The Estuary

Abstract

A history of environmental, economic, and social change in the Meghna estuary from the late eighteenth century to the 1870s. A new frontier of alluvial land was being created along the edge of the Bay of Bengal, presenting opportunities for profit as well as great risks. The settlement of this frontier was not simply a natural outcome of the availability of new land: it was also encouraged by imperial policy. And just as British rule was not a product of nature, neither were the divisions within Bengali society that helped to determine who would be exposed to disaster.