Helen Baber, her life & final resting place

Helen Baber's grave stone, the English Church, Tellicherry. 

Photo courtesy of Jissu Jacob.

Throughout much of history there have been strong wives who have supported their husbands through thick and thin. These husbands would not have been nearly as effective as they were without their wives.

It is quite clear that Thomas Hervey Baber, was extremely fortunate in his choice of wife, and that Helen Somerville Baber must have been a remarkable woman in her own right.

Like so many of these wives, however it is extremely hard to discover their complete story because she was essentially a private person in the manner of those days, and one who was hidden away from sight. She only very rarely appears in the official records, and then we only occasional catch tantalising glimpses into her life. Yet when she does enter the records, the strength of her character, and the enduring nature of her love and support for Thomas Baber comes though very clearly.

Thanks to a great deal of good luck, and a great deal of kindness on the part of Jissu Jacob a local man from Periah, Helen has suddenly been brought into view.



View of Helen Baber's table tomb, in the newly cleared church yard.

On my visit to Thalassey in 2006, I had been so overwhelmed by hospitality, that I had run out of time for adequately exploring the town. Reaching the fort as dusk fell, and only able to view over the fence into the overgrown churchyard as dusk was falling, I had feared attempting to climb into the churchyard, lest I fell down a hole, or encountered a snake.

As a result of this blog, I have been having a substantial correspondence with quite a few local people from Kerala and especially Thalassey. One of these Jissu Jacob, a local historian and tour guide was good enough to go recently to the churchyard and to take the photos in this post.

We know very little about Helen Baber's early life beyond the following passage in a note book kept by my great great great grandfather Henry Hervey Baber, Thomas Baber's elder brother.

On February 7th 1798 Henry in England, records that his father had received the following letter from his brother: -

“Feb. 7 Father hears from Tom -- Letter dated Bombay August 1797 – about the same receives a letter which came overland enclosed (by just favour) with government dispatches, requesting his consent to marry a Mrs Cameron (wife of a Major Cameron who was lately killed in an excursion down the country) she is not 18 the daughter of Mr. Fearon of Edinburgh & niece of Mr Douglas of Fitzroy Square London. She had been married to the Major about a twelvemonth.
” [1]

Thomas’s fiance, whose maiden name had been Helen Somerville Fearon, had previously been married during 1795 at the age of only 15 to Captain Donald Cameron, of the Bombay Army at Portsmouth. With the East India Company recruitment camp on the Isle of Wight nearby, this many have been a last minute affair prior to Cameron boarding an East Indiamen before setting out on the long journey east.

It had not been uncommon for girls, especially daughters of soldiers aged 15 or less to marry soldiers during this period, however it was much less common for officers to marry such young girls. Her father came from Edinburgh, and one wonders if she had perhaps run away with the Captain.

Following her marriage, she must have almost immediately boarded the East Indiaman for the voyage to India. One can only imagine what it must have been like for a teenage girl, who would still have been at school had she been born today. She would have travelled in a tiny cabin constructed towards the stern of the ship, divided from her fellow passengers by temporary timber and canvas curtains.

The ship would have been crammed full of soldiers, sailors and fellow travellers.

Conditions on-board would have often been cold, wet, and the air fetid with the smells coming up from the other decks. The relative seniority of her new husband probably meant that she ate with the ships captain and the other senior passengers in captains stern cabin. She will have been able to visit the upper deck for exercise, where no doubt she would have been an object of curiosity to the sailors.

The war with France was raging, and Britain had not yet achieved naval supremacy, so she faced not just storms and the possibility of shipwreck, but also capture by the French.

Helen will have arrived in India during 1796, probably arriving first and Surat where her husbands Battalion was stationed.  Very soon after her arrival, the Battalion was mobilised to proceed to Tellicherry. Presumably Helen travelled on with the Major to Tellicherry. Given the smallness of the fort, at Tellicherry, it is quite possible she lived in tents with the Major. However, she was not to experience married life for long, for hardly had she arrived in India than she had become a widow.

Major Cameron was killed on the 18th of March 1797 whilst fighting his way down the Periah Pass. (See http://malabardays.blogspot.com/2006/12/death-of-major-cameron.html )

One can only image the pain and grief that she must have experienced at that moment, on learning that her husband was missing and was believed to have been killed.

One can only imagine how frightening, must have been her situation, she was only 17, widowed. She was in a foreign town thousands of miles from her family, and she was dependant on the charity of others.

It is not clear how Thomas first met Helen Cameron. However it is very likely that she was staying either in Tellicherry, or at Cannanore with its fort and cantonment.

As Helen had only become a widow in March 1797, and that we know that Thomas was already writing to his father via Bombay by August 1797, we can only presume that their courtship was brief and intense as are many wartime courtships.

There were very few unmarried European women living in India at this time, and those that were their were considerably out numbered by European men, so Helen Cameron must have attracted quite a lot of attention from the single officers and officials in the settlement, who would otherwise have had little opportunity of marrying, until they either went on leave after ten or more years, or chose to live with a local woman.

Aged only 20 and with only a very small salary, it must be wondered how Thomas Baber expected to be able to support his new wife. East India Company staff generally had to wait for many years and have achieved promotions before they were in a financial position to be able to marry.

Helen will have had only a very small pension entitlement from the annuity that the East India Company would have set up for her following the Majors death, and a sum from Lord Clive's fund.

This would only be payable in England, and Helen would have been expected to return to Great Britain on the first available ship.

The Major's uniform and associated belongings would have been auctioned and the proceeds handed over to his widow following his death to his fellow officers, and in other similar occurrences, it was not unknown for very high prices to be paid for items like swords at these auctions by brother officers as a way of giving support to recently widowed survivors.

