The English Company and the Catholics of Madras,in the Age of Religious Conflicts in England,1640–1750

Abstract

This article seeks to explain how enduring anti-Catholic sentiment in England influenced the policy of the English Company towards the Catholic community in its overseas colonies. While England was struggling to get rid of the ‘dregs of popery’, the Company and its servants were struggling during the same period to finally evict their majority Catholic populations from Madras in 1749. The Company largely depended upon the strength of the Indo-Portuguese community members who were adherents of the Catholic faith for the growth of its trade and the security of its settlements in India until sufficient numbers of Protestants were available in the mid-eighteenth century. But the fear of ‘popery’ compelled them to initiate certain measures to check them from becoming too powerful: outright persecution, regulating their affairs through the church, preventing them from associating with other Catholic establishments in the region and more importantly the beginning of missionary works in English settlements to supercede the strength of Catholic populations.