The Portuguese Working Under the English East India Company at Fort St. George Madras in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

This article mainly emphases with the Portuguese migrants at Fort St. George Madras and the policy of the English in containing the problem posed by the migration. Moreover, it also points out the reasons for the growth of Fort St. George Madras, particularly after the fall of San Thome and Nagapattinam and the attendant English response to the Portuguese migrants in Fort St. George Madras. For instance, the English encouraged and welcome the Portuguese migrants to settle in Fort St. George Madras, because the latter were proficient in trade owing to their familiarity with the region and local vernacular.  The Portuguese were already settled in the sixteenth century before the English arrived.  They knew the local language and all usual ways of expediting business in the region; they were ideal supervisors, as soldiers, as translators, as brokers, in fact as intermediaries for all the range of activities that are useful in establishing and operating a fortified trading post in the midst of a strange landscape. They were indispensible for the newly arrived English Company to establish a trading post. The English skilfully took advantage of these settlers that culminate as one of the success to foothold as a major competitor post in the century to come.