Sadly we don’t know what Thomas father wrote in reply to his letter. Thomas however had not waited for his father’s permission, for as Henry wrote on 24th August 1798: -

“Father heard from Tom – when he informs us of his being married Jan 16 – 1798 to Mrs Helen Cameron – soon afterwards was appointed assistant in the revenue department at Callicut - Mrs Baber writes to my Mother.”

During December 1798 Helen was delivered of a daughter, possibly on the 1st of December, or shortly before. It has not been possible to trace this daughter beyond this brief notice, so we must presume that she died shortly afterwards, like so many other children in India in those times.[2]

Throughout the early years of their marriage Thomas was fighting the Pazhassi Rajah who was trying to oust the English from his territory. Helen must often have been left on her own, and with every chance that she would become a widow once again.

We don't know where they lived before 1809, but by then they were living in the fort.

Thomas was by then a magistrate.

Most of Thomas Baber's East India Company colleagues would have lived in houses in the fort or in bungalow's nearby. The unmarried ones would have shared houses, and probably lived a male dominated life, which probably included a fair amount of drinking and hard living.

Surviving Bungalows inside Tellicherry Fort, one of which may have been the home of Helen & Thomas Baber

It is very likely that Thomas had missed out on much of this communal life, with its echos of an English boarding school common room. This was because following his arrival in Calicut in 1797 he had almost immediately been sent out into the district near Ponnani many miles down the coast to the south, in the company only of his Indian bodyguard and subordinates.  Once he married he was living with his wife and was therefore living away from the other officials.

This may account for his having very different attitudes to those held by his colleagues on many issues such as slavery. These attitudes in turn may well have had the effect at setting him at odds with these same officials.

His ability to retreat to his home and to the support of his wife, probably enabled him to survive in the face of the active hostility of his fellow officials. for years.

Thomas and Helen Baber’s first son, Thomas Francis was born on the 12th of May 1802 at Tellicherry.

Writing in 1832 [3] Thomas recorded how he had first learnt of the existence of slavery in the Malabar quite by chance, when out riding one day in 1803, he had met a man by the roadside who tried to sell him two slaves.

Appalled, he bought the two slaves, a boy and a girl in order to free them. He appears to have sheltered them, and to have provided them with an education, as he recorded how one later rose to become a gentleman’s butler and the other an ayah.

Helen must presumably accepted these two children into her household, and to have played a large part in developing them. One begins to wonder if she was not just as committed a reformer as he was.

By 1808 Thomas and Helen’s eldest boy had reached the age at which he was old enough to travel back to England to commence his education. Henry, the boys uncle, recorded his arrival in England on 27 August 1808: -

“Returned to town & saw my nephew at Mrs Jones’s – this little fellow arrived in England 14th augst: he went to his grandfather augst – 29.”

Aged only six this little boy must have had some tales to tell to his uncle and grandparents when he arrived in England. He had just sailed half way around the world in the midst of a convoy at the height of the Napoleonic Wars.

The boy appears to have been sent on to school almost immediately. On 14 October 1808 his uncle Henry recorded: -

“Took my nephew to school at Mr Rowes’s Bromley – Kent.”

It must have been a terrible moment for Helen as she had to part with her boy, knowing well that they would not see each other for many years, and quite possibly never again, should either of them die.

Life must have often been very anxious for Helen, as for instance when smallpox raged through Tellicherry and the district.

Judicial from 29th February 1809. 59261.

Soon after he was established in his Cutcherry at Tellicherry the smallpox broke out and raged with considerable violence, throughout the Zillah, Mr Baber made great efforts to stop its progress by the introduction of vaccination, in which his conduct was highly approved by the Court of Directors. [4]

Thomas and Helen's attitudes towards the Indian's and slavery caused a substantial rift with his fellow English & Scottish colleagues, and I expect that a lot of the local EIC officials came to see him as both as a threat and well as a very great nuisance.  After all, judged by the standards of 1809, what was wrong with having a few slaves? There were masses of slaves in the Americas, and West Indies, and the Indian’s had had slavery themselves for centuries.

Everybody knew that you went to India to make money. The previous generation of Nabob’s like Barwell, Clive and the others had been able to make many thousands of pounds.  Why shouldn’t they too also have the opportunity to make a fortune?

What was all the fuss about?

One of the disputes that Thomas had entered into came to a head in 1809, and led to his eventually fighting a duel.

Thomas Lumsden Strange later recounted the story of the duel.  The local officials and offices had taken such a dislike to Thomas that they recruited a army office who had a reputation for fightinf duels.  This was with an officer by the name of Fortune.  The two were placed back to back to measure out six paces each, when Fortune, after taking but a step or two, turned round and fired and wounded Mr Baber on the thigh, before immediately bolting.  Strangely enough his second encouraged him, saying “run Billy, run!”

Billy however in his hurry to escape fell, and Mr Baber came up to him and shook his pistol in his face saying that he would be justified in blowing his brains out. [5] 

Thomas survived the duel, and was morally vindicated by the mores of the time, but he was in mortal danger. Helen immediately began to nurse him back to health. She realised that it would greatly help if he could be taken up the Ghats to a higher and cooler location.

She travelled to Ponnani, and it was there that an extraordinary event occurred, which was related to me by one of the descendants of the Brahmin priest who had taken part in the events.

During 1809 the Rajah's of Travancore and Cochin had been ousted from power, by an official supported by the East India Company.  This official had them begun to persecute many of the inhabitants of Cochin and the surrounding districts.  The Queen Mother and Aunt of the deposed Rajah had at first tried appealing to the EIC official in Cochin to prevent these abuses, before writing to Madras to no effect.

