Indian 1601 The English East India Company example essay topic

Colonisation After Christopher Columbus landed in the West Indies in 1492, Spain and Portugal started disputing areas of influence on the South American continent. The dispute was eventually settled by the Pope (Alexander VI), who in 1493, drew up defined areas of influence for the two nations with the idea of spreading Christianity to the natives in those territories. In time the Portuguese territory became known as Brazil, hence the working language of that country to this day is Portuguese, while most of the rest of the continent speaks Spanish. On 1 August 1498, during his third voyage, Columbus finally sighted the South American mainland for the first time. The next white explorer to reach the continent was the Portuguese navigator Pedro Cabral, who anchored off the coast of present day Brazil in April 1500 - a territory which he then claimed for Portugal.

However, the claim was ignored for more than 30 years by Portugal itself, whose sailors had in the interim sailed round Africa to India. During this time of Portuguese indifference, the Spanish seized the initiative in Central America and the West Indies. In 1519, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, then employed by the Spaniards, first sailed up the Rio de la Plata River. He then proceeded south and in November 1520, first sailed round the southernmost part of South America and sighted the Pacific Ocean. 1. Spain In 1519, Cortes with about 600 men set sail for South America with a few cannon and horses.

A last minute dispute with the Spanish governor saw Cortes' expedition being officially cancelled, but Cortes continued, later bringing back gold and other riches to the Spanish crown as justification for his expedition. The army sailed west along the Gulf Coast, engaging in a major battle against a local tribe. It was at this first battle that Cortes realized the technological advantage the Europeans possessed: steel armour, guns, cannons and even horses were completely unknown to the people of Central America, and many tribesmen fled at the very sight of a powerful charge horse. These advantages were pressed home remorselessly, and all the native tribes in Central and South America were to pay dearly for being technologically so far behind the Europeans. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Central America, the Aztecs had created an empire which stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and to the south to the present day country of Guatemala. The Aztecs were by all accounts cruel masters over other local tribes, with the result that some of the subjected peoples actually welcomed the arrival of the Spanish.

A few of these tribes would physically help the Spanish invaders against the Aztecs. The Aztec religion was one of the reasons why there was so much resentment amongst the Amerind tribes: it demanded daily human sacrifice and most of the victims for this sacrifice were seized from surrounding Amerind tribes by the Aztecs. The Aztec religion also played a major role in destabilizing Aztec resistance to the white invaders: one of their gods was a plumed serpent named Quetzalcoatl, the god of wind and learning. According to Aztec legend, Quetzalcoatl had been tricked and disgraced by another god, Tezcatlipoca, and then travelled to the east. He vowed to return and destroy those who worshipped his enemies, accompanied by all powerful white-skinned gods. By the time of the Spanish assault in 1519, word of the arrival of the whites, with their plumed helmets, in the Caribbean Sea had travelled to the Aztecs, triggering the widely held superstition that an angry Quetzalcoatl and his white-skinned gods had indeed returned to exact revenge.

This fear created confusion in the Aztec camp: should they attack the newcomers, who might be the avenging god, or should they try and appease them? This hesitancy to act was exploited by the Spanish invaders. In May 1521, the city of Tenochtitlan - capital of the Aztecs, which was situated on an island - was cut off from the outside. Spanish artillery mounted on ships specially constructed for the shallow waters of the surrounding rivers and lake, bombarded the city. Every day the white soldiers launched fresh assaults on the city defences, whose supplies of food and fresh water had been cut. Famine, dysentery, and smallpox ravaged the Aztec defenders.

On 13 August 1521, after a desperate siege of three months, the new Aztec emperor was captured and Tenochtitlan fell. According to Spanish accounts, when they finally entered the city, more than 40,000 decomposed bodies - most of whom had died of disease - littered the city streets and canals. The legend of the revenge of the white-skinned gods had indeed come true after all. The Spaniards then proceeded to raze the city to the ground and build a new city in its place to serve as capital of the newly declared Spanish possession of Central America, called New Spain. The city itself eventually came to be called Mexico City.

