British East India Company

Examples of British East India Company in the following topics:

• The Calm Before the Storm

  • The Tea Act of 1773 arose from the financial problems of the British East India Company and the dispute of Parliament's authority over the colonies.
  • The Tea Act of 1773, and the subsequent Boston Tea Party, arose from two issues confronting the British Empire in 1775: first, the financial problems of the British East India Company, and second, an ongoing dispute about the extent of Parliament's authority, if any, over the British American colonies without seating any elected representation.
  • In England, Parliament gave the East India Company a monopoly on the importation of tea in 1698.
  • The East India Company did not export tea to the colonies; by law, the company was required to sell its tea wholesale at auctions in England.
  • Until 1767, the East India Company paid a tax of about 25% on tea that it imported into Great Britain.

• British Taxes and Colonial Grievances

  • In 1764, George Grenville became the British Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  • Merchants threatened to boycott British products.
  • In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act, which exempted the British East India Company from the Townshend taxes.
  • Thus, the East India Company gained a great advantage over other companies when selling tea in the colonies.
  • The colonists who resented the advantages given to British companies dumped British tea overboard in the Boston Tea Party in December of 1773 .

• Conclusion: Patterns of British Settlement in the Colonies

  • The 18th century witnessed the birth of Great Britain (after the union of England and Scotland in 1707) and the expansion of the British Empire.
  • Its economic sway ranged from India, where the British East India Company had gained control over both trade and territory, to the West African coast, where British slave traders predominated, and to the British West Indies, whose lucrative sugar plantations, especially in Barbados and Jamaica, provided windfall profits for British planters.
  • By 1750, however, over a million British migrants and African slaves had established a near-continuous zone of settlement on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia.
  • Slavery formed a cornerstone of the British Empire in the 18th century.
  • Successful and well-to-do, they display fashions, hairstyles, and furnishings that all speak to their identity as proud and loyal British subjects.

• The American Revolution

  • Britain received Canada, Acadia, and the parts of French Louisiana which lay east of the Mississippi River – except for New Orleans, which was granted to Spain, along with the territory to the west – the larger portion of Louisiana (the transfer to Spain occurred in fact with the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau that was not publicly announced until 1764).
  • The British army under Cornwallis marched to Yorktown, where they expected to be rescued by a British fleet. 
  • When word reached India in 1778 that France had entered the war, the British East India Company moved quickly to capture French trading outposts there. 
  • The capture of the French-controlled port of Mahé on India's west coast motivated Mysore's ruler, Hyder Ali  to start the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1780.
  • France's trading posts in India were returned after the war.

• Indian Architecture under British Imperialism

  • The establishment of the British Empire in the 18th century laid the foundation for modern India's contact with the West.
  • The Company style of paintings, for example, became common, created by Indian artists working for European patrons of the East India Company.
  • By 1858, the British government took over the task of administration of India under the British Raj.
  • The building is circular in form and is sided by two rectangular sections; the entrance is lined with 12 colonnades and two British lions, with the motto of East India Company engraved on them.
  • Andrew's Church in present day Chennai is an example of British colonial architecture in India.

• The East India Trading Company

• Indian Painting under British Imperialism

  • Under British Imperialism, painting in India took on many western characteristics throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
  • The Company style of paintings became common, created by Indian artists working for European patrons of the East India Company.
  • By 1858, the British government took over the task of administration of India under the British Raj, and the fusion of Indian traditions with European style at this time is evident in a great deal of the artwork from this period.
  • The merchants of the East India Company provided a large market for native art in the 18th century, and a distinct genre of watercolor painting developed that depicted scenes of everyday life, regalia of princely courts, and Indian festivities and rituals.
  • Referred to as the Company style or Patna style, this style of painting flourished at first in Murshidabad and spread to other cities of British India.

• The Indus River Valley Civilization

  • The Indus Valley Civilization was one of the three “Ancient East” societies that are considered to be the cradles of civilization of the old world of man, and are among the most widespread; the other two "Ancient East" societies are Mesopotamia and Pharonic Egypt.
  • The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the Harappan Civilization, after Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated in the 1920s, in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now in Pakistan.
  • The discoveries of Harappa, and the site of its fellow Indus city Mohenjo-daro, were the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj, the common name for British imperial rule over the Indian subcontinent from 1858 through 1947.
  • In 1856, British engineers John and William Brunton were laying the East Indian Railway Company line connecting the cities of Karachi and Lahore, when their crew discovered hard, well-burnt bricks in the area and used them for ballast for the railroad track, unwittingly dismantling the ruins of the ancient city of Brahminabad.
  • The Partition of India, in 1947, divided the country to create the new nation of Pakistan.

• Conclusion: The Consequences of the British Parliamentary Acts

  • An increasing tide of unrest rose in the British American colonies from 1763–1774 as the British government imposed a series of imperial reform measures.
  • Each step the British took, however, generated a backlash.
  • Almost all of the North American territory east of the Mississippi fell under Great Britain’s control, and British leaders took this opportunity to try to create a more coherent and unified empire after decades of lax oversight.
  • They also deeply resented the East India Company’s monopoly on the sale of tea in the American colonies; this resentment sprang from the knowledge that some members of Parliament had invested heavily in the company.
  • The delegates also recommended that the colonies raise militias, lest the British respond to the Congress’s proposed boycott of British goods with force.

• Hindu Rajput Kingdoms

  • The Rajputs were patrilineal clans, ruling a majority of Hindu princely states in northern India between the 6th and 20th centuries.
  • From the beginning of the 9th century, these Rajput dynasties dominated many parts of northern India.
  • The Rajputs of Mewar were defeated by the Mughal emperor Babur in 1527 CE when he was in the process of establishing Mughal rule in India.
  • At the end of the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817-1818) between the Maratha Confederacy and the English East India Company, all the Rajput states in Rajasthan entered into a subsidiary alliance with the Company and became princely states under the British Raj.
  • Through their many centuries of rule in northern India, the Rajputs built spectacular forts and palaces .