How A Corporation Conquered A Sub-Continent

in a lone tent next to the ruins of a once great palace two men meet one a ruler of an Al fallen Empire the other a foreigner the transaction is quick parchment is laid out names are signed and the agreement is made a surrender soon one of the oldest and most populated civilizations in the world will become a subject to an island only a tenth of its size but it wasn't the British Empire itself that laid claim to India in fact the land one was not going to be transferred to the state or crown at all no this conquest was by a private army was a business measure of the East India Company when I say the words imperialism or colonization where are the images that pop into your mind perhaps is the old war propaganda of the British or French empires maybe it's the division of Africa in the Middle East perhaps it's centuries ago where soldiers from an empire directly planted a flag claimed land and one said land by military might there were many times this did happen don't get me wrong the Spanish and Portuguese won their vast territory in the Americas by brute force and the fact that 90% of the natives died from plague the thing was this type of brute colonization only really happened in the Americas because well you know and even then despite being two massive continents the new world itself wasn't really that big of a profit maker the only sizable long-term profit came from the West Indies with its sugar plantations the search for the East Indies was the reason Columbus sailed in the first place even when two continents were conquered they were nothing compared to the real center of the world one of the most populated regions on earth that had access to spices and products Europe absolutely craved nutmeg cotton silk pepper and especially tea whoever could make that journey to access the spice or even better control the spice market would not just hold and credible amounts of wealth the most importantly power by the 1600s Portugal already established a small trading empire with forts dotting the Indian Ocean being the first Europeans there they were unchallenged the Pope splitting the world in half will do that sort of thing but Protestants of course don't care about what the Pope had to say on the matter and other nations set their eyes on tapping into the Indian Ocean a select few of Dutch and later English merchants set their sights in the old world traders founded their own companies to purchase vessels and fund expeditions across the world small at first just so a risky voyage when it lead to bankruptcy if it failed reach agreements with rulers then bring back goods from the East Indies and the Dutch as they always do learned how to do this quickly and efficiently forming the official East India Company of the Netherlands or in Dutch the it was often just known as the V OC a long story incredibly short the v OC it was basically a state backed but not state controlled company the first major European power to strike gold in the mine that was the Indian Ocean rapidly overshadowing the Portuguese since it was state backed it was granted freedoms that might seem odd to us today in our 21st century world the company could hire their own troops to enforce their operations and also declare war on who ever threatened those interests however was still a private business free from the influence of the government itself meanwhile in England the English wished to followed the Dutch example and followed up with the East India Company which operated also the same way however they came into the market too late soon finding themselves pushed out of India by the Dutch and suddenly nearby and the slightly less profitable Indian subcontinent for both companies they couldn't simply just take land by force their ports and factories on the coast were created from agreements with local rulers contracts seen as mutually beneficial to both state and company for both of these companies they had an initial investment by the state however they were largely held up by private citizens themselves investing in a part of a company to get returns back for when it's voyages were successful in a way the origins of what we view as Western modern capitalism mercantilism was economic warfare monopolize a market for your own state to drive out rivals was fundamental to the 16th through 18th century world the merchants and traders dictated the success of international policy and for the vo see this was incredibly profitable in over a few centuries what was once just investment in trade had ballooned the company bought more land entire islands funded colonization efforts shipbuilding and even was involved in slavery what started as just the trade of pepper and goods from the East Indies became not just a profitable company but the most wealthy private institution in human history Standard Oil at its height was worth one trillion dollars same with Apple the vo sea inflated to today's wealth was worth 8 trillion and it created a golden age and culture for the Dutch while the VLC did have its time in the Sun they couldn't compete to the British Navy and by the 19th century completely fell apart while the vo sea was gone the Dutch had never left the East Indies until after World War Two the British and French were now the new powers and not just Europe but around the world and this rivalry translated into their new main focus India in the 1500s the entire population of Europe was 70 million the Indian subcontinent had a hundred and seventy