Dupleix, Joseph-François

(1697-1763)

   colonial administrator

   Born in Landrecies, Joseph-François Dupleix served as the director of the French Indies Company (1720), then as the director general of all French bank branches in India. He had a military, as well as a commercial, career, and taking advantage of the divisions among the indigenous principalities, conquered additional territory in India for France. Great Britain opposed this expansion, and a conflict developed, with Dupleix taking Madras from the British but losing it later by the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). Dupleix continued to try to extend French hegemony over southern India by intervening in the quarrels that divided its various states, especially in the Dekkan. But he was successfully opposed by the British under Robert Clive (1754). He was then recalled to France. His policies were disavowed and his conquests were lost in the seven years' war.