A map coloured for empire: the Company against Tipu Sultan

Faden's 1793 map of the Indian peninsula shades political control — and marks Britain's fiercest opponent.

This is no neutral survey. William Faden's 1793 map of the southern Indian peninsula — from the nineteenth degree of latitude down to Cape Comorin, with Ceylon at its foot — lays out political control in colour.

The territories administered by the British East India Company are washed in one tint, set against the lands of the Kingdom of Mysore, ruled in these years by Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan — the most determined opponents of British expansion in the south. Compiled from the surveys of Major James Rennell and engraved by William Palmer, the map records the subcontinent at the precise moment the Company was turning from a trading concern into a territorial power.

Faden was Geographer to King George III, and his sheets were prized for their authority and finish. Here that authority is doing quiet political work: to colour a map is to make a claim about who owns the ground.

Sources: David Rumsey Map Collection ↗