Question

Trading activities in India before and after European companies took charge

Answer 1

The Portuguese:

From time immemorial India had commercial relations with countries of the west. The commercial route then was not direct by sea

The merchants sailed over the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea and reached Europe through Arabia. But in the seventh cen­tury when Arabia became very strong as a power it dominated the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Under Albuquerque’s successors the Portuguese occupied Diu, Daman, Salsette, Bassein, Chaul, and Bombay, San Thome near Madras and Hughli in Bengal. Portuguese occupation of Diu gave them control of the mouth of the bay of Cambay which compelled the Arabs to withdraw from their Indian trade.

The Dutch:

The discovery of the direct sea route to India and Vasco da Gama’s reaching Calicut in India encouraged the Dutch to set up a number of small commercial organisations for trade with India and the East. The news of the formation of the English East India Company in 1600 encouraged the Dutch to combine their small com­mercial organisations into. The United East India Company in 1602.

The French:

The French were the first among the European nations that desired for commercial relations with the countries of the East, but as it happened, they were the last to come into the field of eastern commerce and enter into competition with other European com­panies.

In the second half of the sixteenth century, a French merchant ship came to the Portuguese business centre Diu in India. But during the rest of the century and the first half of the seventeenth, no French merchant ships came to India but two such ships reached Sumatra in 1601.

The English:

The example of the Portuguese had inspired the English voya­gers to daring enterprises to open up new routes by sea to foreign countries. For a hundred years from the accession of Queen Eli­zabeth I (1558) there were most daring attempts at sea voyages by the English mariners. In 1580 when Francis Drake returned to England by the Cape of Good Hope after his voyage round the world and due to the great enthusiasm created by the victory over the Spanish Armada among the English mariners, some daring voyagers set out for the eastern waters.

Other Europeans:

The success of the Portuguese in establishing trade relations with India encouraged not only the Dutch, French and the English but other nations like the Danes, Prussians, Swiss, Austrians etc. to come to India for trade. The Danes formed the Danish East India Company in 1620 and carried on trade in India for some time. They established their factories at Tanquvar and Serampore. They were, however, ousted in the competition with the French and the English Companies. They left India in 1645.