Theme 2Part A · The British conquest
The European trading companies
1498 to 1765 · from Vasco da Gama to the eve of empire
Five European nations came to India by sea to buy pepper, spices, cotton cloth, silk, indigo and saltpetre. They fought one another more than they fought Indian rulers. This theme places each company's forts and factories on the map and asks why the English, who were neither the first nor the best funded, came out on top.
Event 11498 to 1739
The Portuguese open the sea route
Ten years after Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama anchored near Calicut on 20 May 1498. For a century the Portuguese were the only Europeans in the Indian Ocean, and they came to control its sea lanes rather than its land.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
Da Gama sails from Lisbon in July 1497 with four ships, swings far out into the Atlantic and rounds the Cape of Good Hope in November.
At Mozambique and Mombasa he meets hostility; at Malindi the ruler gives him a pilot who knows the monsoon route across the Arabian Sea.
Riding the southwest monsoon he reaches Kappad near Calicut, the port of the Zamorin. He sails home with pepper and spices worth about sixty times the cost of the voyage.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
The Zamorin of Calicut, whose port lived on Arab trade, turns against them, so the Portuguese side with his rival the raja of Cochin (factory 1500, fort 1503) and build at Cannanore. Viceroy Almeida beats a Gujarati, Egyptian and Calicut fleet off Diu in 1509.
Afonso de Albuquerque takes Goa from the Sultan of Bijapur in November 1510. It becomes the capital of the Estado da India in 1530 and the hinge of a chain of forts from Hormuz to Malacca.
Gujarat's Sultan Bahadur Shah, pressed by Humayun, cedes Bassein (1534) with Bombay, and lets them build at Diu (1535). Daman follows in 1559. On the east coast they settle at San Thome, Nagapattinam and Hooghly (1579).
Shah Jahan's men take Hooghly (1632); the Dutch take Cochin and Nagapattinam; Bombay goes to England as Catherine of Braganza's dowry (1661); the Marathas take Bassein (1739). Only Goa, Daman and Diu remain, until 1961.
How the Portuguese ruled the sea
Almeida (1505 to 1509) held that power in Asia lay at sea, not in land forts.
Albuquerque (1509 to 1515) took Goa, Malacca (1511) and Hormuz (1515) to control the entrances of the ocean.
Every Asian ship had to buy a Portuguese pass; ships without one were seized or sunk.
What they left
- The first European empire in Asia and the last to leave: Goa was freed in 1961.
- Tobacco, potato, chilli, maize, cashew and pineapple came to India from the Americas on Portuguese ships.
- The first printing press in India at Goa (1556) and the Goa Inquisition (1560).
- The Jesuit missions to Akbar's court from 1580.
Event 21602 to 1759
The Dutch: spices first
The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), founded in 1602, was the richest company in the world. Its heart was the spice islands of Indonesia, and India mattered to it mainly for the cotton cloth that bought those spices.
- Coromandel first1605 to 1690The first factory at Masulipatnam (1605); headquarters at Pulicat (1610), moved to Nagapattinam in 1690.
- Taking Portuguese ports1658 to 1663Nagapattinam (1658) and Cochin (1663) seized from the Portuguese; Ceylon taken as well.
- Bengal and Gujarat1616 to 1653Surat (1616), then Chinsura (1653), Kasimbazar, Patna and Balasore for silk, saltpetre and opium.
- Defeat1741 and 1759Beaten at Colachel by Travancore (1741) and at Bidara near Chinsura by the English (1759). After that they keep to Indonesia.
Event 31600 to 1717
The English Company: from Surat to Calcutta
The East India Company received its charter from Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600. It began as a trading body and, step by step, built three fortified cities that became the capitals of British India.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
William Hawkins reaches Jahangir's court at Agra (1609) but is turned away. After Thomas Best beats the Portuguese at Swally (1612), Jahangir lets the English open a factory at Surat (1613). Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador of James I, meets Jahangir at Ajmer (1616) and wins wider trading rights.
A factory at Masulipatnam (1611), then in 1639 Francis Day gets a strip of coast from a Vijayanagara nayaka and builds Fort St George: Madras, a presidency from 1653.
Bombay comes to Charles II as Catherine of Braganza's dowry (1661) and is leased to the Company for £10 a year (1668). Governor Gerald Aungier builds it up, and the headquarters moves there from Surat in 1687.
Factories at Hooghly (1651) and Kasimbazar. After the failed Child's War against Aurangzeb (1686 to 1690), Job Charnock settles at Sutanuti (1690). The zamindari of Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata is bought in 1698, and Fort William becomes a presidency in 1700.
