History of Early South Indian plantation

The commencement of the European planting industry in South India was with Coffee. The date when Coffee was first introduced into India, probably from Abyssinia or Arabia, is unknown. A popular legend says it was brought from Mecca by a Muslim pilgrim named Baba Budin 1600 to Chikmagalur. The hills on which he planted the seven seeds he brought were named after him. Ukers, in his recently published book on Coffee, states: 'A better authority gives the date as 1695.' He fails, however, to quote his authority, and as it is an authenticated fact that coffee seedlings were taken from Cannanore in 1696 to Kedawoeng in Java and planted in the garden of the Governor-General, William Outchoom, the date 1695 would seem to be too late to fix for the introduction of the plant into India. The first plants introduced into Java were almost immediately afterwards destroyed by floods. The second consignment of coffee plants was made from 'Malabar' to Java by Henricus Zwaardenkroon in 1699. It became the progenitors of all Arabica coffee in the Dutch East Indies.The next mention of Coffee, which I have come across, is in the Letters from Malabar written by the Rev. Jacob Visscher, Chaplain at Cochin, from December 1717 to December 1723. He writes: 'The coffee shrub is planted in gardens for pleasure and yields plenty of fruit, which attains a proper degree of ripeness. But it has not refined taste of the Mocha coffee ... an entire new plantation has been laid out in Ceylon.’ In 1760 Jaoa Alberto Castello Bramo look to Rio Janeiro coffee plants from Goa and thus started the great Coffee industry of Brazil.Although Coffee is mentioned among the imports into Cochin by Adrian Moens in his Administration.

Report of 1781, the total export from Cannanore in 1799 was according to Buchanan in the Diary of his Journey from Madras through Mysore, Canara and Malabar, 'one box’ and in 1800 ‘6 chests and 6 Maunds.

The earliest reference to the planting of an estate, which I have found is contained in a letter written by the Abbe Dubois to Colonel Miller, Resident of Mysore, under date 15th September 1805, which reads as follows: About ten year ago, when I was in Baramahal, Colonel Read, Collector in that part of the Country, undertook to make a large plantation at Trippatur using an American he sent for from the coast and to whom he gave a monthly pay of 25 pagodas, the Plantation I saw many times had thriven well during the first year and promised success, but the manager proving a man without conduct, Colonel Read was soon disgusted by his services and dismissed him. At the same time, having found no one to replace him and perceiving besides that the produce of the kind of cultivation would in no case equal the expenses necessary, in that part of the Country, the had Plantation suffered to perish.

Shortly after this, the East India Company opened an experimental plantation at Anjarakkandy, near Tellicherry under Mr Murdock Brown. They handed it over in 1799. Buchanan mentions the Coffee there in 1800 as doing well but not yet being in bearing.

Coffee was cultivated on the BabaBudin Hill and to be obtained in the Mysore and Bangalore bazaars at the time Seringapatam was taken in 1799. It later became a monopoly of the Mysore Durbar, who took over from the ryot half his crop. In 1833 the Mysore Durbar rented Messrs. Parry & Company its half share for Rs. 4,270 per annum for ten years.

Dr Wallich and Mr Gordon had begun coffee planting in Bengal in 1823. Lord Amherst's Government were anxious to encourage the enterprise. On the 7th May 1824, the Government issued a Resolution as follows:

' As far as judgment can in such cases be formed, limited trial be made, there appears to be abundant reason to conclude that the cultivation of coffee may be successfully prosecuted in this country on an extensive scale and that the article may indeed be produced at a cost considerably below that which the lowest price hitherto known in the market would amply reimburse, while at the same time there is scarcely anything of which the consumption is likely to experience so large as augmentation in the event of any material reduction in price.’

It proceeds to point out the necessity of those undertaking the enterprise having an assured tenure for a considerable period. Although natives might be expected later to take up the work, it was necessary to allow the scope to European enterprise and intelligence in its early stages.

