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SUMMARY:British Constructions of Indigenous Piracy in the Eastern Arabian 
 Sea - Derek L. Elliott\, Peterhouse
DTSTART:20101117T120000Z
DTEND:20101117T130000Z
UID:TALK28593@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:21733
DESCRIPTION:Through their hereditary title of surkhail\, or admiral\, of t
 he Maratha state\, the Angria challenged effectively and menacingly\, Euro
 pean and Mughal claims to sovereignty along the Konkan littoral and the wa
 ters surrounding Bombay from the period c. 1690 to 1756. Considered pirate
 s by early English East India Company (EIC) chroniclers\, later historians
  of the colonial period carried forward these misconceptions and added to 
 them\, a viewpoint that most historians of our period have uncritically ad
 opted. What has occurred is the creation of a distorted historiography tha
 t delves much deeper than polemics on who or what constitutes a pirate. Mo
 re importantly\, it has led to an erroneous understanding of how political
  sovereignty was articulated in the maritime areas of northwestern India. 
 Despite a wealth of contrary archival evidence pertaining to the EIC and t
 he Angrias\, the old historiography continues to persist. My paper will tr
 ace the historiography of the Angrias beginning in the earliest periods th
 rough to the present day. In doing so\, not only will the fallacy of relyi
 ng on a few select biased accounts will be demonstrated\, but I will shed 
 light on the reality of the complex and inter-related political contestati
 ons that took place in the region. In this manner a more nuanced and thoug
 htful approach to indigenous Indian polities will be undertaken that enabl
 es a better understanding of the rise of the EIC as the eventual ruler of 
 the subcontinent.
LOCATION:Walter's Room\, Selwyn College
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