Elizabeth I – Borderless

Title: Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India

Author: Anuradha Kumar

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books

INTRODUCTION

The Wanderers, Lost and Seeking

The people you will meet here—the ‘first Americans in India’—were indeed all wanderers. They came, not attached to the intentions of a country, or even protected by it, unlike their peers, the Englishmen who made up the East India Company, and who came to trade backed by a royal charter granted by Elizabeth I in the year 1600.

The wanderers, the first of whom came at a time when the United States of America had not come into being—and their actions, thus, were different from what was ordained as state policy. The ‘wanderers’ were not ‘state actors’ in that sense, but they, men, and some women, came to India, on their own, driven by their own spirit of search. They were brought here by a sense of adventure, or by a wild dream—that of finding something that would make their fortune—gold or inspiration quite like gold—or by the need to do something good and enobling.

But they were in some ways quite lost after they came to India.

Stepping Into a Mosaic

To these wanderers who travelled to Asia between 1700-1950s, India came as a mosaic of many impressions, a spread of colour and many experiences. It offered a field of new sensations compelling them to revise received knowledge. They were intrigued, they saw its contradictions, its strangeness, and how things were very different from the homes they had left behind. In the process, life for these wanderers was made afresh.

They came as traders, adventurers, military men, fortune hunters, seekers of knowledge, storytellers, mystics, those seeking a new career, or who came simply to serve.

To them, India—that looked quite different from what it does now—was a land of adventure. A land to make a fortune in, or to find fame.

It was a mysterious, magical place, one that fuelled the imagination, a land that contained the ancient truths of the universe. Yet it was a place caught in the ‘medieval age’, a place they had been sent to, a matter ‘divinely ordained’—as the missionaries and mystics believed—to save souls.

A place one could write about, for it was as strange as fiction; it was a land that offered inspiration and where one could find new, yet old, wisdom. A place to serve and cure and heal. A land where a new world was possible, or an arena to set the world aright.

The wanderers were awed and overwhelmed, and then, scandalized and shocked in equal measure. Some of what they wrote mirrored each other’s experiences. For example, their surprise at the number of servants that were needed. The astonishing beauty of the temples. The majesty of the Taj Mahal. The artistry produced by craftsmen and artisans, an art passed down generations. The riot of unexpected colour—in the bazaars, in the turbans men wore, and in the forests with ‘exotic’ fauna and flora yet to be named and classified by the new science of taxonomy. Balmy days spent on houseboats—‘doongas’—in Kashmir. The spiciness of the food, the liberal doses of pepper in curries. And then, the sad state of its women, especially the child brides, and the young widows, who had to be ‘saved’. The timeless stubbornness of the caste system. The very unchanging nature of things.

Change in America

To look at this period—1700-1950—and talk of Americans is somewhat anomalous. For one thing, for the early part of this time, America was a British colony. By the mid-1770s things would change. The United States of America emerged as a new political entity only in 1776.

On the other hand, from the early 18th century onward, the once dominant Mughal Empire was in decline. Aurangzeb, the last powerful ruler of that dynasty, had worn himself and the empire out with his battles in the Deccan and the upsurge of discontent elsewhere that he failed to contain. Even before the Battle of Plassey in 1757 tilted the balance—beginning in the east—in the East India Company’s favour, India was a patchwork of regional rulers, each brimming over with ambition and jostling for power. To adventurers and fortune-seekers—like the ‘wanderers’—who had no master, who came lacking the conqueror’s zeal, but who had their own sense of adventure, such a state of affairs was ideal to make a fortune, to remake a life.

It is thus of little surprise that the first of the wanderers came as part of the East India Company, to associate themselves with it, as ordinary private traders. America at that time, showed the same precarity that characterized India. It was a continent divided up between competing European powers, and to the west of the continent, the different native American groups too had their territories.1

In the next decades, as America extended westward into new frontiers, set its own foundations as a young democracy, some of the wanderers, citizens of a new nation, also faced their own frontiers, as they sailed eastward onto an unknown land.

