By the 1780s Calcutta was a truly globalizing city, as even American merchants began plying its Ganga trade. The first U.S. vessel, United States (capt. Thomas Bell), reached Bengal in 1785, followed by the Chesapeake at Calcutta in 1787. These early trips proved profitable, and in the 1790s dozens of American ships regularly traded from Calcutta. Crucially, unlike Europeans, the Americans did not send agency houses but hired native baniyas (business agents). One Bengali merchant who rode this wave was Ramdulal De. Starting in the 1790s as a sarkar (junior agent) to American captains, Ramdulal soon became “their chief banian for Bengal trade.” He proved so indispensable that, in a testament to the cross-cultural ties formed, “they named one of their ships after him.” This curious honor – an American ship christened with a Bengali name – highlights the mutual accommodations of trade. (Indeed, many American ships of the era bore Indian names like Ganges or Hindostan, and their crews collected local art and manuscripts) Ramdulal’s rise also shows how Anglo-American commerce could make a local agent wealthy; he became “the first Bengali millionaire” through such links. In sum, the American presence in late-18th-century Calcutta created novel social networks: Yankee mariners financed by Indian bullion, and Bengal’s baniyas learning Western business methods. The story of Ramdulal De – immortalized in an American ship’s name – is one little-known anecdote of this transoceanic trade era.
Source: “The Americans,” in Banglapedia.
Arup K. Chatterjee 