A History of the Two Indies

A Translated Selection of Writings from Raynal's Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements des Européens dans les Deux Indes

Peter Jimack

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780754640431
• eBook ISBN: 9781351962384
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

First published in 1770 and running to over one million words, Raynal's Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements des Européens dans les Deux Indes was an immediate bestseller that was to go through numerous editions in various languages. Taking a radical anti-imperialistic stance, the nineteen books that comprised the original work covered the history of European colonisation of India, the East Indies, China, parts of Africa, and the Americas. Much of the success, and subsequent reputation, of the Histoire was based on its attacks on tyranny, slavery and colonial exploitation, and it quickly became one of the basic texts for the humanitarian movement. In this current edition, Peter Jimack has chosen a representative selection of passages from all books of the Histoire that shows the breadth and scope of the work. His translation into English of these from the standard enlarged 1780 edition captures all the vitality and passion of Raynal and his co-authors (including Diderot) and highlights just why this book had such a profound and enduring impact. A helpful and detailed Introduction sets the work in its historical and philosophical context. As well as making available one of the key radical works of the later eighteenth century, this edition reveals much about the impact of foreign countries and cultures on Enlightenment thinking. Dealing with the activities of all the main European colonial powers, France, Spain, Britain, The Netherlands and Portugal, it reveals much about their trading and imperial ventures across the East Indies and Americas, and the effect this was to have on both sides of the Atlantic. As such this edition will prove invaluable for all students and scholars interested in eighteenth-century colonialism, political theory, the history of foreign trade, slavery or Enlightenment philosophy.

Book 1
Discoveries, wars and conquests of the Portuguese in the East Indies

Extract I (Introduction)

Nothing in the history of mankind in general, and of the peoples of Europe in particular, has been so significant as the discovery of the New World and the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope. These events marked the beginning of a revolution in the commerce and the power of nations, and in the way of life, the industry and the government of all peoples. It was from this moment on that the inhabitants of the most far-flung lands were brought closer together by new relationships and new needs. The productions of equatorial climes began to be consumed in polar regions; the manufactures of the North were transported to the South; the fabrics of the Orient became prized luxuries in the West; and everywhere, men exchanged their opinions, their laws, their customs, their sicknesses, their remedies, their virtues and their vices. […]

Extract II (Chapter 8): The society of India: castes and suttee¹

[…] There are several orders of Brahmins. Those who live in society are usually very corrupt. Convinced as they are that the waters of the Ganges cleanse them of all their crimes, and not being subject to any civil jurisdiction, they are without curb and without virtue. They do, however, still have the compassion and the charity which are so common in the gentle climate of India.

The others live away from society; they are feeble-minded men or enthusiasts, given up to idleness, to superstition, and to the delirium of metaphysics. […]

The warrior caste is to be found everywhere, with various names. They are called Nayars in the Malabar: they are well-made and brave, but proud, effeminate and superstitious.² […]

The third caste is that of all those who till the soil. There are few countries where they are more deserving of the gratitude of their fellow citizens. They are industrious and enterprising; they understand well the secrets of irrigation, and know how to give the burning land they inhabit the maximum possible fertility. They are in India what they would be everywhere, the most honest and virtuous of men, when they are neither corrupted nor oppressed by government. […]

The artisan caste is subdivided into as many classes as there are trades. It is forbidden ever to abandon the occupation of one’s parents. That is why industry and enslavement have always gone hand-in-hand there, so that the arts have developed no further than the stage that can be attained without the aid of taste and imagination, which can arise only from competition and liberty. […]

In addition to these castes, there is a fifth one which is the reject of all the others. It is made up of those who carry out the meanest offices of society. They bury the dead and they carry away the refuse; they eat the meat of animals that die natural deaths. They are not allowed into temples or public markets. They are forbidden the use of communal wells. Their dwellings are on the very edge of towns or make up isolated hamlets in the country; and they are not even permitted to appear in the streets where Brahmins reside. Like all Indians, they may engage in agricultural labour, but only working for other castes; and they never possess any land, either as owners or even as leaseholders. They inspire such horror that if one of them chanced to touch a member of another caste, he would without fear of punishment be deprived of a life deemed too abject to deserve the protection of the laws.

Such is the fate, even in lands where ideas have been somewhat changed by foreign dominion, of those unfortunates known on the Coromandel coast as Pariahs. Their degradation is even more complete along the Malabar coast, which has not been subjugated by the Moguls, and where they are called Pouliats.

Most of them are employed in the growing of rice. Near the fields that they work is a kind of hut. They take refuge there when distant shouts inform them of an order from the person by whom they are employed, to which they reply without coming out. They take the same precaution if some noise warns them of the approach of anyone at all. If they do not have time to hide, they prostrate themselves on the ground, with all the humility produced in them by the consciousness of their ignominy. If the harvest is not good enough to satisfy the greed of an oppressive master, the monster sometimes sets fire to the shacks of these unhappy labourers; and when they try to escape from the flames, which happens rarely, he fires upon them pitilessly.

