British East India Company at Wikimedia Commons

British East India Company(eng. East India Company), until 1707 - English East India Company- a joint stock company created on December 31, 1600 by decree of Elizabeth I and received extensive privileges for trading operations in India. With the help of the East India Company, the British colonization of India and a number of countries in the East was carried out.

In effect, the royal decree gave the company a monopoly on trade in India. The company initially had 125 shareholders and a capital of £72,000. The company was governed by a governor and a board of directors who were responsible to a meeting of shareholders. The commercial company soon acquired government and military functions, which it lost only in 1858. Following the Dutch East India Company, the British Company also began to list its shares on the stock exchange.

The company also had interests outside India, seeking to provide safe routes to the British Isles. In 1620, she tried to capture Table Mountain on the territory of modern South Africa, and later occupied the island of St. Helena. The company's troops held Napoleon on Saint Helena. Its products were attacked by American colonists during the Boston Tea Party, and the Company's shipyards served as a model for St. Petersburg.

Operations in India

The company was founded on December 31, 1600 under the name "Company of Merchants of London Trading in the East Indies" (eng. Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies). From 1601 to 1610, she organized three trading expeditions to Southeast Asia. The first of them was commanded by the famous privateer James Lancaster, who received a knighthood for the successful completion of his mission. Activities in India began in 1612, when the Mughal padishah Jahangir allowed the establishment of a trading post in Surat. At first they used various names: “Honorable East India Company”, “East India Company”, “Bahadur Company”.

The strengthening of the company and its abuses in India forced the British authorities to intervene in its activities at the end of the 18th century. In 1774, the British Parliament passed an Act for the better management of the affairs of the East India Company, but it was hardly taken into account. Then, in 1784, the Act for the better administration of the British East India Company and its possessions in India was passed, which provided that the company's possessions in India and itself were transferred to the British Board of Control, and by 1813 its trading privileges were eliminated.

The expansion of the British East India Company took two main forms. The first was the use of so-called subsidiary agreements, essentially feudal - local rulers transferred the conduct of foreign policy to the Company and were obliged to pay a “subsidy” for the maintenance of the Company’s army. If the principality failed to pay the “subsidy,” its territory was annexed by the British. In addition, the local ruler undertook to maintain a British official ("resident") at his court. Thus, the company recognized "native states" led by Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Nawabs. The second form was direct rule.

The "subsidies" paid to the Company by local rulers were spent on recruiting troops, consisting mainly of the local population, so that expansion was carried out by Indian hands and with Indian money. The spread of the system of “subsidiary agreements” was facilitated by the collapse of the Mughal Empire, which occurred towards the end of the 18th century. De facto, the territory of modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh consisted of several hundred independent principalities that were at war with each other.

The first ruler to accept the "subsidiary treaty" was the Nizam of Hyderabad. In some cases, such treaties were imposed by force; Thus, the ruler of Mysore refused to accept the treaty, but was forced to do so as a result of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. The Maratha Union of princely states was forced to sign a subsidiary treaty on the following terms:

1. A permanent Anglo-Sepoy army of 6 thousand people remains with the Peshwa (first minister).
2. A number of territorial districts are annexed by the Company.
3. Peshwa does not sign any agreement without consulting the Company.
4. The Peshwa does not declare wars without consulting the Company.
5. Any territorial claims by the Peshwa against local princely states must be subject to Company arbitration.
6. Peshwa withdraws claims against Surat and Baroda.
7. The Peshwa recalls all Europeans from his service.
8. International affairs are conducted in consultation with the Company.

The most powerful opponents of the company were two states formed on the ruins of the Mughal Empire - the Maratha Union and the Sikh State. The defeat of the Sikh Empire was facilitated by the chaos that ensued after the death of its founder, Ranjit Singh, in 1839. Civil strife broke out both between individual sardars (generals of the Sikh army and de facto major feudal lords) and between the Khalsa (Sikh community) and the darbar (court). In addition, the Sikh population experienced tensions with local Muslims, who were often willing to fight under British banners against the Sikhs.

At the end of the 18th century, under Governor General Richard Wellesley, active expansion began. The company captured Cochin (), Jaipur (), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (), Mysore (), Sutlej (1815), Central Indian principalities (), Kutch and Gujarat (), Rajputana (1818), Bahawalpur () . The annexed provinces included Delhi (1803) and Sindh (1843). Punjab, North West Frontier and Kashmir were captured in 1849 during the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Kashmir was immediately sold to the Dogra dynasty, which ruled the princely state of Jammu, and became a “native state”. Berar was annexed in B, and Oudh was annexed in B.

Britain saw the Russian Empire as its competitor in colonial expansion. Fearing Russian influence on Persia, the company began to increase pressure on Afghanistan, in which the First Anglo-Afghan War took place. Russia established a protectorate over the Khanate of Bukhara and annexed Samarkand, and rivalry began between the two empires for influence in Central Asia, in the Anglo-Saxon tradition called the “Great Game”.

Operations in Arabia

From the end of the 18th century, the company began to show interest in Oman. In 1798, a representative of the company, the Persian Mahdi Ali Khan, came to Sultan Said, who concluded an anti-French treaty with him, in fact, on a protectorate. According to this agreement, the Sultan undertook not to allow anyone into his territory. war time French ships, not to allow French and Dutch subjects to stay in their possessions, not to allow France and Holland to create trading bases on their territory in wartime, to assist England in the fight against France. However, the Sultan did not then allow the company to create a fortified trading post in Oman. In 1800, the treaty was supplemented and England received the right to keep its resident in Oman.

