Episode 23 Competing European Empire

A History of India

Michael Fisher (2016)

Following the 1453 Ottoman seizure of the Eastern Roman empire, the Turks totally controlled land access to India’s highly prized spice and cotton trade. This, in turn, created intense pressure on European leaders to discover a sea route to India.

In 1494, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordeallas (with the Pope’s approval), awarding Portugal colonization rights in Brazil, Africa and southern Asia as far as Japan. The treaty granted Spain exclusive colonization rights everywhere else.

Four years later in 1498, Portuguese explorer Vasca da Gamma discovered a direct sea route Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. This would lead to the first European colonies in Asia (30 years before the Mughals arrived).

The first Portuguese to land at Calicut in the late 15th century thought all the non-Muslims they encountered were Christians praying to a dark-skinned version of the Virgin Mary. The Calicut natives, in turn, found the behavior of the first Portuguese explorers extremely shocking. Kitted out with canons, the Portuguese boats seized all the other vessels in the harbor, slaughtered all their crew and passengers and set fire to them.

With their small ship holds, early Portuguese exporters mainly on pepper, forcing the price down by blocking African and Ottoman traders from purchasing it. They also forced all ships leaving Calicut harbor to buy and display a Cartaz, a flag displaying a Christian cross. In addition to South American gold and silver, Portuguese traders also introduced tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers, invasive species and disease and European-style cannon and other munitions to India. These innovations quickly spread to the interior.

In 1560, the Portuguese set up an Inquisition in India to pressure native Indians to convert to Catholicism. In 1632, Shah Jahan captured 400 Portuguese men and women in an effort to discourage further colonization. He released all those who converted to Islam and distributed the others to his courtiers as slaves.

Although Portugal continued to dominate European trade into the 1800s, by 1850 they only occupied coastal trading settlements in Surat, Goa, Calicut, Cochin and Galle (in modern day Sri Lanka). Diu, Daman and Goa remained Portuguese colonies until 1961, when they were annexed by the Republic of India.

Northern Europe pursued a different, ultimately superior approach to colonization by putting it under the control of the first capitalist corporations: the English East India corporation founded in 1600, the Dutch East India Company founded in 1602 and the French East India Company in 1664. This created more financial certainty for merchants underwriting ships to sail halfway around the world (half of which never returned).

In 1600, Elizabeth I chartered the British East India Company, granting it a monopoly on all English trade from Africa to the Philippines. The charter granted them the right to raise armies and use military force. Cotton, which was far more comfortable than the wool and linen available in Europe, was their export of choice.

Between 1670-1740, there was a 500% increase in Indian imports to England, while massive inflation from the heavy influx of New World gold and silver further destabilized the Mughal empire. By the end of the 17th century, it had fragmented into numerous small kingdoms.

In 1668, control of Bombay shifted from the Portuguese to Charles II of England after he married a Portuguese princess. Owing to the cost of shipping English troops 12,000 miles away, the English East India company recruited local sepoy mercenaries to defend their colonial holdings.

The French East India Company captured Madras in 1745, which they swapped for Louisbourg Canada in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

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