Everything in the condition of these unhappy people is horrible, even to the way in which they are forced to provide for their most urgent needs. At nightfall, various groups of them come out from their lairs, go towards the market, and bellow from some way off. The tradespeople come along, and the Pouliats ask for what they need. It is provided, and put in the place where the money for payment has already been deposited. When the buyers can be sure that no-one will see them, they come out from behind the hedge which was hiding them from sight, and hurriedly take away what they have obtained in such a singular way.

Yet it is said that these Pouliats, eternal object of the contempt of the other castes, have driven from among them the Poulichis,³ who are even more degraded. The use of fire is forbidden them. They are not allowed to build huts, and they are reduced to living in kinds of nests in the forests and up in the trees. When they are hungry, they howl like animals to arouse the compassion of passers-by. Then the more charitable Indians put down rice or some other food, and withdraw as quickly as possible, so that the starving wretch can come and pick it up without meeting his benefactor, who would believe himself sullied by such an approach. […]

Europeans who have lived with these unfortunates as one should live with men have therefore ended up inspiring in other Indians almost as great a horror. Even today, this horror still survives in the interior, where isolation nourishes deep-rooted prejudices; these gradually disappear near the coast, where trade and need bring all men together, and lead inevitably to more just ideas of human nature.

All the castes are irrevocably separated by insurmountable barriers: they may neither intermarry, nor live or eat together. Whosoever violates this rule is driven out of the caste he has disgraced. […]

However attached all living creatures may be to their own preservation, it is with a certain pride that Indian widows decide to sacrifice their lives. If they refused, they would be disgraced, dressed in rags, given the meanest of employments, and be despised by the most abject of slaves. These factors may well count for something in their resolve; but their principal motivation is the fear of leaving behind a hated memory, and of bringing infamy upon their children, whom they cherish with a love that our numb hearts have never experienced.

Fortunately these horrible scenes are becoming less and less frequent. They are never tolerated by the Europeans in the territories over which they hold sway. They have also been banned in the provinces of some Moorish princes.⁴ Those among the latter whose lust for gold has led them to continue tolerating such practices have put such a high price on the permission that it is rarely obtained. But this very difficulty sometimes makes women even more determined. Some submit themselves to the roughest and most humiliating kinds of labour over a long period in order to earn the amount needed for this bizarre suicide.

The widow of a Brahmin, young, beautiful and personable, wanted to repeat these tragic scenes in Surat. All her entreaties were refused. Indignantly, the woman seized a handful of burning coals, and appearing indifferent to the pain, said to the Nabob in a steady voice: ‘Do not consider merely the weakness of my age and my sex. See with what insensibility I am holding this fire in my hands. Know that it will be with the same steadfastness that I shall fling myself into the flames.’⁵

Truth, falsehood, shame, all kinds of civil or religious prejudices, can thus exalt man to the contempt of life, the greatest of blessings, of death, the greatest of terrors, and of pain, the greatest of ills. Short-sighted lawgivers, how is it that you have not managed to identify this powerful incentive? Or if you have, why have you not managed to avail yourselves of it to attach us to all our duties? What fathers, what children, what friends, what citizens could you not have made of us, merely by the meting out of honour and shame? If in the Malabar country fear of contempt can thrust a young woman into a blazing inferno, in what part of the world could it not induce a mother to suckle her baby herself, and a wife to remain faithful to her husband?

Apart from this kind of courage, which is founded rather on prejudices than on character, Indians are weak, mild and compassionate. They are scarcely aware of many of the passions which stir us. How should men destined to remain always in the same state have any ambition? The repeated practices of their religion are the only pleasure that exists for most of them. What they enjoy is gentle labour and idleness. They often repeat this quotation from one of their favourite writers: ‘It is better to sit still than to walk; it is better to sleep than to be awake; but death is above all else.’⁶ […]

Extract III (Chapters 9 and 0): The Portuguese in India and the capture of Goa

It is impossible to describe the joy in Lisbon that greeted Gama’s return.⁷ The Portuguese saw the most lucrative commerce in the world within their grasp. Dominated in equal measure by religious fanaticism and greed, they imagined that they could at the same time propagate their religion, by persuasion, and even by force of arms. The Popes, who never let fall an opportunity to demonstrate that they are masters of the earth, granted Portugal possession of all its future discoveries in the East,⁸ inspiring that small nation with all the folly of conquests.

Crowds of people came forward to board the vessels now preparing to sail to India. Thirteen ships under the command of Álvares Cabral left the Tagus and arrived at Calicut,⁹ restoring to the Zamorin¹⁰ some of his subjects who had been carried off by Gama. These Indians were full of praise for the treatment they had received, but this did not leave the Zamorin reconciled to the Portuguese for long. The Muslims prevailed. The people of Calicut, led astray by their intrigues, massacred some fifty of the Europeans. To avenge them, Cabral burned all the Arab ships in the harbour, bombarded the town, and then sailed first to Cochin and then to Cannanore.

