Baba Budan Archives · Individual Document Record
1849 — Yemma Khan Coffee Garden Dispute
BD-COF-1849-02 · 9 June 1849
A nineteenth-century coffee-garden dispute preserved within the General and Revenue Secretariat dossier Papers relating to Coffee Estates on Bababudan Hills. The record states that on 9 June 1849 the headman of the Durgah sold a coffee garden called Yemma Khan for Rs. 1,000; the surviving papers then trace the resulting dispute, payments, possession and litigation.
The Record Inside a Larger Coffee Dossier
The Yemma Khan material is not an isolated sheet; it survives within a much larger administrative file.
The master PDF is a 150-page General and Revenue Secretariat dossier whose cover describes the subject as “papers relating to Coffee Estates on Bababudan Hills.” The surviving bundle contains material from different dates and proceedings, so individual pages must be identified by their own documentary context.
For this archive record, the key sequence begins before PDF p.61 and continues beyond it. The material immediately preceding the Yemma Khan statement discusses a disputed Durgah garden, sale proceeds and related proceedings; PDF p.61 then sets out the plaintiff’s account of the 1849 transaction.
What the Surviving Papers Record
A careful reading separates the transaction alleged in the pleadings from the later dispute and judicial treatment.
PDF p.61 records the plaintiff’s statement that the first defendant, described as headman of the Durgah, sold to him for Rs.1,000 the coffee garden called Yemma Khan, together with connected lands.
The surrounding pages discuss payment arrangements, receipts, possession and competing claims concerning the garden. The papers show that the transaction became disputed rather than remaining a simple uncontested sale.
The surviving record describes litigation involving the garden, including arguments about sale, payment, possession and rights connected with the Durgah property.
The later portion of the sequence records appellate treatment and an order concerning payment and restoration of the garden, demonstrating that the 1849 transaction formed part of a longer legal controversy.
What This Record Establishes
The source is unusually specific, but its legal and evidentiary limits still matter.
It Establishes
- A surviving nineteenth-century record expressly names a coffee garden called Yemma Khan.
- The plaintiff’s statement records a sale dated 9 June 1849 for Rs.1,000.
- The first defendant is described in the record as the headman of the Durgah.
- The transaction led to a substantial dispute involving payment, possession and rights over the garden.
- The material forms direct documentary evidence that named coffee-garden property was being dealt with in the Bababudan Hills documentary landscape by the mid-nineteenth century.
It Does Not, By Itself, Establish
- That every allegation made by the plaintiff or defendants was judicially accepted as true.
- That the first defendant had unrestricted personal ownership of the garden.
- That a disputed sale permanently transferred every right connected with the land.
- That later descriptions of family relationships or title can be inferred beyond what the individual pages state.
- That this single garden represents the whole history of coffee cultivation on the Bababudan Hills.
Important distinction
The phrase “sold to me for Rupees 1000” appears within the plaintiff’s statement preserved in the record. Baba Budan Archives therefore attributes the transaction to the documentary statement and reads the later pages to understand the dispute; it does not convert the pleading alone into an independent modern finding of title.
Selected Pages From the Master PDF
These are genuine source images extracted directly from the uploaded 150-page dossier.
Image policy
These extracts reproduce the surviving scan. They are not AI reconstructions or decorative facsimiles. The complete 150-page PDF remains the master source and should be preserved unchanged.
A Named Coffee Garden in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
This record moves the coffee history of the hills from broad tradition into a specific documentary landscape.
The importance of BD-COF-1849-02 is its specificity. It gives us a named garden, a date, a monetary figure and a surviving dispute. Instead of merely saying that coffee was cultivated in the hills, the record lets us see coffee property being described, valued, sold, reaped and contested.
It also connects coffee history with the history of the Durgah and its property. That connection must be handled carefully: the surviving dispute contains competing positions, and the existence of a transaction does not by itself settle the underlying legal character of the land.
How Baba Budan Archives Uses This Record
The archive separates the source image, the statement made in the source, and the conclusion that can safely be drawn from it.
Master Source
Papers relating to Coffee Estates on Bababudan Hills, General and Revenue Secretariat dossier, 150 scanned PDF pages. The complete PDF is retained as the master research source.
Principal Extract
PDF p.61 is the principal page for the Yemma Khan transaction. Surrounding pages are essential for understanding the dispute and should not be omitted when making legal or historical claims.
BD-COF-1849-02 · Directly Examined Documentary Evidence
Yemma Khan: Coffee, Property and Dispute
The 1849 record is valuable because it preserves a concrete episode in the documentary history of coffee on the Bababudan Hills while also showing why archival context matters: a named garden and a recorded sale sit inside a longer dispute over payment, possession and rights.