In The First Firangis: How Foreigners Became Indian, Jonathan Gil Harris explores how early modern migrants formed attachments and practices in India without simply exchanging a foreign identity for a local one. The portraits, as sociologist Luigi Russi describes them in a 2015 review, show a varied, uneven process: people were shaped by their new surroundings and could also leave marks on them.
What “becoming Indian” means in the book
Russi presents Harris’s book as a collection of portraits rather than a single account of conversion or assimilation. Its central idea, as the review summarizes it, is that identity could be made through contact and adaptation. A person might take up local practices and develop attachments to India while still understanding themselves as European or otherwise foreign.
That is not a neat transition from outsider to insider. Russi quotes Harris describing firangi migrants as resisting “any purely foreign or purely local identity” and therefore being “also, in a very real sense, authentically Indian.” The wording appears in Russi’s review; readers seeking the quotation’s exact context should consult the book itself. The interpretive point is that identities could be mixed and changing, not that every migrant had the same experience.
Four portraits, different paths
Garcia da Orta and encounters with local knowledge
Russi describes Garcia da Orta, a Portuguese doctor, as encountering Indian plants, foods, and medical practices. In the review’s account, this complicates a familiar colonial image of him by foregrounding exchange with local knowledge. The portrait suggests that a foreigner’s work and outlook could be shaped by what he encountered, rather than being formed in isolation from India.
#1 Best Overall
Niccolò Manucci: adaptation without abandoning a European self-image
The review describes Niccolò Manucci as a Venetian artilleryman and physician in early colonial Madras who adopted local remedies while retaining a European self-image. His example makes the book’s point particularly clear: borrowing or adapting practices did not necessarily mean that a person stopped seeing himself as European.
Soldier-slaves in local armies
Russi also refers to indentured soldier-slaves who rose through local armies. Their stories bring coercion and political circumstance into the picture. Adaptation was not always simply a choice made by a free migrant; status and the conditions under which people entered military service could shape both their opportunities and their agency.
Bibi Juliana Firangi and unequal room to act
The review identifies Bibi Juliana Firangi as an Armenian Christian woman associated with Akbar’s court in the late sixteenth century. Russi uses her constrained options to highlight how gender and power affected the possibilities available to foreign-born people. He suggests that gaps in the surviving record may help explain why she is less fully documented than a later woman associated with Aurangzeb’s court. That is the reviewer’s interpretation, not a settled finding about the archive or a complete biography of Juliana.
Why these stories do not form one assimilation narrative
The portraits differ in gender, status, coercion, political setting, and access to opportunity. A physician’s engagement with local remedies, a soldier-slave’s rise in an army, and a woman’s constrained position at court cannot be treated as equivalent forms of adaptation. Russi’s account emphasizes both directions of change: migrants could be transformed by the places they entered, while also contributing to their surroundings. The extent of that influence varied.
PC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchRank #3
This framing also keeps “foreign” and “Indian” from functioning as fixed opposites. A person could retain a sense of foreign origin while acquiring local attachments or practices. Harris’s phrase “becoming Indian,” as presented by Russi, names an ongoing, uneven process—not a uniform experience or a simple switch in identity.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.About the book and the source for these portraits
The First Firangis: How Foreigners Became Indian is by Jonathan Gil Harris; Russi identifies The Aleph Book Company as its publisher. For a further-reading search, use the book’s title and author, and check the edition and current availability with a bookseller.
The account here follows Luigi Russi’s review, “The First Firangis: How foreigners became Indian,” published by Scroll.in on February 13, 2015. It is a review’s interpretation of Harris’s book, not an independent verification of the detailed biographies or historical claims about the individuals. Consult the book or specialist historical sources for those details.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
