Kanthi

Kanthi, also known as Contai, became an important salt-administration centre on the coast of southwestern Bengal. In the late eighteenth century the East India Company's salt monopoly tied the surrounding coastal works to an increasingly intrusive revenue system. Salt workers, known as malangis, processed saline earth and brine through filtration and evaporation. Their labour supplied a commodity whose production and sale officials sought to control.

The salt agency at Kanthi operated from the Nimak Mahal, built in 1788. Its reach extended beyond the town into the coastal producing districts. Flooding complicated both agriculture and salt manufacture: inundated fields, damaged communications and distressed rural households were recurring problems in the region during the 1780s and 1790s. Kanthi's place in this economy depended on the labour of coastal communities as well as the Company's offices and commercial demands.