In the later 19th century, when the British Straits Settlement shipped Chinese convicts to be jailed in India, some of these men were settled on the Nilgiri plateau near Naduvattam. They married Tamil Paraiyan women and had children with them. One Chinese gardener was critical to the district's future, for he worked with Margaret B. L. Cockburn in Aruvenu, near Kotagiri, to develop Allport's, the first Nilgiri tea plantation, which started operations in 1863. Her father, Montague D. Cockburn, had opened the first coffee plantation there soon after 1830.