Sovereignty Contested: Revisiting Grotius During the Anglo-Dutch Rivalries in Eighteenth-Century Thanjavur

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This contribution evaluates how Grotius’s ideas on sovereignty were applied by VOC officials attempting to defend the Company’s interest against the rising power of the British EIC in eighteenth-century Thanjavur. The VOC instrumentally recognised the King of Thanjavur’s sovereignty as a reaction to opposite claims of the British. As such, the VOC attempted to defend its interests in the area by acquiring crucial villages. The VOC’s application of Grotius in Thanjavur, however, reveals a strategy based on treaty politics which, illustrates its increasingly disadvantageous position against the British who grew dominant by resorting to military power and exerting fiscal pressure, both towards local rulers and its European counterparts. By using records stored in the VOC archives, this contribution highlights the pivotal role of Grotian thought referred to by individuals who applied it in their on-the-ground decisions and how they used it in line with changing imperial and local contexts.</jats:p>