Army

Company in the feudal system of India

At the time of the beginning of British expansion in India, there was a feudal system that was formed as a result of the Muslim conquest of the 16th century (see. Mughal Empire). Zamindars (landowners) collected feudal rent. Their activities were monitored by a council (“divan”). The land itself was considered to belong to the state, and could be taken from the zamindar.

The British East India Company integrated into this system, receiving in 1765 divani for the right to collect taxes in Bengal. It soon became clear that the British did not have enough experienced administrators who would understand local taxes and payments, and the collection of taxes was farmed out. The result of the Company's tax policy was the Bengal famine of 1770, which claimed the lives of 7-10 million people (that is, from one quarter to one third of the population of the Bengal Presidency).

In 1772, under Governor General Warren Hastings, the company began collecting taxes itself, establishing a Revenue Bureau with offices in Calcutta and Patna, and moving the old Mughal tax records from Murshidabad to Calcutta. In general, the Company inherited the pre-colonial tax system, in which the brunt of the tax burden fell on farmers.

The new Governor-General, Lord Cornwallis, established “permanent settlements”, fixing the amount of taxes when transferring land ownership to zamindars. In practice, this led to an increase in taxes, and in the new system farmers could not defend their rights in any way. The new landowners often became brahmins and kayasthas (varna kshatriya caste), who were also employees of the company.

Thomas Munro, the governor of Madras, promoted the rayatwari system in South India, in which land was distributed directly to the peasants. The tax rate was reduced from half to one third of grain, but was calculated not on the actual yield, but on the potential fertility of the soil, which meant that in some cases the tax collected could be more than 50%.

Trade

Before gaining the right to collect taxes from Bengal in 1765, the company had to import gold and silver to pay for Indian goods. Bengal's taxes made it possible to stop these imports and finance the company's wars in other parts of India.

Between 1800 and 1800, India transformed from an exporter of manufactured goods to an exporter of raw materials and an importer of manufactured goods. Unprocessed cotton, silk,

East India Company I East India Company

English (1600-1858), private company on trade with the East Indies (India and South-East Asia) and China, which gradually turned into political organization and the apparatus of the English government for the exploitation and administration of the captured territories. Since 1623 O.-I. K. concentrated its activities in India, from where it exported fabrics, yarn, indigo, opium, and saltpeter to Asian countries, as well as to Europe. In the 1st half of the 17th century. trade was carried out mainly through Surat; later the main strongholds were the founded O.-I. K. Madras, Bombay, Calcutta. His influence in India O.-I. K. established itself in the fight against European rivals (Portuguese, Dutch and French East India Companies) and local rulers, using bribery, blackmail and military force. Having won the wars of the 18th century. the French Indian Company (founded in 1719 on the basis of the East India and other French trading companies), the English O.-I. K. essentially monopolized the exploitation of India. Already in the 17th century. O.-I. The country acquired a number of state prerogatives: the right to wage war and make peace (1661), mint coins, have courts-martial, and have full control over its troops and fleet (1686). After 1757 (Battle of Plassey) it captured Bengal and a number of other territories. From the 2nd half of the 18th century. the basis of O.-I.’s activities It became not trade, but the collection of taxes, administration and robbery of occupied territories. By 1849 O.-I. K. subjugated basically all of India and, by 1852, Lower Burma. Income from trade, taxes, and robbery served as an important source of the initial accumulation of capital (See Initial accumulation of capital).

Colonial exploitation of India O.-I. This led to the death and impoverishment of millions of Indians, the decline of commercial handicraft production, the ruin of agriculture, and significant changes in agrarian relations.

From the middle of the 18th century. lack of control O.-I. It began to arouse discontent among the strengthened English industrial bourgeoisie, which claimed to share in the profits from the exploitation of India. As a result of the adoption English Parliament a number of acts (1773, 1784, 1813, 1833, 1853) Board of Directors O.-I. K. was subordinate to the Control Council appointed by the king; Governor-General of the Domain O.-I. K. began to be appointed prime minister; the dividend was capped at 10%. Monopoly O.-I. the restriction on trade with India was abolished in 1813, and from 1833 O.-I. was generally prohibited. In 1858, during the Indian People's Uprising of 1857-59 (See Indian People's Uprising of 1857-59) O.-I. The company was liquidated (with payment of compensation to shareholders of 3 million pounds sterling). India began to report directly to the Secretary of State (Minister) for Indian Affairs and the British Viceroy.

Lit.: Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 9; Antonova K. A., The English conquest of India in the 18th century, M., 1958; The Cambridge history of India, v. 5, Camb., 1929; Mukherjee R., The rise and fall of the East India company, B., 1958.

