From Trade to Territory PDF

2 From Trade to Territory The Company Establishes Power e d T s h Aurangzeb was the last of the powerful Mughal rulers. i He established control over a very l...

2 From Trade to Territory The Company Establishes Power e d T s h Aurangzeb was the last of the powerful Mughal rulers. i He established control over a very large part of the R l territory that is now known as India. After his death in 1707, many Mughal governors ( subadars ) and big E b zamindars began asserting their authority and establishing regional kingdoms. As powerful regional u kingdoms emerged in various parts of India, Delhi could C p no longer function as an effective centre. N re By the second half of the eighteenth century, however, a new power was emerging on the political horizon – the British. Did you know that the British originally © e came as a small trading company and were reluctant to acquire territories? How then did they come to be masters of a vast empire? In this chapter you will see how this b came about. t o t Fig. 1 – Bahadur Shah Zafar and his sons being arrested by o Captain Hodson After Aurangzeb there was no n powerful Mughal ruler, but Mughal emperors continued to be symbolically important. In fact, when a massive rebellion against British rule broke out in 1857, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the Mughal emperor at the time, was seen as the natural leader. Once the revolt was put down by the company, Bahadur Shah Zafar was forced to leave the kingdom, and his sons were shot in cold blood. 9  East India Company Comes East In 1600, the East India Company acquired a charter from the ruler of England, Queen Elizabeth I, granting it the sole right to trade with the East. This meant that no other trading group in England could d compete with the East India e Company. With this charter the Company could venture h across the oceans, looking for new lands from which it T s Fig. 2 – Routes to India in the could buy goods at a cheap price, and carry them i eighteenth century l back to Europe to sell at higher prices. The Company R did not have to fear competition from other English b trading companies. Mercantile trading companies E in those days made profit primarily by excluding u competition, so that they could buy cheap and sell dear. C The royal charter, however, could not prevent other p European powers from entering the Eastern markets. N re By the time the first English ships sailed down the Mercantile – A business west coast of Africa, round the Cape of Good Hope, and enterprise that makes crossed the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese had already © e profit primarily through established their presence in the western coast of trade, buying goods India, and had their base in Goa. In fact, it was Vasco cheap and selling them da Gama, a Portuguese explorer, who had discovered b at higher prices this sea route to India in 1498. By the early seventeenth century, the Dutch too were exploring the possibilities o of trade in the Indian Ocean. Soon the French traders t arrived on the scene. The problem was that all the companies were t interested in buying the same things. The fine qualities of cotton and silk produced in India had a big market o in Europe. Pepper, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon too n were in great demand. Competition amongst the European companies inevitably pushed up the prices at which these goods could be purchased, and this reduced the profits that could be earned. The only way the trading companies could flourish was by eliminating rival competitors. The urge to secure markets therefore led to fierce battles between the trading companies. Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they regularly sank each other’s ships, blockaded routes, and prevented rival ships from moving with supplies of 10 OUR PASTS – III goods. Trade was carried on with arms and trading posts were protected through fortification. This effort to fortify settlements and carry on profitable trade also led to intense conflict with local rulers. The company therefore found it difficult to separate trade from politics. Let us see how this happened. East India Company begins trade in Bengal The first English factory was set up on the banks of the river Hugli in 1651. This was the base from which d the Company’s traders, known at that time as “factors”, operated. The factory had a warehouse where goods e for export were stored, and it had offices where Company h officials sat. As trade expanded, the Company persuaded merchants and traders to come and settle near the T s factory. By 1696 it began building a fort around the i settlement. Two years later it bribed Mughal officials R l into giving the Company zamindari rights over three b villages. One of these was Kalikata, which later grew E into the city of Calcutta or Kolkata as it is known today. u It also persuaded the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to C issue a farman granting the Company the right to trade Farman – A royal edict, p duty free. a royal order N re The Company tried continuously to press for more concessions and manipulate existing privileges. Aurangzeb’s farman , for instance, had granted only © e the Company the right to trade duty free. But officials of the Company, who were carrying on private trade on the side, were expected to pay duty. This they refused b to pay, causing an enormous loss of revenue for Bengal. How could the Nawab of Bengal, Murshid Quli Khan, o not protest? t Fig. 3 – Local boats bring goods from ships in Madras, painted by t William Simpson, 1867 no FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY 11  How trade led to battles Through the early eighteenth century the conflict between the Company and the nawabs of Bengal intensified. After the death of Aurangzeb, the Bengal nawabs asserted their power and autonomy, as other regional powers were doing at that time. Murshid Quli Khan was followed by Alivardi Khan and then Sirajuddaulah as the Nawab of Bengal. Each one of them was a strong ruler. They refused to grant the Company concessions, demanded large tributes for the Company’s right to trade, denied it any d right to mint coins, and stopped it from extending its e fortifications. Accusing the Company of deceit, they claimed that the Company was depriving the Bengal h government of huge amounts of revenue and Fig. 4 – Robert Clive undermining the authority of the nawab. It was refusing T s to pay taxes, writing disrespectful letters, and trying to i humiliate the nawab and his officials. R l The Company on its part declared that the unjust b demands of the local officials were ruining the trade of E the Company, and trade could flourish only if the duties u were removed. It was also convinced that to expand C trade it had to enlarge its settlements, buy up villages, p and rebuild its forts. N re The conflicts led to confrontations and finally culminated in the famous Battle of Plassey. Puppet – Literally, a toy © e that you can move with The Battle of Plassey strings. The term is used When Alivardi Khan died in 1756, Sirajuddaulah became b disapprovingly to refer to the nawab of Bengal. The Company was worried about a person who is controlled his power and keen on a puppet ruler who would by someone else. willingly give trade concessions and other privileges. o So it tried, though without success, to help one of t Sirajuddaulah’s rivals become the nawab. An infuriated Sirajuddaulah asked the Company to stop meddling in t the political affairs of his dominion, stop fortification, and pay the revenues. After negotiations failed, the o Did you know? Nawab marched with 30,000 soldiers to the English factory at Kassimbazar, captured the Company officials, n Did you know how Plassey got its name? Plassey is an locked the warehouse, disarmed all Englishmen, and anglicised pronunciation blockaded English ships. Then he marched to Calcutta of Palashi and the place to establish control over the Company’s fort there. derived its name from the On hearing the news of the fall of Calcutta, Company palash tree known for its officials in Madras sent forces under the command of beautiful red flowers that Robert Clive, reinforced by naval fleets. Prolonged yield gulal, the powder negotiations with the Nawab followed. Finally, in 1757, used in the festival of Holi. Robert Clive led the Company’s army against Sirajuddaulah at Plassey. One of the main reasons for 12 OUR PASTS – III  Fig. 5 – The General Court Room, East India House, Leadenhall Street The Court of Proprietors of the East India Company had their meetings in the East India House on Leadenhall Street in London. This is a picture of d one of their meetings in progress. he R T lis E u b C the defeat of the Nawab was that the forces led by Mir Jafar, one of p Sirajuddaulah’s commanders, never fought the battle. Clive had N re managed to secure his support by promising to make him nawab after crushing Sirajuddaulah. The Battle of Plassey became famous because it was the first © e major victory the Company won in India. b Source 1 The promise of riches t o The territorial ambitions of the mercantile East India t Company were viewed with distrust and doubt in England. After the Battle of Plassey, Robert Clive wrote to William o Pitt, one of the Principal Secretaries of State to the English monarch, on 7 January 1759 from Calcutta: n But so large a sovereignty may possibly be an object too extensive for a mercantile Company … I flatter myself … that there will be little or no difficulty in obtaining the absolute possession of these rich kingdoms:... Now I leave you to judge, whether an income yearly of two million sterling with the possession of three provinces … be an object deserving the public attention... FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY 13 Source 2 After the defeat at Plassey, Sirajuddaulah was assassinated and Mir Jafar made the nawab. The The Nawab Company was still unwilling to take over the complains responsibility of administration. Its prime objective was