Philip Baldaeus' 1672 description of St Thomas on the Coromandel Coast
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Philip Baldaeus, St Thomas on ye Coast of Coromandel from Churchill’s Collection of Voyages (1703-04).
Philip Baldaeus, a Dutch chaplain, published his Naauwkeurige Beschryvinge van Malabar en Choromandel in 1672. It contained plans of Cochin, Tuticorin, Negapatam, Pulicat, and views of Bombay, Cochin, Masulipatam, and other places. It also included a map of the east coast from Cape Comorin to Orissa, showing San Thomé, Madraspatnam, Ennore, and Pulicat.
The work was translated for Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, published in 1703–04. That edition erroneously suggested that Baldaeus’s account dated to 1649.
Madras is called “Madraspatan otherwise Chinnapattan.” The book notes that this is where the English had the garrisoned Fort St. George, manned by Topasses (Indo-Portuguese soldiers).
In the book, St. Thomas (San Thomé) is introduced as a city belonging to the Portuguese, situated in Mylapore at approximately 23.5° North latitude (13.5° actually).
The book reports that the city had recently been taken from the Portuguese by the Moors (the Golconda Sultanate). This happened in 1662. According to the Madras historian Henry Davison Love, this suggests that Baldaeus may have been writing in 1670. Not 1649.
St Thomas is described as an ancient trading city. Its chief traffic consisting in “coloured stuffs”. The book adds that the city’s weavers and dyers were famous throughout the Indies.
In the engraving, San Thome is depicted as fortified, with a wooden battery and French outguards listed in the legend. The area is shown with mountains in the background. A bit of an exaggeration of the actual terrain.
The print’s legend also mentions a “pagan temple called Trivilicurry.” Subject to correction, this is possibly Tiruvallikeni or Triplicane and the print is referring to the Parthasarathy Temple. However, the depicted structure in the print does not closely resemble that temple.
This print underlines the importance of San Thomé in the development of Madras that grew out of the Fort. As George Winius tells us, San Thome and Fort St. George were two settlements whose fortunes were closely intertwined in a manner that hasn’t properly been appreciated.
Good one : that last line calls for study
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The images on the far right of this visual draw attention: to identify: exaggerated English fort then ?
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Vincent D Souza maybe the structure on the extreme right with the flag. But the structure beyond that is identified as a stone…
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