2.1.  Organizing trade: the teak market on the Malabar Coast

13 We should remember that a timber market was soundly in place and structured before British domination of the forests of southern India [36]. State control of the forests seems to have already existed before the arrival of the British; in the royal forest regions, this tree could only be cut down when the sovereign gave the order for it [37]. From the times of Tipu, in the forests of the Sultanate of Mysore, the timber market was organized into two separate groups, which the British called "Jungle Merchants" and "Coastal Merchants" [38]. The first group was mainly made up of Mappilas, a Muslim community from Kerala that exercised a kind of monopoly in the Western Ghats [39]. They organized the first two stages of supplying timber: finding workers to cut down the trees and then organizing the transport of the logs. Transport to the rivers was carried out with the help of elephants or buffaloes (Figure 3); the loads then floated down to the coast harnessed together with bamboo [40].

14 Once they had arrived on the coast, the cargoes of timber were taken over by the "Coastal Merchants". They bought them and sent them to the warehouses of the ports that housed the shipyards. After keeping it in these depots for two years to dry out, the Coastal Merchants then loaded the timber onto coastal vessels and sent it to the naval shipbuilders at the Bombay docks, who had already negotiated the purchase price.

15 When England overthrew Tipu in 1799, it was not easy to insert itself into a local trade that was already firmly established [41]. The British, who tended to favour the Hindus (Tipu Sultan was a Muslim and they were often considered to be enemies of civilization), caused anxiety among the jungle merchants. With little enthusiasm for the idea of an ancient Hindu aristocracy once again being established [42], their hostility sometimes took the form of armed conflicts [43]. Bombay's need for timber for construction nonetheless continued to grow; the colonial administration fervently wished to establish its own timber market, freed if possible from the existing structures.

16 This is what Alexander Mackonochie attempted to do on his arrival in India in 1796, when part of the Malabar region had just been annexed (Figure 4). This young entrepreneur borrowed money from the Court of Directors to set up a sawmill in Beypur, a few kilometres from Calicut. The aim was to galvanize all the trade in this region in which the forests were reputed to be abundant in the best quality teak [44]. This sawmill turned out to be a financial disaster and the project collapsed in 1799; the private investors were ruined and the Court of Directors, which extricated itself, took Mackonochie to court to get him to pay back part of the sums invested [45]. The Moplah rebellions and the failure of this sawmill are a good illustration of the inability of the British to do away with the local structures. The exploitation of teak was more difficult than expected; the colonists suffered from the lack of information available about these territories. To be in control, it was becoming more necessary than ever to have knowledge, starting with the resources available.

2.2.  Governing by survey

17 A policy of domination by weapons was now superseded by a policy of control by information [46]. While several departments were created – Marine Survey, Botanical Survey, Topographical Survey, Geological Survey, Meteorological Survey, etc. – the forests of India were among the privileged places of this "gentle" power. The Indian jungles, which conveyed a number of phantoms, were to become forests, known and controlled. This metamorphosis was to be brought about by the tenacious efforts of intrepid officers. It was also necessary to ensure the cooperation of the local elite, particularly the main merchants and the local kinglets. In India, as in the home country, the "blue books" now became instruments of governance.

18 Barely a few months after the final defeat of Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam, in 1799, Francis Buchanan was commissioned by Wellesley [47], in close collaboration with Dundas in the home country, to conduct a survey of the Malabar and Canara regions in the province of Mysore (Figure 5) [48]. In a report, ordered by the Court of Directors and written following the survey, Buchanan stated that Mysore used to be covered with immense teak forests but that "the negligence of the natives has destroyed them" [49]. This argument was part of a more general discourse of legitimation of the wars against Tipu's authority, the huge costs of which had to be justified to the home country. In addition to being an enemy of England, Tipu also became a fearsome despot and a great destroyer of the environment [50]. Considering Tipu as the destroyer of the teak forests also made it possible to legitimize the introduction of a "scientific and enlightened" management of the forests. Thus, at the end of his report, Buchanan recommended that the EIC should itself manage the teak trees growing on its territory and said that they were no longer found there in abundance: it was a question of taking appropriate measures. The Court of Directors, which was very impressed with this report, had it printed and widely distributed.

