The relationship between India and the United States has been shaped over the centuries by their status as former British colonies and their important present-day role in world geopolitics.

Before 1947 "Indian", which has been used as an alternative for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for India, thought that he had arrived in the East Indies. This historical misnomer has persisted over the centuries, shaping cultural perceptions and narratives surrounding Native American identity.

Thirteen American colonies

British colonial promoters initially envisioned that the American colonies could develop a strong economy along the lines of Asia's economies, which produced raw materials. They later circulated Indian manufactured goods between the two hemispheres, tying their commerce together.

Due to connections between the East India Company and the American colonies, some Indians (from places such as Bombay and Bengal) were sent to the latter for slavery or indentured servitude.https://www.nedhector.com/east-indians-enslaved-in-america/ Today, descendants of such East Indian slaves may have a small percent of DNA from Asian ancestors but it likely falls below the detectable levels for today's DNA tests, as most of the generations since would have been primarily of ethnic African and European ancestry.

Prior to 1776, Americans admired the expansion of the British Empire, feeling proud to be part of an expansion of British influence around the world.

American Revolution, the East India Company, and early America context

Thomas Paine was a notable critic who warned Americans against the evils of the British Empire. As Paine prepared and published his highly influential pamphlet Common Sense (January 1776), he was influenced by reports from 1775 on the East India Company's activities and parliamentary investigations in London. These events helped shape his anti-imperial perspective, informing indirect commentary on the imperial ventures in India. He saw the British East India Company's 1757 rise in Bengal as extortionate and foreshadowing what would happen to the United States if it failed to secure its independence. Heavy taxation on Indian commodities imported to the United States, such as high-quality fabrics, also played a role in creating discontent with British rule.

The flag of the East India Company is said to have inspired the Continental Union Flag of 1775, ultimately inspiring the current flag of the United States, as both flags were of the same design. Mysorean rockets were also used in the Battle of Baltimore, and are mentioned in "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States: And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air.

Early American missionaries

Adoniram Judson was the first American missionary to go abroad. On June 17, 1812, the Judsons arrived in Calcutta. When the War of 1812 became known, British officials forced him to leave and he went to Burma in 1813, where he spent four decades as a missionay.

Charlotte White (1782-1863) was the first American woman appointed as a missionary and sent to a foreign country. Sponsored by the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions. she embarked for Calcutta, India, in December 1815.

Other American missionaries to India during the pre-British Raj era include: Lyman Jewett, Samuel B. Fairbank, Nathan Brown, John Welsh Dulles, Luther Rice, Samuel Newell, David Oliver Allen, Cynthia Farrar, Henry Richard Hoisington, Samuel Nott, Harriet Newell, George Warren Wood, Miron Winslow, Gordon Hall, Azubah Caroline Condit, Levi Spaulding, George Bowen, Ann Hasseltine Judson, George Boardman, Jeremiah Phillips, and William Arthur Stanton.

Other early Americans

American officer John Parker Boyd partook in the Battle of Kharda, fighting on the side of the Nizam of Hyderabad.Hans Hägerdal, Responding to the West: Essays on Colonial Domination and Asian Agency, 2009, page 40William Dalrymple, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, New York: Viking, 2002 p. 112.Spencer C. Tucker, The Encyclopedia Of the War Of 1812, page 74

American Founding Father Aaron Burr had a relationship with an East Indian woman named Mary Emmons, who was most likely from the Indian city of Calcutta. Together, they had two children, including John Pierre Burr.

Dudley Leavitt Pickman was an early American trader with India who founded the East India Marine Society.

Fitzedward Hall was the first American to edit a Sanskrit text.

East India Company rule American merchants found it harder to trade in India during Company rule. American governmental consuls were not recognized until the mid-19th century.

American reactions to the failed Indian Rebellion of 1857 saw a brief moment of hesitation around the idea of successfully expanding American influence abroad in an imperialistic manner.

Under British Raj (1858–1947) During the 1861-65 American Civil War, American Union blockades of Southern cotton led to the Indian press speculating about the opportunity for India to export more of its cotton. The impact on the British economy also drove the construction of the Indian Railways forward, as faster transport assisted in exporting Indian cotton. In the United States, as Northerners fretted about the ultimate status of African American slaves, The New York Times argued in the weeks leading up to President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that African Americans could never rise in American society above the "condition which the inferior castes of India have always occupied." India's inability to defend itself from British conquests was also referenced; Lincoln and his Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed on the need to maintain American unity in part to avoid a similar fate as that of British India, and throughout the previous decade, Southerners who sought to expand the institution of slavery to new territories referred to the rapid white conquest of places like India to justify colonizing nonwhite territories south of the United States (see also: Knights of the Golden Circle).

