<論説>要塞、市壁、「石の商館」 : インド・コロマンデル海岸の港町 : 一六〇六―一七〇七年 (特集 : 都市)

Abstract

そもそもヨーロッパ諸勢力が進出するまで、コロマンデル海岸の港町には要塞も市警も存在しなかった。しかし、一七世紀初頭、オランダ東インド会社がプリカットに要塞を築いたことにより、本格的な要塞を擁する港町が登場する。そして約一〇〇年掛の一八世紀初頭には、イギリス東インド会社が租借権を得た一六三九年当時は一漁村に過ぎなかったマドラスが、要塞と市壁を併せ持つ港町として台頭し始めるのである。本稿は、要塞や市壁という新しい建造物が同海岸の港町に造られようとする過程に注目する。特に、一七世紀後半、防備強化の必要に迫られ、市壁や石造りの商館の建設を望みながらも、既存の港町の秩序や現地権力者とのしがらみに阻まれ、思うに任せなかったオランダの事例を分析することによって、同時期にいち早く堅固な防備施設の獲得に成功し、台頭への足がかりを掴んだマドラスの特徴を浮き彫りにしようとするものである。

Port towns on the Coromandel Coast generally had no strong defensive structures like fortresses or town walls before the establishment of the European traders and trading companies were formed. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) built a European style fort named Geldria at Pulicat, once the most prosperous port town on the Coast. The purpose of this study is to examine the changes observed at the Coromandel port towns for a century thereafter. Here, I mainly focus on the process of constructing forts, town walls and a factory built of stone at Pulicat, Madras and Masulipatnam, the three port towns where the English East India Company (EIC) and/or the VOC had their factories in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first part of this study surveys the existing studies on the patterns and categories of the towns or urban centres in the pre-modern South India. Then it demonstrates the characteristics of the Coromandel port towns in particular. Port towns on the Coast developed mainly due to the significant role of maritime trade. As there were no natural harbours with conditions suited to form a great port town, getting support from a political authority, for example, could help develop a coastal village into a new centre of maritime trade. Pulicat emerged as an important port connected with Vijayanagar rule in the fourteenth century, while Masulipatnam flourished as the Sultanate of Golkonda governed the coastal region more stably in the late sixteenth century. In the second part I discuss how the VOC factories were built and situated at Pulicat and Masulipatnam. Fort Geldria, completed in 1613 with the approval of the local ruling elites, was built, actually not within, but next to the existing town. It is said that there were still wide open spaces left between the town and the fort in the mid-seventeenth century. By the end of the century, however, a wall was built surrounding the town and fort, which distinguished them from neighbouring region. In the case of Masulipatnam, the factory was not the property of the VOC but a lease from the local landowners. It was, therefore, a part of the existing town. Both of the factories were established without forcing any significant changes on the existing port towns, at least when the factories were first opened. The third part deals with the English and Dutch attempts to construct defensive structures around their factories. Madras had been only a small fishing village when the EIC decided to open a factory there in 1639. In the course of seventy years, however, it was transformed into a flourishing port town. As for the process of development of Madras, it was characterized by an expansion of the town that accompanied its fortification. Fort St. George was completed in 1653, while a wall surrounding the town had been already being built in the years from 1644 to 1648. Whereas the inside of the outer fort, whose construction had begun in 1657, came to be called the White Town, the outside of the fort developed into the Black Town, around which a brick wall was completed in 1707. Meanwhile, the VOC had difficulties in building defences of their factories at Pulicat and Masulipatnam, both of which had already developed as major port towns before its arrival and had been governed by the local authorities. Fearing war and social unrest in the region, the Dutch at Pulicat could and did add some facilities, such as a new cellar for ammunition, to protect Fort Geldria. They also wanted to have a wall around the port town, but the construction work was only started years after it had first been proposed as a necessity because the local authorities did not approve it earlier. At Masulipatnam, the VOC had even fewer options to obtain a more secure factory. Since the mid-seventeenth century, the Dutch had repeatedly asked the Sultanate of Golkonda to build a new factory of stone with high resistance to fire, but never succeeded until the beginning of the next century after the Sultanate was conquered by the Mughals. As to the town wall, it was in 1686 while they occupied Masulipatnam for a few months that the Dutch finally built it. In short, the EIC at Madras could fortify the factory and town from the beginning, while it took years before the VOC at Pulicat and Masulipatnam had a town wall and a factory built of stone. In the early seventeenth century, the VOC had been able to participate in trading activities that were being carried out at the pre-existing port town and could profit thereby. In the mid century, however, there was growing unrest on the Coromandel Coast because of successive wars. Even such unstable circumstances, it was difficult for the Dutch to attempt to start construction of "defensive works" without the approval or agreement of the local authorities governing the town, with whom they had been negotiating in business for years, On the other hand, there were no such established relationships at Madras between the English and the local authorities. We can say that the fortified port town of Madras could be established because it was only a small and insignificant village in local politics.