the expansion of trade. If this could be done without In 1733 the Nawab of conquest, through the help of local rulers who were Bengal said this about the willing to grant privileges, then territories need not be English traders: taken over directly. When they first came Soon the Company discovered that this was rather into the country they difficult. For even the puppet nawabs were not always d petitioned the then as helpful as the Company wanted them to be. After all, they had to maintain a basic appearance of dignity and e government in a humble manner for sovereignty if they wanted respect from their subjects. h liberty to purchase a What could the Company do? When Mir Jafar spot of ground to protested, the Company deposed him and installed Mir T s build a factory house Qasim in his place. When Mir Qasim complained, he in i upon, which was no l turn was defeated in a battle fought at Buxar (1764), R sooner granted but driven out of Bengal, and Mir Jafar was reinstalled. The they built a strong b Nawab had to pay Rs 500,000 every month but the E fort, surrounded it Company wanted more money to finance its wars, and with a ditch which has u meet the demands of trade and its other expenses. It C communication with wanted more territories and more revenue. By the time p the river and mounted a great number of Mir Jafar died in 1765 the mood of the Company had N re guns upon the walls. changed. Having failed to work with puppet nawabs, Clive They have enticed declared: “We must indeed become nawabs ourselves.” several merchants Finally, in 1765 the Mughal emperor appointed the © e and others to go and Company as the Diwan of the provinces of Bengal. The take protection under Diwani allowed the Company to use the vast revenue them and they collect resources of Bengal. This solved a major problem that b a revenue which the Company had earlier faced. From the early eighteenth amounts to Rs 100, 000 century its trade with India had expanded. But it had o … they rob and to buy most of the goods in India with gold and silver t plunder and carry imported from Britain. This was because at this time great number of the Britain had no goods to sell in India. The outflow of king’s subjects of both t gold from Britain slowed after the Battle of Plassey, sexes into slavery into and entirely stopped after the assumption of Diwani. o their own country … Now revenues from India could finance Company expenses. These revenues could be used to purchase n cotton and silk textiles in India, maintain Company troops, and meet the cost of building the Company fort and offices at Calcutta. Company officials become “nabobs” What did it mean to be nawabs? It meant of course that the Company acquired more power and authority. But it also meant something else. Each company servant began to have visions of living like nawabs. 14 OUR PASTS – III  Source 3 After the Battle of Plassey the actual nawabs of Bengal were forced to give land and vast sums of money as personal gifts to Company officials. Robert Clive How did Clive himself amassed a fortune in India. He had come to see himself? Madras (now Chennai) from England in 1743 at the age of 18. When in 1767 he left India his Indian fortune At his hearing in front of was worth £401,102. Interestingly, when he was a Committee in Parliament, appointed Governor of Bengal in 1764, he was asked to Clive declared that he had remove corruption in Company administration but he shown admirable restraint was himself cross-examined in 1772 by the British after the Battle of Plassey. d Parliament which was suspicious of his vast wealth. This is what he said: Although he was acquitted, he committed suicide e in 1774. Consider the situation in which the victory at h However, not all Company officials succeeded in Plassey had placed making money like Clive. Many died an early death T s me! A great prince was in India due to disease and war and it would not be i dependent on my right to regard all of them as corrupt and dishonest. l pleasure; an opulent R Many of them came from humble backgrounds and city lay at my mercy; b their uppermost desire was to earn enough in India, its richest bankers bid E return to Britain and lead a comfortable life. Those against each other u who managed to return with wealth led flashy lives for my smiles; I C and flaunted their riches. They were called “nabobs” walked through vaults p – an anglicised version of the Indian word nawab. which were thrown N re They were often seen as upstarts and social climbers open to me alone, in British society and were ridiculed or made fun of piled on either hand in plays and cartoons. with gold and jewels! © e Mr Chairman, at Company Rule Expands this moment I stand astonished at my b If we analyse the process of annexation of Indian states moderation. by the East India Company from 1757 to 1857, certain key aspects emerge. The Company rarely launched a o direct military attack on an unknown territory. Instead t it used a variety of political, economic and diplomatic methods to extend its influence before annexing an t Indian kingdom.  