The British East India Company Essay
The British East India Company was an English and subsequently ( from 1707 ) British joint-stock company formed for prosecuting trade with the East Indies but which ended up merchandising chiefly with the Indian subcontinent. The East India Company traded chiefly in cotton. silk. indigo dye. salt. potassium nitrate. tea and opium. Shares of the company were owned by affluent merchandisers and blue bloods. The authorities owned no portions and had merely indirect control. The Company finally came to govern big countries of India with its ain private ground forces. exerting military power and presuming administrative maps. Company regulation in India efficaciously began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858 when. following the Indian Rebellion of 1857. the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown presuming direct control of India in the new British Raj. The Company was dissolved in 1874 as a consequence of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act passed one twelvemonth before. as the Government of India Act had by so rendered it powerless and out of day of the month. Its maps had been to the full absorbed into official authorities machinery in the British Raj and its private ground forces had been nationalised by the British Crown. In the modern epoch. its history is strongly associated with corporate maltreatment. colonialism. development. and monopoly power.
Sir James Lancaster commanded the first East India Company ocean trip in 1601 Initially. the Company struggled in the spice trade due to the competition from the already good established Dutch East India Company. The Company opened a mill in Bantam on the first ocean trip and imports of Piper nigrum from Java were an of import portion of the Company’s trade for 20 old ages. The mill in Bantam was closed in 1683. During this clip ships belonging to the company geting in India docked at Surat. which was established as a trade theodolite point in 1608. In the following two old ages. the Company built its first mill in south India in the town of Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. The high net incomes reported by the Company after set downing in India ab initio prompted King James I to allow subordinate licences to other trading companies in England.
The Red Dragon fought the Portuguese at the Battle of Swally in 1612. and made several ocean trips to the East Indies. English bargainers often engaged
in belligerencies with their Dutch and Lusitanian opposite numbers in the Indian Ocean. The Company achieved a major triumph over the Portuguese in the Battle of Swally in 1612. The Company decided to research the feasibleness of deriving a territorial bridgehead in mainland India. with official countenance of both states. and requested that the Crown launch a diplomatic mission.
Jahangir puting a courtier with a robe of honor watched by Sir Thomas Roe. English embassador to the tribunal of Jahangir at Agra from 1615-18. and others In 1612. Sir Thomas Roe was instructed by James I to see the Mughal Emperor Nuruddin Salim Jahangir to set up for a commercial pact which would give the Company sole rights to shack and construct mills in Surat and other countries. In return. the Company offered to supply the Emperor with goods and rarenesss from the European market. This mission was extremely successful as Jahangir sent a missive to James through Sir Thomas Roe.
Position of East India House
In 1634. the Mughal emperor extended his cordial reception to the English bargainers to the part of Bengal. and in 1717 wholly waived imposts responsibilities for the trade. The company’s pillar concerns were by so in cotton. silk. indigo dye. potassium nitrate and tea. The Company’s bright hereafter. nevertheless. was impolitely braked by the sign language of the Treaty of Munster in 1648. which freed the Netherlands from Spanish control leting it to turn its full attending to spread outing its trade both in place and distant Waterss and enter a period recognized as Holland’s ‘Golden Age’ . Mughal convoy buccaneering incident of 1695
In September 1695. Captain Henry Every. an English plagiarist on board the Fancy. reached the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. where he teamed up with five other plagiarist captains to do an onslaught on the Indian fleet doing the one-year ocean trip to Mecca. The Mughal convoy included the treasure-laden Ganj-i-Sawai. reported to be the greatest in the Mughal fleet and the largest ship operational in the Indian Ocean. and its bodyguard. the Fateh Muhammed. They were spotted go throughing the passs en path to Surat. The plagiarists gave pursuit and caught up with the Fateh Muhammed some yearss subsequently. and run intoing small opposition. took some ?50. 000 to ?60. 000 worth of hoarded wealth.
The Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II and his Alliess fought against the British East India Company during his early old ages ( 1760-1764 ) . he merely accepted the protection of the British in the twelvemonth 1803. after he was blinded by his enemies and deserted by his topics. The Company continued to see opposition from local swayers during its enlargement. Robert Clive led company forces against Siraj Ud Daulah. the last independent Nawab of Bengal. Bihar. and Midnapore territory in Orissa to triumph at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. ensuing in the conquering of Bengal. This triumph estranged the British and the Mughals. since Siraj Ud Daulah was a Mughal vassal ally. With the gradual weakening of the Marathas in the wake of the three Anglo-Maratha wars. the British besides secured Ganges-Jumna Doab. the Delhi-Agra part. parts of Bundelkhand. Broach. some territories of Gujarat. garrison of Ahmmadnagar. state of Cuttack ( which included Mughalbandi/the coastal portion of Orissa. Garjat/the princely states of Orissa. Balasore Port. parts of Midnapore territory of West Bengal ) . Bombay ( Mumbai ) and the environing countries. taking to a formal terminal of the Maratha imperium and steadfast constitution of the British East India Company in India. Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. the swayers of the Kingdom of Mysore. offered much opposition to the British forces.