Most of these early travellers were those who lived on the northeastern seaboard of the American continent, that is, in the port towns of New England that had historic links with England since the early 17th century. These travellers who came all the way from the faraway West to the East were immigrants themselves, children of people who had moved a generation or two ago, a westward journey from Europe to the ‘New World’. The wanderers to India—the South Asian subcontinent—were thus children of wanderers themselves.

(Extracted from Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries: Early Americans in India by Anuradha Kumar. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2025)

THE BOOK

In 1833, Frederic Tudor, an American businessman, made history when he shipped 180 pounds of ice harvested from Walden Pond in Boston, to Calcutta—this luxury item being much in demand amongst the elites of British India. Tudor was deservedly christened the ‘Ice King’, and soon built a flourishing trade exporting American ice to India.

Others were drawn to the country by less materialistic goals. Like the ‘medical missionaries’ who were deeply concerned with the ‘women’s condition’ in India. Ida Scudder’s efforts in the 1900s resulted in the setting up of the Christian Medical College in Vellore, which continues to save lives till this day; in 1873, ‘Doctor Miss Sahiba’ Clara Swain set up the first hospital for women and children in Asia, in Bareilly, on land donated by the Nawab of Rampur.

There were also those who came to stay. Twenty-two-year-old Samuel Evans Stokes came to Kotgarh in the Himalayan foothills in 1904, embraced Hinduism and became Satyanand Stokes. He revolutionized apple cultivation in the area, now in Himachal Pradesh, by introducing the ‘Red Delicious’ apples of Missouri; today, his descendants still live and work in the region. Likewise, the Alter family. Martha and David Emmet Alter arrived in Mussoorie in 1917, to spend the summer studying at the Landour Language School; in 1941, Emmet became principal of Woodstock School, just around the hillside. Twenty-five years later, his son Robert occupied the same position. Robert’s son Stephen continues to live in Mussoorie, pursuing a successful writing career; his cousin Tom Alter was a much-loved actor in Indian films until he passed away in 2017.

These are just some of the ‘first Americans in India’ who came here, beginning in the 1700s, with different motives and dreams—as adventurers, traders, reformers, writers and artists. All of them, without exception, were fascinated, astonished, moved and, in the end, profoundly changed by their ‘Indian experience’.

Anuradha Kumar’s skilful and well-researched account of these early visitors makes this an important and engrossing book that informs, surprises and amuses in equal measure.

THE AUTHOR

Anuradha Kumar lived in Mumbai for over a decade, where she worked for the Economic and Political Weekly. She now lives in New Jersey in the US, and writes often for Scroll, The India Forum, The Missouri Review, Catamaran Literary Reader, The Common and Maine Literary Review. Two of her essays received ‘notable’ mention in Best American Essays editions of 2023 and 2024.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Walking about London Town

By Sohana Manzoor

The first thing I realised while walking around London is that not a single one of all the people I had known who had been to England, told me how charming the city is. The buses with open tops, the red telephone booths, Big Ben, the London Bridge and all those pretty buildings simply fascinated us. So, before heading out for Haworth, we walked around in London and took Duck’s tour and saw some really enchanting stuff.

We spent a large part of a day at the famed Tower of London, which is literally a thousand years old, first built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Our visit began with a tour by a Beefeater (also known as a Yeoman Warder), who gave us a general overview of the Tower’s history. He had a wicked sense of humor and kept making puns like “Let’s be heading this way.” We saw Tower Hill, the site of public executions on the scaffold, and also Tower Green, where Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were executed – the spot is now commemorated by a glass sculpture with a pillow on top. The tour ended at the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula where those executed on Tower Green (including Boleyn and Jane Grey) are buried. Afterwards, we took a picture with the Beefeater outside the chapel.