After several months they determined to try another way of getting help. They had somehow learned that Thomas Baber was an EIC official who was sympathetic to the plight of the Indian's so they determined to send three local officials to seek him out, and to try to get his support.

The story goes that these officials found Baber at Ponnani in a house with two floors.  They arrived at the house to try to meet him, but were told that they would have to wait as Thomas was too ill to come down to see them.  After a few minutes Helen arrived at the head of the stairs carrying a baby in her arms, and invited them to come up the stairs to see Thomas Baber.

As the three Indians climbed the stairs, all of a sudden the baby gave a great wringle and fell from Helen's arms.

Fortunately at that moment the Brahmin was stood immediately below Helen and was able to catch the baby, preventing its tumbling to the foot of the stairs.

As the Brahmins descendant related to me in 2006, this broke the tension for them.

Eventually the truth of the situation in Travancore and Cochin came out and an expedition was mounted to remove its abusive ruler.

Helen was to go on supporting her husband for many years ahead, through both thick and thin, as I will relate in future blog posts.

[1]Henry Hervey Baber’s Memoranda relating to the life of Henry Hervey Baber.

[2] The Asiatic Annual Register, or a View of the History of Hindustan, 1799. Page 147.
[3]Thomas Hervey Baber “An Account of the Slaves Population in the Western Peninsula of India”, page 36.
[4]OIOC O/6/9 folio 6.
[5]OIOC Mss Eur D.358, 20^th Sept 1870 Page 131 to 133.

The fate of the slaves "rescued" by Thomas Baber

Modern Dalit Slave [1]

For most of history we have absolutely no idea how those at the bottom of Society lived, and it is also very hard to understand what they went through.

Just very occasionally their voice comes through the years and with startling power.

For nearly decade I have been aware that Thomas Baber in the early 1800's had been one of the first of a number of idealistic East India officials in India who had tried to try to put a stop to slavery. He had felt so strongly about slavery that he was prepared to take on his fellow officials and existing Indian custom and practise. See http://malabardays.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/murdoch-brown-overseer-of-randattara.html

I had assumed that the story had a happy ending, however as the following evidence provided by F.C. Brown, son of Murdoch Brown in 1833 to the House of Commons proves every story has two sides, and the fate of these released slaves was less than a happy ending.

It appears that on their return to their former homes in the south of Kerala they had been unable to resettle into their villages, and in many cases their former owners had not wanted them back.

They in many cases drifted back to Anjarakandy to work for Murdoch Brown.

No. 5.

Narrative of Teepadee Ayapen a Betwan, taken at Anjarakandy.—

"30 Chingom 1008. 13 September 1833.


Question. When Mr. Baber's people carried away from here all the slaves, were you carried away ?—Answer Yes, I was.


Q. Where were you taken? What were you asked? And what did you say?—A. From here we were taken to Irrivery Cutcherry; after remaining two days I was asked, “Who is your master?" I said, “My present master is Mr. Brown." "Who brought you here? Who sent you from your country? Who sold you to Mr. Brown?" I said, “It was the Karwakar Moopen." We were then all sent to Tellicherry and kept one, or one and a half months. The same questions that were asked at Irrivery were asked at Tellicherry and we were made to take an oath. After that two menons, with armed peons, took us all to our own country. At Kootangel Cutcherry (Chaughaut), from whence orders were issued to the owners to come and take away their respective slaves, some of the slaves were sent with the peons to Kakat Fort. From thence they were again brought to Kootangel. The Vellatichees and the Cochin Pooliars were embarked in a boat and sent south. After that I alone remained I said, “My owner is not come, what am I to do; my country is Tokye." When I said this to the menons, they desired me to go where my family was. I went to my country and staid with my family.


Q. Do you know the menons and kolkars who came here to take away the slaves?—A After we were taken to Tellicherry I knew them by sight; I did not know them before; I know the name of one of the peons, it is Cheknoo; his country is Ellatoor, so I heard him say.


Q. Who questioned you at Irrivery Cutcherry and at Tellicherry?—A. At Irrivery Cutcherry the menon who took us away from here; his name is Chatoo Menon; and at Tellicherry Mr. Baber himself.


Q. Do you know Mr. Baber?—A. At that time I saw him at Tellicherry.


Q. When did you lose your sight?—A. It is now, I think, about five or eight years.


Q. Do you know the menons and kolkars who took you away from Tellicherry?—A. I do not know them.


Q. After Mr. Baber's people took you to your country, how did you come here? and why did you come ?—A. Bappen Cooty Mapilla (in Mr. Brown's employ) came in a boat to load paddy from Jegnee Mapilla; he (Bappen Cooty) told me that Valia Saib (Mr. Brown) desired me, if I wished, to come back; I then came by land.


Q. When you were coming by land, how did you pay the ferries and subsist?—A. I took it from my own hand (what I had).


Q. When in your country, what employment had you?—A. I worked for any one who would hire me, when they would give me something; I remained in this way for one year.


Q. When you returned here, did any of your relatives come?—A. No one; I came alone.


Q. Who is your owner in your country?—A I have no owner, but my mother had, Karrakat Moideen Mapilla; they are all dead and gone; none of his family now remain.


Q Altogether how many slaves from here were sent to the south?—A. Of the Betwan caste alone there were 28, big and little.


Q. Of that number how many are there to return?—A. Five Betwan females and three children remain to come.


Q When you were at Irrivery Cutcherry and Tellicherry did the persons who examined you put questions to make you say what they liked, or only to learn truth?—A. We were told not to be afraid. "Tell the truth, it is for your good." Then they said loud for us to hear, "These slaves have all been got for nothing."


