George V Era - Cochin State

Hi Tony

Great work

Keep them coming

Interesting tidbits about the ancestory of christians (like me) over down under here...

Want to post images of my stamps - but waiting for your inputs to the last 'period' - a couple of "foreign bill" issue of Raja 2

Regards
Thomas

From what I have read it was the east coast, where trade had
originally sprung, in Tamil land, (maybe Tamil land included Cochin then)
Apparently the Cholas (Tamil rulers) had a sea trade with Ceylon Burma and Java, but it wasn't till the 45 A.D. the use of the Monsoon in navigation, enabled them to sail across the Arabian sea.
The text goes on further to say the Tamils had extensive trade with Rome, and it is here I can see the possible link with the apostle.

Several Roman colonies were set up in Tamil land, and it was estimated the annual drain from Rome to India to be 4 million dollars
annually.
(spices, perfumes, precious stones, and textiles)

Thomas, revenues (or fiscals) are outside my scope. You could try posting them in the Revenues thread elsewhere here, and you might get a more useful answer than I could give you.

I thought you might be a Kerala Christian, from your name. I suppose being of native Irish, but staunchly Anglican, descent myself, I'm naturally drawn to religious/ethnic anomalies

Rodney, I suspect you've been reading a distinctly Tamil-ophile source. After all, Goa, Calicut and Cochin were on the right side of India for trade with the Middle East and Europe. You had to sail past them to get to Tamil country

I've yet to research the Chinese connection with Cochin



(If you can make out the caption 'Chinese net' on the 2 Anna)

but I'd guess it could well be pretty old. The Tang Dynasty (7th to 10th Centuries CE) was the heyday of foreign trade in China, through Canton in particular.

Hi Tony

Yes - I am a Kerala Christian - belonging to "Syro-Malabar Christians" of Kerala - established by St.Thomas (apostle). In India there are basically 3 Roman Catholic churches -
(a)Latin christians - established when St. Francis Xavier came to India, Goa about 650 years back.
(b)Syro-Malabar christians - established by St.Thomas in Kerala - about 52AD
(c)Syro-Malankara christians - had gone out from the group but returned after many years to Roman catholic fold.

(b) and (c) are specific to Kerala. Of course we have spread all over the world in a small way and there are parishes in New York, New Jersey and so on...

Meanwhile - the stamps I told about - they are T.C (Travancore-Cochin).



Regards
Thomas

Thomas, I gather there's at least one (c) parish in Sydney, here in Australia, too.

Now, your revenues. It's astonishing that they were still overprinting 2nd Raja revenue stamps in the time of Travancore-Cochin. Rama Varma II died in 1932, after all. The last postage stamp from his reign was the 9 Pies surcharge on the 1½ Anna Service stamp, of 1943 - and it's a pretty uncommon stamp, too.

Hi Tony
Was wondering the same - why the existing or previous Raja stamps were not used and why that of Raja 2 long gone being taken out...
And.. could not find "FOREIGN BILL" in SG catalogue.

Also the Raja 2 stamp - 9p on One and Half anna Service - is this the one ?



Regards
Thomas

And speaking of Australian connection....

We market an Australian product in India - water conservation products from ConServ..

Regards
Thomas

Yes, Thomas, that's the one. A very scarce stamp, even used, and I think worth more than the £28 Gibbons has it at.

I think the reason for the use of these (long) outdated stamps was simple frugality. They were in storage and available. Why not bring them out, and surcharge them? Better than than just throwing them away - and thank goodness they didn't dump the remainders onto the stamp market!

You won't find the Foreign Bill or any other revenue stamps in Gibbons, unless they were also authorised for use as postage stamps. The perfect example is the Cochin 1 Anna stamps inscribed ANCHAL & REVENUE: they could be used for either purpose. Some other States, like Idar, did allow revenue stamps to also be used for postage in emergencies, like this one



Gibbons then usually list them separately, as Postal Fiscals, as they do with this Idar stamp (which is SG F5b, by the way).

Ah, yes, water conservation. It's something most Australians are very aware of. Here in Melbourne, the State government is constantly nagging at us to use no more than 150 liters of water per person per day. I've got down to about 135 liters per day, but I don't see how I can improve - unless I give up showering. And I have no intention of doing that. You can smell the people who have

About the shower - yes

And then you can start using ConServ....

Thomas

sigh tony I could send you water for stamps :)

Hmmm watch this space.
Cochin as a port usable by europeans did not come into
play until the 1500's.
I would suggest Muslim merchants with Hindu authorities
comandeered the coastal shipping with exclusive trade in their hands,
Most of the spices and trade goods were going overland to Europe.


After all, it is not where the port lies that dictates the
usage, it is what the port holds which would have been important.
The eastern seabord of India would have been the receiving point
from traders dealing in special spices from the Eastern Moluccas.
I cannot see them hoicking it over the ghats.

Then let me quote a few lines from Murray's Traveller's Guide ...

Writing of Ernakulam, 'At the S. end of the long main street, in Mattancheri, is the Jews' quarter, with two synagogues. ... The Jews are divided into two sections - the Black who claim to have settled on this coast in the 3rd and 4th century A.D., and the White, who are believed to have arrived here at a much later date. Black Jews possess a copper grant from the Brahman Prince of Malabar, which is dated 388 A.D., or according to Buchanan-Hamilton, 490 A.D.'

and on Cochin Town 'Cochin is of special interest as the earliest European settlement in India. A friar Jordanus visited it in 1324, Ibn Batuta in 1347, a Chinese in 1409 and a Persian in 1442. In 1500 the Portuguese adventurer adventurer Cabral landed at Cochin and met with a friendly reception, returning to Portugal with a cargo of pepper. He was followed by Juan da Nova Castelho. In 1502 Vasco da Gama, on his second voyage, came to Cochin, and established a factory.'

The Malabar Coast was a spice-growing region in its own right, and a trading centre with the Middle East. Were it not so, the Portuguese, then the Dutch and then the British wouldn't have been so anxious to get hold of it!

I would glady accept random visitations,
however Murray's guide smacks of an English gentleman,
behind his oaken desk in lower Putney, writing with the romantacism
to engender sales in his tome.

I prefer this account by J H Parry
"europe and the wider world" 1415-1715

We are talking about trade here, and no self respecting
business man, be him Hindu or Arab, is going to patiently
sit back and see the grubby men from the west come and take
his means of living.

-----

It remained true, however, that in fair and open trade the Portuguese could not compete
with the Arabs or rely upon the goodwill of the local Hindu rajas. European manufactures
were crude and unattractive in Eastern eyes; and the local rulers could not be expected to
see, in the tatterdemalion crews living a crowded squalor in their sea-stained ships, the
fore-runners of a power which was to conquer half the East. Momentarily dangerous the
Europeans might be; but in the eyes of a cultivated Hindu they were mere desperadoes,
few in number, barbarous, truculent and dirty. It became clear that in order to profit fully
by their monopoly of the Cape route the Portuguese would have to destroy the Arab trade
in spices by force of arms at sea. The task of planning and executing this naval war fell to
the ablest sea commander of his day, Affonso d'Albuquerque.