o After the Battle of Buxar (1764), the Company Activity appointed Residents in Indian states. They were political n or commercial agents and their job was to serve and Imagine that you are a further the interests of the Company. Through the young Company official Residents, the Company officials began interfering in who has been in India the internal affairs of Indian states. They tried to decide for a few months. who was to be the successor to the throne, and who Write a letter home to was to be appointed in administrative posts. Sometimes your mother telling her the Company forced the states into a “subsidiary about your luxurious alliance”. According to the terms of this alliance, Indian life and contrasting it rulers were not allowed to have their independent armed with your earlier life in forces. They were to be protected by the Company, but Britain. FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY 15  had to pay for the “subsidiary forces” that the Company was supposed to maintain for the purpose of this protection. If the Indian rulers failed to make the payment, then part of their territory was taken away as penalty. For example, when Richard Wellesley was Governor- General (1798-1805), the Nawab of Awadh was forced to give over half of his territory to the Company in 1801, as he failed to pay for the “subsidiary forces”. Hyderabad was also forced to cede territories on similar grounds. d Source 4 Fig. 6 – Nawab Shujauddaulah he What power did the Resident have? T s of Awadh, with his sons and the This is what James Mill, the famous economist and i British Resident, painted by Tilly Kettle (oil, 1772) political philosopher from Scotland, wrote about the R l The treaties that followed the residents appointed by the Company. b Battle of Buxar forced Nawab We place a resident, who really is king of the E Shujauddaulah to give up much country, whatever injunctions of non-interference of his authority. Here, however, u he poses in regal splendour, he may act under. As long as the prince acts in C towering over the Resident. perfect subservience, and does what is agreeable p to the residents, that is, to the British Government, N re things go on quietly; they are managed without the resident appearing much in the administration of affairs … but when anything of a different nature happens, the moment the prince takes a © e Injunction – Instruction course which the British Government think wrong, Subservience – then comes clashing and disturbance. b Submissiveness James Mill (1832) t o Tipu Sultan – The “Tiger of Mysore” t The Company resorted to direct military confrontation o when it saw a threat to its political or economic interests. This can be illustrated with the case of the southern n Indian state of Mysore. Mysore had grown in strength under the leadership of powerful rulers like Haidar Ali (ruled from 1761 to 1782) and his famous son Tipu Sultan (ruled from 1782 to 1799). Mysore controlled the profitable trade of the Malabar coast where the Company purchased pepper and cardamom. In 1785 Tipu Sultan stopped the export of sandalwood, pepper and cardamom through the ports of his kingdom, and disallowed local merchants from Fig. 7 – Tipu Sultan trading with the Company. He also established a close 16 OUR PASTS – III  Fig. 8 – Cornwallis receiving the sons of Tipu Sultan as hostages, painted by Daniel Orme, 1793 The Company forces were defeated by Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan in several battles. But in 1792, attacked by the combined forces of the Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Company, Tipu was forced to sign a treaty with the British by which two of his sons were d taken away as hostages. British painters always liked painting e scenes that showed the triumph of British power. T s h R li b relationship with the French in India, and modernised E his army with their help. u The British were furious. They saw Haidar and Tipu C as ambitious, arrogant and dangerous – rulers who had p to be controlled and crushed. Four wars were fought N re with Mysore (1767- 69, 1780-84, 1790-92 and 1799). Only in the last – the Battle of Seringapatam – did the The legend of Tipu Company ultimately win a victory. T ipu Sultan was © e killed defending his capital Seringapatam, Mysore was Kings are often surrounded placed under the former ruling dynasty of the Wodeyars by legend and their powers and a subsidiary alliance was imposed on the state. glorified through folklore. b Here is a legend about Tipu Sultan who became the ruler of Mysore in 1782. It o is said that once he went t hunting in the forest with a French friend. There he t came face to face with a o tiger. His gun did not work and his dagger fell to the n ground. He battled with the tiger unarmed until he managed to reach down and pick up the dagger. Fig. 9 – Tipu’s toy tiger Finally he was able to kill This is the picture of a big mechanical toy that Tipu possessed. the tiger in the battle. After You can see a