Having sided with the Gallic during the war. the swayers of Mysore continued their battle against the Company with the four Anglo-Mysore Wars. Mysore eventually fell to the Company forces in 1799. with the decease of Tipu Sultan. The last traces of local disposal were restricted to the northern parts of Delhi. Oudh. Rajputana. and Punjab. where the Company’s presence was of all time increasing amidst infighting and offers of protection among the staying princes. Coercive action. menaces. and diplomatic negotiations aided the Company in forestalling the local swayers from seting up a united battle. The hundred old ages from the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the Indian Rebellion of 1857 were a period of consolidation for the Company. which began to work more as a state and lupus erythematosus as a trading concern. A cholera pandemic began in Bengal. so dispersed across India by 1820. 10. 000 British military personnels and countless Indians died during this pandemic. Between 1736 and 1834 merely some 10 % of East India Company’s officers survived to take the concluding ocean trip place.
The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor. 1773
Fiscal problems
Though the Company was going progressively bold and ambitious in seting down defying provinces. it was acquiring clearer that the Company was incapable of regulating the huge sweep of the captured districts. The Bengal dearth of 1770. in which tierce of the local population died. caused hurt in Britain. Military and administrative costs mounted beyond control in British-administered parts in Bengal due to the resulting bead in labour productiveness. At the same clip. there was commercial stagnancy and trade depression throughout Europe. The managers of the company attempted to debar bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for fiscal aid. This led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773. which gave the Company greater liberty in running its trade in the American settlements. and allowed it an freedom from tea import responsibilities which its colonial rivals were required to pay. East India Company Act 1773
By the Regulating Act of 1773 ( subsequently known as the East India Company Act 1773 ) . the Parliament of Great Britain imposed a series of administrative and economic reforms and by making so clearly established its sovereignty and ultimate control over the Company. The Act recognised the Company’s political maps and clearly established that the “acquisition of sovereignty by the topics of the Crown is on behalf of the Crown and non in its ain right. ” Despite stiff opposition from the East India anteroom in parliament and from the Company’s stockholders the Act was passed. It introduced significant governmental control and allowed the land to be officially under the control of the Crown. but leased to the Company at ?40. 000 for two old ages.
Under this proviso governor of Bengal Warren Hastings became the first Governor-General of Bengal. and had administrative powers over all of British India. It provided that his nomination. though made by a tribunal of managers. should in future be capable to the blessing of a Council of Four appointed by the Crown – viz. Lt. General Sir John Clavering. The Honorable Sir George Monson. Sir Richard Barwell. and Sir Philip Francis. [ 20 ] Hastings was entrusted with the power of peace and war. British judicial forces would besides be sent to India to administrate the British legal system. The Governor General and the council would hold complete legislative powers. The company was allowed to keep its practical monopoly over trade in exchange for the two-year amount and was obligated to export a minimal measure of goods annually to Britain. The costs of disposal were to be met by the company. These commissariats were ab initio welcomed by the Company. but with the one-year load of the payment to be met. its fundss continued steadily to worsen. [ 20 ] East India Company Act 1784 ( Pitt’s India Act )
The East India Company Act 1784 ( Pitt’s India Act ) had two cardinal facets: •Relationship to the British authorities: the measure differentiated the East India Company’s political maps from its commercial activities. In political affairs the East India Company was subordinated to the British authorities straight. To carry through this. the Act created a Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India. normally referred to as the Board of Control. The members of the Board were the Chancellor of the Exchequer. the Secretary of State. and four Privy Councillors. nominated by the King. The act specified that the Secretary of State “shall preside at. and be President of the said Board” . •Internal Administration of British India: the measure laid the foundation for the centralized and bureaucratic British disposal of India which would make its extremum at the beginning of the twentieth century during the governor-generalship of George Nathaniel Curzon. 1st Baron Curzon.
East India Company Act 1793 ( Charter Act )
The Company’s charter was renewed for a farther 20 old ages by the Charter Act of 1793. In contrast with the legislative proposals of the past two decennaries. the 1793 Act was non a peculiarly controversial step. and made merely minimum alterations to the system of authorities in India and to British inadvertence of the Company’s activities. East India Company Act 1813 ( Charter Act )
The aggressive policies of Lord Wellesley and the Marquis of Hastings led to the Company deriving control of all India ( except for the Punjab and Sindh ) . and the land of Nepal. The Indian Princes had become lieges of the Company. But the disbursal of wars taking to the entire control of India strained the Company’s fundss. The Company was forced to petition Parliament for aid. This was the background to the Charter Act of 1813 which. among other things: Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 resulted in widespread desolation in India and disapprobation of the East India Company for allowing the events to happen. One of the effects of the Indian Mutiny was that the British Government nationalised the Company. The Company lost all its administrative powers ; its Indian ownerships. including its armed forces. were taken over by the Crown pursuant to the commissariats of the Government of India Act 1858. The Company continued to pull off the tea trade on behalf of the British Government ( and the supply of Saint Helena ) until the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act 1873 came into consequence. on 1 January 1874. The Act provided for the disintegration of the company on 1 June 1874. after a concluding dividend payment and the commuting or salvation of its stock.