Q. At what time did Mr. Baber's people come here? When did they find you? And where were you kept?—A. Mr. Baber's people took us away twice; I do not recollect the time they first came; the second time they came in the morning at six o'clock, when we were all sent into the karembala (a walled enclosure). When the southern slaves were being separated, the menon here, Kanarachen, came and said something; in consequence of which words passed between him and Mr. Baber's menon; and Kanarachen went away about 10 o'clock without allowing us to take food or our clothes. We were marched to Irrivery Cutcherry and kept there. At six o'clock in the evening all the northern Dooliars were returned, and the southern Pooliars and Betwans were kept there. To us of the Betwan caste was allotted a shop on the border of a paddy field west of the Cutcherry; rice was given us, which we cooked and ate, and slept outside. To the Pooliars rice was given, which they cooked and ate, and slept round the Cutcherry in the paddy field. In this manner we were kept there for three days.


Q. At that time was there only Kanaren here as menon, or were there any others?— A Whether the Tambooran (Brahmin), who died in Cotiate, was here at that time I do not perfectly recollect; I think he was.


Q. How many years before the rebels burnt this house did you come here?—A. I was here before the burning, but how many years before I do not recollect; I was then a child.


Q. You have said there are eight individuals of the Betwa caste who have not come back; is your country and theirs far or near? what is the reason that they have not come back ?— A Their country and mine may be as far as from here to Mamakoon; that country is the Cochin country; it is under the orders of another gentleman. They have not come, because their masters will not let them.


Q. You have said that in your country you hired yourself to any one who called you, and so lived; was there constant employment?—A. There are many people that have constant work, but there is not the same comfort as here.


Q. You were detained at Tellicherry one or two months; were you kept under restraint or free ?—A. We were kept on the west side of the tank, where, during the day, one kolkar, and during the night two kolkars, stood guard always.


Q. At Tellicherry where were you all lodged?—A. At the tank, in a hut about the size of the kitchen here." [2]


The strength of F. C. Brown's feelings against Thomas Baber come out in the following paragraphs in his letters to the House of Commons.

Francis Brown had previously served a term in prison for having challenged Thomas Baber to a duel, and he evidently greatly resented Baber's attitude towards his father Murdoch Brown, as is shown in the following passages.

"It would be easy for me to proceed with the refutation of every other of Mr. Baber's assertions and references, by the evidence of the facts and authorities furnished, or referred to by himself, did it become me, on so grave a subject, to come before the Government armed with no better defence; but I cannot forget that the gist and gravamen of his accusation against the late Mr. Brown, an accusation which he signed as a magistrate, attested with his seal of office as a judge, and reported officially to the Government, which he has since sworn to before the House of Lords, deliberately repeated, in writing, to the Indian Board, and finally published to the world, is, that " 76 persons, found" by him "in the possession of Mr. Brown, made affidavit before him that they had been stolen, banished from their country, and transported, against their will, to Anjarakandy," and that he had "liberated," he had restored to " liberty and to their country," these aforesaid persons. Words of more dreadful import, against the character of any human being, were never uttered, and never, I believe, more deliberately, more reiterated, more perseveringly, or with more solemn invocations to their truth. Read, then, Sir, I beseech you, the following testimony of one of those very persons, now delivered without dread of violence, delivered to a native writer, himself wholly ignorant of the transaction, whom I directed to question the witness apart relative to what she now remembers of it, on my seeing Mr. Baber pointing out himself to the public of India as the protector of slaves (Bombay Gazette, 17th August 1833). This pamphlet I have seen only within these few days." [3]


"Such, Sir, is the simple affecting narrative given at this distance of time, by this poor woman, of the real manner in which she, her husband, her child, and all the other slaves were barbarously driven from their homes. No man acquainted with the condition of the caste can read it, I believe, and doubt its truth.

Mark, I beseech you, the ultimate design stamped upon the cruel deed from its commencement to its close. The native officers, deputed by Mr. Baber to Anjarakandy, immediately they appear, rush up stairs, followed by the armed peons, to where Mr. Brown was sitting, in order that the slaves may see, from the insulting treatment received before their eyes by their master, a European gentleman, well known, advanced in years, and never approached by the highest natives without respect, the treatment which was reserved for them. The circumstances make an indelible impression, as terror does upon an uninformed mind. All the slaves, male and female, are next collected from where they are at work, by strange armed men, driven, with their children of all ages, into a walled enclosure, like cattle into a pen ; their master's people are forcibly ejected, the gates shut, and the whole, upon their answering truly and simply to the questions put to them, are kept, the women with their infants at their breasts, without food for that night. The day following they are taken under custody, to a public cutcherry, four or five miles off, turned into a paddy field, and there kept three days and three nights, so that one child dies on the spot. They are here again called up, one by one, and authoritatively questioned by Mr. Baber's deputy.

Those who still tell the the truth are grossly abused by him, called liars, and threatened with instant mutilation; a E. I. Company and violence admitted by Mr. Baber to be practised upon persons of their caste (p. 25). Being Board of Control, now thoroughly intimidated, separated from all succour, and dreading what is to befal them, (Documents.) they are next taken under continued custody to Tellicherry, where a man dies; they are brought up before Mr. Baber, and separately examined, having gone through a form of being sworn. This poor woman has the courage to repeat to him what she had said twice before to his deputy, that she had been regularly sold by her former master, mentioning his name. The magistrate exclaims "that she is telling a falsehood," bids her "tell the truth; that she has been stolen;" which declaration, the very reverse of what she has all along said, and then desired to say, is written down as her voluntary deposition upon oath before Mr. Baber, and is by him quoted and appealed to, from that hour to this, in proof of the truth of his charge against Mr. Brown. She and all the other slaves are detained in custody day and night for many weeks; at the expiration of this imprisonment, disregarding her entreaties to be suffered with her child to return to her home, she is made to accompany the others; rejoiced to escape anywhere and on any terms. Part of them are taken to Chowghaut, a distance of 110 miles; part double the distance, to Cochin and Travancore. Instead of being "liberated" she and her child are delivered with her husband to the latter's former master, with written injunctions from Mr. Baber to report their deaths in writing, that is, in other words, to detain them while alive. In a state of actual starvation, she, her husband, and child, set out on their return, begging and working their way by such field work as they can get (the only work slaves are employed in), and in about two months succeed in reaching Calicut, 60 miles distant, where they find Mr. Brown.

