The Milieu of the 17th Century Coromandel Coast and Chetty Migrants to Dutch Zeylan

Naren Chitty

Introduction: The Coromandel Coast milieu of 17^th century Chetty migrants to Zeylan is addressed here in relation to Udayappa Chetty (d. 1693). He was an ancestor of the Chetty family of Christian S. Chitty (1841-1891), as well as others self-identifying as Tamils. C. S. Chitty’s son James is described in 1900 as belonging to “an old family” evoking a timeframe of some centuries. (Lethbridge 1900, 350). In my view the collocation “Colombo Chetty” firmed up after 1930, decades after Christian Chitty’s death. Anthony Aserappa (1930), in the title of his book A Short History of the Ceylon Chetty Community, and throughout his monograph, uses the descriptors Ceylon Chetties and Christian Chetties.

Brahmin

Colombo Chetty

 

Census categories can prompt identity stresses.  While the 1824 census was based on caste groups, the 1871 census introduced ‘race’ and ‘nationality’, distinguishing between Chetty and Tamil as races. Tamil and Sinhalese were nationalities.  The 1911 census dropped Chetty and split Tamil into Indian and Ceylon. There was a ‘Colombo’ Chetty Association in 1919 for Chetties in Colombo. Chetty Associations appeared in other towns too. Census Superintendent A.G. Ranasinghe called for recognition circa 1946 of Colombo Chetties as a race. (Tissera 2013) Sri Lanka Chetty was added in 2001. (Wikipedia Contributors 2024a) The multi-origin ‘race’ coalesced in Sri Lanka’s colonial period.

“The original permanent Chetty settlers did not all come to Ceylon at the same period, nor from the same place either, nor did they settle down in the same locality, though they all spoke the same language, observed the same, observed the same customs, and maintained the traditions of their respective ancestors”. (Aserappa 1930, 33)

Udayappa means ‘father of the dawn’. Light thrown on him illuminates a part of the multicultural Colombo Chetty patchwork quilt. Our knowledge of him is sketchy. His son Francesco Mangittan Chetty settled in Batticaloa, post-1680 to my reckoning. Udayappa was from Cuddalore and had a charter from Rajasinghe II to trade in rice, operating from Kottiar Bay. Francesco’s daughter Falestina Valliamal Chetty married a businessman, Kanthappa Chetty, and moved to Dutch Colombo. Some descendants are known. Francesco is described as “a very respectable and wealthy merchant.” (Aserappa 1930, 33) He endowed seventeen Hindu temples, including Kokkadicholai Thaanthonreeswarar Temple, in Dutch Batticaloa and brought craftsmen from his grandfather’s estates in India to construct festival carts or rathas. Francesco’s Last Will and Testament was attested to by Dutch Merchant Peter Wambeek on 17th May 1759. (Sri Lanka Colombo Chetty Family Genealogy, 2021)

The following invite curiosity:

1. Portuguese first names of Francesco and daughter Falestina – in Dutch Batticaloa.
2. Significance of Francesco’s middle name – Mangittan.
3. Francesco’s land-owning grandfather in India.

Based on dates we have for father and son, fitting birth years are Udayappa (1645) and Francesco (1685). The overall question is “What is the story of 17^th century Chetty migrants to Zeylan such as Francesco Chetty based on records of the Chetty milieu of the Coromandel Coast?” It is not clear whether Udayappa settled down in the country.

First beginnings

It would be reasonable to suppose that Udayappa was influenced, at some unfathomable distance or proximity, to the dominant 17^th century Cuddalore Chetty mercantile network. Not just in Cuddalore but across the Coromandel Coast trade, revenue farming, and mercantile shipping in the Bay of Bengal, were dominated by a powerful Balija Nayak-Chetti “Malayo” family. “Malay[o] was considered to be one of the richest merchants of South Coromandel region during the first half of the seventeenth century.” (Shngreiyo 2017, 44) Malayo’s name was Achyutappa Chetti (aka Astrappa).  Chinnana, Kesava, Sesadra, and an unnamed brother (one who could be the father of Konera) were siblings. There was an unnamed sister. These merchant-diplomat-warriors owned the Coromandel Shipping fleet, with the Royal Shipping fleet owners as partners. The latter were rulers of Ayutthaya, Arakan and Kedah. Malayo family members’ lives and deeds are documented in Dutch and British company records. (Alam 2014) (Arasaratnam 1991) (Babu 2018) (Brennig 1977) (Chaudhuri 1999) (Narayan 2014) (Raychaudhuri 2014) (Sastri 1958) (Shngreiyo 2017) (Subrahmanyam & Bayly 1990)

