Ancient Times http://www.roydondomnic.blogspot.com/The region served as an important administrative, military, and economic center as far back as the
1st century. Records indicate that the ancient province of
Tondaimandalam had its capital and military headquarters at
Puzhal, which today is a small village on the northwest fringe of Chennai.
It is hypothesized that the
apostle St. Thomas had immigrated to India in
52 to preach the teachings of
Jesus, and he preached from on top of a
hillock in the southwest part of the city. He was later said to be assassinated around the year
70.
Over the centuries many rulers ruled over the region as the
South Indian empires grew stronger. The
Pallavas who were the most prominent built several large
temples in and around Chennai, which include the
Kapaleeshwarar temple at
Mylapore and the Shore Temple at
Mahabalipuram.
Early European Settlers Modern Chennai had its origins as a
colonial city and its initial growth was closely tied to its importance as an artificial harbour and trading centre. When the
Portuguese arrived in 1522, they built a port and named it
São Tomé, after the
Christian apostle St. Thomas, who is believed to have preached there between the years
52 and
70. The region then passed into the hands of the
Dutch, who established themselves near
Pulicat just north of the city in 1612.
Arrival of the British
By
1612, the
Dutch established themselves in
Pulicat to the north. In the seventeenth century when the
British East India Company decided to build a factory on the east coast they selected Armagaon (Durgarazpatnam), a village around 35 miles North of Pulicat, as the site in 1626. The calico cloth from the local area, which was in high demand, was of poor quality and not suitable for export to Europe. The British soon realized that the Armagaon was not a good port and it was unsuitable for trade purposes. Francis Day, one of the officers of the company, who was then a Member of the Masulipatam Council and the Chief of the Armagaon Factory, made a voyage of exploration in 1637 down the coast as far as
Pondicherry with a view to choose a site for a new settlement. At that time the Coromandel Coast was ruled by the Rajah of
Chandragiri who was a descendant of the famous Rajas of
Vijayanagar Empire. Under the Rajah, local chiefs or governors known as Nayaks, ruled over the different districts.
Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, local governor of the
Vijayanagar Empire and Nayak of
Wandiwash ruled the coastal part of the region, from
Pulicat to the
Portuguese settlement of San Thome. He had his head-quarters at
Wandiwash and his brother Ayyappa Nayakudu resided at Poonamallee, a few miles to the west of
Madras, and looked after the affairs of the coast. Beri Timmanna Chetti dubash(Interpreter)of Francis Day was a close friend of damarla Ayyappa Nayakudu. Beri Thimmanna migrated in the early 17th century to Chennai from Palacole, near
Machilipatnam in
Andhra Pradesh. Ayyappa Nayakudu persuaded his brother to lease out the sandy strip to Francis Day and promised him trade benefits, army protection, and Persian horses in return. Francis Day wrote to his Headquarters at
Masulipatam for permission to inspect the proposed site at Madraspatnam and examine the possibilities of trade there. Madraspatnam seemed favorable during the inspection and the calicos woven at Madraspatnam were much cheaper than those at Armagaon.
On 22 August 1639, Francis Day secured the Grant by the Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, Nayak of
Wandiwash giving over to the
British East India Company a three-mile long strip of land, a fishing village called Madraspatnam, copies of which were endorsed by Andrew Cogan, the Chief of the
Masulipatam Factory, and are even now preserved. The Grant was for a period of two years and empowered them to build a fort and castle on an approximate 5 square kilometre sand strip.
The English Factors at
Masulipatam were satisfied with Francis Day. They requested Francis Day and the Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu to wait until the sanction of the superior English Presidency of
Bantam (in
Java) could be obtained for their action. The main difficulty, among the English those days, was lack of money. In February 1640, Francis Day and Andrew Cogan accompanied by a few factors and writers, a garrison of about 25 European soldiers and a few other European artificers, besides a Hindu powder-maker by name Naga Battan, proceeded to
Madras and started the English factory. They reached Madraspatnam on February 20, 1640; and this date is important because it marks the first actual settlement of the English at the place.
Francis Day, his dubash (Interpreter) Beri Thimmanna Chetti and their superior Andrew Cogan can be considered as the founders of Chennai, then Madras. They began construction of the Fort St George on 23 April 1640 and houses for their residence. This area came to be known as 'White Town'. When Indians came to live near it, this gave rise to another settlement. The Company called the new place 'Black Town', as the Indians here met its needs of cloth and indigo.
The grant signed between Damarla Venkatapadri and the British had to be authenticated or confirmed from the Raja of Chandragiri - Venkatapathy Rayulu.The Raja , Venkatapathy Rayulu was succeeded by his nephew Sri Rangarayulu in 1642. Sir Francis Day was succeeded by Thomas Ivy. The grant expired. So, Thomas Ivy sent Factor Greenhill on a misson to
Chandragiri to meet the new Raja and get the grant renewed. A new grant was issued in 1642 copies of which are still available. It is dated October - November 1645. This new grant signed in 1645 empowered the English to administer justice and gave them an additional piece of land known as the Narimedu (Jackal-ground) which lay to the west of the village of Madraspatnam. All the 3 grants are said to be engraved on gold plates that do not exist now.
The Fort St George became the nucleus around which the city grew. The Fort still stands today, and a part of it is used to house the
Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and the Office of the
Chief Minister.
