1600-1650: South India after Vijayanagar

 South India, especially the Tamil region, presented a sharp contrast to the centralized stability of the Mughal empire in these decades. Politically the region was fragmented and unsettled. Under Vijayanagar rule, three Nayak kingdoms had been set up in the Tamil region: in Madurai, Thanjavur and Senji. The objective was to provide financial and manpower resources to the empire. After the defeat of Vijayanagar in 1565 in the Battle of Talikota by the combined forces of the rulers of Ahmednagar, Bijapur and Golkonda, the central authority of the once dominant kingdom became very weak. The Nayak kingdoms became virtually autonomous, though they made a ritualistic acknowledgment of the authority of the Vijayanagar emperor. In addition to the larger Nayak kingdoms, several local chiefs also controlled some parts of the region. The most notable of them was probably the Setupati of Ramanathapuram, who was also keen to assert his independence. Between 1590 and 1649 the region witnessed several military conflicts arising out of these unsettled political conditions. Madurai and Thanjavur fought several times to establish their superiority. There were also rebellions against the Vijayanagar emperor. Besides these on-going conflicts, Golkonda invaded the Coromandel in 1646 and annexed the area between Pulicat and San Thome, which also changed the political scenario in the region.

The Dutch and the English were able to acquire territorial rights on the east coast during these years. They realized that they needed a base on the Coromandel coast to access the piece goods needed for trading with the spice-producing islands of Indonesia. The Dutch had successfully negotiated to acquire Pulicat (Palaverkadu) from the Nayak of Senji and constructed a fort there. The English got a piece of land further south from the local chief, Damarla Venkatadri Nayak on which they built Fort St. George in 1639. Thus an English settlement came up which eventually grew into Chennai (Madras), the capital of the Madras Presidency.