Devanampattinam (“Abode of the Demigods”) was the port of Cuddalore in Gingee, hometown of Maleyo and Udayappa. In the first half of the 17^th century Nayak-ruled states of Gingee, Tanjore and Madurai, increasingly gained independence from the Vijayanagar Empire. Gingee and Tanjore in particular opened free ports and hosted European factories.  In the second half of the century, they were assailed by neighbouring Persianate Deccan states, and the Maratha and Mughal Empires. The Maleyo family had enormous wealth and influences with Coromandel Coast and Bay of Bengal courts, and European trading companies, in the first period.

The post-nominal “appa”, the honorific “chetti”, and Udayappa’s place-of-origin, Cuddalore, suggest that Udayappa, like the “Malayo” family, belonged to the Vira-Balija mercantile community, the Nayak-Chettis, claimed by Telegus and Tamils. Vira-Balija merchants and rulers spoke both languages.  Sesadra and Krishnappa (Konera’s son) swapped the honorific Chetti for Nayak when serving their relative the Nayak of Gingee, or other courts, in advisory and military capacities. Vira-Balija were ‘valiant merchants’ from a medieval guild – the Five Hundred Lords of Ayyavole – active from the ninth century in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.

Anthony Aserappa (1930, 30) and Simon Casie Chetty (1834/1989) evince a memory of origins of Chetties in what is Karnataka today. Speaking of later ship-owning merchants from the Coromandal Coast active in Kandy, Arasaratnam argues that “Telugu chetty castes should be considered the most prominent – komaties, balija chetties and beri chetties.” He notes that “[t]hey were from the Krishna-Godavari delta regions of Andhra …These Telugu merchant castes had a remarkable mobility … and had a presence all along the entire Coromandel coast.” (Arasaratnam 1991)

man with sword

These warrior-merchants were somewhat like Knights Templar who combined martial prowess with financial acumen. As a Telugu-speaking elite governing bilingual Tamil-Telugu populations under Nayak rulers of sub-units (sima) of the Vijayanagara Rajya – they embodied the fluid linguistic and cultural identities of South Indian merchants. Vijayanagara (modern Hampi) was the capital of the Karnataka Samrajya. (The Hindu Bureau 2023) European often used the misnomer “Malabars,” masking internal diversity and adaptability, and a 17^th century locus on the opposite coast of Coromandel. “Tamilized balijas were known as kaveri chetties.” (Ravichandran 2011)

Cuddalore

Devanampatnam (south of Pondicherry and north of Porto Novo, Tranquebar and Negapatam) rose as a free port in the late seventeenth century following the fall of San Thome to Golconda forces in 1664. There was migration of Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese traders to these hubs, fostering cosmopolitan environments. Chetti merchants maintained private fleets for voyages between ports like Negapatam, Colombo, and the Kandyan port of Trincomalee.

The Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie – VOC) and its chief merchants, like Malayo, relied on each other as single buyers and single customers. Achyutappa’s answer, when asked on arrival in Cuddalore where he was from, stuck as his name – “Malayo” or “Mallai” (from the mountains). Recall that the words malaya rata meant mountainous country in Sinhalese.

Malayo was first engaged in 1608 by Jacob de Bitter as an interpreter while negotiating with the Gingee rulers for a factory site in Devanampatnam. (Ravichandran 2011, 232) He was VOC Chief Merchant for the Dutch until his death (1634). His brother Chinnana (also Malayo in records) later replaced him. In the post-Malayo family period, after 1660, “there was no chief merchant to deal with procuring material for the VOC. The Malayo family had been provisioning the Dutch with rice in addition to salt petre”, the latter for gun powder, and other commodities. The VOC was almost completely dependent on the Malayo family rice supplies for its factories. (Subrahmanyam 2002)

