Negapatnam — the VOC's principal settlement on the Coromandel Coast — was ceded to the Dutch by treaty with the Sultan of Bijapur in 1690, and the mint there almost immediately began producing copper duits for local trade. These circulated not only along the Tamil coast but fed into the broader intra-Asian VOC trading network, where small copper fractions were chronically undersupplied relative to demand.
The British seized Negapatnam in 1781 and never returned it.
Negapatnam — the VOC's principal settlement on the Coromandel Coast — was ceded to the Dutch by treaty with the Sultan of Bijapur in 1690, and the mint there almost immediately began producing copper duits for local trade. These circulated not only along the Tamil coast but fed into the broader intra-Asian VOC trading network, where small copper fractions were chronically undersupplied relative to demand.
The British seized Negapatnam in 1781 and never returned it.