This is the declaration of one of those slaves. Shall I be credited when I state, that not one, but 21 of them returned, and that 13 of the number still survive (one died in August) to bear witness, in terms almost similar, against the inhuman outrage perpetrated upon them. I am ready to produce them at any time, at any place, before any persons who will descend to the level of their capacities, and permit them to tell their artless tale without fear. Gratefully and lowly do I bow down before that all-seeing Providence, which, in its infinite justice, has permitted this black iniquity, renewed and relevelled against the memory of a revered parent, to be exposed to the eye of day, in all its turpitude, by the mouths of the victims appealed to to attest it. Not to swell this letter to an inconvenient size, I annex only two more of the depositions (No. 4 & 5). Let them, I entreat, be compared with the letter of Mr. Brown (No. 7), penned after the slaves had all been removed, and with the See p. 733-735, of testimony of an eye-witness of the scene (No. 6.) Even some of the Pooliars returned; of the printed volume. Pooliars, interdicted the high way, who cannot approach within 40 paces of their fellow slave, the Vettoowan, without polluting him. Let the sufferings they endured in tracking back their way be pictured! But the majority of the Pooliars (they amounted to 23, the Vettoowas to 28) were transported by Mr. Baber to the Cochin and Travancore countries, and delivered back with the same written injunctions to their former masters. He therefore transported them, from the British territories, and from under the safeguard of British laws, which, he admits, make no exception as to slaves, and have repeatedly visited their murder with death (p. 2607), to countries, where he also admits (p. 19) adopting General Walker's words, that "a proprietor is accountable to no person for the life of his own chaumar, but is the legal judge of his offences, and may punish them with death; and where it is feared that the only check upon the unrestricted exercise of this power is the presence of the Resident." Gracious God! and this wholesale, forcible reduction of these poor creatures to native slavery and to death, Mr. Baber has dared to call, in the sight of God and man, "liberating them, restoring them to liberty and their country." Sir, Mr. Brown possessed, I inherit from him, 155 slaves; I have also upon my estate 105 other slaves, voluntary settlers, of 10 and 20 years' habitancy. I further employ 250 free labourers. I implore you in the strongest words, the most earnest, I will even add, the most abject, that language supplies, to examine and satisfy yourself, by any mode of inquiry you may think proper to adopt, of the treatment and condition of these slaves; as to whether the whip or the lash has ever been known among them ; as to the restraints imposed upon their personal liberty ; as to their well-being compared with slaves elsewhere; and lastly, as contrasted, whether as regards their persons, their food, their houses, their comforts, and the kinds of labour they are employed in, with those of the free persons employed with them. After this examination, I will leave you to say whether those transported to Cochin and Travancore would not try to escape; and then to think, without shuddering, of the fate which awaited their hopeless attempt at the hands of irresponsible masters, burthened in the name of the British Government with the compulsory guardianship and maintenance of refractory slaves worth each the sum of 12 rupees.

The judges of the Provincial Court residing on the spot, who had all served for many years in the province, and were thoroughly acquainted with Mr. Baber's character and motives, (for these exemplary men, like every other gentleman, civil or military, in Malabar, had long before spumed the unhappy man from society,) sought to avert the consequences which they foresaw were designed, from the wanton and forcible removal, without cause or complaint, of these helpless victims, by ordering their restitution to Mr. Brown until a claimant to them appeared. It is this humane interposition which the judges considered themselves bound to exert in favour of the most defenceless party, which Mr. Baber studiously and repeatedly calls the singular protection extended by the court to Mr. Brown! To mention only the names of the judges even now would be to confound the defamer, did such men need a defence. The judges of the Sudder Adawlut were of opinion, upon a review of the proceedings, that the interposition of the Court of Appeal could not be upheld, Mr. Baber having acted towards Mr. Brown in his capacity of justice of the peace, not of zillah E. I. Company and judge, and hence that his conduct was cognizable only by the Supreme Court at Madras."[4]

The whole report extends to many volumes and reports on slavery in many areas of India from Assam, to Dehli, the Konkan and the Malabar. The testimonies on Malabar run from approximately page 409 to 430, and are especially detailed and powerful.

The terrible thing is that even today in India many people are living in conditions of slavery much like those found by Thomas Baber, as the following article about the film Papilio Buddha dated 1st October 2012 makes clear. http://www.thehindu.com/arts/cinema/the-butterfly-effect/article3954653.ece

[1]  Photo of modern slave taken from http://calltohumanity.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/modern-slavery-in-contrast-haiti-and-india/

[2] From Slave trade (East India) Slavery in Ceylon: Copies or abstracts of all ... Volume 16. Page 407 onwards.  Published by the House of Commons in 1838.

[3] From Slave trade (East India) Slavery page 409.

[4] [2] From Slave trade (East India) Slavery page 411 to 412.

Cheapness of Children at Malabar.

The following article taken from a book published in 1858, includes an account of the sale of children in Malabar. In this case desperate parents faced with famine or food shortage are selling their children to European's.

It is not possible to date the account, but other accounts in the book can be dated, and these appear to be up to 50 years older than the book.