Spanish colonists soon poured in, and the new city quickly became the largest white city in Central America. The contact with the native tribes in the coastal areas of Southern America had been enough to make the Spanish realize that the Inca civilization was advanced and possibly wealthy - the Aztec example in Central America served as an indication that greater riches lay deeper in the interior, just waiting to be discovered. The Spanish were then the first to push deep into the interior of South America, in search of the wealth of which they believed they had only seen glimpses on the coast amongst the native people they encountered there. The staggering feat of the first white invasion of South America by a tiny force of 180 men is one of the most remarkable episodes in South American history - and also one of the least widely known. In 1531, a conquistador named Francisco Pizarro invaded South America with 180 white men and 62 horses, taking on the hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Incas living in the gold rich Inca empire which covered the areas today compromising the countries of Peru, Chile and Bolivia. Advancing quickly, Pizarro reached the Inca heartland: despite the tiny white force being numerically dwarfed by the warlike Incas, the latter, like the Aztecs, had no answer against the overwhelming whites technological superiority.

Pizarro captured the Inca emperor, one Atahualpa, who attempted to buy his freedom by offering a staggering amount of gold and silver. Despite this offer, the conquistadors decided to burn the emperor at the stake to break Inca resistance. In the end, because Atahualpa converted to Christianity while awaiting execution, it was decided to spare him the flames and to publicly strangle him to death instead, a method of executing non-Christians already common back in Spain as a result of the Inquisition which had already claimed hundreds of victims in Europe. As Pizarro had predicted, the death of the Inca emperor left his tribe leaderless and incapable of mounting effective coordinated opposition. The conquistadors then set about destroying all the Inca power structures, subduing the huge territory with the same brutality that they had used in dealing with the Inca emperor. The historical records show that Pizarro had exactly 62 soldiers mounted on horses along with 106 foot soldiers, while Atahualpa commanded an army of about 80,000.

More than 7,000 Incas were killed: not one white died. The staggering military victory was based solely on white technological superiority: the Incas had only stone, bronze and wooden clubs, maces and hand axes, slingshots and quilted material body armour against the whites steel swords, spears and chain armour. Even the guns the Spaniards had were not decisive: they were slow loading and difficult to fire: Pizarro had only a dozen of them. The Incas were simply unable to mortally wound any of the Spaniards with their weapons.

Portuguese Settlement in BRAZILIn 1530, the Portuguese finally woke up to the fact that the Spaniards were effectively settling the entire continent, and from that year on started establishing their own settlements in what is today Brazil. The climate there lent itself well to the cultivation of sugar, and vast sugar plantations were quickly established. Then the age old problem of providing labour arose: the answer of the day was to import Black slaves into South America, as the Portuguese had done into their own country as well. So it was that Blacks as a racial group were brought into the South American equation: millions were imported, and of both sexes to ensure a steady population growth.

In 1693, gold was discovered in what is now western Brazil, which attracted a large number of Portuguese immigrants and boosting the growth of a new port, Rio de Janeiro. In Peru, tin mines were established, and the mineral wealth combined with the abundant natural resources were quickly harnessed by the new white masters and turned into one of the most profitable colonial undertakings of its kind. Thus by 1700, all of South America was under either Spanish or Portuguese rule, except for the territories of Guiana, which had been belatedly grabbed by Britain, France and the Netherlands, more as outposts on the continent than anything else. These outposts were to prove of vital importance in the European wars which followed and Spanish shipping suffered serious losses from British and Dutch raiders at various stages of a number of conflicts. British colonisation The two best known Tudor monarchs are Henry V and Elizabeth I. It was in the reign of Elizabeth I that England began to acquire colonies, particularly in America. Her other overseas interests were restricted to trade and commerce.