Three presidencies
| Madras | Bombay | Calcutta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1639 | 1661 to 1668 | 1690 |
| Fort | Fort St George | Bombay Castle | Fort William |
| Presidency | 1653 | 1687 | 1700 |
| Founder | Francis Day | Gerald Aungier | Job Charnock |
| Got it from | a Vijayanagara nayaka | the English crown (Portuguese dowry) | Aurangzeb's officials, after Child's War |
The farmans that made them rich
- 1613 Jahangir: a factory at Surat.
- 1632 The Golden Farman of the Sultan of Golconda: trade free of duty in his ports for 500 pagodas a year.
- 1691 Aurangzeb's officials: duty free trade in Bengal for ₹3,000 a year.
- 1717 Farrukhsiyar's farman, the Company's Magna Carta: duty free trade in Bengal confirmed, dastaks (passes) issued by the Company, and rights in Hyderabad and Gujarat.
Event 41664 to 1742
The French and the Danes arrive last
The French came late but with the backing of their state. The Danes were a small but lasting presence on two quiet stretches of coast.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
Dutch factories on the Coromandel coast, in Bengal and at Surat, with Cochin and Nagapattinam taken from the Portuguese.
Colbert founds the Compagnie des Indes Orientales (1664). Caron opens a factory at Surat (1668), then Masulipatnam (1669). François Martin founds Pondicherry (1674) on land from the Bijapur governor Sher Khan Lodi. Then come Chandernagore (1690), Mahe (1725), Yanam (1731) and Karaikal (1739).
The Danish company settles at Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) in 1620 and at Serampore in Bengal (1755). Serampore becomes famous for the Baptist mission press of William Carey. Both are sold to the British in 1845.
By 1740 the coasts are lined with European forts and factories, and the English and the French are the two with real ambitions.
Five nations on one river: the Hooghly
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
Within about 40 km of river above Calcutta sat the settlements of five European nations: the English at Calcutta, the Danes at Serampore, the French at Chandernagore, the Dutch at Chinsura, and the Portuguese at Bandel by Hooghly town. The river carried Bengal's silk, cotton, saltpetre and sugar to the sea.
Event 51600 to 1765
Why the English won
Five companies came to trade; one ended up ruling. Historians point to a combination of advantages rather than any single cause.
A joint stock company owned by private investors and answerable to Parliament, free of royal interference, unlike the French company, which the king controlled.
After the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) England built the strongest navy, which could reinforce India and cut off rivals.
The Bank of England and London's credit markets let it borrow for wars; the French company went bankrupt in the middle of them.
After 1757 the revenues of the richest province in India paid for the Company's armies.
Clive, Hastings and Coote, with an English government that backed them; the French recalled Dupleix in 1754.
The English kept religion out of trade at first; the Portuguese lost friends through forced conversion and the Inquisition.
Who's who15 people
People
Vasco da Gama
Portuguese
Reached Calicut in 1498 by the Cape route.
Francisco de Almeida
first viceroy
Blue water policy; won the naval battle of Diu (1509).
Afonso de Albuquerque
viceroy
Took Goa (1510); encouraged Portuguese men to marry Indian women.
Nino da Cunha
governor
Made Goa the capital (1530); got Diu and Bassein from Gujarat.
The Zamorin
Calicut
Hereditary ruler of Calicut who received, then fought, the Portuguese.
William Hawkins
English
At Jahangir's court 1609 to 1611.
Sir Thomas Roe
English ambassador
Met Jahangir at Ajmer in 1616; won trading rights.
Francis Day
English
Founded Madras and Fort St George (1639).
Gerald Aungier
Bombay
Governor 1669 to 1677, the real founder of Bombay.
Job Charnock
Calcutta
Settled at Sutanuti in 1690.
Josiah Child
Company chairman
Launched Child's War against Aurangzeb (1686).
Colbert
French minister
Founded the French company in 1664.
François Caron
French
Opened the first French factory at Surat (1668).
François Martin
Pondicherry
Founded Pondicherry in 1674.
William Carey
Serampore
Baptist missionary; Bible translations and printing at Serampore.
Key terms10
Terms
- Estado da India
- The Portuguese state in Asia, with its capital at Goa from 1530.
- Cartaz
- A Portuguese naval pass that Asian ships had to buy.
- Blue water policy
- Almeida's policy of controlling the sea rather than land.
- VOC
- Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company (1602).
- Factory
- A fortified trading post where a company's agents (factors) bought and stored goods.
- Farman
- A royal order of the Mughal emperor.
- Dastak
- A pass issued by the Company that exempted its goods from duty.
- Presidency
- One of the three main English settlements (Madras, Bombay, Calcutta), each under a President or Governor.
- Golden Farman
- The 1632 grant of the Sultan of Golconda for duty free trade in his ports.
- Saltpetre
- Potassium nitrate, for gunpowder; Bihar was the world's main source.