Case Study: Madras Presidency, India
During the British occupation of India, and zooming in to the Madras Presidency specifically, coercion allowed British plantation owners to disrupt the regional economy when the Shevaroy hills came under British administration on March 17, 1792. Still, until 1820, the tribal people operated independently of outside markets save for imported salts and textiles. When coffee plantations sprung up without regard for the subsistence agriculture and forest ecosystems of the hillsides, ruin fell upon tribal communities. An 1833 British law made it easy for British planters to obtain large tracts of land without rent for the first five years and paying only a nominal fee for the remainder of the lease. These conveniences were not so readily handed out to the native people, which led to the disintegration of the tribal socio-cultural system. About one-third of the tribal people lost their land during the coffee plantation takeover.
By 1833, 9,210 acres were utilized for coffee cultivation, 85 percent of which were owned by British plantation owners; the remaining 15 percent were owned by mostly non-tribal Indians. The tribal economy collapsed, forcing the hill dwellers to become cheap laborers on the very plantations that had uprooted them.
Simultaneously, British planters started taking control of unoccupied forests previously utilized by tribes as common property resources. In order to protect their unauthorized land, the settlers created divisions in the tribal community’s administrative system by hiring the local guru’s nephew and using him “as a weapon to create a dispute over guruship” (CITE). The violence of British officers to close down public paths, slaughter the hill peoples’ cattle, and harass natives until they surrendered their lands are evidence of European coercion, transforming the tribal people from a “position of cultivators to that of agricultural labourers” (Saravanan).
By 1833, 9,210 acres were utilized for coffee cultivation, 85 percent of which were owned by British plantation owners; the remaining 15 percent were owned by mostly non-tribal Indians. The tribal economy collapsed, forcing the hill dwellers to become cheap laborers on the very plantations that had uprooted them.
Simultaneously, British planters started taking control of unoccupied forests previously utilized by tribes as common property resources. In order to protect their unauthorized land, the settlers created divisions in the tribal community’s administrative system by hiring the local guru’s nephew and using him “as a weapon to create a dispute over guruship” (CITE). The violence of British officers to close down public paths, slaughter the hill peoples’ cattle, and harass natives until they surrendered their lands are evidence of European coercion, transforming the tribal people from a “position of cultivators to that of agricultural labourers” (Saravanan).
Works Cited:
Saravanan, Velayutham. “Colonialism and Coffee Plantations: Decline of Environment and Tribals in Madras Presidency during the
Nineteenth Century,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 41.4 (2004): 465-488, accessed March 18, 2015, doi:
10.1177/001946460404100405
Saravanan, Velayutham. “Colonialism and Coffee Plantations: Decline of Environment and Tribals in Madras Presidency during the
Nineteenth Century,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 41.4 (2004): 465-488, accessed March 18, 2015, doi:
10.1177/001946460404100405