Searching for the Indian in the English East India Company Archives: The Case of Jadow the Broker and Early Seventeenth-Century Anglo-Mughal Trade

The East India Company, one of the earliest joint-stock enterprises, helped revolutionize English economic structures. Although recent years have seen a surge of interest in its early history, the native traders and translators who formed the front lines of the East India Company’s operations — acqu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal for early modern cultural studies 2017-07, Vol.17 (3), p.37-58
Main Author: SEN, AMRITA
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
17th century
Alliances
Archives & records
Brokers
Business operations
Circuits
Collaboration
Companies
Cooperation
Courts
Economic history
Economics
English language
Epistemology
ESSAYS
Gossip
Indian culture
Indian English
International trade
Interpreters
Merchant relations
Merchants
Respondents
Roe, Thomas
Social structure
Social systems
Stereotypes
Trade relations
Translation
Translators
Transnationalism
Well being
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Summary:The East India Company, one of the earliest joint-stock enterprises, helped revolutionize English economic structures. Although recent years have seen a surge of interest in its early history, the native traders and translators who formed the front lines of the East India Company’s operations — acquainting the English merchants with mercantile and social systems in Mughal India — often escape scholarly attention. Turning to Company court minutes, the letters of Sir Thomas Roe, and other public as well as private records, this paper explores the circuits of knowledge that were established between the English merchants and their Indian associates. As local informants, they aided in the Western construction of an Indian imaginary that often went beyond older epistemic stereotypes of Asians. Simultaneously, the Company became responsible for the well-being of these Indians. The complex relationships between Indian brokers, translators, and the Company suggest how gossip, trade, and translation became interrelated categories. In particular, this essay follows the East India Company’s exchanges with Jadow, one of the very first Indian brokers to work with the Company. These Anglo-Mughal encounters allow us to better understand the circuits of collaboration and conflict that marked the inaugural years of the Company’s activities in the Indian subcontinent.
ISSN:1531-0485
1553-3786
1553-3786
DOI:10.1353/jem.2017.0017