"He depicts the melancholy effects of a famine, caused by a real scarcity of rice, or sometimes an artificial one, contrived by the native government. An ordinary consequence is, to see mothers offering to sell their children, and fathers both wife and children. But it should seem that the bonds of relationship among these devotees to Seeva, have a slightness that gives way to a much less violent force than that of the last extremities of famine :—"

" Malabar children are generally a cheap commodity at Anjengo. At the end of the rainy season, when there was no particular scarcity in the interior country, I purchased a boy and girl, of about eight or nine years of age, as a present to a lady at Bombay, for leas money than a couple of pigs in England. I bought the young couple, laid in two months provision of rice and salt-fish for their voyage, and gave each of them four changes of cotton garments, all for the sum of twenty rupees, or fifty shillings. English humanity must not pass a censure on this transaction : it was a happy purchase for the children ; they were relieved from hunger and nakedness, and sent to an amiable mistress, who brought them up tenderly, and, on leaving India, provided for their future comfort ; whereas, had I refused to buy them, they would assuredly have been sold to another, and probably have experienced a miserable bondage with some native Portuguese Christian, whom we do not reckon among the most merciful task-masters."

"A circumstance of this kind happened to myself. Sitting one morning in my verandah, a young fish-woman brought a basket of mullets for sale ; while the servant was disposing of them, she asked me to purchase a fine boy, two years of age, then in her arms. On my upbraiding her for want of maternal affection, she replied with a smile, that she expected another in a few weeks, and as she could not manage two, she made me the first offer of her boy, whom she would part with for a rupee. She came a few days afterwards, with a basket of fish, but had just sold her child to Signor Manoel Rodriguez, the Portuguese linguist; who, though a man of property and a Christian, had thought it necessary to lower the price to half a rupee. Thus did this young woman, without remorse, dispose of an only child for fifteen pence."[1]

It is also not entirely clear where these events took place. However the East India Company had employed a family of Portuguese linguists at Tellicherry called Rodriques, over three generations.  The earliest one was Pedro Rodriques who was working for the EIC by 1753.  This son Domingo was active by the 1780's and had managed to make sufficient money by trade, that he had acquired an estate at Calay.

This estate which lay outside Tellicherry had had to be abandoned during the wars with Hyder and Tipu in the 1780's. When the EIC and their Nair allies drove Tipu's army away, the EIC claimed the land.

Pedro's grandson Marco Antonio Rodriques tried to reclaim the property during the 1792 Malabar Commission. It is possible Signor Manoel described in the quote above was from this family. It is possible he was Marco's son.

In 1830 Thomas Hervey Baber wrote a description of how in 1803 he was offered two children for sale by a man he encountered by the road, whilst out riding one day.
The Commissions Report mentions that many slaves were sourced from the Alleppey and Travancore districts for sale to the French settlement at Mahé and to Dutch settlements.

[1] Fosteriana, consisting of thoughts, reflections, and criticisms, of John ... page 288.
By John Foster published in 1858. Although this book was published in 1858 the texts which are quoted in the book appear to date back between 50 and 75 years earlier than the published date.

Journal of a Route to the Neelghurries from Calicut. Part 2.

Left Nellamboor at 8 A.M. on the 9th, and arrived at Eddakarra at 12. For the first mile the road is through jungle over paramba, or high ground, terminated as usual by a slip of paddy field, and continues so, alternately, parramba and low lands, to the Karunbara river, which also takes its rise at Mangerri Mala, and falls into the Beypoor river about three miles east of Nellumboor. The ferry is called Yânandy and Pallikote Kádâwâ. Here I found a small ferry, and three or four bamboo rafts ready for me: it is fordable only in the fair season. From this river the roads leads, as before, over high and low lands to the Kalakùmpora river, which takes its rise in the Ella Mala, south of Caracote, and falls into the Beypoor river at Walloosherry; the ferry is called Neddumbary Kadawa: though deep and rapid, it is less difficult to cross than at Yanandy. Here also I found a ferry and rafts. From this river the roads leads through an extensive forest jungle, intersected here and there by uncultivated marshes, to the Neddumbary Kollum, a farm belonging also to the Teeroopad, in the middle of an extensive range of paddy fields, where the road is chiefly paramba or high land, for about two miles, to a range of paddy fields named Eddakerrapoilel, at the south-east end of which is a kollum belonginf also to Tachara Teeroopad. The river (Beypoor) approaches it about half a mile to the eastward, and is practicable, for small boats, for ten months in the year. The distance from Nellumboor to this kollum is about eight miles. Nothing can exceed the magnificence of the scenery from the openings in the low lands: both to the right and left, as well as in front, an endless succession of huge mountains, ranging from 3000 to 5000 feet high, clothed with forest jungles, the highest peaks of some of which are 1000 or 2000 feet above the table land of the great chain, called the Gâat Mountains. Those to the right form the table land of the Koondee hills in the Neelghurries. Here literally, as Mickle says, “hills peep o’er hills, and gâats on gâats arise.” Although the monsoon has set in only five days, the rain is pouring in torrents down the sides of the mountains, forming some most beautiful cascades and cataracts. These mountains are the famed teak forests. The chief owner of them is Táchàràkàwil Teeroopad. The largest is Kalla Mala, and runs south-east and north-west, and divides Tiroowambady, or the north-eastern most deshums of Porawye, from Ernaad; up the Waddakarry, there is a pass into Wynaad, that comes out at Koonyore Cota.



Map showing the route taken by Thomas Baber in 1823, part 2. Please click on the map for a larger version.


