First Rule of India by Britain

The Indies had always been sought after due to their wealth in spices and silks. Many explores were sent be their countries to find passages to the Indies in order to enhance the countries wealth. Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gamma were only a few of such explorers. Many counties wanted to trade with the Indies for such valuable goods.

In the 1600 the East India Company was founded by 218 Knights and merchants and was granted a Charter by Queen Elizabeth I for fifteen years of spice trading with a capital of £70,000. It established trading post at Machipatanam in 1611, Surat in 1612, and Madrass in 1699. It received Bombay, its first territory from King Henry I.

During the eighteenth century France challenged Britain for India. First came the war of Australian Succession (1740-1748). Then came an unofficial war that lasted from 1750-1754. The last and decisive war was the seven years war from 1756-1763. Robert Clive was a soldier genius that gave Britain the advantage of finally beating the French and their Indian allies.

The company started to turn from a trading company to a ruling enterprise when British Robert Clive in the 1757 Battle of Plassey defeated Nawab of Bengal, Saraj-ud-Daulah. A few years later it received permission from the Mughals to collect land revenue from Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and the East Coast. The doctrine of Lapse allowed the company to obtain more territories. It allowed them to annex territories of a ruler who died without an heir. This increased the company's power immensely.

The company was weakening so in 1773 the Regulating act was passed by the British Parliament. This named a governor of Bangel (Warren Hastings) and four advisors who were able to supervise the governors of Bombay and madras. Then in 1784 the new Prime Minister William Pitt passed the India bill. This gave the parliament greater control of administration of British India. It also gave Indian subjects of the company equality before the laws. This showed that Britain had a moral duty towards India.

In 1857 the dual control of parliament and company ended in the Indian mutiny. The people of India got restless with the strain of giving all their wealth and money to England, the new land revenue system which hurt many peasants, the Doctrine of Lapse, the missionaries, the discrimination of natives, and the dumping policy of ready made goods in Indian Market. This anger of the people was spreading like a gas and needed only a spark to set it off. In 1857 there was mass protest of the army of Bengal who didn't want to use greased cartridges for they were greased with hog fat and eating hog was against their religion. This caused a revolt that spread throughout India. Not many people had similar causes for fighting except they wanted something from the past. Because the Indians had no modern weapons, weren't coordinated and didn't have the participation of the prices and chiefs or the general public the revolt ended in failure. This extremely bloody mutiny where people were killed just from suspicion ended the East India Company's rule in India as the British Crown took over.