Next, we went to the building that houses the Crown Jewels. Our eyes were dazzled by the rich display of crowns, scepters, and orbs bejeweled with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and every kind of precious stone possible in the vault. We also saw the famed Kohinoor diamond, set in the Queen Mother’s crown, as well as the crown worn by the late Queen Elizabeth II. After the crown jewels, there was also a section of gold plates, serving dishes, goblets, wine jugs, etc. that were used for ceremonial occasions by various monarchs. We will probably never again see such a display of wealth, and perhaps there is no other place with so much wealth on display in one place. However, all the gold and perhaps some of the obnoxious histories attached with the splendour on display started to make me feel nauseous, so I was glad to get out into the open air.

We looked around in the White Tower, which stands in the center with a display of military equipment and history. Then we went to the Beauchamp Tower, which is known for the graffiti on the walls left by various prisoners, including some very high-profile ones. At one point, when I saw the graffiti attributed to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, I stood rooted to the spot. It was incredible to think we were standing in the same room where such illustrious prisoners once lived, carving their convictions into the walls.

We walked around the grounds, taking pictures, and then came across some costumed characters, including James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, who posed with me graciously for a picture. The costumed characters put on a dramatic reenactment of James trying to claim the throne. James Scott is the fellow who required several blows of the axe, followed by a butcher knife, during his beheading on Tower Hill by the half-drunk Jack Ketch. The Beefeater told us the story in all its gory detail, though the reenactment, thankfully, included the trial but not the execution.

We took pictures, including one of Nausheen posing with a raven. These birdsare kept and bred on the grounds of the Tower. Apparently, they have kept at least half a dozen ravens since the time of Charles II, who thought the Tower would fall and the empire disintegrate if he did not always keep ravens there. There is even one beefeater whose job it is to feed and take care of the ravens! Finally, we also saw the room where Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned for many years, and the place where he used to walk back and forth (now called Raleigh’s Walk), and I got goose bumps.

Our day ended with a brief stop at Tate Modern, which is just across the river from the Tower. I’m not really into modern art, and as I paused in front of a famous painting by Picasso, I had to admit that I understood nothing about its greatness. To me it looked like a misshapen human figure lying on its side. Nausheen kept on dancing around the pieces and went on explaining what she had learnt in conjunction with modern poetry.

Next morning, we passed Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament on our way to Westminster Abbey where kings and queens are still coronated, and where many notable historical, political, and literary figures are buried. It was very crowded, but also a very solemn kind of place – kind of dark and gloomy, with tombs and effigies all around, and Latin epitaphs everywhere. Many of England’s kings and queens are buried here, and we saw the tombs of Henry VII, Elizabeth I, Bloody Mary, and Mary Queen of Scots. The tomb of Queen Elizabeth felt unreal – almost as if it was part of a dream I had nurtured for long.

Eventually, we made our way to the Poets’ Corner, which Nausheen was especially eager to see. She got excited seeing the tomb of Chaucer, who was the first to be buried in the Poets’ Corner. We both patted the tomb in homage to the great man. We also saw tombs of various other poets and writers, such as Austen and Dickens, and memorials to writers who are buried elsewhere, but commemorated here nonetheless, such as Shakespeare and the Brontës. Finally, we stopped at the museum shop to buy some souvenirs.

The afternoon saw us at the Tate Britain. We took a tour with one of the museum guides, who took us through the Turner wing. It was really great that they have an entire wing devoted to Turner, since his work is familiar to me from my dissertation supervisor, Dr. Collins’s course. There were also paintings by Constable and Gainsborough, but of course, Turner’s are the most dramatic and majestic. There was also a smaller wing dedicated to Blake’s prints, paintings, and engravings. However, the ones that are most familiar to us, from Songs of Innocence and Experience, are mostly elsewhere, such as in the British Museum, so there were only a handful of those.

The next day was cold and gloomy and we decided to stay in. We made plans of visiting Hampstead, the home of the young Romantic poet John Keats the day after. I knew days would be bad as I was developing a fever. But I could surely rest for one day.

Sohana Manzoor is an Associate Professor at the Department of English and Humanities at ULAB, a short story writer, a translator, an essayist and an artist. This essay was previously published in The Daily Star in January 2019.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International