WHAT WAS THE EAST INDIA COMPANY?
East India Company was the name of several historical European
companies chartered with Asia, more specially with India.
• British East India Company, founden in 1600
• Danish East India Company, founded in 1616
• Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602
• French East India Company, founded in 1664
• Swedish East India Company, founded in 1731
• Portuguese East India Company, founded in 1628
European settlements in India (1498-1739)
The British East India Company
• First it was called Honorable East India Company (HEIC) or often
”John Company”. Based in London.
• An early joint-stock company, which was granted an English Royal
Charter by Elisabeth I. on December 31, 1600.
• Queen Elisabeth granted the monopoly rights to bring goods from
India.
• The Royal Charter gave the newly created HEIC a 21 monoply on
all trade in the East Indies.
•The Company had 125 shareholders, and a capital of £72,000
 The Company was led by one Governor and
24 directors who made up the Court of
Directors
 They were appointed by, and reported to,
the Court of Proprietors
 The Court of Directors had ten committees
reporting to it
THE HISTORY
DIFFICULTIES AT THE BEGINNING
• First voyage in 1601 by Captai James
Lancaster, with ships: the Dragon, the
Susan, the Hector and the Ascension. In
Aceh and Sumatra. - Unsuccesful for the
next twenty years, because of Dutch
dominanace.
•Traders were frequently engaged in
hostilities with their Dutch and
Portuguese counterparts in the Indian
Ocean
•A key event providing the Company
with the favour of Mughal emperor
Jahangir was their victory over the
Portuguese in the Battle of Swally in
1612.
 In 1610-1611 first factories and
trading posts estableshed in
India to protect the areas in
Madres and Bombay.
 In 1615, Sir Thomas Roe was
instructed by James I to visit
the Mughal emperor Jahangir
to arrange for a commercial
treaty which would give the
Company exclusive rights to
reside and build factories in
Surat and other areas
 In return, the Company
offered to provide to the
emperor goods and rarities
from the European market
 First trip to China in 1637 by
John Wedellen. -UnsuccesfulThe port was only opened in
1685. Main imports were: tea,
silk, porcelain.
Sir Thomas Roe
THE BIG BOOM
• It managed to create strongholds
in Surat, Madras (1639), Bombay (1668) and Calcutta
(1690)
•1650-1655 rival companies had been incorporated
under the Commonwealth.
• In 1657 EIC got the rights to trade in India and was
reorganised as the sole joint-stock company.
• ”The United Company of Merchants England
Trading to the East Indies”-East India CompanyTotal trade monopoly on all commerce to China and
India.
• In 1711, the Company established a trading post in
Canton (Guangzhou), China, to trade tea for silver
THE COMPLETE MONOPOLY



The prosperity enjoyed by employees allowed them to return to England and
establish estates, businesses, and to obtain political power
Consequently, the Company developed for itself a lobby in the English
parliament
However, under pressure from ambitious tradesmen and former associates of
the Company, who wanted to establish private trading firms in India, a
deregulating act was passed in 1694
 This allowed any English firm to trade with India, unless specifically
prohibited by act of parliament, thereby annulling the charter that was
in force for almost 100 years
 By an act that was passed in 1698, a new "parallel" East India Company
was floated under a state-backed indemnity of £2 million
 However, the powerful stockholders of the old company quickly
subscribed a sum of £315,000 in the new concern, and dominated the
new body
 The two companies wrestled with each other for some time, both in
England and in India, for a dominant share of the trade
 It quickly became evident that, in practice, the original Company faced
scarcely any measurable competition
 Both companies finally merged in 1702, by a tripartite indenture
involving them both as well as the state
THE TRANSFORMATION
FROM A TRADING COMPANY
TO A RULING ENTERPRISE
• 1757- Control of Bengal - Sir Robert Clive - Battle of Plassey
 Slowly, the company got the rights to collect revenues (állami
jövedelmek) and taxes from people in place of the Mughal ruler.
 During the famine of 1769-70, the East India Company did
absolutely nothing to help the people and the state of Bengal was
reduced from a rich state to an impoverished state.
 Almost one third of the people died as a result of the famine.
•
•
•
Arthur Wellesley – defeated Tipu sultan in 1799
1773-The Regulating Act: greater parlamental control
1784-The Pitt’s India Act: political, military and finantial control
for the government over the Indian affairs of the Co.
• 1784 East India Bill – Board of Controll (ellenőrző bizottság)
Robert Clive (1725-74)
Warren Hastings
Arthur Wellesley
(1732-1818)
(1796-1852)
First governor
Duke of Wellington
OPIUM WARS
• In the late XVIII. century, opium had been used in much of Asia for several
countries.
•It was used as medicine and smoked with tobacco.
• England could grow opinum in India and the transport it home.
•In the eighteenth century, England had a huge trade deficit with Qing
Dynasty China and so in 1773, the Company created a British monopoly of
opium trading in Bengal
•As opium trade was illegal in China, Company ships could not carry opium
to China
•The opium produced in Bengal was sold in Calcutta on condition that it be
sent to China
 Despite the Chinese ban on opium imports, reaffirmed in
1799, it was smuggled into China from Bengal by traffickers
and agency houses averaging 900 tons a year
 The proceeds from drug-runners at Lintin were paid into the
Company’s factory at Canton and by 1825, most of the money
needed to buy tea in China was raised by the illegal opium
trade
 Eventually this led to the The first Opium War (1839-42). Not
only were the Chinese defeated but the British seizing Hong
Kong and opening of the Chinese market to British drug
traffickers.
 1856: The second Opium War – France and the EIC won
against China
FINANCIAL TROUBLES
 Though the Company was becoming increasingly bold and
ambitious in putting down resisting states, it was getting
clearer day by day that the Company was incapable of
governing the vast expanse of the captured territories
 Military and administrative costs mounted beyond control in
British administered regions in Bengal due to the ensuing
drop in labour productivity
 At the same time, there was commercial stagnation and trade
depression throughout Europe following the lull in the postIndustrial Revolution period
 The desperate directors of the company attempted to avert
bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help
 This led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773, which gave the
Company greater autonomy in running its trade in America
 Its monopolistic activities triggered the Boston Tea Party in the
Province of Massachusetts Bay, one of the major events
leading up to the American War for Independence
THE END
•Deprived of its trade monopoly in
1813, the company wound up as a
trading enterprise
•The company continued its
administrative function till the
Sepoy Rebellion (1857-1859)
•The 1857 insurrection was known
to the British as the "Great
Mutiny" but to Indians as the
"First War of Independence„
• The Company was soon
nationalised by the Government in
London to which it lost all its
administrative functions and all of
its Indian possessions - including
its armed forces - were taken over
by the Crown.
 For some time the
Company was still
managing the tea
trade on behalf of
the British
government
• The East India
Company was
dissolved on
January 1. 1874 by
the East India
Stock Divided
Redemption Act
 The map shows
British India in
the early 20th
century. Pink
areas were ruled
directly by
Britain. Light
green areas were
ruled by the
Indian princes.
The East India Company flag
changed over time
Downman (1685)
Lens (1700)
Rees (1820)
Laurie (1842)
National Geographic (1917)