Why The Founding Fathers Were Obsessed with This Muslim Ruler

The writings of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America include many a reference to the likes of Cicero, Montesquieu, and John Locke. That the names Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan never appear may not sound like much of a surprise, even if you happen to know that they ruled the Indian region of Mysore, now officially called Mysuru, at the time. But history records that more than a few Americans, including Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, followed with great interest the struggles of that father and son against the British. Those struggles took place from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century — a time when the American colonies, of course, had their own conflict brewing with the motherland.

Hyder became the Sultan of Mysore in the seventeen-sixties: “a dangerous time to come to power in South Asia,” writes Blake Smith at Aeon, given that “the British East India Company was expanding its power throughout the Subcontinent.” Allying with France, much like the rebelling American colonists, Hyder “held off the British advance for another two decades, dying in 1782, just a year before the US triumphed in its own rebellion against Britain.”

America’s fascination with Hyder and his successor Tipu, who died in battle with the East India Company in 1799, remained for some time. “Mysore’s rulers became familiar references in American newspapers, poems and everyday conversation. Yet, within a generation, Americans lost their sense of solidarity with the Indian Subcontinent.”

You can learn more about this episode of history from the PBS Origins video above. It gets into detail about the life of Tipu, known as “the Tiger of Mysore,” a nickname the man himself did much to justify. He even “commissioned a nearly life-sized automaton of a tiger eating a British soldier,” says the video’s host, which “included a crank attached to a mechanism inside the tiger’s body that simultaneously lifted the dying man’s arm and produced noises imitating his final cries.” Though he and his army continued to fight in that spirit, Mysore’s situation became untenable after both the U.S. and France made their peace with Britain. Despite the recency of the hostilities, the new liberated colony soon became something of an ally in the maintenance of the British Empire’s remaining territories, India included — and would ultimately learn a lesson or two of its own about the global extension of power.

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Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.