SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Untold Cochin: Dutch Colonialism in Malabar (1750-1830)

Using the archives of the Dutch East India Company housed in the Tamil Nadu State Archives, Chennai and the Nationaal Archief at The Hague, and the records of the English East India Company in the Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai and the British Library, London, I have studied Dutch overseas social history in the context of South Asia, specially Cochin, Kerala.

This work is the first ever study of Dutch social interaction and colonialism in South Asia. It illustrates how a Dutch community grew roots in Malabar through intense miscegenation and the acquisition of land. Prior to this the Dutch were considered as merchants in India and the British and Portuguese studied as colonizers. This work offers a correction to such historiography. In this lecture I hope to share with you the untold story of a small Dutch community and their changing lives in the late eighteenth century South Asia as British expansion overtook large parts of the sub-continent and brought the region under colonial rule.