From very small beginnings, the British Empire eventually stretched across the world: the 'empire on which the sun never set' (because God doesn't trust the English in the dark... ). The first of England's colonies was in America; the person most responsible was Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh had gone on voyages of discovery with his half brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

Up to that time the English had made no permanent settlements in America. Raleigh's position at court gave him an opportunity to press for this project, though the queen, Elizabeth I, would not let him lead any of his colonizing expeditions in person. Tireless in his efforts to establish an English colony in America, Sir Walter Raleigh sent out expedition after expedition. The name Virginia in honour of the Virgin Queen, as Elizabeth was called was given to the area explored in 1584 by one of these expeditions. In 1585 Raleigh sent over the first party of colonists who settled on Roanoke Island, off the north east coast of current day North Carolina. In 1587 Raleigh sent a party under John whites as governor.

After three years' absence in England to obtain supplies, Governor White returned to Roanoke Island in 1591. He found the area mysteriously deserted. The fate of this Lost Colony of early settlers has never been learned. The only trace of the colonists that was left behind was the word Croatian carved on a tree. Raleigh's pioneer work paved the way for later settlements in the New World. When some of his followers returned to England, they brought back tobacco from America.

By popularizing its use Raleigh created a demand for the tobacco leaf, which became a profitable crop in the colonies. They also took back potatoes. The first permanent English settlement in North America was organized by the London (later called Virginia) Company. On 14 May 1607 a group of 105 colonists landed in Virginia and established Jamestown. Here they built huts for homes, a storehouse, a church, and a fort. The strong leadership of Capt. John Smith protected the colony from starvation and unfriendly Indians.

One of Virginia's chief sources of wealth was the growing of tobacco. Jamestown was the first successful English settlement in North America. Most of the early settlers were businessmen. They were interested in trading English goods for Indian furs and gold. The settlement depended on food from England, and it barely survived its first years.

Jamestown began to grow and prosper only after the colony's owners in England gave land to farmers who were willing to settle in Virginia. King Charles I granted a charter for the territory south of Virginia in about 1629, and it was named in his honour. (Carolina means the 'Land of Charles. ' ) The first permanent settlement was made by Virginians in the Albemarle region in about 1653. In 1663 Charles II granted the Carolina region to eight lords proprietors.

The colony prospered, but the settlers became discontented over feudal laws and neglect by the owners. Finally in 1712 North Carolina and South Carolina became separate provinces. In 1603, James I became King of England (as well as being James VI of Scotland). He tried to introduce religious toleration but found that the Puritans wanted more than he was prepared to concede so he said to them that they had to "conform, or I will harry you out of the land". A group of Puritans decided that they would prefer to leave the country rather than do as they were told by an Anglican monarch so they set sail for America. These men are known as the Pilgrim Fathers and were the founders of New England.

The Pilgrim Fathers left England on board the ship "Mayflower" in 1621. They hoped to land in the area near Virginia but because there was no way of telling how far south - or north - they were, they landed at Cape Cod in Massachusetts. There they founded the first of the northern colonies. Each of the thirteen colonies had a governor who was appointed by the British monarch; he was paid from the revenues of the colony.

Each colony also had a House of Representatives (some colonies used different names: Virginia had a House of Burgesses) and an Upper House. The men who sat there were all elected by the local inhabitants (men only). Because of the time and distance from Britain, the 13 colonies became effectively self-governing apart from having their trade controlled from the British parliament. Britain had little time to bother about the American colonies because she was dealing with a series of wars against France. In 1754 the French and Indian War broke out between the British and French in North America, India and Europe.

This became the Seven Years' War in 1756; in 1763 the British defeated the French and in the ensuing peace treaty acquired the whole of Canada, all French possessions in India and some of the French West Indies. Britain already owned some West Indian islands. The British empire had begun. However, because the war had cost the British a great deal of money in defending the American colonies from the French, it was decided to tax the colonists in an attempt to recoup the money. This led directly to the War of Independence (1775-83). Britain found herself fighting not only the American colonists but also the French, Spanish and Dutch in a global conflict.

In 1776 the American colonists declared their independence and finally won it in 1783. Britain went on to defeat her other enemies but lost America. Indian 1601 the English East India Company was founded. A group of City merchants decided to risk their capital only after there had been favourable reports about trade prospects in the East. They sought a monopoly of the East for trading purposes, dealing in silk, ivory, spices and cotton. This ultimately led to the establishment of the British Raj.