Were their famine related issues around 1675 when Udayappa was old enough to play a role in rice importation? Famines are recorded from Madurai to the Coromandel Coast in 1644, 1646 to 1647, and 1648 to 1649. (Wikipedia Contributors 2025a) In the central Coromandel Coast when harvests were good, surplus rice was exported.  Climatic crises prompted shortages requiring rice imports. The Tanjore area had substantial surpluses for export. In the second half of the 17^th century rice was needed to supply “the growing Dutch establishment in Ceylon and the urban communities dependent on the Dutch”. Dutch sources in Sadraspatnam and Devanampattinam ceased to be reliable after the 1670s. Rice cultivation was declining in Ceylon especially along the coasts. Within seven years from when the British East India Company was empowered in Madras in October 1645 by the last Vijayanagara emperor Sriranga Raya (r. Oct. 1642 – 1646) to administer justice and assign new territory, there was the “occurrence of a terrible famine …Indeed for generations afterwards memories of this frightful time lingered in the country”. (Aserappa 1930, 31) Following this and political disturbances Chettis often arrived in Zeylan “as wealthy merchants in their own ships.” (Aserappa 1930, 33)

Madras Connection

Seshadra, an advisor to the Nayak of Gingee, claiming to be Malayo’s true heir, along with family members, feuded with Chinnana, who had taken over Malayo family mercantile operations in 1634. (Brennig 1977, 328) In 1638 Kesava and Lakshmana persuaded the Gingee general Tubaki Krisnappa to imprison Konera. (Wikipedia Contributors 2025b) Early in 1640 Krishnappa imprisoned Konera (Chinnana’s nephew) and Kesava and son Lakshmana, and besieged Chinnana’s home leading to his abandonment of Devanampattinam (Raychaudhuri 1962, 44)

Seshadra moved to Madras following his “protracted feud” with Chinnana and by 1646 was called “chief merchant” by the EEIC. (Shngreiyo 2017, 48) The English East India Company (EEIC) had obtained leave “to open a factory at the village of Madraspatam in 1639.” (Shngreiyo 2017, 46) Achyutappa had maintained good relations with the British and this may have paved the way for Seshasdra. Konera joined him in Madras.  (Brennig 1977, 326-328) In 1653 they fell victim to caste-based riots between Balija and Beri Chettis. This was followed by English investigations on their indebtedness which meant that by 1660 “the dominant role played by these merchants in the European trade was virtually over.” (Shngreiyo 2017, 48)

The timing of the exit from Madras by Tandava Murthia P. Aserappa, a merchant and ship owner, is pertinent. He “left Madras in 1663 on account of political disturbances,” for Dutch Zeylan in 1665 from Negapatam (Lethbridge 1900, 348) (Aserappa 1930: 2) He left possibly at the same time as Udayappa, perhaps on the same ship. Descendant families have had close relations up to the 21^st century. The successor chief merchant Beri Timmanna (d. 1669) was followed by Kasi Viranna (1669-1680), a Komati Chetti with “a vast trading network.” (Shngreiyo 2017, 48) However Viranna “had no direct access to the courts” of Nayaks and princes, unlike Achyutappa and Chinnana. (Seshan 2015, 293-294) There are stories he was baptised as a Christian, believed by Muslims to be a Muslim, and cremated as a Hindu in 1680. (Sharm 1998, 268) I have found no connection with Sri Lanka’s Casie Chetty family. Udayappa Chetty, like Tandava Aserappa, could also have been affected by political differences if active in Madras. However, this does not explain how he obtained a charter from Rajasinghe II.

Aserappas and Astarabadi

I would like to reflect on the name Aserappa for a moment. Astrappa is one of Achyutappa’s names in VOC records. It is distant from Aserappa by one letter.  The Aserappa family recalls a Persian connection as does the family of Junius Richard Jayewardene. Don Adrian Wijeysinghe Jayewardene was descended from a Colombo Chetty ‘of [part] Persian extraction’ from the mid-17^th Century Coromondel Coast. There is a speculative explanation for Achyutappa having the name Astrappa that has some bearing on the name Aserappa, but this could be a red herring.

A powerful merchant-magnate and diplomat of the early 17th century Achyutappa often acted as a middleman between the Vijayanagara Empire (under the Aravidu dynasty), the European trading companies (Dutch and English), and the Deccan Sultanates.  Achyutappa negotiated with the likes of the Peshwa or Prime Minister of the Golconda Sultanate. The Peshwa from approximately 1581/1585 until 1625/1626 was Mohammad Momin Astarabadi. He was a pivotal figure in the Qutb Shahi administration and the chief architect of Hyderabad. He was born in Astarabadi in the Safayid Empire, hence his name (Wikipedia Contributors 2025c)

