Suchergebnisse

In 1807 the English East India Company published a report by Dr Francis Buchanan (1762–1829), a Scottish medic in its employ. The report, titled A Journey from Madras, marked an important moment in colonial savoir faire – the emergence of the statistical survey as a form of natural historical knowledge-making in colonial India. What is not generally known is that Buchanan, who received his MD from the University of Edinburgh, had learnt the procedures he employed in his report in the natural history course taught there by the Rev. John Walker (1731–1803). This chapter seeks to explain why and how Walker's teaching travelled to India with Buchanan, and helped him justify British colonisation of south India.