The 1869 opening of the Suez Canal was celebrated by famous American poet Walt Whitman, who saw it as a way to connect West and East and tie into the last stage of global consolidation through American expansion.

President Theodore Roosevelt saw British rule in India as a model for what the United States ought to do in ruling the Philippines in the early 20th century.

Religious connections

The relationships between India in the days of the British Raj and the United States were thick.Holden Furber, "Historical and Cultural Aspects of Indo-American Relations," Journal of the University of Bombay (1965), Vol. 34 Issue 67/68, pp 95-116. Swami Vivekananda promoted Yoga and Vedanta in the United States at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, during the World's Fair in 1893. Mark Twain visited India in 1896 and described it in his travelogue Following the Equator with both revulsion and attraction before concluding that India was the only foreign land he dreamed about or longed to see again. Regarding India, Americans learned more from English writer Rudyard Kipling.Isaacs, Scratches on Our Minds: American Views of China and India (1980) p 241 Mahatma Gandhi had an important influence on the philosophy of non-violence promoted by American civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s.

Former American Military Officer and later a prominent figure in the spiritual and philosophical movement of Theosophy Henry Steel Olcott, left New York in December 1878 to relocate the headquarters of the Theosophical Society to India. He and the society arrived in Bombay on February 16, 1879. Olcott's objective was to immerse himself in the culture of India, the birthplace of his spiritual inspiration, the Buddha. The Society's headquarters were established at Adyar, Chennai, where Olcott also founded the Adyar Library and Research Centre. He aimed to obtain authentic translations of sacred texts from Buddhist, Hindu, and Zoroastrian religions to provide Westerners with a true understanding of Eastern philosophies, countering Westernized interpretations. Throughout his time in India, Olcott worked tirelessly to bridge the cultural and spiritual gap between East and West. He died in Adyar, Madras on the 17th of February, 1907.

Margaret Woodrow Wilson, the daughter of the 28th U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, became a devotee and member of the ashram of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry for the remainder of her later life. Wilson changed her name to Nistha, meaning "dedication" in Sanskrit. In 1942, she collaborated with Joseph Campbell, as they undertook the editing of the English translation of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, originally authored by Swami Nikhilananda, a classical work on the Hindu mystic Sri Ramakrishna. This edited version was subsequently published by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center in New York. She died in Pondicherry on the 12th of February, 1944.

American missionaries during the British Raj

During the British Raj, there were multiple American missionaries sent to India, including the well known Scudder family, Ralph T. Templin, James Mills Thoburn, Mary W. Bacheler, James Mudge, J. Waskom Pickett, Edward Winter Clark, Miles Bronson, Samuel H. Kellogg, John Nelson Hyde, Nancie Monelle, Lucy Whitehead McGill Waterbury Peabody, Crawford R. Thoburn, Elwood Morris Wherry, Murray Thurston Titus, Titanic victim Annie Funk, Frederick Bohn Fisher, British Raj born & World War II victim Robert M. Hanson, British Raj born Victor Clough Rambo, Hervey De Witt Griswold, British Raj born Robert Ernest Hume, British Raj born John Lawrence Goheen, British Raj born John William Theodore Youngs, Beatrice Marian Smyth, Anna Sarah Kugler, William H. Wiser, Julia Jacobs Harpster, Charlotte C. Wyckoff, Isabella Thoburn, and American expatriate turned Indian freedom fighter Satyananda Stokes.

The Scudder family was renowned for its multigenerational missionary work in India, particularly in the fields of medicine, education, and Christian evangelism. Led by Dr. John Scudder Sr., who arrived in South Asia in 1819 as one of the first medical missionaries sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), the family established hospitals and dispensaries across the region. Dr. John Scudder Jr. continued this legacy, founding the Arcot Mission in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, and later the Ceylon Mission in Sri Lanka. Notably, Dr. Ida Scudder, granddaughter of Dr. John Scudder Sr., established the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Vellore in 1900, which has since become one of India's leading medical institutions. The Scudder family's enduring commitment to healthcare and education has left a lasting impact on India's social and medical landscape, inspiring generations of missionaries and healthcare professionals.full text Edward Tanjore Corwin, A Manual of the Reformed Church in America (formerly Ref. Prot. Dutch Church), 1628-1902

The YMCA played a significant role in encouraging the development of sport in the princely states, as well as helping to improve agricultural output in rural areas.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

In the 1930s and early-1940s, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt voiced strong support to the Indian independence movement despite being allies with Britain.Foster Rhea Dulles, and Gerald E. Ridinger. "The Anti-Colonial Policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt." Political Science Quarterly (1955): 1–18. Kenton J. Clymer, Quest for Freedom: The United States and India's Independence (2013). The first significant immigration from India before 1965 involved Sikh farmers going to California in the early twentieth century.

Case of Bhagat Singh Thind