Beginning of european settlement in india,medieval history india, Advent of European into India

Beginning of  EUROPEANS INTO INDIA

            After the decline of the Roman Empire in the Seventh century the Arabs had established their domination in Egypt and Persia.

                        The old trade routes were closed in the Seventh century when the Arabs conquered many countries and the bulk of Indian trade was monopolized by Arabs.  The Red Sea trade route was a state monopoly from which Islamic rulers earned tremendous revenues.

            The European nations felt the necessity of an alternative route to India which would be safe from the attack of the Turks.

            Fifteenth century Europe was gripped by the spirit of the renaissance with its call for exploration. At the same building and Navigation. Hence, there was an eagerness all over Europe for adventurous sea Voyages to reach the unknown corners of the East.

            In 1497, under the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the rulers of Portugal and Spain divided the non – Christian world between them by an imaginary line in the Atlantic, some 1,300 mile west of the Cape VerdeIsland. Under the treaty, Portugal could claim everything to the west. The situation was thus prepare for the Portuguese incursions into the waters around India.

           The Portuguese

Bartolomeu Diaz

The Portuguese sailor Bartolomeu Diaz could reach the Cape of Good Hope situated at the Southern most corner of South Africa in 1487 A.D.

Bartolomeu Daiz  Expedetation Map

            Vasco – da – Gama was sent in 1497 from Lisbon to find the direct sea route to India. The arrival of three ships under Vasco – da- Gama led by a Gujarati pilot named Abdul Majid, at Calicut in May 21 1498. TheMalabar Coast was then divided among petty Hindu chiefs. One of them, the ruler of Calicut whose hereditary title was Zamorin (Samuthiri) however had no apprehensions as to the European’s intentions; he accorded a friendly reception to Vasco – da – Gama.

Vasco - da - Gama

            The Portuguese landing in India “was fortunate both as to place and time.”

Calicut there under the Zamorins enjoyed a high degree of prosperity. The Zamorin was kind to all classes of merchants who came to his kingdom; Cochin was the best of all ports on the Malabar Coast as it was connected by means of lagoons, black water and creeks with all the pepper producing districts of the neighborhood.

Vasco  - da – Gama stayed in India for three months when he returned to Portugal, he carried back with him rich cargo and sold the merchandise in the European market at a huge profit.

            A second expedition, undertaken by Pedro Alvarez Cabral trade for spices; he negotiated and established a factory at Calicut where he arrived in September 1500. There was an incident Cabral seized an Arab vessel lying in its harbor and sent it as a present to the Zamorin. The Arabs stormed the Portuguese factory and put all its occupants to the sword, Calicut was bombarded by Cabral. Later Cabral succeeded in making advantageous treaties with the local rulers of Cochin and Cannanore.

            Vasco – da – Gama once again came to India in 1501. He set up a trading factory at Cannanore. Gradually, Calicut, Cannanore and Cochin became the important trade centre of the Portuguese.

            Gradually, under the pretext of protecting the factories and their trading activities, the Portuguese got permission to fortify these centres.

            A new policy was adopted in 1505, the king of Portugal appointed a governor in India for a three year term. The person chosen for the post was Francisco – de – Almeida.

Francisco – de – Almeida who was ordered to build fortresses at kilwa, Anjadiva, Cannanore and Cochin and invested with full power to wage war, conclude treaties and regulate commerce.

Francisco - de - Almeida

            Almeida reached India in September 1505 built a fort a Anjadiva, and settled in Portuguese interest, a question of succession to the throne of Cochin.

            Sultan of Bijapur and Gujarat feared that the Portuguese would extend their net from the Southern (Malabar) ports to the northern ports and encroach upon their interest. This brought about on alliance between Egypt, Turkey and Gujarat against the Portuguese intruder.

            In a naval battle fought near4 Chaul, the combined Muslim fleet won a victory over the Portuguese fleet under Almeida’s son who was killed in the engagement (January 1508).