L. B. Alaev.

II East India Company

Dutch, United East India Company (UIC), monopoly trading company that existed in 1602-1798. It arose as a result of the merger of several competing companies. The shareholders of the OIC were the richest Dutch merchants. It was headed by 17 directors (including 8 from Amsterdam). The OIC was the main instrument with which the Dutch bourgeoisie created the Dutch colonial empire through violence, extortion and seizure. Throughout the entire space to the east from the Cape of Good Hope to the Strait of Magellan, the OIC had a monopoly on trade and navigation, duty-free transportation of goods to the metropolis, the creation of trading posts, fortresses, the recruitment and maintenance of troops, the fleet, the conduct of legal proceedings, and imprisonment. international treaties etc. In 1609, the OIC's own administration was created [from 1619 with a permanent residence in Batavia on the island. Java, which became the capital of the Dutch colonial possessions in the southeast. Asia (see article Indonesia)]. Relying on its trade and military power, the OIC ousted the Portuguese from the Moluccas and created trading posts on the coast of India, Ceylon, and other places. The OIC exterminated the local population, suppressed native uprisings, and, in order to maintain high monopoly prices for colonial goods, predatoryly destroyed spice bushes. In this way, the OIC, in its heyday (mid-17th century), ensured the payment of huge dividends to its shareholders - an average of 18%, and in some cases much more. The OIC had a significant influence on the politics and state apparatus of the republic. From the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries. under the conditions of the general economic decline of the Dutch Republic, competition from the English East India Company, etc., the decline of the OIC began. In 1798, the OIC was liquidated, all its property and assets became the property of the state (the final period of validity of the OIC privileges expired on December 31, 1799).

A. N. Chistozvonov.

III East India Company

French trading company that existed in 1664-1719. Organized on the initiative of J.B. Colbert in order to monopolize trade with India. It had several trading posts on the Indian coast (Masulipatam, Mahe, Chanderna-gor, etc.). The center of O.-I.'s possessions There was Pondicherry in India. Management O.-I. which was feudal in nature, was carried out by the royal government. The development of the company was hampered by petty supervision and regulation of its activities by government commissioners. At the beginning of the 18th century. O.-I. K. was absorbed by the new so-called. An Indian company that monopolized all French overseas trade.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .

See what the "East India Company" is in other dictionaries:

The name of a number of trading companies in European countries colonial era. Each of the major powers established its own company, endowed with a monopoly on trade with the East Indies: the British East India Company was founded in 1600... ... Wikipedia

I English (1600 1858), a company of English merchants mainly for trade with the East Indies (the name of the territory of India and some other countries of South and South East Asia); gradually turned into government organization on management... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

English, company (1600 1858) of English merchants mainly for trade with the East Indies (the name of the territory of India and some other countries of South and Southeast Asia); gradually turned into a state management organization... ... Modern encyclopedia

English (1600 1858) company of English merchants mainly for trade with the East Indies (the name of the territory of India and some other countries of South and Southeast Asia); gradually turned into a state organization for managing English... ...

Dutch trading company (1602 1798). It had a monopoly on trade, navigation, placing trading posts, etc. in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Captured significant territories in Southeast Asia (on the island of Java, etc.) and on... ... Modern encyclopedia

Netherlands Trading Company (1602 1798). It had a monopoly on trade, navigation, placing trading posts, etc. in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Captured significant territories in the South-East. Asia (on the island of Java, etc.) and in southern Africa... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

1 . English (1600 1858) private company English. merchants for trade with the East Indies (as India, Southeast Asia and China were called in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries), which gradually turned into a state. organization for the management of English. holdings in India. In the 1st half. 17 at... Soviet historical encyclopedia

East India Company- (source) ... Spelling dictionary of the Russian language

OST INDIA COMPANY is an English private company for trade with the countries of East India (see OST INDIA) and China, which gradually turned into an organization for the management of English possessions in India; existed in 1600-1858. Creation of company B... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

OST INDIA COMPANY Dutch (United East India Company), a trading company of Dutch merchants that existed in 1602-1798. The Dutch East India Company had a monopoly on trade, navigation, and the establishment of trading posts... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

• The history of Elizabeth, Queen of England. Volume 2, . St. Petersburg, 1795. Printing house of I. K. Shnor. Owner's binding. Bandage spine. The condition is good. Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603) - Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from November 17...

Plan
Introduction
1 Operations in India
2 Operations in China
3 Army
4 Company in the feudal system of India
5 Trade
6 Monopoly
7 Decline of the company

Bibliography

Introduction

British East India Company East India Company), until 1707 - English East India Company - Joint-Stock Company, created on December 31, 1600 by decree of Elizabeth I and received extensive privileges for trading operations in India. In effect, the royal decree gave the company a monopoly on trade in India. The company initially had 125 shareholders and a capital of £72,000. The company was governed by a governor and a board of directors, who were responsible to a meeting of shareholders. The commercial company soon acquired government and military functions, which it lost only in 1858.

Following the Dutch East India Company, the British also began to list its shares on the stock exchange.

Various titles have been used: "The Honorable East India Company" Honorable East India Company), "East India Company", "Bahadur Company".

The company also had interests outside India, seeking to provide safe routes to the British Isles. In 1620, she tried to capture Table Mountain on the territory of modern South Africa, and later occupied the island of St. Helena. A major problem for the Company was piracy, which reached its peak in 1695 when the pirate Henry Every captured the Mughal treasure fleet. The Company's troops held Napoleon on St. Helena; its products were attacked by American colonists during the Boston Tea Party, and the Company's shipyards served as a model for St. Petersburg.

