Developing the East India Company 1757-1833

The Transition from Trade to Empire

From Plassey to the 2nd Charter Act

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• Although the EICo had administered its factory areas in India—beginning with Surat early in the 17th century, and including by the century's end, Fort William (Calcutta), For St George (Madras) and the Bombay Castle—its victory in the Batle of Plassey in 1757 marked the real beginning of the Company rule in India.

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Wars and the expansion of territory

• The victory of Plassey was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar (in Bihar), when the defeated Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, granted the Company the Diwani ("right to collect land-revenue") in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa.

• The Company soon expanded its territories around its bases in Bombay and Madras: the Anglo-Mysore Wars (1766–1799) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (1772–1818) gave it control over most of India south of the Narmada River

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• Earlier, in 1773, Britsh Parliament granted regulatory control over East India Company to the British government and established the post of Governor General with Warren Hastings as the first incumbent.

• In 1784, the British Parliament passed Pitt’s India Acts which created a Board of Control for overseeing the administration of East India Company.

• Hastings was succeeded in 1784 by Cornwallis, who promulgated the ‘Permanent Settlement of Bengal with the zamindars.

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• At the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Wellesley (Lord Mornington) began what became two decades of accelerated expansion of Company territories. This was achieved either – by subsidiary alliances between

the Company and local rulers or – by direct military annexation.

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Subsidiary Alliances• The subsidiary alliances created

– the Princely States (or Native States) of the Hindu Maharajas and the Muslim Nawabs, prominent among which were: Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), Cis-Sutlej Hill States (1815), Central India Agency (1819), Kutch and Gujarat Gaikwad territories (1819), Rajputana (1818), and Bahawalpur (1833).

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Annexed regions• The annexed regions included

– the North Western Provinces (comprising Rohilkhand, Gorakhpur, and the Doab) (1801), Delhi (1803), and Sindh (1843). Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, and Kashmir, were annexed after the Anglo-Sikh Wars in 1849; however, Kashmir was immediately sold under the Treaty of Amritsar (1850) to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu, and thereby became a princely state. In 1854 Berar was annexed,

and the state of Oudh two years later.

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Charter Act 1813

• In this act, the British parliament renewed the Company's charter but terminated its monopoly, opening India to both private investment and missionary work. With increased British power in India, supervision of Indian affairs by the Crown and Parliament increased as well; by the 1820s, British nationals could transact business under the protection of the Crown in the three Company presidencies.

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Charter Act 1833

• In this act, British parliament revoked the Company's trade license altogether, making the Company a part of British governance, although the administration of British India remained the province of Company officers.