- All of Congress listened with rapt attention
to a letter written by John Adams.
His message provided a play by play
of how the British were holding up in the war,
but not the war in America.
The conflict that Congress desperately wanted news of
was happening in Southern India.
The Americans understood that they couldn't beat the British
in the Revolutionary War without international support.
And when the founding fathers needed to close the deal
against the most powerful empire on the planet,
they got an unexpected assist from Tipu Sultan,
the legendary Tiger of Mysore.
I'm Joel Cook, and this is Rogue History.
So what exactly would unite a group of American rebels
with a Muslim ruler on the other side of the world?
The same thing that unites millions of people
to this very day- British imperialism.
But more specifically, British tea.
Let me spill a little for you.
Most of us know about the Boston Tea Party
where Americans dressed in highly problematic disguises
tossed 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor.
The colonists were furious about the Tea Act,
a piece of legislation intended to rescue
the struggling British East India Company
by selling its massive stock of tea at much cheaper rates
than anything else on the American market.
The only problem was that this monopoly
risked putting American tea sellers out of business,
hence the whole throwing company tea
into the harbor situation.
But what was the British East India Company
and where did they get all this tea from?
The company was founded in December 1600
and served as the merchant arm
of British imperialism in Asia.
Imagine Amazon being in charge of America's economy
and you'd have the right idea.
The company's dealings with India, China, Persia,
and Indonesia provided Britain with tea, textiles,
and piles of unused spices.
But all those deals they managed to pull off
were because of a unique negotiating tool
most corporations didn't have,
a private army.
If the company couldn't talk Asian powers
into negotiating with them,
they were all too willing to march troops in
to change their minds.
That is until they ran into the Kingdom of Mysore.
You see, Mysore wasn't some young upstart
like the Americans.
When the company started probing Mysore's borders
in the 1760s,
they were met by a brilliant Muslim leader
named Hyder Ali.
Hyder had recently taken control of the South Indian Kingdom
from a Hindu dynasty established around 1399.
As the newly crown sultan of Mysore,
Hyder led a sophisticated economy
and an army numbering in the tens of thousands.
The Mysoreans were one of the biggest obstacles
the British faced in South Asia.
And Hyder was smart enough to amplify his kingdom's power
by forming an alliance with the French.
But his most effective weapon against the British
wasn't his army or his alliances.
It was his tiger-obsessed son Tipu.
(tiger roaring) The story behind the whole
Tiger of Mysore thing isn't completely locked down.
Oral traditions and a heck of a lot of murals
commissioned by Tipu
say that he was on a wartime mission for his dad
when he fought and killed an attacking Bengal tiger
with just a dagger.
Now, I wasn't there, so I can't say
whether Tipu exaggerated the situation or not,
but for a 15-year-old trying to build street cred
with his dad's veteran army,
a tiger fighting story is awfully convenient.
Either way, Hyder's leadership
and Tipu's eye of the tiger mentality on the battlefield
were catching the eye of a suitor
on the other side of the world.
By 1777,
that little tea incident in Boston
had spiraled into an all-out war
against the mighty British Empire.
The Americans knew they needed allies in order to win,
and they sent diplomats across the map
in search of assistance.
The French, of course, were ready to support anything
that stuck it to the British,
so they offered the Americans an intimate correspondence
with a tall, dark, and handsome friend from South Asia.
Though the Americans were excited
about building a relationship with the Mysoreans,
things didn't exactly take off.
We all know how long distance relationships are.
You're both busy. You can't agree on date night.
There's a massive empire trying to destroy you both.
And to be honest,
America didn't have much to bring to the table anyway.
Sure, they were keeping a large portion
of the British military occupied in North America,
which definitely helped Mysore,
but nobody, not even the American rebels themselves,
was sure they'd be able to keep it up.
Prior to their victory at Trenton, New Jersey
in December 1776,
the Americans hadn't won a single major battle
against the British.
They thought about sending their troops to help Mysore,
but they realized they didn't even have enough troops
to fight their own war.
The best they could do was instruct their privateers
and tiny Navy to attack East India Company shipping
out of solidarity.
As much as I hate to admit it,
for Mysore, Revolutionary America truly was the guy
sitting on the passenger side of his best friend's ride.
But for the time being,
Tipu and Hyder didn't really need them.
Throughout the 1770s,
father and son built an army
nearly a hundred thousand strong.
And when the British threatened
their French homies in India,
the Tiger of Mysore showed everyone
what a ride or die really looks like.
On September 10th, 1780,
Tipu wiped out one of the East India Company's
private armies at the Battle of Pollilur,
killing 3,000 men
and capturing hundreds of British officers.
It was an incredible victory for Mysore,
but it also showed a side of Tipu
that would cause problems for him.
Many of the hired guns in the East India Company's army
were natives of rival kingdoms in India.
And when a British officer tried to surrender to save them,
Tipu took scattered gunfire from a few holdouts
as an excuse to massacre those who had already surrendered.
Sometimes a tiger can become a man-eater.
And the Tiger of Mysore
was showing early signs of that behavior
when it came to his political rivals.