The aggressive policy of the Company was expressed in provoking famine in Bengal, destroying monasteries in Tibet and waging the Opium Wars in China.

1. Operations in India

see also Dutch East India Company, French East India Company, Danish East India Company, Swedish East India Company, Portuguese East India Company

The company was founded in 1600, under the name of the Company of Merchants of London Trading in the East Indies. Its activities in India began in 1612, when the Great Mogul Jahangir allowed the establishment of a trading post in Surat.

In 1612 armed forces The companies inflict a serious defeat on the Portuguese at the Battle of Suvali. In 1640, the local ruler of Vijayanagara allowed the establishment of a second trading post in Madras. In 1647, the company already had 23 trading posts in India. Indian fabrics (cotton and silk) are in incredible demand in Europe. Tea, grain, dyes, cotton, and later Bengal opium were also exported. In 1668 the Company leased the island of Bombay, a former Portuguese colony given to England as the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, who married Charles II. In 1687, the Company's headquarters in Western Asia were moved from Surat to Bombay. In 1687, the Company's settlement was founded in Calcutta, after appropriate permission from the Great Mogul. The Company's expansion into the subcontinent began; at the same time, the same expansion was carried out by a number of other European East India Companies - Dutch, French and Danish.

In 1757, at the Battle of Plassey, the troops of the British East India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeated the troops of the Bengali ruler Siraj-ud-Dowla - just a few volleys of British artillery put the Indians to flight. After the victory at Buxar (1764), the company received diwani - the right to rule Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, full control over the Nawab of Bengal and confiscated the Bengal treasury (valuables worth 5 million 260 thousand pounds sterling were seized). Robert Clive becomes the first British Governor of Bengal. Meanwhile, expansion continued around the bases in Bombay and Madras. The Anglo-Mysore Wars of 1766-1799 and the Anglo-Maratha Wars of 1772-1818 made the Company the dominant power south of the Sutlej River.

The British monopolized Bengal's foreign trade as well as the most important branches of intra-Bengal trade. Hundreds of thousands of Bengali artisans were forcibly assigned to the company's trading posts, where they were obliged to deliver their products at minimum prices. Taxes have risen sharply. The result was a terrible famine of 1769-1770, during which between 7 and 10 million Bengalis died. In the 1780s and 1790s, the famine in Bengal repeated: several million people died.

For almost a century, the company pursued a ruinous policy in its Indian possessions. The Great Calamity period), which resulted in the destruction of traditional crafts and the degradation of agriculture, which led to the death of up to 40 million Indians from starvation. According to the calculations of the famous American historian Brooks Adams (eng. Brooks Adams), in the first 15 years after the annexation of India, the British removed valuables worth 1 billion pounds sterling from Bengal. By 1840 the British ruled most of India. The unbridled exploitation of the Indian colonies was the most important source accumulation of British capital and the industrial revolution in England.

The expansion took two main forms. The first was the use of so-called subsidiary agreements, essentially feudal - local rulers transferred the management of foreign affairs to the Company and were obliged to pay a “subsidy” for the maintenance of the Company’s army. If payments were not made, the territory was annexed by the British. In addition, the local ruler undertook to maintain a British official ("resident") at his court. Thus, the company recognized "native states" led by Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Nawabs. The second form was direct rule.

The "subsidies" paid to the Company by local rulers were spent on recruiting troops, consisting mainly of the local population, so that expansion was carried out by Indian hands and with Indian money. The spread of the system of “subsidiary agreements” was facilitated by the collapse of the Mughal Empire, which occurred towards the end of the 18th century. De facto, the territory of modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh consisted of several hundred independent principalities that were at war with each other.

The first ruler to accept the “subsidiary agreement” was the Nizam of Hyderabad. In some cases, such treaties were imposed by force; Thus, the ruler of Mysore refused to accept the treaty, but was forced to do so as a result of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. In 1802, the Maratha Union of Principalities was forced to sign a subsidiary treaty on the following terms:

1. A permanent Anglo-Sepoy army of 6 thousand people remains with the Peshwa (first minister).

2. A number of territorial districts are annexed by the Company.

3. Peshwa shall not sign any agreement without consulting the Company.

4. The Peshwa does not declare wars without consulting the Company.

5. Any territorial claims of the Peshwa against local princely states must be subject to Company arbitration.

6. Peshwa withdraws claims against Surat and Baroda.

7. The Peshwa recalls all Europeans from his service.

8. International affairs are carried out in consultation with the Company.

The most powerful opponents of the Company were two states formed on the ruins of the Mughal Empire - the Maratha Union and the Sikh state. The collapse of the Sikh Empire was facilitated by the chaos that ensued after the death of its founder, Ranjit Singh, in 1839. Civil strife broke out both between individual sardars (generals of the Sikh army and de facto major feudal lords) and between the Khalsa (Sikh community) and the darbar (court). In addition, the Sikh population experienced tensions with local Muslims, who were often willing to fight under British banners against the Sikhs.

At the end of the 18th century, under Governor General Richard Wellesley, active expansion began; The company captured Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), the principalities along the Sutlej River (1815), the Central Indian principalities (1819), Kutch and Gujarat (1819), Rajputana ( 1818), Bahawalpur (1833). The annexed provinces included Delhi (1803) and Sindh (1843). Punjab, North West Frontier and Kashmir were captured in 1849 during the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Kashmir was immediately sold to the Dogra dynasty, which ruled the princely state of Jammu, and became a “native state”. Berar was annexed in 1854, and Oud in 1856.