Elihu Yale, after whom
Yale University is named, was British governor of Madras for five years. Part of the fortune that he amassed in Madras as part of the colonial administration became the financial foundation for Yale University.
1750s to 1947
In
1746, Fort St George and Madras were captured by the
French under General
La Bourdonnais, who used to be the
Governor of
Mauritius. The French are then described to have plundered the village of
Chepauk and demolished Blacktown, the locality across from the port where all the dockyard labourers used to live
[1].
The British regained control in
1749 through the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. They then strengthened and expanded Fort St George over the next thirty years to bear subsequent attacks, the strongest of which came from the French (
1759, under
Thomas Arthur, Comte de Lally), and
Hyder Ali, the
Sultan of
Mysore (
1767). The
1783 version of Fort St George is what still stands today.
The British were in complete control of the city, after a decade's feud with the
French, they expanded the city by encompassing the neighbouring villages of
Triplicane,
Egmore, Purasawalkam and Chetput to form the city of Chennapatnam, as it was called by locals then.
In the latter half of the
18th century, Madras became an important English naval base, and the administrative centre of the growing British dominions in southern India. The British fought with various
European powers, notably the
French at
Vandavasi (
Wandiwash) in
1760, where de Lally was defeated by
Sir Eyre Coote, and the
Danish at
Tharangambadi (
Tranquebar). The British eventually dominated, driving the French, the Dutch and the Danes away entirely, and reducing the French dominions in India to
four tiny coastal enclaves. The British also fought four
wars with the
Kingdom of Mysore under
Hyder Ali and later his son
Tipu Sultan, which led to their eventual domination of India's south. Madras was the capital of the
Madras Presidency, also called Madras Province.
The development of a harbour in Madras led the city to become an important centre for trade between
India and
Europe in the eighteenth century. In 1788,
Thomas Parry arrived in Madras as a free merchant and he set up one of the oldest mercantile companies in the city and one of the oldest in the country (
EID Parry).
John Binny came to Madras in 1797 and he established the textile comapy
Binny & Co in 1814.
Spencer's started as a small business in 1864 and went on to become the biggest department stores in Asia at the time. The original building which housed Spencer & Co. was burnt down in a fire in 1983 and the present structure houses one of the largest shopping malls in India,
Spencer Plaza. Other prominent companies in the city included
Gordon Woodroffe,
Best & Crompton,
Higginbothams,
Hoe & Co and
P. Orr & Sons.
Madras was the capital of the
Madras Presidency and thus became home to important commercial organisations. The
Madras Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1836 by Fredrick Adam, Governor of the Madras Presidency (the second oldest Chamber of Commerce in the country). The
Madras Trades Association was established in 1856 and The
Madras Stock Exchange in 1920.
[
edit]
Post-independenceAfter India became
independent, the city became the administrative and legislative capital of
Madras State which was
renamed as
Tamil Nadu in
1968.
During the reorganisation of states in India on linguistic lines, in 1953, Telugu speakers wanted Madras as the capital of Andhra Pradesh and coined the slogan "Madras Manade" (Madras is ours) before
Tirupati was included in
Andhra Pradesh. The dispute arose as the city had come to be inhabited by both Tamil and Telugu speaking people. Earlier, Panagal Raja, Chief Minister of
Madras Presidency in early 1920s had suggested that the
Cooum river be the boundary between the Tamil and Telegu administrative areas. In 1953, the political and administrative dominance of
Tamils, both at the Union and State levels ensured that Madras was not transferred to the new state of Andhra Pradesh though the city was geographically part of the Andhra region. With time, migration of Tamil speaking people from other parts of Tamil Nadu to the state capital increased the percentage of Tamil speaking population.
Today, though a cosmopolitan city, the majority of residents in Chennai are native
Tamilians. There are also a sizeable native
Telugu,
Anglo Indian and migrant
Malayalee communities in the city. As the city is an important administrative and commercial centre, many communities like
Bengali,
Punjabi,
Gujarati and
Marwari communities and people from
Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar migrated to the city and have contibuted to its cosmopolitan nature. Today, Chennai also has a growing expatriate population especially from the
United States,
Europe and
East Asia who work in the industries and
IT centres.
From
1965 to
1967, the city was an important base for the Tamil agitation against the perceived imposition of
Hindi, and witnessed sporadic rioting. Chennai witnessed further political violence due to the
ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, with 33 people killed by a bomb planted by the
Tamil Eelam Army at the airport in
1984, and assassination of thirteen members of the
EPRLF and two Indian civilians by the rival
LTTE in
1991 [2],
[3]. In the same year, former Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in
Sriperumbudur, a small town close to Chennai, whilst campaigning in Tamil Nadu, by
Thenmuli Rajaratnam A.K.A Dhanu. Dhanu is widely believed to be have been a LTTE member. In
1996, the
Government of
Tamil Nadu renamed the city from "Madras" to "Chennai" by DMK Government. The
2004 tsunami lashed the shores of Chennai killing many and permanently altering the coastline.
Modern Chennai is a large commercial and industrial centre, and is known for its
cultural heritage and temple architecture. Chennai is the
automobile capital of India, with around forty percent of the automobile industry having a base there and with a major portion of the nation's vehicles being produced there. Chennai is also referred as the
Detroit of
South Asia. It is a major manufacturing centre. Chennai has also become a major center for outsourced IT and financial services from the Western world.
Source: wikipedia 
