Introduction: “Here, Come from the Farthest Steppe of India”

Although since the Middle Ages, India or “Ind” had been circulating in European imagination, such representations underwent a change once England established direct contact with the spice-producing regions from the 1580s. The introduction explores the terms “Indian” and “India” as signifiers of wide and diverse geographies and peoples. Drawing upon Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields, it situates these representations of Indians as part of early modern racecrafting. Focusing on the emergent trade of the East India Company, it provides a much-needed background to the economic and social history of English interactions with Mughal India. Turning to travel narratives of William Hawkins and Thomas Coryate, the introduction also shows how the earliest Englishmen performed as Indian in Mughal courts.