            Next year, Almeida avenged his defeat by totally crushing the two navies. Almeida’s vision was to make the Portuguese the master of the Indian Ocean. His policy was known as the Blue Water Policy. (Cartaze System). This victory secured to Christendom naval supremacy in Asia and “turned the Indian Ocean for the next century into a Portuguese sea”.

            Albuquerque, the next governor, built up a great territorial power in India. The plan of Albuquerque formed strategically a complete whole and consisted of three series of operations: (a) the control of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. (b) The establishment of the head – quarters of the Portuguese power at a central port on the west coast of India; and (c) The destruction of Arab trade in the Malay Peninsula and the Far East.

            The conquest of Goa from the Adilshahi Sultan of Bijapur was Albuquerque’s first achievement (February1510).

After 1540 the Portuguese government in India markedly came to be dominated by priests Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits – who displayed an intolerant bigotry and introduced all the horrors of the inquisition into India.

            The Portuguese monopoly of Indian Ocean remained unbroken till 1595, fifteen years after the fatal union of Portugal and Spain.

            Philip II of Spain neglected Portuguese dominations n India.

Philip II

            Sri Lanka first rebelled against the Portuguese about 1580. In 1595 the first Dutch fleet rounded the Cape of Good Hope in defiance of the hold over the route to the Malacca and to the spice island. They expelled the Portuguese althogether form Sri Lanka in the year 1638 -58. In 1641 they captured the great part of Malaca and 1652 got possession of the Cape of Good Hope as well.

The Portuguese maritime empire acquired the name of Estado – da – India, which intended to monopolize the pepper and spice trade of the East. The first of these took the form of cartaze system by which every Indian ship sailing to a destination not reserved by the Portuguese for their own trade had to buy passes from the Portuguese viceroy of Goa or the Portuguese captain of the sea; if it was avoided the merchandise of the errant ship was seized and confiscated.

            In 1534 the Portuguese secure permission to build factories at Satgaon and Chittangong from the sultan of Bengal.

The Portuguese brought to India the cultivation of tobacco. They spread Catholicism in certain region on India. The first Printing press in India was setup by the Portuguese at Goa in 1556. The first Scientific work on Indian medicinal plant by a European writer was printed at Goa in 1563.

The union of the two kingdom of Spain and Portugal in 1580 -81 dragging the smaller kingdom into Spain’s wars with England and Holland, badly affected affected Portuguese monopoly of trade in India.

           The Dutch

            Commercial enterprise led the Dutch to undertake voyage to the East. As early as in 1565 they had opened up by trade with Russia and begun to explore, through land, eastwards towards China. In 1593, under William Barnets, they made their first effort to reach Asia by the North – east passage. The first Dutch expedition which successfully reach the East Indies was that of Cornelis de Holutman in 1596. He conclude a treaty with the rule of Bantam in Java and opened up the Spice Archipelago to Holland.

Cornelis -de-Holutman

            Huyghen van Linschoten who had come to Goa in 1583, lived there till 1589, and on his return to Holland published a book deling with the sea – routes to the East. He was in fact, Holland’s pioneer in the matter of the discovery of commercial possibilities in India and the East. The translation of his book into English in 1598 might be said to have given a direct impetus to the foundation of the English East India company. Ralph Fitch, an English traveler, who had reached India by the Euphrates Valley and Ormuz, and returned to England in 1591, with an account of the Magnificent possibilities of commerce in the East.

            Fitch was to England what Linschoten was to Holland; and both succeeded in rousing the spirit of their respective nation.

Houtman himself undertook a second expedition to India in the course of which he perished.

The Dutch settlement in India, except the fort of Geldria at Pulicat, were all unfortified trading posts and did not constitute the centre or a principal field of their power in the east.

            The spice of the Archipelago were exchang for cotton goods from Gujarat and the Coromandel coast Barring an earlier abortive attempt to start trade at Surat and on the Malabar coast, Admiral Van – der – haghen opened up trade with the Cormandel coast and planned to set up a permanent factory at Masulipatam (early 1605).

