India

Where is it?

East India Trading Company The British East India Trading Company was founded by wealthy merchants in London, and given a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth in December of The company was managed by a wealthy group of share- holders. Share holders were people that paid money towards funding the companies expenses, and in return were given a percent of the company’s profit. This is a painting of The Sale Room, inside the London headquarters of the East India Company

Establishing Trading Posts The British East India Company began buying off the approval of native rulers, and establishing trading posts in the region. These trading posts would each develop into factories to process raw resources, and then finally into British Forts. The three major East India Company Forts were: – Fort William, in Bengal – Fort St. George, in Madras – Bombay Castle, in Bombay

Trading Posts to Colony As more trading posts and forts developed, the company began to annex more regions of India. This means that regions of India were taken over by the British East India Company. This was done using privately contracted armies beginning in the mid 1700’s The British East India Company used two strategies for expansion: – Sepoys: Native Indians that were trained and recruited into the British army. – Lapse: when a region of India had no male heir to a ruler, it was annexed by the Company. British East India Company Sepoys.

Colonial India In 1858 British Parliament passed the Government of India Act, which dissolved the East India Trading Company, and put the British government in direct control of India. British Rule Divided India up into 11 different provinces

What did England want? There are two major reasons why England wanted to control India: 1.India served as a supplier of recourses. 2.India served as a consumer of British goods.

1. Consumers England maintained a monopoly on India. This meant that the people of India were not allowed to buy goods that were not made in England. The entire population of India buying British made goods, made British Business owners very wealthy.

2. Suppliers England also used its trade monopoly on India for it’s recourses. This meant that India was only allowed to trade its resources with England. India’s steady supply or natural resources benefited British Businesses greatly. Recourses taken from India: 1.Tea 2.Indigo: (for dying clothes) 3.Coffee 4.Cotton 5.Jute: (fiber for making rope)

Improvements There were several ways that England improved the region. It is important to remember that these changes were not all necessarily made for the benefit of the native population: 1.Irrigation 2.Telephone/ telegraph systems 3.Education 4.Revised Legal Systems