2.3.  The gentleman from Germany

19 While doubt was spreading as to the actual quantity of teak wood available in the forests of southern India, orders for the construction of a ship-of-the-line and a frigate came from London in 1802. Despite numerous requests, for three years, nothing specific was undertaken to find out more about the teak resources of the Malabar forests [51]. In 1805, a "gentleman from Germany" living on the Malabar Coast for more than 10 years, Baron Francis von Wrede, published a report that caused a sensation [52]. This report of around fifty pages received a resounding response within the Indian colonial administration and in the home country. Wrede, strongly supported by the Governor of Bombay, Jonathan Duncan, was introduced to Henry Dundas to explain his opinions about the Indian forests [53]. His report soon became a reference document and guided British policies on the Indian forests.

20 In this report, the author first all stated the lack of knowledge of the British. The forests of India were still "terra Incognita [...] blank on our maps" and "the Teak timber remains till now a kind of hidden treasure tor us" [54]. For Wrede, the management of the forests of the Malabar Coast should follow the example of the European forests. Only wooded areas producing "useful" resources should be preserved. Laws would be adopted to "protect" the teak trees from any unregulated felling and an efficient administration would oversee this. A "forest authority" would also be set up to take care of the management of the forests and the timber trade in the region. Headed by an "inspector of forests", this new administration would be responsible for selecting, felling and transporting the teak trees removed. Access to the forests by local populations would be restricted in order to protect against uncontrolled felling of the teak trees. There would also be the question of clarifying property rights in these forests. Because according to Wrede, all territories that were not claimed by one group or another, in addition to the territories that had belonged to Tipu Sultan, "belong incontestably to the Company" [55].

21 Wrede was attempting to transplant the entire German forestry system onto the Malabar Coast. He wanted to place the forests and their resources under the central control of the State where the foresters would supervise felling and would control access to the forests. The head forester would have to take on a policing role for this purpose: punishing any infringement of the regulations in force and sending regular reports to the central administration. While in Germany and Europe the oak remained at the heart of forest management, in India, it was teak on which all attention would be concentrated. It was now a case, according to the thinking that was on the ascendant in Europe, of no longer seeing forests as magical spaces, hostile or welcoming, but as spaces filled with resources, the output of which had to be maximized – "turns woodlands into valuable forests" [56]. Teak became the product of the forest that was most economically useful. The colonial ideal of the Indian forest therefore took the form of a gigantic plantation, regulated, with restricted access, having as its main objective, in the context of the French Wars, providing for the colossal needs of the Royal Navy that was becoming established in Bombay.

22 From March 1805, "Major Atkins, from the Corps of Engineers" and "Mr Mackonochie" were commissioned with conducting a survey in the forests of the provinces of Malabar and Canara [57] (Figure 6). On 2 April 1805, they were sent their instructions [58]. For around ten years, the surveyors travelled the routes that Wellesley had had constructed in the forest regions of the provinces of the Malabar Coast [59] (Figure 7). In 1805, Johnson undertook an expedition in the province of Canara, to the north of Malabar [60]. In 1806, Alex Walker, the Resident of Baroda, sent Mootiram to conduct a survey further north in the forests of Gujarat. In 1807-1808, and then again in 1810, Captain Thatcher travelled through Gujarat searching for sources of supply for Bombay [61].

