East Meets West: An East Indian Coin in the Western Colonies
Int J Histor Archaeol
East Meets West: An East Indian Coin in the Western Colonies
Kiara Beaulieu 0 1
0 Department of Classics , Ancient History, and Archaeology , University of Birmingham , Birmingham , UK
1 Kiara Beaulieu
In 1823, the Ontario House, a hotel and tavern, was built near Niagara Falls, Canada. In addition to providing a location for travelers and tourists to drink and lodge, Ontario House, like many other establishments, billeted soldiers when the need arose. The 2012 excavation of the midden and features of the Ontario House produced a large assemblage of artifacts including ceramics, buttons, numismatics, and military accoutrements. Of particular interest is an East Indian coin, found in the natural topsoil, which can be associated with the 67th Regiment of Foot's brief occupation of Ontario House in 1841. This paper addresses the significance of this coin and associated finds in regards to the global movement of the regiment and the socio-political context of Ontario House within regional history.
Military; Canada; Numismatics; Rebellion crisis
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Published online: 24 October 2016
# The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Introduction
This paper will examine one small find uncovered during the excavation of the Loretto
site (AgGs-326) in Niagara Falls, Ontario during the fall of 2012 by Archaeological
Services Inc.
(Hull and MacDonald 2014)
. The site contained features related to three
different structures occupied at different times, including the Ontario House (1823–59),
a hotel and tavern in close proximity to the Falls (Fig. 1) that was part of a vibrant
history for which little has been recorded. One notable find, amongst many, from the
Ontario House midden was an East Indian pai sikka. Three theories that explain how
the pai sikka came to be deposited in Niagara Falls will be presented. These theories
*
will identify the global movement of British troops during the nineteenth century, the
context of the Ontario House within regional tourism, and the significance of this find
in regard to the scarcity of specie in the colonies during this time.
The Coin
The Loretto Site (AgGs-326) yielded a large number of military and commercial items,
as well as those of a more personal nature, including five coins; two were badly damaged
and three could be identified although they presented with varying degrees of wear. Of
the three, one specimen stood out as a truly fascinating piece: a full pai sikka. The pai
sikka or pice is a coin of the Bengali Presidency and the Calcutta Mint began its
production in 1795. The pice was considered legal tender in the three provinces of
Lower Bengali
(Pridmore 1975, p. 210)
. The script on the obverse (Fig. 2, left) is the
name of the Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam Badshah II (1728–1806). The second line
reads sanat julus 37, which refers to the 37th year of his reign, in Islamic years. The 37th
year of his reign began on 3 November 1794 and concluded 22 October 1795
(Pridmore
1975, p. 209)
. The East India Company, the issuing body, kept issuing the pai sikka with
the name Shah Alam Badshah II and a frozen year (19, and 37 seem to be most popular)
until 1831, when the copper pice was redesigned by the mint master R. Saunders
(Pridmore 1975, p. 213)
and it no longer resembled the Mughal variety.
The reverse (Fig. 2, right) gives the denomination one paisa in Bengali (top 2 lines),
Urdu (3rd; Persian script), and Hindi (bottom 2 lines; devanagari script). The Bengali is
an older version of the script so it uses a quite different set of characters and spelling
conventions than would normally have been used at the time (Holt Parker, pers.
comm.). The three languages were used in the different parts of the provinces where
the pai sikka was circulated: Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa
(Stevens 2012, p. 159)
. The
term sikka means coin, so what was uncovered is a one pai sikka. Other denominations
include the half pai sikka, a two and even a three pai sikka. One of the few primary
sources that discuss the pice is the Rev. Rogers Ruding’s book Annals of the Coinage of
Great Britain and its Dependencies. He noted that Bthe Pice, or copper coin of Bengal,
has undergone various modifications, as well as the gold and silver. The first were
coined, by contrast, in 1782, but they were struck in the mint of Calcutta from the year
1792. At first they bore the date on one side and a shield on the other; but from 1795
they were stamped with legends in the native language^
(Ruding 1840, p. 420)
.
Three regulations were laid out by the Governor General, Sir John Shore in 1795 for
the proposed copper coinages
(Revenue Consultations, October 2, 1795, IOR P/89/32.2,
No. 388)
including which languages were to be inscribed on the coins, their value, and
which mint was authorized to produce them. As mentioned above, the sanat julus 37
references the 37th year of the reign of Shah Alam Bashad II and was also the year that the
coppe (...truncated)