The kings of these two towns gave him spices, offered him gold and silver, and proposed an alliance against the Zamorin, to whom they were tributaries. The kings of Onor¹¹ and Quilon and several other rulers subsequently made similar approaches. They all flattered themselves that they would be released from the tribute they paid to the Zamorin, that the frontiers of their dominions would be extended, and that their harbours would be overflowing with the spoils of Asia. As a result of this general infatuation, the Portuguese acquired such an ascendancy throughout the Malabar coast that they had only to appear for their word to become law. No ruler became their ally without recognizing himself a vassal of the Court of Lisbon, without allowing a citadel to be built in his capital, and without selling his merchandise at a price fixed by the purchaser. The foreign trader could only make up his cargo after the Portuguese; and no-one could sail these seas without their official permit. The battles they were forced to fight barely interfered with their trading. A mere few of them would rout large armies. Their enemies found them everywhere, and everywhere they fled before them. Soon the ships of the Moors¹² and of the Zamorin and his vassals no longer dared show themselves.

Having become the conquerors of the Orient, the Portuguese sent a succession of rich cargoes back to their own country, where news of their exploits was on everyone’s lips. Gradually the traders of every country in Europe learned the way to the port of Lisbon. There they bought goods from India, because the Portuguese, who brought them from there directly, offered them at a lower rate than the merchants of other nations.

To secure these advantages, to extend them still more, reflexion was necessary to correct or strengthen what had been until then only the result of chance, of brilliant intrepidity, or of a happy concurrence of circumstances. What was needed was a system of trade and dominion sufficiently far-reaching to be all-inclusive, but at the same time so well constructed that all parts of the great edifice that it was proposed to establish would strengthen one another. Although the Court of Lisbon had found instructive the accounts it received from India, and the testimony of those who had until then been entrusted with its interests there, it had the wisdom to place all its confidence in Afonso de Albuquerque, the most discerning of the Portuguese who had travelled to Asia.¹³

The new Viceroy acquitted himself even beyond expectation. He realized that Portugal needed a settlement which was easy to defend and had a good harbour, and one where wholesome air would permit the Portuguese, exhausted after the voyage from Europe to India, to recover their strength. He realized that Lisbon needed Goa.¹⁴ […]

Although Goa was less important than it became subsequently, it was seen as the most advantageous station in India. It belonged to the king of the Deccan; but Adil Khan,¹⁵ to whom he had entrusted it, had made himself independent and was seeking to extend his rule in Malabar. While this usurper was occupied elsewhere on the mainland, Albuquerque presented himself before the gates of Goa, stormed them, and won this great prize with small loss.

Once he learned of the misfortune that had just befallen him, Adil Khan did not hesitate as to what measures he should take. Managing to ally himself even with the Hindus, who were his enemies but whose interests were at stake almost as much as his own, he marched on his capital with a swiftness previously unheard of in his country. The Portuguese, their conquest not yet well consolidated, realized they could not stay there; they withdrew to their ships, which stayed in the harbour, and they sent for reinforcements to Cochin. While they were waiting for them, they ran short of provisions. Adil Khan offered them a supply, and sent word that ‘it was by arms and not by hunger that he sought victory’. It was at that time customary in wars in India for armies to let through food supplies for their enemies. Albuquerque refused the offer, and replied that ‘he would only accept presents from Adil Khan when they were friends’. He was still awaiting help, which did not arrive.

This disappointment persuaded him to withdraw and to defer the execution of his cherished project to a more propitious moment, which circumstances were to present to him only a few months later.¹⁶ Adil having been ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Book 1 Discoveries, wars and conquests of the Portuguese in the East Indies
• Book 2 Settlements, wars, policies and commerce of the Dutch in the East Indies
• Book 3 Settlements, trade and conquests of the English in the East Indies
• Book 4 Voyages, settlements, wars and commerce of the French in the East Indies
• Book 5 Commerce of Denmark, Ostend, Sweden, Prussia, Spain and Russia in the East Indies. Important questions concerning links between Europe and the Indies
• Book 6 The discovery of America. The conquest of Mexico. Spanish settlements in this part of the New World
• Book 7 The Spanish conquest of Peru. Changes in this empire since it acquired new rulers
• Book 8 The Spanish conquest of Chile and Paraguay. Events accompanying and following the invasion. Principles on which Spain organizes its colonies
• Book 9 The Portuguese settle in Brazil. Wars they waged there. Products and wealth of this colony
• Book 10 The European nations become established in the great American archipelago
• Book 11 The Europeans go into Africa to buy men to cultivate the plantations of the West Indies. Conduct of this trade. What is produced by the labour of the slaves
• Book 12 Settlements of the Spanish, the Dutch and the Danes in the American islands
• Book 13 French settlements in the American islands
• Book 14 British settlements in the American islands
• Book 15 French settlements in North America. On what was their hope of prosperity based? What was the result of these projects?
• Book 16 A new order is established in the French colonies of North America. What is the result of these new projects?
• Book 17 The British colonies in the territories of Hudson Bay, Canada, Île Saint-Jean, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New England, New York and New Jersey
• Book 18 The British colonies founded in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Carolina, Georgia and Florida. General reflections on all these settlements
• Book 19 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index