2.4.  Imposing the rule of law

23 In summer 1805, Atkins and Mackonochie were therefore in Calicut. Although teak had to remain the authentic common thread of their survey, the mission was also for the purpose of studying the geography, climate and populations of the province of Malabar, and particularly the property rights existing in the region. What we know about the Malabar forests at this time can be summarized thus: on the one hand there were the "public forests" considered to be inhabited, where Tipu Sultan had exercised his authority, and which were considered from 1799 to belong "incontestably" to the Company; on the other hand there were the forests that did not belong to the Company [62]. In his survey, Buchanan estimated that these forests were "the property of the Gods of the village": "the trees ought not to be cut without having obtained leave from the Gauda, or head man of the village, whose office is hereditary, and who also is a priest (Pùjàri) […]. This seems, therefore, merely a contrivance to prevent the government from claiming the property" [63]. After months of searches, Mackonochie and Atkins were heading in the same direction: "it does not appear that the records throw much light on this intricate subject", they wrote [64]. Mackonochie then began to draft a questionnaire, which he intended to distribute to the local populations.

24 All those who "claim" to have rights over the forests or over the woodland resources had six months to send proof of ownership to the Committee of Survey, in writing if possible [65]. After this period, those who had not submitted them would have their claims definitively rejected. The questions asked by Mackonochie bear witness to the difficulty that the British had in understanding the property system in place:

25

"Do you possess or claim to possess any […] lands on which Teak Timber is produced? Did you acquire these Lands by inheritance, By purchase or otherwise? Have you any deeds by which you can show your title to the said lands? Be so good as produce them? What powers do you possess over these Lands? Can you sell them to anyone?" [66].

26 The aim of the questionnaire was to appropriate, legally, forest territories that were inhabited, or at least being exploited, but of which no one was able to prove ownership. It was a question of constituting public forest areas, by declaring as property of the State all woodland areas without proven owners and excluding from them the groups that had so far been earning a living from them [67].

3.1.  Towards a forestry management policy

27 In 1806, at the end of an exhausting and incomplete survey [68], Atkins and Mackonochie came to the conclusion that it would be difficult to prevent the "native axe" from devastating the Teak trees of the jungles [69]. The British became aware that they did not have the means to apply the measures for protecting the teak trees that already existed.

28 In 1800, the second Bengal-Bombay Joint Commission had passed a regulation prohibiting the felling of teak trees with a circumference of less than 21 inches [70]. However, the text remained without effect. Apart from the traditional uses that were still ongoing [71], the news that the Royal Navy was now to build ships made from teak in Bombay soon led to a genuine rush on the precious tree, leading the timber merchants to cut them down as fast as they could. It was then a question for the British of finding the means to control the resource.

29 At the end of 1806, a post was specially created to solve the problem of the destruction of the jungles of the Malabar Coast: Captain Watson, who had succeeded Atkins as head of the Committee of Survey [72], became the first Conservator of Forests [73]. This event, which represented the first milestone in this period traditionally associated with the EIC monopoly [74], took place in a more general context of concern about teak: after the crushing failure of the Atkins-Mackonochie expedition, the Court of Directors was worried about not seeing the money invested bear fruit. Little more was known about teak resources and, in London, Dundas and His Majesty's ministers were growing impatient. It was a question of relaunching the Committee of Survey project of Atkins and Mackonochie. Watson seemed to be the man for the job: he "possesses a perfect knowledge of the language and of the country" [75], and the "considerable influence" that he exercised in the region made it possible to "preserve tranquillity and order among the Inhabitants south of Beypoor, while rebellion raged in every other part of the Province". His mission was specified in November 1806. He was to "prevent the devastation of the woodlands for construction", "ascertaining of the existence, quantity and size of teak timber" [76]. To achieve this, Watson could negotiate contracts with the timber merchants on the Malabar Coast, which would enable him to ship large quantities of teak, of sufficient quality for building warships, to the Bombay shipyards. His jurisdiction extended no further than where the teak grew: the forests of the Malabar Coast. To assist him in this task, in December Watson appointed "native agents" [77].

30 In January 1807, all the forests of Malabar, Canara and Travancore came under the control of the EIC, with the Conservator of forests at the centre. In April the same year, a proclamation announced that all teak was now the exclusive property of the EIC and that any felling of these trees, without a licence issued by the Conservator, would be punished [78]. It became necessary to be approved by the Conservator if one wished to engage in the timber trade. This was the birth of the first colonial administration of forests in India. Its role was first and foremost to protect a resource that all of England desired. Teak became "the most important national purpose, both in respect to His Majesty's Navy and the general supply of that article so essential to a maritime Nation" [79]; a genuinely "royal" tree [80].