Britain saw its competition in colonial expansion Russian Empire. Fearing Russian influence on Persia, the Company began to increase pressure on Afghanistan, and in 1839-1842 the First Anglo-Afghan War took place. Russia established a protectorate over the Khanate of Bukhara and annexed Samarkand in 1868, and a rivalry for influence in Central Asia began between the two empires, called the “Great Game” in the Anglo-Saxon tradition.

In 1857, there was a rebellion against the British East India Campaign, which is known in India as the First War of Independence or the Sepoy Mutiny. However, the rebellion was suppressed and British Empire established direct administrative control over almost the entire territory of South Asia.

2. Operations in China

In 1711, the Company founded a trade representative office in the Chinese city of Canton (Chinese: 广州 - Guangzhou) for tea purchases. First, tea is bought with silver, then it is exchanged for opium, which is grown on Indian (located mainly in Bengal) plantations owned by the Company.

Despite the Chinese government's ban on the import of opium from 1799, the company continued to smuggle opium at a rate of approximately 900 tons per year. The Company's Chinese trade was second in size only to its trade with India. For example, the total cost of a convoy sent to England in 1804, in prices of that time, reached £8,000,000. Its successful defense became a cause for national celebration.

Most of the funds earmarked for purchases Chinese tea, are proceeds from the opium trade. By 1838, illegal opium imports had already reached 1,400 tons per year, and the Chinese government introduced the death penalty for opium smuggling.

The Spanish Conquest was very primitive in its essence. At least if we talk about the efficiency of exploitation of overseas colonies. The greedy conquistadors knew how to rob, but did not know how to use the loot. The gold that came to Europe was used for war expenses, outfits, and the church. But at this time the dawn of the New Time - the bourgeois, capitalist era - was already dawning. A thrifty owner could increase his capital through production, monetary transactions, and properly organized trade. Of course, the newly-minted capitalists were far from the ideals of humanism, especially in relation to the conquered savages. But economic interests demanded from them other forms of colonization. An example of an “economic” attitude to business was given by the East India Companies. The first-born was a company founded in 1600 in England, a country that twelve years earlier had proven itself to be a leading maritime power.

At the end of the 16th century. In Europe, prices for spices, which were delivered by the Portuguese and Dutch by sea from South and East Asia (East Indies), increased sharply. The number of merchant ships - Dutch and English - plying between Northern Europe and Asia, grew rapidly. English merchants were interested in direct supplies of overseas spices. But equipping naval expeditions to the East Indies was an expensive and risky business, and therefore merchants were forced to pool their capital. At first, the merchant company for trade with the East Indies was a rather amorphous organization, the composition of which was random and inconsistent. In addition to spices, the company's ships imported raw silk, cotton and silk fabrics, indigo, opium, and sugar to Europe. At first, European, including English, products were not in demand in the markets of the East, so they had to pay for goods in gold and silver.

The English authorities were well aware of the increased importance of the merchant class for the life of the entire country, for strengthening its power. And so the queen agreed to meet the wishes of traders and industrialists. The bourgeoisie is gaining more and more privileges. The English government granted the East India Company (finally founded in 1600) the right to monopoly trade with all countries of the Indian and Pacific oceans between the Strait of Magellan and the Cape of Good Hope. The rivals of the English East India Company were Portugal, the Dutch and French East India Companies, private English traders, and local Indian rulers.

The Dutch East India Company, founded almost simultaneously with the English one, was especially strong. In the spring of 1602, she received from the Estates General - the supreme government agency The Netherlands has a monopoly on trade throughout the territory from the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa to the Strait of Magellan in southern America. Dutch merchants founded their own trading posts. Usually the Dutch company entered into treaties with local princes who ruled Java, Kalimantan, Sumatra and other islands and coasts. By 1670, it had secured a complete monopoly on the most valuable exotic spices: mace, nutmeg and cloves, exported from the Indonesian islands, as well as cinnamon from Ceylon. To maintain their monopoly and prevent prices from falling, the Dutch cut down nutmeg forests and burned excess spices. In 1621–1622 they captured the islands in the Banda Sea in eastern Indonesia and exterminated most of the local inhabitants and enslaved the rest. And this is because they sold spices to other “white people”.

Some historians call the changes that took place in the world economy at the turn of the 17th century the “trade revolution.” Trade between Northern Europe and Asia grew rapidly, while the caravan routes connecting the Red Sea coast with the countries of the Persian Gulf became empty. With the advent of the East India Companies, prices for Asian goods became stable and the choice of goods expanded. For a long time the Dutch surpassed all their competitors, but in the end the British won.

Relying on government support, the English company developed an extensive and profitable trade. In the first third of the 17th century. she owned trading posts on the islands of Java, Sumatra, Banda, Borneo, Celebes, Japan, Siam, the Malay Peninsula and India. Initially, the center of English trade in the East Indies was the island of Java, but from the 1620s the company concentrated its activities in India. In the first half of the 17th century. The company's Indian trade was conducted primarily through Surat, a port city in western India, on the territory of the Mughal state. In 1661, the company received the right to declare war and make peace in the territories it conquered; in 1686, it had full control of its own army and navy, established military courts, and minted coins. This was the era of primitive accumulation of capital. English merchants did not hesitate to simply rob local residents, receiving huge profits. For example, in the 1660s shareholder returns were 250%!