Left Eddakarra at 4 P.M., and reached Caracote Eddom at sun-set. The road leads through forests, chiefly of teakwood of the largest description, the property of the Nambolacota Waranoor. Midway there are two small rivers, one called Calcum (which takes its rise in the Kombula Mala, and falls into the Beypoor river, near Eddakarra); the other, Caracode, and takes its rise at Davalla, at the top of Carcote Pass; both are at all times fordable. Boats have been known to go up as far as Kodderrypara, which is only two miles west of Caracote. The Caracote Eddom is a farm belonging to the Nambola Cota Waranoor: it is a miserable building, and the only one, excepting a few surrounding huts, inhabited by pariars (slaves.)

Left Caracote at 8 A.M. on the 10th. The first mile and a half is through forest jungle, and so very thick that, had not the road been opened for me, it would have been impossible to have taken my palanqueen further on. The pass is over a succession of mountains covered with forest jungle, until within a mile of the top, -- the whole of which space is nearly bare of trees. The ascent commences at the southern bank of the Wellakatta river, which is fordable at all seasons. For the first few hundred yards, the ascent is not at all difficult; it then becomes exceedingly rugged, and thus it continues alternately easy and steep, in some places precipitous, to within a mile of the top, where it is one continued ascent (forming an angle of 45o ) to Nadkhang, the name given to the summit of the pass, which I reached about midday, having walked nearly the whole of the way. To the left of the pass, within a mile of the top, I observed several persons working in the vicinity of ravines or breaks in the mountains, where golden ore was being extracted. The surface of the ground appeared to have been excavated about a hundred yards in circumference. There was no getting to them owing to the immense chasms between them and me. From Nadkhang to Davalacota, the distance is about four miles: the road, which is a mere foot-path, goes over bare hills (very steep) nearly the whole way. Davalacota is the occasional residence of the Nambolacotta Waranoor. I found here a chetty names Kalapen, whose business it was to light up the shrine of the Waranoor’s household god (named Ayrawelby Paradawar). The approach is extremely difficult, and utterly impracticable for horse or palanquin.

I halted here about an hour; during which time I ascertained that there was a pass leading direct from Davalacota to Caracota Eddom, over the Koothrakela Malla, and about two-thirds of the length of the Caracota pass, and comes out at a place called Kallankooty Manna, about three miles from Caracota Eddom. By the Malabars this pass is called Kata-Mooka; by the Baddagurs of Davalacota, Gullikotoo.

From Davalacota I proceeded to Ottakail-Karaumba; the distance is about one mile and a half. This kararumba is a farm belonging to the Nambolacotta Waranoor, Narangawittel Arashen, the steward of the Waranoor’s estates, as far as the Kakkhang Tode, or nulla, within four miles of Nambolacotta. There are about a dozen houses in its vicinity. I halted here during the night, and had a long conversation with the inhabitants, who are chiefly Badagurs. Speaking of the Neelghurries, they (the Baddagurs) said, “they originally came from those hills, and where more or less connected with all the Baddagurs, and particularly those in the Koondee-Nâd; they spoke in grateful terms of improved condition of the Neelghurries, since Mr. Sullivan took up his abode amongst them, having previously been left to the mercy of those to whom the hills were yearly farmed out.

Pages 311-313, Journal of a Route to the Neelghurries from Calicut, Asiatic Journal (New Series) III.

Murdoch Brown, Overseer of the Randattara Plantation. Part 1.

Pepper Vines

In the eyes of the East India Company Directors in London, Tellicherry's primary purpose was as a source of pepper for export to Europe. This was a highly profitable trade, and it was important to maintain the supplies coming from the Malabar farmers, via the local Rajah's.


Black pepper is the grand article of European Commerce with Malabar. Before the invasion of Hyder, in the Malabar year 940 (176 4/5), the country now called the province of Malabar produced annually about 15,000 Candies of 640 lb. The quantity continued gradually diminishing until 959 (178 ¾) when Colonel McLeod’s army came into the province; since which the decrease has been more rapid, and continues every year to augment. A good crop will now produce 8000 Candies, a bad one only half of that quantity. Of this, 4000 Candies are produced in the territory of the Pychi Raja now in Rebellion, and of late the seat of a most bloody warfare.

The only diminution, I am inclined to think, that has taken place since the province has become subject to the Company has been owing to these disturbances. Mr. Torin states, that the annual quantity produced in the Pychi Raja’s country is now reduced to 2500 Candies.

Europeans purchased 5/8 th’s of all pepper from Malabar; and the price they gives regulates that of the whole. Since Mahé had fallen the whole crop had fallen into the hands of the company. [1]

The East India Company in 1797 was faced with a situation where due to the wars with Tipu and Hyder, the hinterland inland of Tellicherry had been badly damaged. The villagers had been driven off, the plantations damaged and insufficient pepper and cinnamon was being delivered to the port. The war with the Pazhassi Rajah had made the situation worse.

It was decided that the EIC would start a plantation of its own at Randattara, in order to grown pepper directly. This land had belonged to what William Logan later referrred to as "some petty Nayar chiefs, called Achanmar, feudatories of the Kolattiri Raja."[2]

As far back as 1730 the EIC had been trading with this region, which appears to have been amongst the most fertile areas on the coast. On the 1st of March 1741, the "Achamars of Randatara" mortgaged their property to the EIC for 60,000 fanams.[3]

The EIC seem to have used the Achamars slowness in repaying the mortgage as a way of controlling the destination of the pepper from Ranattara.

In 1760 a further treaty was signed on the 9th of September. Article 2 of which, stopped the farmers sending their pepper to the Dutch in nearby Cannanore.

The local EIC officials arranged amongst themselves to set up the plantation forcing aside the local farmers. These farmers greatly resented this action, and would return to attack the new plantation.

