C. Fill in the blanks.
1. The
failed to check the
corruption in the ranks of the East India
Company
2. The Supreme Court was first set up in
ralcutta
3. The
provides for a board of
control in Britain.
4. The East India Company lost its monopoly
trading privileges in
5. The district sub-divisions were under the
charge of
Answers
Answer:This article is about the 16th–19th-century English and British trading company. For the current East India Company (founded 2010), see Sanjiv Mehta (British businessman). For other uses, see East India Company (disambiguation).
For other uses of "HEIC", see HEIC (disambiguation).
East India Company
Flag of the British East India Company (1801).svg
Company flag (1801)
Coat of arms of the East India Company.svg
Coat of arms (1698)
Motto: Auspicio Regis et Senatus Angliae
Latin for "By command of the King and Parliament of England"
Former type Public
Industry International trade, drug trafficking (mainly opium)[1]
Fate The Government of India Act 1858 of the British Parliament had the Company to cede all its territories in India to the British Crown.
Founded 31 December 1600
Founders John Watts, George White
Defunct 1 June 1874
Headquarters London, Great Britain
Products Cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium
Colonial India
British Indian Empire
Imperial entities of India
Dutch India 1605–1825
Danish India 1620–1869
French India 1668–1954
Portuguese India
(1505–1961)
Casa da Índia 1434–1833
Portuguese East India Company 1628–1633
British India
(1612–1947)
East India Company 1612–1757
Company rule in India 1757–1858
British Raj 1858–1947
British rule in Burma 1824–1948
Princely states 1721–1949
Partition of India
1947
vte
The East India Company (EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company (HEIC), East India Trading Company (EITC), the English East India Company or the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company,[2] Company Bahadur,[3] or simply The Company, was an English and later British joint-stock company.[4] It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (India and South East Asia), and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong after the First Opium War, and maintained trading posts and colonies in the Middle Eastern Gulf called Persian Gulf Residencies.[5]
Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies",[6][7] the company rose to account for half of the world's trade[when?],[8] particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.[8][9] In his speech to the House of Commons in July 1833, Lord Macaulay explained that since the beginning, the East India Company had always been involved in both trade and politics, just as its French and Dutch counterparts had been.[10]
The company received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, coming relatively late to trade in the Indies. Before them the Portuguese Estado da Índia had traded there for much of the 16th century and the first of half a dozen Dutch Companies sailed to trade there from 1595. These Dutch companies amalgamated in March 1602 into the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which introduced the first permanent joint stock from 1612 (meaning investment into shares did not need to be returned, but could be traded on a stock exchange). By contrast, wealthy merchants and aristocrats owned the EIC's shares.[11] Initially the government owned no shares and had only indirect control until 1657 when permanent joint stock was established.[12]
During its first century of operation, the focus of the company was trade, not the building of an empire in India. Following the First Anglo-Mughal War,[13] the company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the French East India Company (Compagnie française des Indes orientales) during the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s in southern India. The battles of Plassey and Buxar, in which the company defeated the Nawabs of Bengal, left the company in control of the proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal with the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar,[14][15] and a major military and political power in India. In the following decades it gradually increased the extent of the territories under its control, controlling the majority of the Indian subcontinent either directly or indirectly via local puppet rulers under the threat of force by its Presidency armies, much of which were composed of native Indian sepoys. The company invaded the Dutch island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1795.[16]