The Dutch established factories on the Cormandel coast in Gujarat, Uttar Pardesh, Bengal and Bihar. In 1609 they opened a factory in pulicat, Nort of Madras. Their other Principal factories in India were at Surat (1616), Bimlipatam (1641), Karaikal (1645), Chinsura (1653), Barangar, Kasimbazar, Balasore, Patna, Naga patam (1658) and Cochin (1663).

The English

Francis Dark

            Like the Portuguese, the adventurous English sailors too paid attention towards discovering new sea routes. In 1580 A.D and English sailor named Francis Drake 

arrived back in England with the distinction of being the first English man to circumnavigate the globe. On December 31, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I, issued a charter with right of exclusive trading to the company named the ‘Governor and company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies’.

Queen Elizabeth I

Progress of the English Company

            Captain Hawkins arrived in the court of Jahangir in April 1609. This was the first time that an Englishman arrived at Agra. Captain Hawkins tried to earn some trade Privileges from the Mugal Emperor staying in the Mugal Empire for two years. Emperor Jahangir rejected the request for trade contract offered by captain Hawking. In 1615, the English king james I again sent another Englishman Sir Thomas Roe, who met the Emperor at Ajmer. Although Thomas Roe could not sign any trade contracts, but still emperor Jahangir granted permission to the English merchant to establish factories at Surat.

            The English company did not have smooth progress. It had to contend with the Portuguese and the Dutch in the beginning. But the changing situation helped them and turn things in their favour. Bombay had been gifted to king Charles II by the king of Portugal as dowary when Charles married the Portuguese princess Catherine in 1662. Bombay was given over to the East India Company on an annual payment of ten pounds only in 1668.

William Hamilton

            In 1715 an English delegation, led by John Surman met the Mugal Emperor Farukhsiyar (1713 -1719) and offered a fresh Proposal for trade contract. An English Surgeon named William Hamilton who had accompanied by John Surman had cured, the Emperor form a painful disease.

As a reward for this medical service, the East India Company received three imperial ‘farmans’ from the emperor by which the company got the right of duty – free trade in Bengal, Gujarat and Hyderabad. The farmans thus obtained were regarded the Magna Carta of the company their important terms were:-

1)    In Bengal the company’s imports and exports were exempted from additional customs duties excepting the annual payment of 3,000 rupees as settled earlier.

2)    The company was permitted to issue dastaks.

3)     In Hyderabad, the company retained its existing privilege of freedom form duties in trade and had to pay the prevailing rent only for Madras.

4)    It was decreed that the coins of the Company a minted at Bombay were to have currency throughout the Mugal Empire.

            Though the first and formost objective of the East India company which had rooted its position in India, was trade, they were ambitious for political powers. The company took advantage of the growing enmity and weakness among the Indian ruling class and tried to establish English rule in India. The Company founded a trade centre at Masulipatam in 1611, taking permission from the Sultan of Golkunda. The Company built its second trade centre at Armagaon in 1636. In 1639, it made a treaty with King of Chandragiri to shift the Armagaon trade center to a nearby place of Madras and renamed it as Fort St. George.

            Since then Bombay became the head office of the Company. In 1690, a company officer named job Charnock, acquired the Zamindari right over three village viz., Kali Ghat (Kolkata), Sutanutee and Gobindapur, through a treaty with the Nawab of Bengal, in teturn of the payment of twelve hundred rupees per annuam and started a trade centre here. These three village united together, later on originated the town of Culcutta. The Culcutta trade centre was renamed as Fort William in honour of William III, the king of England.

Expansion of British Power

Bengal was the only Bright spot where prosperity prevented and which ‘was the only mine of silver left in the Mugal Empire’. Murshid Quli Khan, Alivardi Khan sized the reins of office and ruled till 1756. All the three were strong and competent administrators and under them Bengal greatly prospered, so much so that it was regarded. “as the paradise of Bengal”. The defeat of Siraj – ud – daulah (1756 – 57), the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa by deceit in the battle of Plassey (1757), led the foundation of the British Empire in India which paved the way for the establishment of British imperialism.