Charles Cornwallis
Governor-General of Bengal
“Governor-General associated with the 1793 Permanent Settlement in Bengal.”
As Governor-General of Bengal, Charles Cornwallis oversaw the 1793 Permanent Settlement, which fixed the Company's land revenue demand and recognized zamindars as proprietary landholders.
The settlement formed part of late eighteenth-century Company state-building and was intended to stabilize revenue collection through a landed intermediary class. Its implementation varied across Bengal and affected cultivators as well as zamindars.
Cornwallis's land policy reshaped agrarian power, landlord–cultivator relations, and colonial revenue administration in Bengal. Its long-term effects remain central to the history of rural property and indebtedness.