François Martin (1634–1706): From an Employee of a Trading Company to the First Governor of French India

Abstract

After arriving to India as a part of French East India Company mission and becoming de facto head of all French settlements in Asia, François Martin (1634–1706) chose a place for a future commercial post on the Hindustan peninsula coast, concluded agreements with local rulers concerning the ownership of this territory, and founded a settlement, which subsequently began to attract thousands of Frenchmen. Among them were both the trading company employees and ordinary people willing to shift from cold Europe to comfortable tropics. As a result, Pondicherry turned into the most famous French colony in India, and François Martin’s name became part of the history of French colonialism. Throughout 30 years of his service for the French East India Company, François Martin was keeping a diary; after more than two centuries, in 1931, it was published in France as a three-volume edition. In his ‘Mémoires’ Martin introduces in detail the milestones of establishing the French trade system, the sea voyages to Madagascar and further to Asia, discusses the performance of other European companies in Hindustan, describes local princely states and their interaction, and presents his assessment of the achievements of the French on the peninsula. Based on primary sources that have never been used by Russian Indologists, the article focusses on the role of François Martin in setting up strategically important French territories in South Asia at the turn of the XVIII century.

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