The arrival of the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, English, and French to the Tamil coast and the historical past of cartography have been explored to a restricted extent. Forts and buildings had been erected within the White City of the European settlements, which was separated from the Black City with properly demarcated boundaries. The European abroad business growth led to the preparation of coastal charts and maps. The hydrographical, geographical and cartographical data of the Tamil coast and the hinterland obtained by the European merchants and missionaries has not but acquired enough consideration in historic analysis.
Map, as an outline on a bit of paper of various kinds of bodily areas calculated to scale, had emerged within the age of increasing European commerce on the Tamil coast. The westerners carved up an unlimited area of the Tamil nation on maps by drawing a straight line throughout the terrain that they had seen. They ready coastal charts that includes delicate data. Therefore, they by no means needed them to fall into the arms of rival buying and selling corporations. These charts had marked the depth of water or risks that lurked beneath the floor at excessive or low tide. They largely helped the sea-captains and the pilots.
Phases and kinds
The Europeans developed a extra subtle system of acquiring the first geographic data of the Tamil coast they usually performed a big function in getting ready and publishing quite a few maps. We have to look at the phases and kinds of constructing maps, the modifications in know-how, and the methods by which geography was studied.
With the Portuguese colonisation, the sailors at first ready maps, laying stress on demonstrating the choice strategies of crusing safely, relying on the climate circumstances. They ready maps primarily for area and path. The viewers in Europe got here to know of the Tamil area and the Christian missions. Maps enabled the missionaries to succeed in their locations on land. On this course of, there developed transmission and trade of geographical data between the Tamil coast and the Atlantic area, resulting in the delicate cartographic system. This graphic illustration that facilitated spatial understanding of issues, ideas, and processes within the buying and selling world led to mathematical constructions, culminating within the ‘scale’ maps of the fashionable 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 discovered on the Centre for Historical past and Outdated Cartography in Lisbon, Portugal.
The maps of Fort Dansborg in Tranquebar (1669-71) are discovered within the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark. Christoph Theodosius Walther, the Lutheran missionary at Tranquebar in 1734, was engaged in fixing the latitude and longitude of locations within the Tamil nation. He provided geographical data for map-making in Denmark and Germany (1729-45). The maps and plans of the Dutch buying and selling factories of Pulicat, Nagapattinam, Sadurangapattinam, Porto Novo, and Punnaikayal are discovered within the Abroad Assortment of Maps on the Nationwide Archives, The Hague within the Netherlands.
The French assortment
The plans and maps of Pondicherry (1701-1789) are preserved on the Abroad Archival Centre at Aix-en-Provence in France. The Carnatic wars and the Anglo-French battle for energy throughout 1746 and 1761 led the French geographic engineers to arrange the maps of locations, sieges, battles, and wars. The French assortment of the maps and plans of Pondicherry and Karaikal, apart from many locations in Tamil countryside, is critical. These have been preserved in Aix-en-Provence. A few of the plans and maps are additionally saved on the zonal workplace of the Nationwide Archives of India in Puducherry.
The English East India Firm in Madras employed draughtsmen and map-makers, who drew the plans of Madras, and the battles, the wars, and the navy maps within the Carnatic area (1745-81). The land income surveys made by the British within the Tamil nation led to systematic mapping (1767-1857). The varied charts, views, plans, and diagrams of the Tamil coast, ready between 1798 and 1802, are discovered within the assortment of Alexander Dalrymple on the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth.
The gathering of maps and plans on the Tamil Nadu State Archives, Chennai, could be very vital as a result of they continue to be unused and under-utilised. Their digitalisation is a mile stone within the preservation of archival information. Just lately, 1,862 maps of forts, armouries, granaries, mints, and treasuries — chosen from the Tamil Nadu State Archives — have been uploaded on Tamil Digital Library (https://shorturl.at/oq3uy). These maps would be the invaluable assets for the historians researching the colonial interval and for future excavations.
State of change
The research of colonial historical past is in a perpetual state of change, with new fields of analysis unfolding. It has been guided by aspects of human life that was influenced by maritime commerce and commerce by the East India Corporations, missionary growth, navy and territorial growth, income assortment, and science and know-how. Utilizing maps and charts, we are able to perceive how colonialism performed its personal function. It’s hoped that this and different new views of colonial historical past will proceed to come back into sharp focus within the distant future.
(The author is an impartial researcher and writer.)
Revealed – September 12, 2025 06:15 am IST