31 While it seemed more certain that the forests of India contained large quantities of this tree [81], the question arose as to the durability of the exploitation of teak. The British were well aware that the forests were currently being decimated. Contrary to what was written by certain authors, the first measures for protection of the forests were not taken by States which, threatened by ecological changes, had been forced to accept the environmental prescription of pioneering scientists attempting to save weakened ecosystems [82]. Far removed from climatic or meteorological preoccupations, the colonists wanted to take measures to protect the forests to guarantee a sustainable supply of teak for shipbuilding. Policies for replanting deforested areas were therefore introduced by the Conservator of forests. While the historiography has held that the first genuine attempts to introduce teak plantations came about in the 1840s with that of Henry Connolly in Nilambur [83], the wish to transform certain parts of the Indian forest into teak plantations already existed.

3.2.  From jungle to garden, from garden to plantation : civilizing the forests

32 While the original purpose of the Calcutta Garden was to rationalize farming production and prevent famine [84], it rapidly became a place where teak took root. In March 1787, William Kyd, founder of the Botanical Garden, was aiming to obtain some teak seeds from the Malabar and Coromandel regions to be able to cultivate it; teak seeds were therefore shipped to the Botanical Garden [85] which became a "garden for acclimatization" of teak wood [86]. In 1790, the young teak plants were "growing vigorously" and had just come into flower [87]. When Scotsman William Roxburgh took over as head of the Calcutta Botanical Garden in 1793, he worked even harder than his predecessor to promote teak.

33 Trained in medicine at Edinburgh College and having settled in Madras in 1776, Roxburgh began, on taking up his post at the Calcutta Garden in 1793, an enterprise of distribution of teak seeds and young seedlings, which were transplanted to the growing network of botanical gardens [88]. These gardens became conservatories of seeds and hothouses for teak. From 1795, Roxburgh estimated that in addition to the gardens, teak should be grown in plantations specially dedicated for this purpose. He therefore sent young seedlings to Rampore Bauleah, and in 1799, a wood of "the hardest of materials" prospered there [89]. The purpose of this plantation was to free Calcutta from being supplied by Rangoon where the French still exercised some influence [90]. This is the first mention in the sources of a vast area especially dedicated to growing teak as was being done for example for cotton and sugar. All the teak plantations that were created after that of Bauleah used it as a model [91]. William Roxburgh thus found himself, at the turn of the 19th century, at the centre of a botanical network for the distribution of teak all over India, comfortably installed in the hothouse that was the Calcutta Botanical Garden.

34 As early as 1799, Buchanan wished to "eradicate the trees of lesser value" in order to be in a position to "procure a considerable quantity of teak in a well regulated government" [92]. He had also proposed developing teak plantations in the Malabar and Canara regions [93]. From 1809, the role of the Conservator changed. He no longer only had to take measures to protect the trees, punish offenders, negotiate contracts with merchants and issue licences authorizing participation in the timber trade, he now also had the task of replanting certain areas of forest. It was the entire "future productivity" of the forests that was at stake and, especially, the support that they could offer "to the Naval and Commercial interests of the British Empire" [94]. In July every year, the Conservator had to send a report to the Forest Committee in Bombay, describing the progress of this enterprise of replanting teak, the number of seeds and seedlings planted [95].

35 In 1809, Alexander Bell, Resident in Baroda, was appointed to replace Watson, who was constrained to leave Malabar on health grounds [96]. The new Conservator decided to devote himself completely to this task. He therefore had to choose how to run the operations. Should it be the responsibility of the EIC to provide the seeds and to pay people to sow them between November and May, in short, for the Conservator to be in charge for supervising operations? Or should the care of them rather be left to the "late Forest Proprietors", which would have the dual advantage of saving the EIC money and satisfying "every public and private feeling"? This latter remark clearly shows us the internal conflict experienced by the colonial administrators of India.

