Tracing the history of colonial powers in Tamil land through charts, maps

The arrival of the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, English, and French to the Tamil coast and the history of cartography have been explored to a limited extent. Forts and buildings were erected in the White Town of the European settlements, which was separated from the Black Town with well demarcated boundaries. The European overseas commercial expansion led to the preparation of coastal charts and maps. The hydrographical, geographical and cartographical knowledge of the Tamil coast and the hinterland obtained by the European traders and missionaries has not yet received adequate attention in historical research.

Map, as a depiction on a piece of paper of different types of physical spaces calculated to scale, had emerged in the age of expanding European commerce on the Tamil coast. The westerners carved up a vast region of the Tamil country on maps by drawing a straight line across the terrain they had seen. They prepared coastal charts featuring sensitive information. Hence, they never wanted them to fall into the hands of rival trading companies. These charts had marked the depth of water or dangers that lurked below the surface at high or low tide. They largely helped the sea-captains and the pilots.

Phases and styles

The Europeans developed a more sophisticated system of obtaining the primary geographic knowledge of the Tamil coast and they played a significant role in preparing and publishing numerous maps. We need to examine the phases and styles of making maps, the changes in technology, and the ways in which geography was studied.

With the Portuguese colonisation, the sailors at first prepared maps, laying stress on demonstrating the alternative methods of sailing safely, depending on the weather conditions. They prepared maps mainly for space and direction. The audience in Europe came to know of the Tamil region and the Christian missions. Maps enabled the missionaries to reach their destinations on land. In this process, there developed transmission and exchange of geographical knowledge between the Tamil coast and the Atlantic region, leading to the sophisticated cartographic system. This graphic representation that facilitated spatial understanding of things, concepts, and processes in the trading world led to mathematical constructions, culminating in the ‘scale’ maps of the modern age.

The map of the Portuguese colony of Devanampattinam (1607), the Nagapattinam maps (1635-58), the Santhome of Mylapore maps (1635-87), and the topographical map of Santhome of Mylapore in 1749 are found at the Centre for History and Old Cartography in Lisbon, Portugal. 

The maps of Fort Dansborg in Tranquebar (1669-71) are found in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark. Christoph Theodosius Walther, the Lutheran missionary at Tranquebar in 1734, was engaged in fixing the latitude and longitude of places in the Tamil country. He supplied geographical information for map-making in Denmark and Germany (1729-45). The maps and plans of the Dutch trading factories of Pulicat, Nagapattinam, Sadurangapattinam, Porto Novo, and Punnaikayal are found in the Overseas Collection of Maps at the National Archives, The Hague in the Netherlands.

The French collection

The plans and maps of Pondicherry (1701-1789) are preserved at the Overseas Archival Centre at Aix-en-Provence in France. The Carnatic wars and the Anglo-French struggle for power during 1746 and 1761 led the French geographic engineers to prepare the maps of places, sieges, battles, and wars. The French collection of the maps and plans of Pondicherry and Karaikal, besides many places in Tamil countryside, is significant. These have been preserved in Aix-en-Provence. Some of the plans and maps are also stored at the zonal office of the National Archives of India in Puducherry.

The English East India Company in Madras employed draughtsmen and map-makers, who drew the plans of Madras, and the battles, the wars, and the military maps in the Carnatic region (1745-81). The land revenue surveys made by the British in the Tamil country led to systematic mapping (1767-1857). The various charts, views, plans, and diagrams of the Tamil coast, prepared between 1798 and 1802, are found in the collection of Alexander Dalrymple at the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth.

The collection of maps and plans at the Tamil Nadu State Archives, Chennai, is very significant because they remain unused and under-utilised. Their digitalisation is a mile stone in the preservation of archival records. Recently, 1,862 maps of forts, armouries, granaries, mints, and treasuries — selected from the Tamil Nadu State Archives — have been uploaded on Tamil Digital Library (https://shorturl.at/oq3uy). These maps will be the invaluable resources for the historians researching the colonial period and for future excavations.

State of change

The study of colonial history is in a perpetual state of change, with new fields of research unfolding. It has been guided by facets of human life that was influenced by maritime trade and commerce by the East India Companies, missionary expansion, military and territorial expansion, revenue collection, and science and technology. Using maps and charts, we can understand how colonialism played its own role. It is hoped that this and other new perspectives of colonial history will continue to come into sharp focus in the distant future.

(The writer is an independent researcher and author.)

Published – September 12, 2025 06:15 am IST