The arrival of the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, English and French to the Tamil -coast and the history of cartography have been investigated to a limited extent. Forts and buildings were founded in the white city of the European settlements, which was separated from the black city with well -defined boundaries. The European overseas commercial expansion led to the preparation of coastal charts and maps. The hydrographic, geographical and cartographic knowledge of the Tamil -coast and the hinterland obtained by European traders and missionaries has not yet received sufficient attention in historical research.
Map, calculated as an image on a piece of paper of different types of physical spaces to scale, had emerged in the era of the expansion of European trade on the Tamilkust. The Westerners have cut a huge region of the Tamil land on maps by pulling a straight line over the site they had seen. They prepared coastal charts with sensitive information. That is why they never wanted them to fall into the hands of rival trading companies. These graphs had marked the depth of water or dangers that lurked under the surface at high or ebb. They largely helped the sea caps and the pilots.
Phases and styles
The Europeans developed a more advanced system for obtaining the primary geographical knowledge of the Tamil -coast and they played an important role in preparing and publishing countless maps. We have to investigate the phases and styles of making cards, the changes in technology and the ways in which Geography has been studied.
With the Portuguese colonization, the sailors initially made cards and put stress on demonstrating the alternative methods to sail safely, depending on the weather conditions. They prepared cards, mainly for space and direction. The audience in Europe got to know the Tamil region and the Christian missions. Maps enabled the missionaries to reach their destinations on the land. In this process, transmission and exchange of geographical knowledge between the Tamil -coast and the Atlantic region, which leads to the advanced cartographic system. This graphic representation that facilitates spatial understanding of things, concepts and processes in the trade world led to mathematical constructions, culminating in the ‘scale’ maps of modern times.
The map of the Portuguese colony of Devanampattinam (1607), the Nagapattinam cards (1635-58), the Santhome of Mylapore cards (1635-87), and the topographical map of Santhome of Mylapore in 1749 can be found in the center for history and old cartography.
The maps of Fort Dansborg in Tranquebar (1669-71) can be found in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark. Christoph Theodosius Walther, the Lutheran missionary in Tranquebar in 1734, was busy fixing the latitude and longitude of places in the Tamil country. He provided geographical information for making maps in Denmark and Germany (1729-45). The maps and plans of the Dutch trade factories of Pulicat, Nagapattinam, Sadurangapattinam, Porto Novo and Punnaikayal can be found in the overseas collection of maps in the National Archives, The Hague in the Netherlands.
The French collection
The plans and maps of Pondicherry (1701-1789) are kept in the overseas archive center in Aix-en-Provence in France. The carnatic wars and the Anglo-French struggle for power in 1746 and 1761 led the French geographical engineers to prepare the maps of places, sieges, fights and wars. The French collection of the cards and plans of Pondicherry and Karaikal, in addition to many places in the Tamil countryside, is important. These are stored in Aix-en-Provence. Some plans and cards are also stored in the Zonal office of the National Archives of India in Puducherry.
The English East India Company in Madras employed Traughtsmen and Map-Makers, who took the plans of Madras, and the fighting, the wars and the military maps in the Carnatic region (1745-81). The surveys of the land income of the British in the Tamil country led to systematic mapping (1767-1857). The various graphs, views, plans and diagrams of the Tamil -coast, installed between 1798 and 1802, can be found in the Alexander Dalrymple collection in the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth.
The collection of maps and plans in the Tamil Nadu State Archives, Chennai, is very important because they remain unused and under -used. Their digitization is a mile stone in the preservation of archive records. Recently 1,862 cards from forts, pitches, grain sheds, peppermints and treasure chests – were selected from the Tamil Nadu State Archives – uploaded on the Tamil Digital Library (https://shorturl.at/oq3uy). These cards will be the invaluable means for the historians who are researching the colonial period and for future excavations.
Change
The study of colonial history is in an eternal state of change, with new research areas that unfold. It is led by facets of human life that was influenced by maritime trade and trade by the East Indian companies, missionary expansion, military and territorial expansion, income collection and science and technology. With the help of cards and graphs we can understand how colonialism played its own role. It is hoped that this and other new perspectives of colonial history will continue to focus in the distant future.
((The writer is an independent researcher and author.))
Published – September 12, 2025 6:15 am ON
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