There was a unique socio-political fluidity in 17th-century South India, where merchant-princes often assumed multiple identities to navigate between Indo-Persian sultanates (like Golconda), Hindu Nayakdoms, and European traders. In Ceylon too families would take on the names of colonial rulers such as Portuguese captain-major Diogo de Melho Coutinho (1552 and 1565-1568) (Wikipedia Contributors 2023) and British governor Sir West Ridgeway (1863-1930). (Wikipedia Contributors 2025d) Could the name Astrappa (one of Achyutappa’s names in VOC records be a coincidence, misspelling, or a bridge between the Persian “Astarabadi” and Astara with the Kannada suffix “appa”? The Golconda Sultanate adopted Telegu. (Wikipedia Contributors 2024b)

The Kandy Road

There is no mention of Udayappa in the literature in connection with Kandy or Coromandel trade which I have scoured.  He became an adult after the Maleyo family influence waned. Udayappa (1645-1693) is unlikely to have played a dominant role in Kandyan or Coromandel trade. However, having a royal charter, he was not a merchant who “travelled into the interior to buy and sell goods in small lots” having “contacts with the King of Kandy and the nobles of the kingdom to whom they supplied luxury goods produced in Coromandel.” (Arasaratnam 1991). A “charter” from the King was a rare and valuable political asset. So how could Udayappa finesse a charter from Rajasinghe II circa 1675 when the former was about thirty, old enough to be taken seriously? Recall that de la Nerolle had been detained by the King a few years earlier. There were disincentives. The King was well known to be a ‘keeper’.  Also, Kandy was not on best terms with the Dutch. A connection with the last Dutch Chief Merchant in Coromandel, Chinnana Chetti (d. 1659) may have been the best card to play.

If they knew each other it is entirely possible that Chinnana could have taken the teenage Udayappa, the son of a member of his staff, or a relative, to the Madurai court. A fanciful idea is that Udayappa was a son of Chinnana who “lived an exorbitant lifestyle with 40 wives and innumerable children.” (Wikipedia Contributors 2025b) Later, Udayappa could have carried a greeting from Chokkanatha Nayak (1662—1682) who was under twenty, to Rajasinghe II. There was a continuous exchange between the courts. Chokkanatha was the grandson of Tirumala Nayak who had sent a bride to Rajasinghe II, possibly a daughter. Rajasinghe’s Queen was “A princess from Madurai.” (Wikipedia Contributors 2025e) Udayappa had social capital, despite his invisibility, that needs to be explained.

Weft and Warp of Colombo Chetty Identities

The investigation into the life of Udayappa Chetty (d. 1693) and his son Francesco Mangittan Chetty (d. post-1759) serves as a case study in the formation of a “Colombo Chetty” identity—a category that did not achieve administrative “firmness” until long after their deaths. By tracing the lineage from the 17th-century Coromandel Coast to Aserappa’s 1930 genealogical accounts, we witness the transition of a Balija merchant community from an ancient trans-regional Nayak-Chetti milieu into a distinct, indigenous Sri Lankan race – with “Chetty”, Tamil and even Sinhalese or Burgher parallel identities.

The specific curiosities surrounding Francesco’s life invite a more nuanced, though necessarily speculative, reading of the Chetty experience:

• The Luso-Indian Influence: The appearance of Portuguese names—Francesco and his daughter Falestina—suggests more than a simple naming convention. It points toward a likely marriage alliance with the Mestico (Indo-Portuguese) community, who remained the cultural and linguistic lingua franca of the Kandyan and coastal courts long after the Portuguese military exit.
• Mangittan: The name “Mangittan,” interpreted as a protective epithet (“clod of earth” to ward off the evil eye), suggests a family fiercely guarding a sole heir—a “miracle” survivor who would go on to manage the estates and temple endowments that defined their public legacy.
• The Grandfather’s Estates: The mention of “grandfather’s estates in India” provides a tantalizing link to the Balija Nayak power structures of the early 17th century. It suggests that despite their migration, the family maintained hereditary artisan pools (Vishwa-Brahmins) in India for over a century, importing them to Zeylan to construct the monumental temple carts (Rathams) that still define eastern Sri Lankan worship today.

Final Reflection

Ultimately, the story of Udayappa and Francesco is not merely one of trade, but of integration and re-invention. They were part of a “patchwork quilt” of settlers who successfully navigated the racial and national bifurcations of the British colonial era. As the “Colombo Chetty” identity coalesced in the first half of the 20^th Century and was re-certified as a separate ethnic group in the 2001 census, it did so by drawing upon the deep, multi-origin roots of families like Udayappa’s – merchants who were as comfortable in the court of a Kandyan King as they were in the counting-house of a Dutch or British merchant.

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