In 1825 Capt. Bevan of the 27th Regiment, E.I.C., Madras Native Infantry, took over the garrison's charge at Manantoddy in North Wynaad and shortly afterwards gave his attention to the introduction of the cultivation of Coffee into the District. A few plants given him by 'Anjarakkandy Brown' throve so well. They proved so productive that he recommended the more general introduction of the plant into Wynaad. Mr W. Sheffield, Collector of Malabar, sent quantities of seed to be distributed among the native inhabitants. However, owing to the want of knowledge as to the cultivation necessary and neglect, that experiment proved a failure. Capt. Bevan writes. However, I extended my Plantation considerably. At the same time, I remained in the station on ascertaining from impartial and good judges (especially Bishop Turner, who had tasted the Coffee) that it possessed the flavour and aroma of the finest Mocha berries.’

The extent of his Plantation was impossible to trace. However, he would certainly seem to have been the pioneer of the industry on the Western Ghats. He left Manantoddy in 1831. Sometime between 1830 and 1840, two members of the firm of Messrs. Parry & Company, passing Manantoddy on their way to the Baba Budin, were so struck with the Coffee they found there, that at their suggestion the 'Few' Estate was opened on the Hill where the forest offices now stand, and before 1840 Messrs. Glasson, Richmond, Morris and others had opened estates nearby.

About 1830, Mr Cocburn is stated to have commenced an estate on the Shevaroys. Major Bevan mentions that in 1839 he met Mr Fischer at Salem, who had acquired several thousand acres to open on those hills.

It is often stated that ‘Tom’ Cannon first opened an estate near Chikmagiilur in 1830. Still, I think the investigation will show that it was some seven or eight years later. The first European to plant Coffee in Mysore was either Mr Jolly of Messrs. Parry & Company or Mr H. Stokes of the Mysore Commission. In his Report, dated 19th May 1838, the latter says: 'I made a small plantation at Shimoga in August, 1835 and it commenced to bear last September.' Incidentally, in the same Report appears the first reference which I have found to bore, it states; 'In very dry seasons many of the trees die and snap off suddenly close to the ground.' In 1843 Fred Green started planting in the Munzerabad District. Two or three years later, Fred Meppen commenced the Yemmay Doddi Estate near Kadur.

In 1840 Dr J Magrath, the Residency Surgeon at Mysore, sent coffee plants from there to Messrs.*Lascelles & Pope on the Nilgiris. They opened the Hardathorai Estate at Kotagiri. About the same time, Mr M. D. Cocburn of the Madras Civil Service opened the Balahardar Estate on the Kotagiri Ghat and, in the following, Bonnahutti, commonly known as Hulical, was commenced.

In 1854 Mr Fowler opened the first estate in Coorg, a few miles from Mercara. In 1855 Mr H. Mann and Donald Stewart opened on the Sampagi Ghat. Mr G. M. Martin, the acting Superintendent of Coorg, in the course of his Report, dated i8th June 1856, mentions that there were only two European planters then in the District, ' whose plantations have not yet come into full bearing.

The first estate opened in the Nelliampathies was Chandramalla’ in the early sixties. ‘Sheirnelly, which still exists as a Rubber Estate, was opened in 1866.

Mr A. W. Turner commenced opening in the Kannan Devan’s in 1879-80, but this brought us down to recent times to turn to tea. In 1832 Dr Christie, a surgeon on the Madras establishment, was placed on special duty to conduct meteorological and geological inquiries in Southern India; in a very short time, he applied for a grant of land in the Nilgiris as he desired to experiment with the culture of tea, Coffee and mulberry and at the same time for the exclusive privilege of making ice for sale in the Presidency. He died in November of that year. Of his tea plants, three tea plants were given to the Commandant of Ootacamund, Colonel Crewe, who put them down in Crewe Hall's garden; others were distributed to various parts of the hills for trial.

The authorities at Kew had as long ago as 1788 urged that the planting of tea should be undertaken in India. In 1834, unaware that the plant was indigenous in Assam, Lord William Bentinck sent a commission to China to obtain seed and expert tea makers; the result w.is the distribution of plants to many parts of Southern India for the experiment. Those on the Nilgiris were planted chiefly at the experimental farm at Ketty, cared for by Colonel and M. Perrottet, a French botanist, and were reported in 1839 to be growing luxuriantly. Still, another fifteen had gone before attempts years were made to grow tea on the Nilgiris on a commercial scale.