The English East India Company relied in its activities on a network of fortified trading posts, from which cities such as Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta subsequently grew. The company actively used tactics of bribery and blackmail of local authorities. The slogan “divide and rule” determined the colonial policy of this organization, especially after the collapse of the Mughal Empire. To expand their influence, the British willingly used military force.

From the second half of the 18th century. The East India Company focused on administering the captured territories. Thus, in the 1760s, it was given the right to collect land taxes from the population of Bengal. During the era of the industrial revolution in England, the colonies became not only the raw material base of British industry, but also became the main market for English industrial products. The colonial exploitation of India led to the death and impoverishment of millions of Indians, the decline of commercial handicraft production, and the ruin of agriculture.

From the end of the 18th century. The English government, acting in the interests of the strengthened industrial bourgeoisie, gradually limited the monopoly of the East India Company, while simultaneously placing its activities under state control. And in 1858, after the suppression of the sepoy uprising, the East India Company was liquidated.

East India Company. The story of the great oligarch

The English East India Company (1600 – 1858) is the same age as English capitalism and the English state as a nation-state. Historically, it is not much younger than the Mughal Empire. In and through this company, the histories of England and India are connected, as well as much within these stories themselves: in English history, the Company seems to connect the reigns of two great queens - Elizabeth and Victoria, and in Indian history - two great empires: the Mughal and the British. The company was “born” three years before the death of Elizabeth I and during the lifetime of Shakespeare, and “died” under Victoria and Dickens, having survived three and a half dynasties (Tudors, Stuarts, Hanoverians and Cromwell’s protectorate).

Two and a half centuries is the lifespan of a dynasty or even a state. Actually, for a long time the East India Company was a state within a state, even in two - Great Britain and Mughal India.

The East India Company is a unique organization in human history. This conclusion seems to be an exaggeration only at first glance. History knows many different trade and political forms. This is a “merchant state” (Venice), and “military trade associations” (as M. N. Pokrovsky called the principalities of Kievan Rus), and a union of trading cities (Hanza). History knows many powerful states and companies (for example, current transnational corporations). But in history there is only one case of the existence of a trading company, which at the same time is a political organism, a state-company within a state, as if embodying the motto of Captain Nemo's Nautilus - mobile in mobile.

Of course, companies of this type existed not only in England, but also, for example, in Holland (1602 - 1798), France (with reorganizations and interruptions, it existed from 1664 to 1794). However, their history cannot be compared with the English one. The Dutch East India Company - its heyday was in the mid-17th century - never had the strength and power that its English “full namesake” possessed, never controlled such vast territories, just as Holland never occupied such a place in the world economy like England. As for the French East India Company, firstly, it lasted half as long, and secondly, and this is most important, it was under strict state control (which was reflected in its constant reorganizations and changes of names) and essentially was not an independent agent of the socio-economic process. None of the East India companies occupied such a place in their colonial empires as the English one, and did not play such a role as the latter in penetrating the East, and then in the exploitation of the colonies. Apparently, the uniqueness of the English East India Company corresponds to the uniqueness of both English history and the phenomenon that economic historians call “Anglo-Saxon capitalism” (J. Gray).

First 150 years

So, on December 31, 1600, a group of London merchants who received a charter from Queen Elizabeth I for a monopoly trade with the East for a period of 15 years founded the East India Company. For the first two decades, the Company traded with island Southeast Asia, but then it was ousted by a stronger competitor at that time, the Dutch East India Company, and the British moved their activities to India.

The company consisted of two bodies: a meeting of shareholders and a board of directors headed by a manager. The first voyages were financed by subscription: there was no permanent capital. In 1609, James I granted the Company a new charter, which declared the Company's monopoly trade to be unlimited.

Having ousted the weakening Portuguese from India, the British gradually expanded their trade in Asia. The company bought Malay pepper and Indian cotton fabrics for silver and sold them in Europe (primarily continental), receiving for them large quantity silver (which flowed into Europe from Spanish Mexico).

The relationship between the Company and the English monarchy was mutually beneficial. The company needed royal charters and diplomatic support in the East, and in return it provided large "loans" to the crown.

In 1657 a very important change occurred in the history of the Company. Cromwell gave the Company a charter, making it a permanent capital organization. The change of power did not bring anything bad to the Company. On the contrary, after the restoration she received the island of St. from the crown. Helena and Bombay. In 1683, the state granted the Company the right of admiralty jurisdiction, and three years later allowed the minting of coins in India. The Company's success could not but arouse envy and hostility on the part of its rivals in England - the merchants who exported English textiles. The latter raised in parliament the issue of abolishing the Company's monopoly and regulating its activities by the state. Having achieved nothing in 1698, they formed an alternative East India Company, but due to the weakness of the new company and the French threat in the East, the Companies merged between 1702 and 1708.

By the middle of the 18th century, after Britain's victory over France in the Seven Years' War, the United Company had become a powerful military-political force in India, or, as one English researcher called it, a "company-state" by analogy with a "nation". -state" (nation-state). In 1765, the Company took over the right to collect taxes in Bengal. Thus, the trading company essentially turned into political state. Taxes drove out commercial profits, and management drove out trade.

