Published Paper Details:

This research aims to highlight the importance in the revenue history of India and the Madras revenue system. In the first place it was in Madras that the Rayatwari method of settlement as a system under the government originated in the next place, the history of Madras Presidency throws great light on the constitution of villages and the early customs of landholding which are really at the bottom of all revenue systems. The British was fully established in South India by the beginning of the 19th century. During the early years of that rule there was little to choose between English administration and native princess so far as the agricultural classes were concerned. The ill-paid English writers and actors who carried on extensive trade on their own found themselves suddenly transformed into governors of provinces and they behaved as worst oppressors of people than most of the local rulers. But after the Cornwallis' reforms the condition had improved much. Administrators like Reade, Munro, Graham and Thackray helped the pacification of the country by the suppression of the poligars who, with large bands of armed followers, plundered the country. The Ryotwari settlement was first tried in Baramahal in the 1790's after third Mysore War by Captain Alexander Read. Subsequently his assistants, such men as Thomas Munro and John Maclod extended the system to the ceded districts, Coimbatore and the whole of the Carnatic. It was an agreement made directly between the government and the ryots or "Cultivators" of land, to the complete exclusion of intermediaries. Under this agreement the government usually sought to receive its due in the form of money value fixed upon the actual fields under cultivation.