to Read, 18 July 1791, NA, PRO 30/11/44, ff. 172–73.

65 Cornwallis to the Poligars of the Baramahal, n.d., IOR, HM 252, ff. 7–8; Read to Oakeley, 25 March 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/59, ff. 1484–87.

66 Flint to Oakeley, 31 January 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/76, ff. 680–81; Petrie to Medows, 1 March 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/77, ff. 1107–09; Snodgrass to Oakeley, 18 February 1792, ibid., ff. 1125–27.

67 Cornwallis to Oakeley, 31 August 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/65, ff. 4462–63.

68 Read to Oakeley, 24 December 1790, IOR, MMC P/252/52, f. 5492; Ahmud Khan to the Governor-General, 23 October 1791, IOR, HM 253, ff. 171–73; Ramm Swammy Polygar to the Governor-General, 26 April 1792, ibid., f. 251; Wilks, Historical Sketches, Vol. 3, p. 284.

69 Hudleston to Medows, 24 December 1790, IOR, MMC P 252/52, ff. 5525–27; Petrie to Medows, 26 April 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/78, ff. 1977–79.

70 Collector of Tinnevelly to Hudleston, 28 February 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/59, ff. 1229–34.

71 Chamier to Ross, 13 November 1790, IOR, MMC P/252/51, ff. 4686–87; Minutes of Consultation, 4 January 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/57, ff. 16–18.

72 Coote to Macartney, 16 October 1781, Add. MSS 22439, f. 55; Coote to Macartney, 31 October 1781, ibid., f. 65. For later examples, see Hudleston to Medows, 25 February 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/58, ff. 1023–24; Read to Cornwallis, ? 1791, IOR, MMC P/252/62, ff. 3041–45; Read to Kennaway, ? 1791, ibid., ff. 3048–50.

73 Treaty of 1792, 2 April 1792, IOR, MMC P/252/78, ff. 1630–41.

74 Cuppage to Coote, 3 June 1782, Add. MSS 22440, f. 88.

75 M. Vartavarian, ‘Military Labour and the Company State in India, 1780–1830’, PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2014, Chapter 2.