In the early 1700s, a tiny, cash-strapped theological school called the Collegiate School of Connecticut was on the verge of financial collapse. It desperately needed money to construct its very 1st permanent building in New Haven.
The school’s trustees reached out to a wealthy London merchant named Elihu Yale. Yale had spent nearly 30 yrs working for the East India Company at Fort St. George in Madras (now Chennai) looting India & eventually rising to become the Governor-President of the settlement.
While in India, Elihu Yale amassed an immense personal fortune through private trading: specifically in Golconda diamonds, high-grade textiles & spices & by participating in the Indian Ocean slave trade. He was eventually ousted from his post by the East India Company for rampant illegal profiteering & corruption.
In 1718, responding to the school’s plea for help, Elihu Yale sent a massive cargo shipment from London to Boston. The shipment did not contain cash. It contained:
- 9 large bundles of exotic Indian textiles (including fine muslins, calicos & silks from Madras).
- 417 books.
- A portrait of King George I.
The school sold the Indian textiles & goods in Boston for the staggering sum of £800, which at the time, was enough money to completely fund the construction of their brand-new wooden college building. In pure gratitude for this South Asian windfall, the trustees officially renamed the entire institution Yale College.
Yale University would literally not exist w/o India. Its very name, its 1st major building & its foundational survival were directly paid for by wealth extracted from India.
P.S.: Paintings of Elihu Yale with his family members & slave servant children as painted by artist James Worsdale.