CRAZY STAR:
Americans in India in the Late 18th Century
Most Americans who went to India right before and just after the Revolution were in one way or another in the employ of the EIC. There weren’t a lot of job opportunities otherwise. In order to protect the Company’s monopoly on trade with the Far East, colonists were forbidden by English law to trade directly with India (although I found a few hints that Americans were doing under-the-counter deals in India with ships flying European flags). But once we gained independence from Britain, it took us about 5 minutes–seriously, less than a month–for our first merchant ship to make waves. On February 22, 1784, the aptly named Empress of China (captained by John Green) sailed from New York bound for China. It was a kind of test run, to see if we could feasibly do business in the Far East to extricate ourselves from economic dependence of the 800-pound gorilla, the EIC.
A few Americans actually traveled to India in the late 18th century. One of the earliest names I unearthed was Boston-born David Ochterlony, who in 1777 enlisted as a cadet in the army of the British East India Company (EIC). He distinguished himself in a number of battles and quickly moved up through the ranks, finally ending up as the “resident” or administrative chief of Delhi in 1816. Outwardly he was a hard-working Company man, but in private Ochterlony “went native”: he dressed in Indian clothes, smoked a hookah, and each evening went out for a ride on his elephant–trailed by his 13 “wives,” each perched on her own pachyderm. It’s no wonder he earned the nickname Loony Akhtar, or “Crazy Star.”
Then there was Massachusetts native John Parker Boyd, who took a slightly different route. In 1786, he packed off to India and set up shop as a soldier of fortune. With English sponsorship, he organized a small army of mercenaries that found plenty of work in the endless dust-ups between Indian rulers. Parker sold his “business” in 1806, returned to the US and joined the regular army as a colonel. In 1811, he saw action under General WH Harrison at the famous battle of Tippecanoe, was promoted to brigadier general in 1812, and eventually was appointed naval officer for the port of Boston, a post he held until his death.
But my favorite early-American-in-India story involves New Yorker William Duane, who trained as a printer in Ireland and went to Calcutta in 1787 to work in the EIC’s Revenue Department. In 1791 he began publishing a newspaper, The Indian World. Much to the chagrin of his employers, Duane’s editorial policy bluntly declared that “all subjects whatever” were fair game for discussion. The EIC, which at that time was for all intents and purposes the government of India, wasn’t too keen about the prospect of someone hanging out its dirty laundry for everyone to see. It kept a close eye on Duane, waiting for an excuse to pounce; finally in 1794, he printed something about a local Indian official the Company found shockingly “offensive and injurious.” After some legal wrangling, Duane was arrested, his sizeable property confiscated without a trial, and summarily deported to merry old England.
Though he never got back to India and should rightfully pass beyond our radar, I have to finish Duane’s story. You might think he learned a valuable lesson from his Indian experience, but no, he was a dyed-in-the-wool rabble-rouser who couldn’t stay out of hot water. In 1798 Duane moved to Philadelphia where he signed on with the Aurora General Advertiser, run by Benjamin Franklin Bache, old Ben Franklin’s favorite grandson. Though it was indeed chock-full of advertising, the Aurora was also one of the most important US political journals of the 1790s. Bache, nicknamed “Lightening Rod Junior,” was a militant anti-Federalist who had absolutely nothing nice to say about either of our first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams. His attacks on the latter, who was notoriously foul-tempered, got him arrested for sedition, but he died of yellow fever before he was brought to trial.
The paper passed to Duane–apparently he inherited the business after marrying Bache’s widow–and he didn’t miss a beat. He continued the print assault on Adams, first accusing him of being a British puppet, then trying to rig the 1800 presidential election. In the proud tradition of his late boss, Duane was also charged with sedition by making “false, scandalous, defamatory, and malicious assertions,” and hauled in to face the government’s music. The President of the Senate, the Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, was nice enough to let his political-party mate and editorial mouthpiece Duane go see his lawyer. Whereupon Duane skipped town and hid out until pardoned by the new president, the aforementioned Jefferson.