The history of Anglo-Indian relations was determined by the long-held belief among the English that India was never to be their permanent home. North America was thought to be more favourable to European migration; the distance was not so far as to be disorientating and the 'New World' could still retain a European culture. India was never this type of permanent home for Europeans. The English went to India to trade and rule, but not to settle, an attitude which increased the distance between the rulers and the ruled. By modern standards, British rule in India lasted a long time: nearly 200 years. The endurance of British rule was remarkable given the physical size of the country.

India covers 1.8 million square miles, an area twenty times larger than Great Britain. Communications were poor; languages and customs in India maintained an almost permanent gap between official intentions and local practice. The monsoons always dislocated transportation whilst the Indian villages were cut off from everything except their immediate surroundings. An exclusive English charter did not affect foreign competitors. The Dutch East India Company had been founded in 1595 and already had considerable control over the Spice Islands.

The English East India Company chose to concentrate its efforts on the mainland of India. In 1613 it received permission to found a trading station (a 'factory') where servants of the Company could live and work. By 1647 the Company had 23 factories and 90 employees in India. The major factories became the walled forts of St George in Bengal, Fort William in Madras and Bombay Castle. Fortunes could be made by Company employees.

One of the most famous men to do this was 'Diamond' Pitt. As Governor of Fort St George he bought an uncut diamond weighing 410 carats for lb 20,000. His son Robert smuggled the diamond to England; it took five years to cut the stone which was sold to the French Regent for lb 35,000. In 1791 it was placed among the French Crown Jewels and was valued at lb 480,000.

Often employees of the Company who had made their fortunes in India returned to England and purchased estates which gave them political power. Consequently the East India lobby was extremely powerful in parliament. There were a number of Anglo-French conflicts in India in the early eighteenth century including the episode known as the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' where (according to one report) 146 men were cramped into a space 18 feet long by 14 feet wide. A major Anglo-French conflict was the Seven Years' War, fought in Europe, North America and India.

At the Peace of Paris (1763) that ended the Seven Years' War, the conflicts in Europe, America and Asia were ended. In 1764 the native princes of Bengal and Oudh combined to try to eject the British but their revolt was crushed by Clive; the Company extended its influence over the province of Oudh. The year 1765 marks the real beginning of the British Empire in India as a territorial dominion. Robert Clive's reforms marked a new development in the history of the East India Company. No longer was it using puppet Indian governments to beat down European rivals in competition for trade but overwhelmingly had defeated Indian forces struggling for independence of European control. The company had become a government as well as a trader.

However, the Company clung to the idea that it was still only a trading company and refused to admit that it had territorial responsibilities. Huge areas of India were acquired by the Company, not by the British government. Company officials were trained to buy and sell, to run warehouses and offices and to deal with book-keeping. They were not trained to govern.

The British government gradually took over from the Company the right to govern vast provinces of India. Although the Company paid lucrative dividends, and its servants (the so-called 'nabobs') took fortunes from India, its finances generally were unsound. The military and administrative costs, plus the debt to the Treasury imposed heavy burdens which a private company was unable to carry. Between 1770 and 1772 famine devastated Bengal. One sixth of the population died and as a result the territorial revenues accruing to the company declined by lb 400,000.

At the same time its military costs rose by over lb 160,000. This period also saw a crisis of commercial confidence, economic stagnation and trade depression in Europe. This meant that the East India Company could not dispose of its Indian goods as well or as quickly as it had hoped. It was brought near to bankruptcy. The Company's directors appealed to parliament for financial aid which led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773. Although this was intended to assist the East India Company, it led to the Boston Tea Party and the start of the American War of Independence.

Lord North's government also passed the Regulating Act for India (1773). This was the first step along the road to government control of India. A system was established whereby the government supervised the work of the East India Company but did not take power for itself. The Governor-General and his council were appointed for five years, with control over the territories in Madras and Bombay as well as Bengal.