tiger mauling a European soldier. When its handle this he came to be known was turned the toy tiger roared and the soldier shrieked. This toy- as the “Tiger of Mysore”. He tiger is now kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. had the image of the tiger The British took it away when Tipu Sultan died defending his capital Seringapatam on 4 May 1799. on his flag. FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY 17 . Activity War with the Marathas Imagine that you have From the late eighteenth century the Company also come across two old sought to curb and eventually destroy Maratha power. newspapers reporting With their defeat in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, on the Battle of the Marathas’ dream of ruling from Delhi was shattered. Seringapatam and the They were divided into many states under different death of Tipu Sultan. chiefs (sardars) belonging to dynasties such as Sindhia, One is a British paper Holkar, Gaikwad and Bhonsle. These chiefs were held and the other is from together in a confederacy under a Peshwa (Principal Mysore. Write the Minister) who became its effective military and d headline for each of administrative head based in Pune. Mahadji Sindhia e the two newspapers. and Nana Phadnis were two famous Maratha soldiers and statesmen of the late eighteenth century. h The Marathas were subdued in a series of wars. In the first war that ended in 1782 with the T reaty of T is Salbai, there was no clear victor. The Second Anglo- l Maratha War (1803-05) was fought on different fronts, R Confederacy – Alliance resulting in the British gaining Orissa and the b territories north of the Yamuna river including Agra E and Delhi. Finally, the Third Anglo-Maratha War of u 1817-19 crushed Maratha power. The Peshwa was C removed and sent away to Bithur near Kanpur with a p pension. The Company now had complete control over N re the territories south of the Vindhyas. The claim to paramountcy © e It is clear from the above that from the early nineteenth century the Company pursued an aggressive policy of territorial expansion. Under Lord Hastings (Governor- b General from 1813 to 1823) a new policy of “paramountcy” was initiated. Now the Company claimed that its authority o was paramount or supreme, hence its power was greater t than that of Indian states. In order to protect its interests it was justified in annexing or threatening to annex t any Indian kingdom. This view continued to guide later British policies as well. o This process, however, did not go unchallenged. For example, when the British tried to annex the small state n of Kitoor (in Karnataka today), Rani Channamma took to arms and led an anti-British resistance movement. She was arrested in 1824 and died in prison in 1829. But Rayanna, a poor chowkidar of Sangoli in Kitoor, carried on the resistance. With popular support he destroyed many British camps and records. He was caught and hanged by the British in 1830. You will read more about several cases of resistance later in Fig. 10 – Lord Hastings the book. 18 OUR PASTS – III  In the late 1830s the East India Company became worried about Russia. It imagined that Russia might expand across Asia and enter India from the north-west. Driven by this fear, the British now wanted to secure their control over the north-west. They fought a prolonged war with Afghanistan between 1838 and 1842 and established indirect Company rule there. Sind was d taken over in 1843. Next in line was Punjab. But the presence of Maharaja e Ranjit Singh held back the Company. After his death in 1839, two prolonged h wars were fought with the Sikh T s kingdom. Ultimately, in 1849, Punjab i was annexed. R l The Doctrine of Lapse E b The final wave of annexations occurred under Lord Dalhousie who was the C u Governor-General from 1848 to 1856. He p devised a policy that came to be known as the Doctrine of Lapse. The doctrine N re declared that if an Indian ruler died without a male heir his kingdom would “lapse”, that is, become part of Company © e territory. One kingdom after another was annexed simply by applying this b doctrine: Satara (1848), Sambalpur (1850), Udaipur (1852), Nagpur (1853) and Jhansi (1854). Fig. 11 – Maharaja Ranjit Singh o holding court Finally, in 1856, the Company also took over Awadh. t This time the British had an added argument – they said they were “obliged by duty” to take over Awadh in t order to free the people from the “misgovernment” of o the Nawab! Enraged by the humiliating way in which the Nawab was deposed, the people of Awadh joined n the great revolt that broke out in 1857.  