Probably due to these attacks, the plantation managers encountered difficulties in obtaining labour locally. It appears that the officials in London and Bombay were also unhappy at the decision to set up the plantation. After two years the EIC Directors decided to abandon the cinnamon plantations it's local employees had set up at Randattera, because they were unprofitable.

Murdoch Brown who had been managing the plantation, offered to resign his EIC appointment and to take out a 99-year lease on the plantation from the EIC, which subsequently made his fortune, although not until after he had renegotiated the lease in 1817.

At first Murdoch Brown like the EIC, had considerable difficulty in obtaining labour locally. The local population would not work on the plantations for the rates allowed in the EIC budget, and in any case these farmers by custom only worked until midday on their own land.

Brown became aware that the local farmers themselves relied on slave labour from the lower castes who were tied to the land, and were expected to carry out all the heavy tasks.

These slaves could be made to work from dawn until dusk, and were far cheaper to employ than ordinary labourers.

The higher caste Indians would not accept employment in the plantations because if they did they would lose their higher caste status, and become Teers themselves.

He decided to adopt the local practise and began to buy slaves from the Southern Malabar. Many of these came from the Darogha, who was Head Police Officer in Chonghaut.

These slaves were often men and women who had formerly been owned by local farmers who had defaulted on their revenue payments. The farmer's slaves had been seized by the EIC revenue assistants as saleable chattels, along with implements, cooking pots and household fittings to be sold at auction in order to recover these outstanding revenue amounts.

Some of the Darogha’s slaves came from neighbouring independent native states, and Thomas Baber subsequently had good reason to believe that many of these had been kidnapped. For 12 years up until 1811, Brown was actively acquiring slaves to work his plantations.

In evidence given to the House of Lords committee in 1832, Thomas Baber, who was a magistrate described some of the evidence that he had come across concerning abuses of slaves and labourers at Brown’s estate.


Para. 2. It has been shewn from reports furnished by the collector himself, (Mr. Vaughan) that slaves are subject to the lash, as also to imprisonment, putting in stocks and chaining. Repeatedly I myself have observed on their persons marks and scan from stripes inflicted by the rattan, and even wounds; the worst instances of the kind I recollect seeing “were on the persons of some of Mr. Brown's slaves, whom I had cited to give evidence in a case of murder, several of whom bore the marks of severe flogging one of them in particular upon whose back and shoulders were several deep sores, and the flesh of their legs much lacerated;” and on a subsequent occasion, during the search upon Mr. Brown's plantation for the kidnapped children two of the slaves complained to my officers of severe treatment one of them having been recently punished with 25 strips from a rattan. the other with 24.

Para. 3. -- How or whence this oppressive and cruel practice, not only of selling slaves off the estate where they were born and bred, but actually of separating husbands and wives, parents and children, and thus severing all the nearest and dearest associations and ties of our common nature, originated, it would be difficult to say; but I have no doubt, and never had in my own mind, that it has derived support, if not its origin from that impolitic measure in 1798, of giving authority to the late Mr Murdoch Brown, while overseer of the Company's plantation in Malabar, upon the representation of the “difficulties he experienced, even with “the assistance of the tehsildar (the head native authority) and “his own peons,” (armed persons, with badges of office), “to procure workmen and of the price of free labour being more than he was authorized to give to purchase indiscriminately as many slaves as he might require to enable him to carry on the works of that plantation; and of actually issuing orders to the European as well as the native local authorities, to assist him (Mr. Brown), and even to restore slaves who had run away, and returned to their homes (without any orders to inquire the reason of their absconding), and who, as has since been ascertained from the surviving slaves themselves, have been actually kidnapped by the darogha (head police officer of Chowghaut, in the southern parts of Malabar people), and sent up to North Malabar to Mr. Brown, which person had continued, up to 1811, or for a period of 12 years, under this alleged authority, granted by the Bombay Government, to Import slaves and free-born children from the Cochin and Travancore states; a when by the merest accident this nefarious traffic came to my knowledge, and to which, after considerable opposition on the part of the Provincial Court of Circuit, I succeeded in putting a stop, after having restored to liberty and their country 123 persons who had been stolen, of whom 71 were actually found in Mr. Brown's possession.

Para. 4 This, however, was but a small portion of the number originally supplied him, many having absconded, but more than half having died, as ascertained from the survivors. Mr Brown's agent, Assen Ally, himself acknowledged that during the time he was at Aleppi, in Travancore, in 181l, no less than 400 children had been transported to Malabar. [4]

Colonel J Munro, who was Resident of Travancore, wrote late in 1812 to thank Thomas for his activities. The letter supplies some interesting details of the trade in child slaves: -


“I have every reason to believe that many of the unfortunate persons purchased by Assen Ally were procured in the most fraudulent and cruel manner, about the time when he was carrying on his proceedings at Allisrey. I received numerous complaints of the disappearance of children; but all my enquiries at the time could not develop the causes of them. I have been subsequently too much occupied by other important matters to be able to enter into so fully into an investigation of this subject as I was desirous of doing, but I trust that on my arrival at Allisrey I shall have an opportunity of obtaining further information regarding it.

I cannot deny myself the gratification upon this occasion of returning thanks to you in the name of many families in Travancore for your zealous and indefatigable exertions in restoring so many children to their parents and homes, and in checking a practise of a most cruel nature."[5]

To be continued.

[1]Buchanan Vol 2, page 230.
[2] William Logan, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and other Papers of Importance. Page xxxv.
[3] Logan, A Collection... Page 43, para XLIX.
[4] House of Lords Committee
[5] Extract of a letter from Colonel J. Munro Resident of Travancore to Mr Baber Judge & Magistrate dated 29th Nov 1812.OIOC MSS Euro F151/34 page 193.