36 The "late Forest Proprietors" were those from whom Watson had removed, in April 1807, the right to claim ownership of the forests on the Malabar Coast. They were the dominant classes of the populations that lived in the southern regions of India. Quite often, these populations were not proprietors in the sense prevailing in Europe at the time, but rather groups that had been granted the privilege of felling trees by a Rajah, for example that of Nilambur [97], or even individuals whose membership of a caste designated them as the "beneficiaries" of certain territories.

37 The British had great difficulty in understanding the property systems existing in the Indian territories [98], all the more so because they varied from one region to another. Watson's decision to strip the Indian "proprietors" of ownership of the forests was also problematic. In fact, the British considered on the one hand that "the Freedom of property is absolute!" [99] and that private property was the "foundation of the social order and economic progress" [100]. On the other hand, the reforms being carried out by the Conservator of forests tended to deny the right to property and the use of the forests to those who claimed possession of them. To attempt to resolve this conflict, Alexander Bell brought together the 17 late proprietors of the forest region of Velatree [101] with an order to "direct & stimulate them […] in their […] characters as public servants to prosecute the duty of replanting" [102]. The objective stated was to get the "late proprietors" to accept the loss of rights over their land and, according to William Roxburgh, for "the native landowners to be persuaded to think that their interests and their wealth will thus be favoured" [103].

38 The internal conflicts experienced by the colonists denote a lot of trial and error regarding the strategies implemented by the British to impose the rule of law in India [104]. The colonial power became aware that it could not manage India's resources without managing its society. The EIC gradually realized that to govern India, it had to understand its laws and its society. This was one of the principal roles of the Asiatic Society of 1784, and Fort William College founded in 1800, to study Indian customary law: to exploit teak, they had to understand the system organized around it, whether social or legal.

39 A contract was therefore entered into between the Conservator and the proprietors: they had to plant 7,000 trees each year. In return, they would receive a salary – depending on the number of trees that had grown – and would retain the right to remain on their land. However, Bell did not allow them the responsibility of planting teak as they understood it and took it upon himself to distribute among the "proprietors" a manual on growing teak written by Roxburgh [105]. These instructions were to be used to standardize and rationalize cultivation methods to obtain the best cost/performance ratio. Roxburgh discussed in detail the periods best suited for growing teak, "the most useful tree in the world" [106]. For him, such instructions were necessary because he had "often seen seeds from the same tree succeed with one person but completely fail with another" [107].

40 He showed himself to be extremely attentive to botany and to the specific conditions of cultivation. We learn there for example that the teak "nut", which is particularly hard, contains four "cells", in each of which lies a "small seed". Roxburgh stated that, although the seed retains its "growing power" for at least 18 months, it is advisable to plant it just after the start of the first rains. Each of the "nuts" produces from 1 to 4 plants, after between 4 and 8 weeks: "the plants when they first make their appearance are very small, scarce so large as a Cabbage plant when it first appears above ground, their growth however is rapid". This is one of the main advantages of teak wood, the growth of which is spectacular, particularly for those familiar with the speed at which the oak tree grows in England. When the plant has reached around 5 cm (2 inches) in height, great care must be taken to lift it from the soil and replant the roots approximately 15 cm (6 inches) apart until the next rains. Roxburgh's techniques must have been effective because in June 1811, Alexander Bell wrote that 6,390 teak trees had been planted and were growing in good conditions [108], and he said that there was still room for another 40,000 trees [109].

41 It is difficult to know here whether it was a question of gradually setting up large areas of teak monoculture, as had already happened in Bauleah, in other words of gradually destroying all other varieties and only replanting teak, or rather an enterprise of replanting the tree in areas of forest where several varieties co-existed. What is certain is that the project for transforming the jungle into a plantation where only teak was fostered would become an ecological reality later on in the 19th century [110].

