How The East India Company Took Over An Entire Country

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#eastindiacompany #history #documentary

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Recommended reading:
The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company – https://amzn.to/3wtuqAn
The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company – https://amzn.to/3XQ3bMg
Between Monopoly and Free Trade: The English East India Company, 1600-1757 – https://amzn.to/3j1pHTA
The Indian Mutiny: 1857 – https://amzn.to/3kJzbmT

The city of London has been the centre of Britain’s economic and commercial activity for centuries, with many of the largest and wealthiest companies in the world choosing to locate their headquarters in the nation’s capital to this day. However, none of these modern businesses can compare to what was undoubtedly the most powerful multinational corporation the world has ever seen. Established over 400 years ago, the East India Company, from it’s headquarters on Leadenhall Street, would rise from humble beginnings as a trading company for voyages to India; to effectively becoming the de facto state government of the entire sub-continent.

During it’s heyday, the Company would surpass the strength and wealth of even the mightiest nation states, and with it’s own private armies, would push aside the long established native dynasties of India, seizing control of their territories for itself. All this would be achieved by maintaining an iron grip on the most valuable trade routes in the world, which generated staggering amounts of wealth for it’s employees and shareholders. But how did this private corporation come to rule over one of the largest and richest regions on earth in the first place? This is the history of the East India Company.

The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world. The EIC had its own armed forces in the form of the company’s three Presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time. The operations of the company had a profound effect on the global balance of trade, almost single-handedly reversing the trend of eastward drain of Western bullion, seen since Roman times.

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 during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.
The company eventually came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control of India in the form of the new British Raj.

The company subsequently experienced recurring problems with its finances, despite frequent government intervention. It was dissolved in 1874 under the terms of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act enacted one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigial, powerless, and obsolete. The official government machinery of the British Raj had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its armies.

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44 thoughts on “How The East India Company Took Over An Entire Country”

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  10. British colonialism in India, executed by a cooperation of Jewish bankers (Rothshild bailed out the EIC in 1828) and Protestant aristocrats was the biggest pillage of any nation and its peoples in the whole of human history. With the robbed wealth was built industrial GB, US industrialized and bought (bailed out in 1911 by JP. Morgan), and after WW2 EUROPEAN BANKS and companies were bought by the US/UK, and the US army was used to suppress other nations. In the 80/90's the Jewish-Protestant bankers expanded their financial hegemony all over the world (IMF/ Worldbank) and Japans economic expansion was blocked…. FOR ALL THESE INHUMAN AN MATERIALIST POLICIES, WARS, CRIMES THE UN SHOULD PUNISH THE US/UK WITH A FINE OF AT LEAST 30 TRILLION DOLLARS AND EXCLUSION OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE FOR A 100 YEARS. FOR THE THREATS MADE BY THE US/UK TO SOCIALIST CHINA, ALSO SUFFERING FROM BRITISH COLONIALISM IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY, THE US/UK MUST BE PUNISHED WITH A FINE OF 100 BILLION DOLLARS.

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  17. British colony is all about,loot, destroying native cultures tradition, femine, violence and terror nothing much atleast for India Britisher colony was a leech sucked all its resources and wealth,
    Britishers should be ashamed what their ancestors did

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  21. its so painful and sad to see how they were actually proud of their legacy.

    That wealth they accrued was not earned due to their own talents or skill, it was stolen by sheer cunning and guile from Sweet and noble Indians. It should be returned with interest! Trillions in real wealth was looted in an organised crime and these thieves are held up as an example by some very confused and gullible people today.

    India was the Golden Bird, the most advanced civilization spiritually and most blessed country in terms of goods and wealth. Pliny the Elder and Socrates wrote many stories of Rome and Greece being overwhelmed with Indian togas in their cities. Much of the ancient Indian past was lost when the Nalanda burned by the vile Turks.

    Give India and Indians their credit and return their wealth. Stop celebrating the thieves of history

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  22. They (Englihsmen) were thieves, who stole every valueable thing that could be taken to England as long as they could, when they couldn't resist the Indian independence movement, they acted as if they gave away the Independence, which was insted taken by force by Indian Patriots. Karma has reached England now. Wait and watch.

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  25. Fascinating my ass. They were helped by the other Indians mostly Jagadseth. british dogs pitied one Indian ruler against the other. Short sighted Indian rulers didn’t realize trickery of british dogs

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  27. Now comes Indians taking over this island and doing what they did to Indians. Within 3 generations, Brit’s have a brown PM who is Hindu. Who would have thought in 3 generations of a country they colonized, rises a man who is from colonial brutalized lands to lead the colonizer.

    Only Hindus and Indians can do that. They can win anywhere and win rightfully.

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  30. As a bengal im not mad at british. They did what they did and they were good. People are mad simply because they won, not because they are bad.

    Anybody wouldve done this. No one is morally superior. If given opportunity, they would too.

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  39. I guess India owned, england, Canada etc.from wealth stole from India .India should claim england and Canada as it's territories it was built with stolen wealth from India.

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