million and just like Europe India has always been an ever-changing canvas of different empires and kingdoms yet for a period of roughly two hundred years most of India was dominated by the Mughal Empire and the 16th century the Mughals had conquered much of northern India they were basically an Islamic ruling class over a Hindu population however for a majority of its history these religious differences didn't really matter there wasn't attacks against non-muslims nor Sharia law and the period was one of cultural growth and relative stability now if you're expecting the story will be about how the British ended that golden age well that's not really the case by the time the Europeans held any influence at all on the coast of India the Mughals were having political problems of their own the Mughals after a period of poor leaders had enacted more hardline Islamic laws against their majority non-muslim population leading to resentment by the 18th century the Empire was in decline its capital was sacked by the Persians it faced invasions by the Afghans and a rebellion by the Hindus in the south and the British and French companies looked on earnestly the British had been allowed to have ports across the Indian coast but their main base of operation was in the Bay of Bengal it was here that competition with the French really began to heat up but it just had to come to a head over Ohio [Music] the seven years war ended poorly for the French they lost in North America their main power in Europe and for this story their holdings in India the East India Company was more than happy to scoop up those French possessions with the Dutch weekend in France gone the British were now the sole European exporter of Indian goods so where do you go after you have a monopoly easy you build an empire by the 1750s the Mughal Empire facing a century of decline and rebellion officially collapsed in its place for the Maratha which while holding the same amount of land as the Mughals they were far more fractured the perfect time for the company to consolidate its investments in India the Bay of Bengal by the mid century was fully under the ownership of the East India Company it's 30 to 40 million people subject to the whim of a few located in a building in London not just was the company getting revenue from trade anymore but taxation on the locals as well and now that they could control the laws the company reallocated land to be used for more cash crops than crops for food basically the people were harvesting tea and cotton more than food for themselves and all it took was one bad harvest season for things to get bad very quick this was called the great pen golf famine of 1770 in a short period of time ten million over a third of the Bengalis population starved to death this was not helped by the fact that company officials would hoard grain themselves to make a profit nor that the only thing the company as a whole cared about afterwards was the drop in taxation which they gained back through brute force but even then this was not a good look for the company profits were still lost and tea export was down the immense casualties caused by the famine were not lost on Parliament at all reforms were called to at least limit the immense power of the company which was easy to do now considering how much of it the company took from the famine there were many of these reforms over 50 or so years but the basic gist was you have too much power the crown should have at least some oversight in what you do did these new oversight government reforms work and we like to think that lobbyists holding control of our legislative powers is a new thing but it's not at all even if there were reforms against the company the state still worked side by side with the private armies in India by the 1780s the company had their own personal army in the tens of thousands made up of primarily native Indians and it wasn't difficult to get local recruitment so going into the next century the stage is set in India is fractured and there just so happens to be an independent corporate state owning a large chunk of the coast I wonder what possibly happens next between the 1790s and 1830s this was the greatest period of territorial gain in the company's history with its immense military force ability to buy allies and modern tactics of warfare by the 1830s most of the subcontinent was either directly controlled or allied with the East India Company and the wealth caused by this expansion cannot be understated this was one of the richest regions in the world after all a surge of wealth came into the Empire along with the already much-needed export goods the equivalent paid by some of these princes to the British were in the hundreds of millions in today's money the influx was so immense it introduced the word loot into the English language yet with all of this new growth the company had to now ironically take on the same task as the Mughals and Marathas before them ruling India and they did rule a majority of the continent for 30 years and at no point from 1750 to 1850 did the crown ever actually claim India for itself so what changed rebellion the East India Company relied on local Indians for recruitment and by the 1850s there were many reasons why the local troops were not satisfied promotions were rare wages started a stagnate promised land was not given and there were even problems with using paper cartridges greased with pig and cow fat for the new rifles which being Hindu or Muslim was not