Human Saga

Great Bengal Famine of 1770

1769–1770·Environment & climate·Bengal, Bihar and Orissa (South Asia)·
1769–1770Date
Environment & climateCategory
27Empires active
Date
1769–1770
Category
Environment & climate
Region
Bengal, Bihar and Orissa (South Asia)
Era
Early Modern
Significance

The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 was a catastrophic famine that devastated Bengal, Bihar, and parts of Orissa under the administration of the British East India Company.

Triggered by the partial failure of the monsoon rains and successive crop failures in 1768 and 1769 that destroyed the staple rice harvest, the disaster was severely compounded by Company fiscal policy, which continued to enforce and even raise land-revenue assessments while officials and private traders engaged in grain monopolies and speculation. Contemporary estimates placed the death toll at around 10 million people, roughly one-third of Bengal's population, though some modern scholars revise the figure downward to one to two million; either way it ranks among the deadliest famines in recorded history. Northern Bengal and Bihar suffered most acutely, with a concurrent smallpox epidemic deepening the mortality and depopulating entire districts. The famine ruined cultivators, spinners, and weavers, transformed Bengal's agrarian economy, and hastened the collapse of the dual system of governance, leaving the East India Company as the sole administrator of the province.

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A New Green History of the World

Clive Ponting

The classic accessible account of how environment and climate have shaped human history.

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