Chapter V / Osterley Walk
Osterley at Madras: I
In the early 1700s, Francis Child’s sons Robert Child and Francis Child II were directors of what had then become the British East India Company.24
The age of colonial extraction and exploitation dawned, with the Company helming fleets of trading ships called the East Indiamen. They were responsible for ferrying several colonial goods and slaves, voyaging between England and China and Benkulen in the east, St. Helena in the west and the Company’s three presidencies in the Indian Ocean region: Bombay, Bengal and Madras. The ships were often used by its sailors and the Company men as vessels for private trade and corruption.
In 1759, Osterley I - an East Indiaman ship co-owned by Francis Child III - set out on the first of its four voyages.25 At the same time, Madras had been besieged by French forces after the capture of Fort St. George. The Siege of Madras was the result of a thirteen year long war in the port-city between the British and French, ending with a victory for Britain that contributed to the Annus Mirabilis of 1759.26 But over the course of the war, Black Town in Madras was razed down by the French and rebuilt by the British with improved surveillance to prevent further attacks.
The following year, Osterley I arrived on the shores of Madras for the first time. The ship was entrusted with carrying porcelain, tea and lacquerware brought from imperial China; redwood, ivory and cotton from the Indian subcontinent, silk and cotton textiles from both and pepper from Bencoolen. It also carried foreign silver into China to receive shipments of porcelain in return27 and this trade of silver represented one of the many maritime connections between the imperial projects in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Between the 1500s and the 1700s, on the other side of the world, large amounts of silver had been extracted from mines in the Americas that were built upon the slavery of Andean peoples and Africans by the Spanish Empire. Close to 40% of the silver produced in these mines found their way to China, where the metal was used as currency in exchange for exports of their goods.28
Play the next audio at the location for Chapter VI pinned on the map.
24 Natwest Group Heritage Hub. “Francis Child II”. Accessed August 30, 2024. https://www.natwestgroup.com/heritage/people/francis-child-ii.html
Sharma, Yuthika et.al. op.cit. Pg. 15-18.
25 Ibid. pg. 24-25.
26 Forrest, G. W. “The Siege of Madras in 1746 and the Action of La Bourdonnais.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 2 (1908): 189–234. https://doi.org/10.2307/3678377
27 Sharma, Yuthika et.al. op.cit. Pg. 24-25.
28 Bowen, H. V. “Methods: The Management of Trade.” Chapter. In The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756–1833, 219–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pg. 223-225.
“China and Europe: 1500-1800: The Silver Trade, Part 1”. Columbia University Asia for Educators. Accessed Jun 10, 2024. https://afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/s5/s5_4.html
Flynn, Dennis O., and Arturo Giráldez. "Born with a ‘silver spoon’: The origin of world trade in 1571." In Metals and monies in an emerging global economy, pp. 259-279. Routledge, 2022.