The East India Company and Roman Catholic Missionaries

Abstract

The general opinion of historians has been that the East India Company was opposed to the presence of Christian missionaries in India. It is generally held also that when the Charter Act of 813 left the Company with no option but to admit them, its governments in India maintained a fairly consistent posture of religious neutrality. These notions have recently been reinforced by Penelope Carson. But thisignores the Company's policies towards Roman Catholic missionaries. In the eighteenth century the Company welcomed Roman Catholic missionaries. It was at the nvitation of the Bombay government that Italian Carmelite missionaries settled there in 1718. It was at the invitation of the authorities of Fort St George that a French Capuchin mission was established in Madras in 1742. When the Company came into Kerala towards the end of the eighteenth century an Italian Carmelite mission was already established there, with a bishop and two priests. The mission was soon receiving material support from the Company.