Still, the victory at Pollilur
convinced the French to send major military assistance
to help Mysore,
and that, along with wins Tipu and Hyder kept delivering,
had the domino effect of forcing the British
to send Royal Army and Navy units
to help the East India Company.
But more troops in India meant less fighting the Americans.
And that was a problem for the British
because that scrub we talked about earlier
was looking a lot more genuine.
The glow up started in 1778
when the American Army fought the British to a draw
at the Battle of Monmouth.
The following year,
a little known American officer named John Paul Jones
put the US Navy on the map
when he defeated HMS Serapis in British waters.
If you'd like to know more about that,
check out our episode on Jones.
By July of 1780, French troops arrived in the colonies
and the Americans' chances of winning the war
were looking pretty good.
But the Founding Fathers still wanted to know
what was happening in Mysore.
John Adams' letter to Congress
regaled the Founders with the exploits
of the famous Hyder Ali in September 1780.
All throughout the following year of the Revolutionary War,
a who's who of famous Americans
chattered back and forth across the Atlantic
about the second Anglo-Mysore war.
Even in 1782, when American diplomats traveled to the Hague
for peace negotiations,
they were still checking
the Britain versus Mysore scoreboard,
the way we check Carolina Panthers scores in church.
The Americans understood that though their war was over,
their negotiating leverage relied on Mysore
continuing to wear the British down.
But for the brave and sometimes brutal Tiger of Mysore,
things were about to change in a major way.
In December 1782,
the French reinforcements finally arrived in Mysore
to assist Hyder and Tipu in defeating the British.
But by the time they got there,
the dynamic duo was down to one.
Hyder Ali died just six days after Tipu's 31st birthday.
For the newly crowned Tipu Sultan,
it seems that his method for processing
involved leaning very heavily into his special interest.
That is to say Tipu got way more tigery.
After taking over his father's palace,
Tipu upgraded the home decor by adding a tiger throne
with a life-sized tiger head,
pillars capped with engraved tigers,
oh, and how could I forget, actual Bengal tigers.
And it didn't stop there.
The new Sultan ordered tiger stripes
added to the Mysorean military uniform
and engraved tigers on his guns, swords,
and other possessions,
but Tipu's best work as an interior designer
was a clear warning to the British
that things weren't gonna get any easier for them.
Sometime after becoming Sultan,
Tipu commissioned a nearly life-sized automaton
of a tiger eating a British soldier.
The automaton included a crank attached to a mechanism
inside the tiger's body
that simultaneously lifted the dying man's arm
and produced noises imitating his final cries.
Help me!
Help me! Talk about committing to the bit.
But fulfilling his special interests
didn't distract Tipu from the war.
He continued to attack the British
and their native allies in Southern India,
but with less success against the British
and more brutal suppression of his Indian rivals.
And just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse,
France and America hit Mysore
with the it's not you, it's me.
In early 1783,
both France and the United States
signed peace treaties with Britain.
But for Tipu and Mysore, it was a harbinger of doom.
Without the Americans distracting the British
and the French sending troops,
Mysore now stood alone
against the most powerful empire in the world.
Lord Charles Cornwallis,
the very General George Washington defeated
to win the Revolutionary War, was reassigned to India
with instructions to destroy the Tiger
and his kingdom once and for all.
Now, before you get upset,
you have to remember,
America was a young country at this point.
It managed to stand up to the British and win absolutely,
but holding onto their freedom wasn't a guarantee.
The revolutionaries who won the war
were now the government officials
nearly three million people we're looking to for safety.
Still, Tipu had to have been a little hurt
when Washington's administration
opened two consulates in India
to foster goodwill and trade with the British.
Tipu once said that he would rather live two days as a tiger
than two centuries as a sheep.
And when the British stormed
the Mysorean capital in May 1799,
he stayed true to his word,
standing and fighting until the very end.
The Kingdom of Mysore survived,
but remained under British control
until India gained its independence nearly 150 years later.
Though the American Revolution is often told
as a story of plucky colonists
standing on their own against the mighty British empire,
that's only a fraction of the story.
All across the world,
various peoples worked together as best they could
to stop an imperial juggernaut
from destroying their way of life.
For some, like the Americans,
this global revolution brought them the time they needed
to strengthen their resistance and earn their freedom.
And for others, like Tipu Sultan and the Kingdom of Mysore,
their revolution continued on for over a century.
When we think about the American Revolution,
what it means and who contributed,
it's good to remember more than just the big names
like George Washington and famous allies like the French.
Beyond those icons stand many lesser known,
but equally impactful contributors,
like the tiger-obsessed Sultan
who gave America a chance to win its freedom.
Are there any other surprising influences
on American history that come to mind?
Tell us in the comments. Till next time.
Before you go,
we're excited to tell you about PBS Documentaries,
our newest YouTube channel.
We're rebranding and expanding PBS Voices
to now include everything
from digital original series like "Ritual"
to independent films
to the best of PBS's extensive documentary archive.
This will be the best place on the internet
for documentary lovers.
Check out the link in the description. Thanks.
(dramatic music)