Most Americans who went to India right before and just after the Revolution were in one way or another in the employ of the EIC. There weren’t a lot of job opportunities otherwise. In order to protect the Company’s monopoly on trade with the Far East, colonists were forbidden by English law to trade directly with India (although I found a few hints that Americans were doing under-the-counter deals in India with ships flying European flags). But once we gained independence from Britain, it took us about 5 minutes–seriously, less than a month–for our first merchant ship to make waves. On February 22, 1784, the aptly named Empress of China (captained by John Green) sailed from New York bound for China. It was a kind of test run, to see if we could feasibly do business in the Far East to extricate ourselves from economic dependence of the 800-pound gorilla, the EIC.
A few Americans actually traveled to India in the late 18th century. One of the earliest names I unearthed was Boston-born David Ochterlony, who in 1777 enlisted as a cadet in the army of the British East India Company (EIC). He distinguished himself in a number of battles and quickly moved up through the ranks, finally ending up as the “resident” or administrative chief of Delhi in 1816. Outwardly he was a hard-working Company man, but in private Ochterlony “went native”: he dressed in Indian clothes, smoked a hookah, and each evening went out for a ride on his elephant–trailed by his 13 “wives,” each perched on her own pachyderm. It’s no wonder he earned the nickname Loony Akhtar, or “Crazy Star.”
Then there was Massachusetts native John Parker Boyd, who took a slightly different route. In 1786, he packed off to India and set up shop as a soldier of fortune. With English sponsorship, he organized a small army of mercenaries that found plenty of work in the endless dust-ups between Indian rulers. Parker sold his “business” in 1806, returned to the US and joined the regular army as a colonel. In 1811, he saw action under General WH Harrison at the famous battle of Tippecanoe, was promoted to brigadier general in 1812, and eventually was appointed naval officer for the port of Boston, a post he held until his death.
But my favorite early-American-in-India story involves New Yorker William Duane, who trained as a printer in Ireland and went to Calcutta in 1787 to work in the EIC’s Revenue Department. In 1791 he began publishing a newspaper, The Indian World. Much to the chagrin of his employers, Duane’s editorial policy bluntly declared that “all subjects whatever” were fair game for discussion. The EIC, which at that time was for all intents and purposes the government of India, wasn’t too keen about the prospect of someone hanging out its dirty laundry for everyone to see. It kept a close eye on Duane, waiting for an excuse to pounce; finally in 1794, he printed something about a local Indian official the Company found shockingly “offensive and injurious.” After some legal wrangling, Duane was arrested, his sizeable property confiscated without a trial, and summarily deported to merry old England.
Though he never got back to India and should rightfully pass beyond our radar, I have to finish Duane’s story. You might think he learned a valuable lesson from his Indian experience, but no, he was a dyed-in-the-wool rabble-rouser who couldn’t stay out of hot water. In 1798 Duane moved to Philadelphia where he signed on with the Aurora General Advertiser, run by Benjamin Franklin Bache, old Ben Franklin’s favorite grandson. Though it was indeed chock-full of advertising, the Aurora was also one of the most important US political journals of the 1790s. Bache, nicknamed “Lightening Rod Junior,” was a militant anti-Federalist who had absolutely nothing nice to say about either of our first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams. His attacks on the latter, who was notoriously foul-tempered, got him arrested for sedition, but he died of yellow fever before he was brought to trial.
The paper passed to Duane–apparently he inherited the business after marrying Bache’s widow–and he didn’t miss a beat. He continued the print assault on Adams, first accusing him of being a British puppet, then trying to rig the 1800 presidential election. In the proud tradition of his late boss, Duane was also charged with sedition by making “false, scandalous, defamatory, and malicious assertions,” and hauled in to face the government’s music. The President of the Senate, the Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, was nice enough to let his political-party mate and editorial mouthpiece Duane go see his lawyer. Whereupon Duane skipped town and hid out until pardoned by the new president, the aforementioned Jefferson.