Tea was first planted by A.H Sharp in Peermade Penshurst estate in 1875, the same A.H Sharp planted the first tea in Kannan Devan’s at Parvathi Estate in 1883

That they did well elsewhere is shown from the following quotation from Major Bevan. He wrote in 1839: 'Since I left Wynaad, the cultivation of the tea plant has been introduced and with very reasonable prospect of success. However, the discovery of the tea growing wild in Assam renders its culture in Wynaad less important than it would otherwise have been.'

And the Report of General Cullen, Resident of Travancore, who, writing in October 1859, states,” ‘The tree thrives well in Travancore territory, both at the level of the sea and altitudes of 1,800 and 3,200 feet. I first met with it in the coffee plantation of Mr Huxam in 1841, on the route from Quilon to Courtalam, at a factory called Caldoorty, about forty miles inland and six or seven hundred feet above the sea. There are some ten or fifteen trees from 20 to 25 feet high; they were, one believes, introduced during the Government of Mr Lushington, who, I believe, also introduced those formerly at Ketty in the Nilgiris. I procured plants from Mr Huxam and put them down in an experiment spice garden which I established some twelve years ago at 1,800 feet on a hill in the south of Travancore near Oodagherry. They are now trees of 20 to 30 feet high, growing vigorously. I have four hundred plants procured from their seed growing on another hill near the Tinevelly frontier, at an elevation of 3,200 feet.

There can be no doubt, therefore, of the facility of its introduction. However, from the moderate altitude and great atmospheric moisture of the localities hitherto selected, they may be considered to grow more luxuriantly than is desirable; but which, if a defect at all, can probably be easily remedied by selecting ground more to the eastward, at greater altitudes, and with a less humid climate.

The first company to be formed was the * Assam Company, founded in 1859. However, it was not till 1852 that it was proved that tea from India could compete in the London market with that produced in China.

From that date, North India's development was rapid, and in 1868, exports reached 8,000,000 lb. In the. However, very little process was made, although tea planting on a commercial scale was commenced on the Nilgiris in 1853 and taken up in earnest in Ceylon in 1875. Thirty years ago, the area under tea did not probably exceed 3,000 acres on the Nilgiris, one estate of some 25a acres in the Wynaad, 315 acres on the Kannan Devan's, perhaps, 5,000 acres in the rest of Travancore. Of the 116,000 acres in Southern India, at least 105,000 have been planted since 1893.

Until the end of the nineteenth-century, India's rubber cultivation had been little more than experimental in the North trials had been made with Ficus Elastica, in the South with Manihot glaziovii (Ceara), but neither was commercially important. A few trees of the para variety (Hevea Brasiliensis) had been grown at Plantation House, Calicut, and on the Punnur Estate at the Tambradierry Ghat foot. It was not till 1902 that the Periyar Estate at Thattakad in Travancore was opened. Within the next fifteen years, practically all the present area was planted.

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Tea in Assam

In 1826, the British East India Company took over the region from the Ahom kings through the Yandaboo Treaty. In 1837, the first English tea garden was established at Chabua in Upper Assam; in 1840, the Assam Tea Company began the commercial production of tea in the region.

The credit for creating India's vast tea empire goes to the British, who discovered tea in India and cultivated and consumed it in enormous quantities between the early 1800s and India's independence from Great Britain in 1947.

Around 1774, Warren Hastings sent a selection of China seeds to George Bogle, the then British emissary in Bhutan, for planting. But nothing seems to have come of this experiment. In 1776, Sir Joseph Banks, the great English botanist, was asked to prepare a series of notes - and it was his recommendation that tea cultivation be undertaken in India.

In 1780. Robert Kyd experimented with tea cultivation in India with seeds from a consignment stated to have arrived from China. A few decades later. Robert Bruce discovered tea plants growing wild in the Upper Brahmaputra Valley. In May 1823. the first Indian tea from Assam was sent to England for public sale.

Ironically, the native plants flourished, while the Chinese seedlings struggled to survive in the intense Assam heat and it was eventually decided to make subsequent plantings with seedlings from the native tea bush. The first twelve chests of manufactured tea to be made from indigenous Assam leaf were shipped to London in 1838 and were sold at the London auctions. This paved the way for the formation of the 'Bengal Tea Association' in Calcutta and a first joint stock Tea Company, the 'Assam Company' in London. On witnessing its success, other companies were formed to take up the cultivation of tea. Some of the other pioneer companies include George Williamson and the Jorhat Tea Company