Yankee India

Independence from Britain in 1783 brought American merchants and shipowners the freedom to trade in Asia and the hope of handsome profits. Sailing in their small merchant vessels of 200 to 400 tons, Yankee mariners voyaged from ports along the eastern seaboard, becoming the first Americans to experience the distant and exotic civilization of India. Surviving mariners’ journals and letters speak eloquently of these encounters with vastly different ways of life that sometimes challenged and some-times reinforced deeply held convictions about decorum, religion, and morality, and that shaped and refined attitudes toward imperialism, legitimate rule, and free trade. Material embodiments of India at the time—prints, paintings, and figurines depicting Indian scenes and people; “hubble-bubbles,” “idols,” fans, and other curiosities; as well as goods like bandannas, palampores (bedcovers), and shawls—recreate the visual dimension of these encounters and illustrate the resources out of which Americans constructed their images of India. Previously untapped archives and collections of the Peabody Essex Museum, whose founders were captains and supercargoes in the Asia trade, provide the principal resources for this exploration of commercial and cultural relations between the United States and India in the age of sail.

These initial encounters laid the foundation for American views of India and contributed to the development of American and Indian national and cultural sensibilities. Yankee India brings this important but little known episode to a wide range of readers interested in the histories of the United States and India, and in the impacts of intercultural encounters.