Perhaps this was the apotheosis of the Company, crowning the first century and a half of its history, during which support from the English state was increasing. However, by the mid-1760s, the relationship between the Company and the state, or rather the state and the Company, changed: the Company became too tasty a morsel, besides, “good old England” was changing, and the state needed money. Although the Seven Years' War ended in victory for the British, it greatly depleted the treasury. The search for funds forced the crown to turn its attention to the Company. Perhaps no less important was the fact that the Company gradually began to transform into a kind of state in the East, into a state that the famous English historian Macaulay described as “a subject in one hemisphere and a sovereign in the other.”

"The Great Break"

In 1767, the state, as they said in our country during the time of Ivan the Terrible and as they started talking again at the end of the 20th century, “came down” on the Company: Parliament obliged it to annually pay 400 thousand pounds sterling a year to the Ministry of Finance. In the early 1770s, the Company was on the verge of bankruptcy due to its devastation of Bengal and was forced to ask the government for a loan. However, she had to pay dearly for financial assistance. In 1773, Parliament passed Prime Minister North's Bill, which became known as the Regulatory Act. The state, among other measures aimed at establishing control over the Company, obliged its board of directors to regularly report on the Company's affairs to the ministries of finance and foreign affairs. The system of government in India was centralized. Government officials were appointed to the posts of three of the four advisers to the Calcutta Governor-General.

The North Act was a compromise between the state and the Company. This was clearly demonstrated by the subsequent struggle between Governor General Hastings and Councilman Francis. Although Francis, who defended the interests of the state within the Company, was defeated in this struggle, the Company in the end was unable to resist the pressure of both parties of parliament and lost its political independence. In 1784, the Pitt Act was passed, which established a government board of control for Indian affairs and gave the governor-general - now effectively the appointee of the state - complete power in India. The Pitt Act formalized the relationship between the English state and the East India Company as unequal partners in governing India for a period of more than 70 years. The company retained independence only in the field of trade.

Conflict in the Calcutta Council

It often happens in history that a private conflict, in which personal ambitions play a large role, not only becomes an expression of opposing socio-political tendencies, but also determines certain extra-personal tendencies, sometimes in a very bizarre way. This is exactly what happened in the Calcutta Council of 1774 in the conflict between the Bengal Governor-General Hastings and his adviser Francis, who was a protege of the government.

One of the most important points their disagreement was the issue of political governance of India. Francis considered it necessary to abolish political power Companies and proclaim the sovereignty of the British crown over the British possessions in India (which was done in 1858). The Nawab of Bengal, restored to power, would now have to govern on behalf of English king. Hastings, as a Company representative, advocated the maintenance of Company power in India, and his position in the specific situation of the late 18th century was more realistic, since the annexation of Indian territories by Britain could lead it into armed conflict with other European powers that had interests in the East.

History has shown that in terms of short-term consequences, Hastings was right, although in the long term, in a different era - at the peak of British hegemony in the world, the "Francis program" was implemented. Another point of contention between Hastings and Francis was the issue of land management and tax collection. According to the plan of the Governor-General, the tax-farm system he introduced should have been replaced by the old Mughal system. However, Francis' plan, carried out in 1793, historically won: the zamindars were given the right to private property, depriving all the previous rights of the peasants and reducing them to the status of tenants.

Hastings and Francis also argued over the Company's foreign policy in India. If Hastings advocated Active participation Companies in the political events of Hindustan, concluding subsidiary agreements with Indian princes, Francis called for non-interference, and connected this with the plan to expand British power in India. In his opinion, Great Britain should have annexed only Bengal and controlled the rest of India through the Delhi Mughal. However, at that time such a plan was unrealistic: the British were not yet clearly the dominant force in India.

And these contradictory views were reconciled further development. They formed the basis of the political strategies of the first, complementary and alternating depending on the circumstances. half of the 19th century century: conquest and the "policy of non-intervention". Thus, in the disputes and struggles of individuals, on the one hand, and the state and the Company, on the other, strategies for the future were forged and worked out. The decisive period of this production was the little decade between 1773 and 1784. This same time became the culmination of the confrontation between the Company and the state; a balance of power had been achieved in it: North’s act had already marked the beginning of the Company’s subordination to the state, but Francis was defeated in the fight against Hastings, and another parliamentary act was needed to tip the scales in favor of the state.

Last lap

The development of Great Britain during and after the industrial revolution led to a clash of interests between the Company and the emerging English industrial bourgeoisie, and to a further attack by the state on it. The milestones of this offensive were three Charter Acts - 1793, 1813 and 1833. The East India Company Charter Act adopted in 1793 became another compromise between the Company and its opponents, and the role of arbiter in the confrontation was naturally played by the state. A “regulated monopoly” was established: the state obliged the Company to provide part of its ships at reasonable freight prices to private merchants for trade with India.

By the Charter Act of 1813, Parliament, under pressure from British industrialists and shipowners, generally abolished the Company's monopoly on trade with India. This abolition was required both by the logic of the industrial development of the “workshop of the world” and by the need to resist the continental blockade organized by Napoleon. State intervention in the administrative sphere of the Company also increased sharply: Parliament clearly prescribed to the Company how it should manage the government revenues of the Asian country it governs. The crown's approval of the Company's senior officials in India dramatically expanded the state's zone of authority at the expense of the Company's in their joint administration of India.