42 By the end of the war in 1815, nine ships had been built specifically for the Royal Navy [111] by the Parsee shipbuilders at the Bombay docks [112], and at least five were still under construction. In absolute value, it would undoubtedly seem very little in view of the size of the Royal Navy fleet [113]. The wars against France, and therefore the construction of these ships, were nonetheless the pretext that launched the process of "sustainable" exploitation of the teak forests and required the setting up of a forestry administration, which continued to be consolidated and to take on importance throughout the whole of the 19th century. Between 1793 and 1815, the Bombay shipbuilders also constructed more than 60 other ships made from teak, whether for the EIC – of which part of the fleet was requisitioned for the needs of the war –, for the Bombay Navy – a military force that took care of protecting the western coast from attacks by pirates or European ships – or for the private merchants. This fleet also made it possible to secure the entire Indian Ocean. These ships were those that were the best made in terms of naval architecture and, aided by the qualities of the teak, they demonstrated a rock-solid robustness. Rennel, at the turn of the 19th century, said that "Teak Ships of forty Years old and upwards are not uncommon Objects on the India Seas, while European Ship is ruined there in five years" [114]; this type of remark helped to convince Dundas to turn to India and its teak, in an emblematic example of the "shift toward east". To conclude, here is an example of the longevity of teak ships: built in 1813, the Cornwallis (74 cannons, 1767 tons), after a brilliant career in the service of the Navy, was finally broken down in 1957 [115]. This longevity, characteristic of the teak ships built in Bombay, played a part in British prosperity and in its naval domination during the wars against France.

43    

44 We can clearly see that the wish to "protect" the forests – i.e. to transform them into economically useful teak plantations – came about in the more global context of the Anglo-French wars. It was to meet the pressing demands of the Royal Navy – which, in 1810, ordered from the Bombay shipbuilders the Cornwallis, a future 74 cannon and second ship-of-the-line to be built in India – that the Conservator of the forests of Malabar and Canara, at the request of the Court of Directors, set up a systematic policy of replantation of teak in the places where deforestation had already caused havoc.

45 With the wars, national pride and economic prosperity as a backdrop, the barely concealed wish of Bell – and together with him, that of all England – was to transform the Indian "naked regions" into gigantic teak plantations and to place them at the service of the Navy. The ideal of the colonial administration of the Indian forest was therefore revealed as a domesticated forest, a useful and ordered plantation – a civilized territory. The jungle, by dint of expeditions, was to be transformed into a forest, and the forest, once it was known better, into a teak plantation.

46 At the turn of the 19th century, teak timber became a key resource for English power. After part of Malabar was annexed in 1792 following the third Mysore war and then the final fall of Tipu Sultan in 1799, the exploitation of India's teak resources was pursued practically without any obstacles. Not completely, because the collaboration with local populations, so often wished for and sometimes achieved, often had its limits. At the start of the century, the territory was poorly controlled by the British who were fully aware that resistance to their presence was an element that was seriously harming the appropriation of the teak resources:

47

"The scenes of Murder and Rebellion which have so frequently and so unhappily disturbed the tranquillity of the province of Malabar since it has been in our possession have doubtless formed one great obstacle to a thorough examination of the woods which it contains" [116].

48 The forestry administration that was set up in the 1800s and particularly in 1806, when Captain Watson became Conservator General of the Forests of India, allowed a "green imperialism" to become established and to take long-term root in India throughout the 19th century.

49 The period from 1793 to 1815 was, for the Indian forests a time of transformation and reconfiguration of the relationships between nature and society. Teak became, like deer before it in England in 1723 [117], a royal prerogative. By restricting access to the forests to the inhabitants of the forests, by reinforcing and stating in writing the property rights of an elite and punishing any felling of trees not authorized by the Conservator, the EIC transformed the relationships that pre-existed between the human collectives and their environment. We therefore realise that, as for the 20th century wars, those of the period from 1793 to 1815 "were also decisive in shaping the political, technical, economic and cultural considerations that presided over the exploitation and conservation of the resources" of India [118]. These considerations led, throughout the 19th century and particularly after the 1840s, to a more intensive use of forestry resources, to increasingly important and restrictive regulations and to an ever-growing incursion of the forestry administration into customary uses.