Activity Imagine that you are a nawab’s nephew and have been brought up thinking that you will one day be king. Now you find that this will not be allowed by the British because of the new Doctrine of Lapse. What will be your feelings? What will you plan to do so that you can inherit the crown? FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY 19  e d T s h R li E u b Fig. 11 a C p Fig. 11 b N re © e b t o o t n Fig. 11 a, b, c – Expansion of British territorial power in India Look at these maps along with a present- day political map of India. In each of these maps, try and identify the different parts of India that were not under British rule. Fig. 11 c 20 OUR PASTS – III Setting up a New Administration Warren Hastings (Governor-General from 1773 to 1785) was one of the many important figures who played a significant role in the expansion of Company power. By his time the Company had acquired power not only Qazi – A judge in Bengal, but also in Bombay and Madras. British Mufti – A jurist of the territories were broadly divided into administrative Muslim community units called Presidencies. There were three Presidencies: responsible for Bengal, Madras and Bombay. Each was ruled by a expounding the law d Governor. The supreme head of the administration that the qazi would was the Governor-General. Warren Hastings, the first administer e Governor-General, introduced several administrative Impeachment – A trial reforms, notably in the sphere of justice. h by the House of Lords From 1772 a new system of justice was established. in England for charges T s Each district was to have two courts – a criminal court of misconduct brought i ( faujdari adalat ) and a civil court ( diwani adalat ). l against a person in the R Maulvis and Hindu pandits interpreted Indian laws for House of Commons b the European district collectors who presided over civil E courts. The criminal courts were still under a qazi and u a mufti but under the supervision of the collectors. C N re p © e b t o o t n Fig. 12 – The trial of Warren Hastings, painted by R.G. Pollard, 1789 When Warren Hastings went back to England in 1785, Edmund Burke accused him of being personally responsible for the misgovernment of Bengal. This led to an impeachment proceeding in the British Parliament that lasted seven years. FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY 21 Source 5 A major problem was that the Brahman pandits “I impeach the gave different interpretations of local laws based on different schools of the dharmashastra. To bring about common enemy and uniformity, in 1775 eleven pandits were asked to compile oppressor of all.” a digest of Hindu laws. N.B. Halhed translated this digest into English. By 1778 a code of Muslim laws was Here is a passage from also compiled for the benefit of European judges. Under Edmund Burke’s eloquent the Regulating Act of 1773, a new Supreme Court was opening speech during established, while a court of appeal – the Sadar Nizamat the impeachment of Adalat – was also set up at Calcutta. d Warren Hastings: The principal figure in an Indian district was the Collector. As the title suggests, his main job was to e I impeach him in the collect revenue and taxes and maintain law and order name of the people of h in his district with the help of judges, police officers India, whose rights he and darogas. His office – the Collectorate – became the T s has trodden under new centre of power and patronage that steadily i his foot and whose replaced previous holders of authority. l country he has turned R into a desert. Lastly in The Company army b the name of human E nature itself, in the Colonial rule in India brought in some new ideas of u name of both the administration and reform but its power rested on its C sexes, in the name of military strength. The Mughal army was mainly p every age, in the composed of cavalry (sawars: trained soldiers on N re name of every rank, I horseback) and infantry, that is, paidal (foot) soldiers. impeach the common They were given training in archery (teer-andazi ) and enemy and oppressor the use of the sword. The cavalry dominated the army © e of all. and the Mughal state did not feel the need to have a large professionally trained infantry. The rural areas had a large number of armed peasants and the local zamindars b often supplied the Mughals with paidal soldiers. A change occurred in the eighteenth century when o Mughal successor states like Awadh and Benaras started t Dharmashastras – recruiting peasants into their armies and training them Sanskrit texts as professional soldiers. The East India Company adopted t prescribing social rules the same method when it began recruitment for its own and codes of behaviour, army, which came to be known as the sepoy army (from o composed from c. 500 BCE the Indian word sipahi, meaning soldier). onwards As warfare technology changed from the 1820s, the n Sawar – Men on horses cavalry requirements of the Company’s army declined. This is because the British empire was fighting in Musket – A heavy gun Burma, Afghanistan and Egypt where soldiers were used by infantry soldiers armed with muskets and matchlocks. The soldiers of Matchlock – An early the Company’s army had to keep pace with changing type of gun in which the military requirements and its infantry regiments now powder was ignited by a became more important. match In the early nineteenth century the British began to develop a uniform military culture. Soldiers