Volume-XI, Issue-IV, July 2025 |
17th-18th Century Chandernagore and the Jesuit Mission Dr. Subhayu Chattopadhyay, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India |
Received: 28.07.2025 | Accepted: 30.07.2025 | Published Online: 31.07.2025 | Page No: | ||||
DOI: 10.29032/ijhsss.vol.11.issue.04W.121 | |||||||
ABSTRACT | ||
The European trading companies, starting from the Portuguese to the French, established their settlements in different parts of India, which, with time, emerged as busy urban centres. Each of these centres had some common features like, combination of port, fort and factory; demarcated urban space between ‘white town’ and ‘black town’ and connection with the larger framework of Asian trade. Chandernagore (present Chandannagar in West Bengal) was one such settlement of the French which rose into prominence during the early eighteenth century. Jesuit missionaries came to Chandernagore towards the fag end of the seventeenth century and immediately started to feature in the daily lives of this newly emergent urban centre in the Coromandel Coast. Although the relationship between the French Company officials and Jesuit Missionaries was sometimes topsy-turvy, the latter was finally protected by the former. The spread of the Christian faith was the most important plan of the Jesuits in Chandernagore, but their activities had a scientific discussion about them also, being the first European men of learning in India. French Jesuits even got associated with the astronomical pursuits of Raja Jai Singh Sawai of Jaipur and the astronomical as well as geographical data that they gathered during their journey from Chandernagore to Jaipur and return remained as valuable source of information from the colonial point of view. Key Words: Jesuit, Missionary, French, Chandernagore, Trade, Science |