The government attempted to make the East India Company less a commercial enterprise than a respectable delegated authority of itself. To organise this effectively meant that parliament had to regulate the company's policies from the top and thus overcome its very real powers of direct administration and patronage. The arguments for reform in India strengthened and several attempts were made to introduce further legislation. It had been a common feature of all reforming schemes since 1773 that they involved a greater degree of government regulation of the East India Company. This was defended on the ground that the state had an interest in administrative revenues in India. The 1784 India Act by which the British government took another step along the road to control India.

This system of dual control between Company and Crown worked for the next 75 years, until the Indian Mutiny. After that, parliament took over complete responsibility for India. By 1823 all India was directly or indirectly under British control. AFRICA When the Portuguese arrived on the Congo-Angola coast in the 1480's, they found suitable allies in the Congo tribe - who were amongst the first Blacks to convert to Christianity. This did not, however, prevent them from co-operating with the Portuguese in capturing neighbouring tribesmen and selling them as slaves to the Portuguese, and it was from the Congo / Angolan interior that the majority of all Black slaves to be exported to America and Portugal itself originated. In 1515, the Portuguese founded the port of Luanda to facilitate this slave trade.

ETHIOPIA - FIRST AFRICAN STATE 1896 In Ethiopia, the Portuguese allied themselves with local tribesmen and fought off a slave trading conquest by Arabs in 1542 - but in 1632, the Portuguese themselves were expelled from Ethiopia by locals as well. The Ethiopians, under Emperor Menelik II, defeated an Italian force in 1896 and became the first independent African state in that year - only to virtually collapse precisely 90 years later when a combination of overpopulation and backward farming methods (which caused massive soil erosion) caused the worst man made famine ever yet seen on earth. In that year - 1986 - whites in Europe and America felt compelled to come to Ethiopia's aid, most notably through the creation of 'Live Aid' fund raising pop concerts in Europe. FRENCH POSSESSIONS - ALGERIA AND SENEGAL The French began the conquest of Algeria and Senegal in the 1830's. They put down a revolt by the mixed race Arabic population of Algeria in 1870, and from 1881 to 1897, quelled all resistance to whites rule by force of arms in the western Sudan. Dahomey was occupied by French forces in 1892, and the Wadai region was the last area to fall to the French, in 1900.

BELGIUM CLAIMS THE CONGO In 1876, King Leopold II of the Belgians established the International Association of the Congo, a private company, for the exploration and colonization of the region. His principal agent for this task was the Englishman, Henry Stanley. Although a late starter in the race for colonies, the Germans still managed to seize some important areas: German South West Africa, now called Namibia, in 1884; and the country now known as Tanzania fell under German control in 1891. The Germans faced (1904-1908) the Herero insurrection in South-West Africa and Maji Maji revolt (1905-1907) in Tanganyika, both of which were put down with several bloody massacres of the local population: in Namibia it is estimated that as much as 30 per cent of the Herero population was killed in conflict with the Germans. THE DUTCH LAND IN SOUTH AFRICA 1652 By 1652, the Dutch government granted permission to a private company called the Dutch East India Company, to exploit the growing colonies and trading posts in the Far East.

Deciding they needed a halfway way point as a supply station, they sent one of their junior officials, Jan van Riebeeck, to the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost point of Africa in that year, with instructions to build a fort and supply station. In both of these aims, Van Riebeeck succeeded, laying the basis for what was to become the most long lasting whites settlement in all of Africa. The British took the Dutch colony as her own property during the French Wars; South Africa became Cape Colony and part of the British Empire. THE DUTCH IN THE FAR EAST Although the Portuguese had been the first to land in the Far East by sea, their own internal problems prevented them from exploiting the route they had opened up: within a few decades they had been displaced by other European powers who had not imported tens of thousands of Black slaves to their countries.

By 1602, the Dutch East India Company, had established itself first in the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, and later on West Java, where Batavia (modern Jakarta) became the centre of the company's enterprises. These enterprises were devoted mostly to trade and to the establishment of trading posts, and they did not initially concern themselves with trying to govern the region. However, the necessity of maintaining peace among the native tribes, who fought each other furiously and severely disrupted the trade, forced the Dutch to begin governing the land (now called Indonesia). In the same way, the Dutch ended up controlling Java and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) by 1800. CHINA - WHITE SETTLEMENT SPARKS WAR Portuguese explorers were the first whites to arrive by sea in China, landing in 1514.