were 22 OUR PASTS – III  d Fig. 13 – A sawar of Bengal in the service of the Company, e painted by an unknown Indian artist, 1780 h After the battles with the Marathas and the Mysore rulers, T s the Company realised the i importance of strengthening its R l cavalry force. b increasingly subjected to European-style training, drill E and discipline that regulated their life far more than u before. Often this created problems since caste and C community feelings were ignored in building a force of p professional soldiers. Could individuals so easily N re give up their caste and religious feelings? Could they see themselves only as soldiers and not as members of communities? © e What did the sepoys feel? How did they react to the changes in their lives and their identity – that is, their sense of who they were? The Revolt of 1857 gives us a b glimpse into the world of the sepoys. You will read about this revolt in Chapter 5. t o Conclusion Thus the East India Company was transformed from a t trading company to a territorial colonial power. The o arrival of new steam technology in the early nineteenth century also aided this process. Till then it would take n anywhere between six and eight months to travel to India by sea. Steamships reduced the journey time to three weeks enabling more Britishers and their families to come to a far- off country like India. By 1857 the Company came to exercise direct rule over about 63 per cent of the territory and 78 per cent of the population of the Indian subcontinent. Combined with its indirect influence on the remaining territory and population of the country, the East India Company had virtually the whole of India under its control. FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY 23  ELSEWHERE Slave Trade in South Africa The Dutch trading ships reached southern Africa in the seventeenth century. Soon a slave trade began. People were captured, chained, and sold in slave markets. When slavery ended in 1834 there were 36,774 privately owned slaves at the Cape – located at the southern most tip of Africa. d A visitor to the Cape in 1824 has left e a moving account of what he saw at a slave auction: h Having learned that there was to be T s sale of cattle, farm-stock, etc by auction, … we halted our wagon for the purpose of i procuring fresh oxen. Among the stock … was a female slave and her three children. R l The farmers examined them, as if they had been so many head of cattle. They were b sold separately, and to different purchasers. The tears, the anxiety, the anguish of the E mother, while she … cast heart-rending look upon her children, and the simplicity and u touching sorrow of the poor young ones while they clung to their distracted parent … C contrasted with the marked insensitivity and jocular countenances of the spectators p Quoted in Nigel Wordon et. al., The Chains that Bind us: a History of Slavery at the Cape, 1996. N re © e Let’s imagine Let’s recall b You are living in England in the late eighteenth or early 1. Match the following: o nineteenth century. t Diwani Tipu Sultan How would you have reacted to the stories “Tiger of Mysore” right to collect land revenue t of British conquests? faujdari adalat Sepoy o Remember that you would have read Rani Channamma criminal court n about the immense sipahi led an anti-British fortunes that many movement in Kitoor of the officials were making. 2. Fill in the blanks: (a) The British conquest of Bengal began with the Battle of ___________. (b) Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan were the rulers of ___________. 24 OUR PASTS – III  (c) Dalhousie implemented the Doctrine of ___________. (d) Maratha kingdoms were located mainly in the ___________ part of India. 3. State whether true or false: (a) The Mughal empire became stronger in the eighteenth century. (b) The English East India Company was the only d European company that traded with India. e (c) Maharaja Ranjit Singh was the ruler of Punjab. h (d) The British did not introduce administrative T s changes in the territories they conquered. Let’s discuss R li E u b C 4. What attracted European trading companies to India? p 5. What were the areas of conflict between the N re Bengal nawabs and the East India Company? 6. How did the assumption of Diwani benefit the East © e India Company? 7. Explain the system of “subsidiary alliance”. b 8. In what way was the administration of the Company different from that of Indian rulers? t o 9. Describe the changes that occurred in the composition of the Company’s army. o Let’s do t n 10. After the British conquest of Bengal, Calcutta grew from a small village to a big city. Find out about the culture, architecture and the life of Europeans and Indians of the city during the colonial period. 11. Collect pictures, stories, poems and information about any of the following – the Rani of Jhansi, Mahadji Sindhia, Haidar Ali, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Lord Dalhousie or any other contemporary ruler of your region. FROM TRADE TO TERRITORY 25