INFLUENCE OF EIC (1600-1750)
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The East India Company (EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) 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 Mughal India and the East Indies, and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control over large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia, and colonised Hong Kong after a war with Qing China.
East India Company (EIC)
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
"By command of the King and Parliament of England"
Former type
Public
Industry
International trade, Opium trafficking[1]
Fate
Government of India Act 1858
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
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Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade,[5][dubious – discuss] 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.[5] 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.[6]
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 United East Indies 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.[7] Initially the government owned no shares and had only indirect control until 1657 when permanent joint stock was established.[8]
During its first century of operation, the focus of the company was trade, not the building of an empire in India. 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. The battles of Plassey and Buxar, in which the British defeated the Bengali powers, left the company in control of Bengal with the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar,[9] 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.