By 1557, they had acquired a trading station at Macau and by 1570, trade began between China and Spanish settlements in the Philippines. In 1619, the Dutch settled in Taiwan and took possession of the nearby P'enghu Islands (Pescadores). Soon Jesuit missionaries arrived in China from Europe but failed utterly in their attempts to convert the Chinese who rejected the Christian religion with scorn. BRITISH TRADE China profited from the trading stations, with the British being their biggest customers for the tea trade, paying handsomely in silver. The British then added a new twist to the trade: they started importing opium from India into China as part payment. The use of opium took off like a rocket in China: soon it became a serious issue for the Chinese government, which then instituted measures to try and stop it.

In 1839, Chinese officials confiscated and destroyed huge amounts of opium from British ships in the harbour at Guangzhou and applied severe pressures to the British trading community in that city. The British refused to restrict further importation of opium, and the Opium Wars between Britain and China broke out in that same year. The Chinese were no match for British military superiority and were badly defeated: the war ended in 1842, after Britain had seized Hong Kong in 1841, Chinkiang in 1842, and threatened Peking itself. In terms of the Treaty of Nanking which ended the war, Hong Kong was ceded to Britain and the right to trade was granted to the British in a number of Chinese towns. During the next two years, both France and the United States extracted similar treaties from China. Non-performance by China of several important clauses of these treaties led to the outbreak of the Second Opium War which lasted from 1856 to 1860.

During the course of this war, several dozen whites were captured by the Chinese, and were put to death. Filled with avenging rage, a joint British-French expeditionary force advanced to the Chinese capital, Peking, and burned down the famous Summer Palace in direct retaliation for the death of the whites prisoners. Prostrate under superior white firepower, the Chinese were forced to agree to implement the earlier treaties which, by their provisions, opened Chinese ports to foreign trade and residents and ceded Hong Kong and Kowloon to Britain. Following from the Second Opium War, Russia seized the Chinese provinces of northern Manchuria and the areas north of the Amur River in 1860; and in 1884, a war between the French and the Chinese saw Vietnam brought into the French colonial empire. By 1898, powerless to resist foreign demands, China had been carved into spheres of economic influence. Russia was granted the right to construct a Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Chinese Eastern Railway, across Manchuria to Vladivostok and the South Manchurian Railway south to the tip of the Liao dong Peninsula, as well as additional exclusive economic rights throughout Manchuria.

Other exclusive rights to railway and mineral development were granted to Germany in Shandong Province, to France in the southern border provinces, to Great Britain in the Yangtze provinces, and to Japan in the south-eastern coastal provinces. The Boxer Uprising was a Chinese nationalist uprising against all whites in China which took place in 1900. In 1899 a secret society of Chinese called the Yihequan ('Righteous and Harmonious Fists', also called the Boxers), began a campaign against whites Christian missionaries in the north-eastern provinces. Although the Boxers were officially denounced, they were secretly supported by many of the Chinese royal court, including the Dowager Empress Cixi. The terrorist activities of the Boxer society gradually increased during 1899, with Boxer bands attacking all whites on sight. When these bands entered the Chinese capital, Peking, the whites powers sent a small armed column to the Chinese capital to protect the few whites in the city.

On 16 June 1900, the Empress Cixi ordered Chinese troops to attack the whites army which was still outside Peking. Then on 18 June 1900, the Empress Cixi publicly called on the Chinese to kill all the whites they could find. Many whites were then murdered: large numbers fled into the fortified foreign embassies in the city. There they were besieged by Chinese. Finally, a combined army consisting of British, French, Russian, German, American and Japanese troops entered Peking on 14 August 1900, relieving the besieged foreign embassies. Peking was then occupied by the whites powers for a year until September 1901, when the Chinese signed a peace treaty in terms of which they had to pay a large indemnity and grant the whites powers the right to station troops in Peking to safeguard the embassies.

This situation remained unaltered right up until the early part of the 20th century.