welcomed by the soldiers all you need to know is the East India Company's own troops began to fight with each other armies in the tens to hundreds of thousands and atrocities were committed across the subcontinent by the end of a year of fighting the casualties were incredible hundreds of thousands of Indians mostly civilians were killed not including the resulting economic and agricultural collapse leading to disease and starvation and the fact that this rebellion occurred at all under the eyes of a private corporation was seen as an embarrassment had gone too far in order to bring some stability to the chaos Queen Victoria herself dissolved the East India Company its holdings would be officially brought into the British Empire and the people of the new British Raj given the rights of citizens at least on paper the holding up of this promise would be frequently brought up by future Indians now under the British crown but the age of this massive mega corporation was over the legacy and future it created however carried on far longer there is the saying the flag follows trade and despite that saying existing I think there's a common conception in the West that the European Empire spread much like the Spanish Empire did or maybe the Romans that the Empire came in one through military force but when it comes to the East Indies this wasn't really the case at all the whim of companies dictated where the empire would go the British Empire soon grew to become the largest empire ever seen thanks in part to its lucrative goods of cotton coming from the Indian subcontinent textile was the first major industrial commodity it wasn't just cotton tea however before there collapsed the company smuggled opium grown in Bengal to destabilize China in order to get better trade agreements essentially turning them into a 19th century drug cartel leading to the opium wars the annexation of Hong Kong and the start of China's century of humiliation and at least for a time this was what defined imperialism new markets and I say at the time because what we used to define colonialism or imperialism has always shifted what drives nations our people to conquer others has as well as the 19th century came to an end lessons were taken from the Indian rebellion the new land that was seized was under government control which was what shaped our common mentality about imperialism today the Scramble for Africa for instance but really this was just a small detour compared to what historically expansion has always been Africa was the one time that private companies didn't really invest in colonies yes it did have resources but the drive to splint Africa was mostly just to fill a map even then the European powers only held African colonies for about 40 to 60 years a brief period compared to the days of the East India Company 4 vo C regulated capitalism and market-based economies do lead to better lives for the people within them but when that goes unregulated that is when a company doesn't simply remain at a company it becomes a state within a state and is accountable to nobody except for the bottom line this is Cody of alternate history of Oh confound it I really want to enjoy my favorite books but my face was taken away from me in a previous incident with my City quarantined I'm left with nothing to enjoy I got the solutions to your problems hey know what what do you what are you doing in here get out not until I tell you about a solution to your boredom audible the biggest online space to download and listen to audiobooks both fiction and none but it's not just that audible is also a place for podcasts comedy and even theatrical performances while this may be the solution of my problems it is stop talking okay so for this I won't do the voice this video was actually inspired by an audiobook I listened to on audible called the anarchy the relentless rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple it's the entire story and dissection of how this one of private corporation was able to successfully take over the Indian subcontinent now if you want to have an audible account for yourself check out the link in the description ww audible.com slash all history or text history - 500 500 every audible member gets one free audiobook and two audible originals which is exactly how I got this book and it didn't cost a dime and the reason I'm doing the serious voice is because I highly recommend checking out this book because it really is forgotten history in the West and a 14 minute video does not do it justice anyway back to the dumb stuff wow that seems like a really good opportunity I'll certainly take you up on that I'm glad now if you don't mind I will be going back now as technically I'm violating our new conduct of social distancing I don't know how I survived a month without a face you

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Views: 643,035

Rating: 4.9459715 out of 5

Keywords: East India Company, India, India Independence, Alternatehistoryhub, British Raj, VOC, VOC Indonesia, Indonesia history, alternate history india, history of india, history of britian, british empire, alternate history britain, what if britain never conquered india, what if britain never took india, empire, british, indian, alternate history, mughal empire, maratha empire, maratha confederation

Id: RDHFVi8vyrQ

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/CantDecideANam3]

Isn't Alternate History Hub only on the left when it comes to economic issues and is socially on the right?