1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tippoo Sahib

TIPPOO SAHIB (1753–1799), sultan of Mysore, son of Hyder Ali (q.v.), was born in 1753. He was instructed in military tactics by French officers in the employment of his father. In 1767 in the invasion of the Carnatic he commanded a corps of cavalry, and he distinguished himself in the Mahratta War of 1778–79. On the outbreak of the first Mysore War in 1780 he was put at the head of a large body of troops, and defeated Brathwaite on the banks of the Coleroon in February 1782. He succeeded his father in December 1782, and in 1784 concluded peace with the British, and assumed the title of sultan. In 1787–88 he subjugated the Nairs of Malabar, and in 1789 provoked British invasion by ravaging the territories of the raja of Travancore. When the British entered Mysore in 1790, he retaliated by a counter-invasion, but was compelled by Cornwallis’s victory near Seringapatam to cede half his dominions (March 16, 1792). The British laving deemed it necessary to renew hostilities in March 1799, he was shut up in Seringapatam and finally killed during the storm (May 4, 1799). Tippoo was of cruel disposition, and inferior in military talents to his father.

See L. B. Bowring, Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan ("Rulers of India series," 1893).