The Charter Act of 1833 abolished the Company's last monopoly rights to trade with China. The logic of the development of relations between the state and the Company led to the parliament banning the Company from engaging in trade in India, that is, what the Company was once created for.

By the middle of the 19th century, the East India Company was doomed. She was a political-economic centaur, and the time of these “organizational beings” was over - they had no place in the world of industry and nation-states.

In the three-quarters of a century (minus one year) that separates 1784 and 1858, England has transformed from a pre-industrial country into the “workshop of the world.” Being a form of organization of commercial, pre-industrial capitalism, the Company was inadequate to industrial capitalism, its era, its political and economic structures. It is only natural that the institutions and organizations of the pre-industrial era should go with it, as happened with the East India Company. What in the XVII - XVIII centuries constituted strength and was the main victory of the East India Company, namely: a rather organic (for that time) unity, a combination of political, trade and economic functions in its activities, became the reason for its weakening and death.

In a certain sense, the degree of freedom and privileges of the East India Company can be considered a measure of the underdevelopment of English capital as, in Marxist language, formational, the English state as a bourgeois and English society as a class society in the capitalist sense of the word. The development of the bourgeois state and society in England, the increasing isolation of society and the state, the divergence of administrative management and business management (“Lane’s Law”) - all this reduced the “living space” of the Company.

Why a company-state if there is a nation-state? Being the bearer of administrative functions, which in a mature capitalist society are the monopoly of the state as the personification of the functions of capital, the East India Company turned out to be something of an alternative or parallel government structure, which in the middle of the 19th century, of course, was an anachronism to be destroyed.

In 1853, wide circles of the English bourgeoisie demanded the liquidation of the Company as a political institution - the British instrument for governing India - and the annexation of India. However, parliament limited itself only to further reforming the Company. The Charter Act of 1853 was an example of government intervention in internal structure Companies: the number of directors has been reduced. Moreover, the Company (board of directors) has partially - by a third - ceased to be itself. It became one-third a ministry, as 6 of the 18 directors were now appointed by the crown.

It is difficult to say how much longer the veteran Company would have lasted if not for the circumstances - the Sepoy uprising of 1857 - 1859, one of the reasons for which was the activities of the Company officials.

In 1858, the Government of India Act was passed, which completed the history of the East India Company as a political institution. This act proclaimed the sovereignty of the British Crown over India. After this, the Company existed until 1873, but only as a purely commercial organization. Together with the Company (now the company) she left an entire era, but contemporaries hardly noticed this: the Franco-Prussian War, the Communards in Paris, Russia’s refusal to comply with the terms of the Paris Peace of 1856, abdication Spanish king Amadeus and the announcement of the first republic in Spain, the collapse of the Vienna Stock Exchange and the beginning of the US economic crisis, which opened the Great Depression of 1873 - 1896 - a global economic crisis that undermined the hegemony of Great Britain.

In short, in the early 1870s the world had no time for the East India Company, this relic of the past. The world, without knowing it, was entering an era that would end in 1914 and become a watershed between two “short” centuries - the XIX (1815 - 1873) and XX (1914 - 1991). This era began as the era of imperialism, the era of the final formation of colonial empires by national states. In this era, nation states were the main protagonist, the main monopolist, generally successfully fighting private monopolies.

East India Company - a memory of the future?

However, this was the case until the 1950s, until transnational corporations (TNCs) began to gain strength and began to gradually squeeze out the state, including the English one. Only a century has passed since his victory over his "transnational" subject-rival, and new transnational competitors have emerged, perhaps more serious than the Worshipful Company.

Despite all the analogies, it can be said that there are certain similarities between the East India Company and modern transnational corporations: in one way or another, they are all associated with monopoly, represent a challenge to the national state and national sovereignty, combine political and economic forms of activity. In a certain sense, we can say that TNCs are taking revenge on the state as an institution for the East India Company. TNCs are not the only competitor of the state in the current “post-modern” world. There are others too. These are supranational associations such as the European Union and ASEAN, these are “region-economies” (K. Omae), that is, zones that arise within one state (the Sao Paulo region in Brazil, Lombardy in Italy), at the junction of two (the Languedoc region - Catalonia) or even three (Penang - Medan - Phuket region) states and representing fully integrated units of production and consumption with a population of 20 - 30 million. Finally, these are the so-called “gray zones,” that is, areas not controlled by the legal authorities (various “drug triangles,” zones of self-perpetuating inter-tribal conflicts, etc.).

In a world in which the state is increasingly becoming just a cartographic reality, political-economic “centaurs”, more precisely, neocentaurs, structures of the type that more or less successfully competed with nation state in the 16th – 18th centuries, at the dawn of Modernity, and lost to him in the first half of the 19th century. Nowadays they appear like shadows from the past, but the shadows are quite material. From this point of view, the phenomenon and history of the English East India Company acquire a completely modern sound and become relevant. Venerable Company as a memory of the future? Why not. Her four hundredth anniversary, which fell on the last day of the century and millennium, is a good occasion to reflect on this.