Coja Petrus Uscan
Armenian merchant
Coja Petrus Uscan (also Woskan, Voskan, 1680/81 – 1751) was an Armenian merchant and leader of the Armenian community of Madras (a city now part of India) who was known for his immense wealth and unflinching devotion and loyalty to the British during the French occupation of Madras.
Ancestry and early life
Petrus Uscan was born in a family of prominent Armenian traders which had traded with the East for generations. His grandfather Coja Pogus (Paul) had been buried in Julfa. Very little is known of his early life except for the fact that he migrated to Madras in the year 1723 and settled in the city for the rest of his life.
Assumption of monopoly
As soon as Uscan arrived in Madras, the Nawab of the Carnatic visited Madras and Uscan lavished hospitality upon him. A pleased Nawab offered gifts and titles and sole monopoly of trade in Madras.
Endowments
Petrus Uscan donated lavishly for Christian religious endowments. He was one of the foremost contributors to the construction of St Rita's church in St Thome. A slab on the east wall of the church has the inscription "In memory of the Armenian nation, 1729". In April, the very same year, the grave of St Thomas was opened for public viewing.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coja Petrus Uscan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.