De, Ramdulal (1752-1825)  known as the first modern Bangali millionaire, was a self-made entrepreneur. Ramdulal De, an orphan and destitute child, started his business career initially as a sarkar or housekeeper of Madanmohan Dutta, a Calcutta banian. The family tradition goes that once he was sent to make a purchase from an auction sale. Instead of going for the designated auction, what he thought to be less profitable, De purchased scrap-ship from which he made an instant profit of one lakh rupees. Madanmohan Dutta donated the entire money to the sarkar and allowed him to go for independent business.

Ramdulal De's success in business is linked to his interactions with the American traders. The Americans began to come to Bengal for trade and commerce from 1785. Ramdulal worked with them as their Banian until 1800, when he started his own clearing and forwarding agency in Calcutta. All American ships visiting Calcutta made Ramdulal their common agent. Ramdulal also made capital investment with the American voyages from which he made phenomenal profit. The Americans were also equally benefited by his able partnership. In recognition of his services one Salem (a port near Boston) house dealing with Ramdulal named one of their ships 'Ramdulal De, which made several voyages from Salem to Calcutta. From 1807 to 1815, the Americans could not take part in the Bengal export trade because of their self-imposed embargo and British hostilities towards them during the Napoleonic Wars. During the period, the Americans transacted their Bengal business through Ramdulal De, who sent his own ship to Latin America, from where the Americans collected Bengal goods.

Ramdulal De is the first Bengal entrepreneur who had business dealings with the Americans and Europeans on equal footing and the first man to organise voyages to the Western Hemisphere with his own ship. Again, Ramdulal was the first Bengali in Calcutta to take to western method of business accounting and business management. In the holdings of Historical Society of Massachusetts and Peabody Museum at Salem and other maritime archives of New England, there are numerous business documents exchanged with Ramdulal De.

The members of the East India Marine Society at Salem mourned Ramdulal's death in 1825. His business house continued quite vigorously up to the 1840s, but since then the house got embroiled in family-feuds. Consequently it decayed and died in the 1860s. [Sirajul Islam]