ABSTRACT
Tranquebar experienced its most severe caste dispute in 1787–1789. In the spring of 1789 Suppremannia Chetti left the territory of Tranquebar. The deserters remained just outside the borders of the Danish territory, and from local ruler position they submitted a number of petitions containing complaints against Suppremannia Chetti, a Saluppan Chetti. Furthermore, the position occupied by the Saluppans in the social order of the settlement was unacceptable to the deserters. The government then sent one of its interpreters to Tanjore to negotiate with the deserters. The return of the majority of the deserters meant that a Commission of Enquiry started work in January 1788. The establishment of the Commission of Enquiry – which worked in a bureaucratic and highly formal way – might, however, indicate a slightly different attitude towards Indian society on the part of the state-run administration. The European commissioners were under no circumstances prepared to accept the authority of the Tamil record.
