In the late 1500s, under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, England was a seafaring nation embarking on an age of exploration. The captains of these expeditions weren’t setting out for free, though. Their voyages were were about making England wealthy. Kings and Queens in Europe knew that there was wealth to be found abroad - whether that was gold and silver, or valuable goods like exotic materials or foods that couldn’t be found in their home lands.

At this time many of the countries of Europe were at war, and so the English knew that a race was on not just to ’discover’ new lands but also to capture them before rivals like Spain, Portugal and France got there first!

Over the next 400 years, the English navy, merchants and soldiers gradually explored the globe. They took and held onto many lands as their own. By the 1700s British rule was worldwide and the British Empire became the leading global power from 1815 to 1945. Some countries still recognise the English monarch as ‘head of state’ - such as Canada and Australia.

Others were famously lost - like the North American states that are now the USA!

The nations that were colonised by the British had British laws and customs imposed upon them, were often violently oppressed and lost their ability to govern themselves. Many nations fought against the imposing British Empire however uprisings and protests were severely punished. While the British Empire lost dominance after the Second World War, the effects on the world can still be seen to this day.

Arguably the most economically important of these territiores was India -called The ‘Jewel in the crown’ of the Empire. Britain dominated the country from 1757 and directly ruled over it from 1858. The wealth taken from India funded Britain’s industrial revolution.

This is a divisive period of history. Some historians argue that India benefitted from British rule and the thousands of kilometres of railways it built, the schools, hospitals and factories it put in place and the new legal system that helped settle ancient regional rivalries. Other historians argue that all of this was for the benefit of the British and their economy, and was all put in place without India’s consent or agreement.

Certainly, British customs and traditions were forced onto their colonies whilst local traditions, cultures and religions were ignored or trampled on. Workers were exploited and their land was seized. Any rebellions there were (and there were many) were often treated excessively harshly by the British troops.

Trading companies were one of the biggest means of expansion for the British Empire. and The East India Company (EIC) was one of the most important.

The EIC is an early example of Globalization and this book will show how although it was born from trade with India, it came to link with the transatlantic slave trade, the production of cotton in Asia, and even with a war over tea with China. It may be long gone but its presence is still felt, both in the UK and in India especially.

The map of the world we’re used to seeing is what’s called a Mercator map and dates from roughly 1569, when the British Empire was just starting to grow. It was useful because it can show the North and South of each country as ‘up’ and ‘down’ whilst still showing all the other directions, but it isn’t very accurate.

Mercator maps cannot show what size countries actually are because you cannot unfold a sphere into a flat rectangle map, and so the countries are resized. On a Mercator map, the countires of the global north look a lot bigger than they really are.

This has drawn a lot of criticism because it’s said to make continents like Africa and countries like India appear smaller and less important than the exaggerated European ones. Despite its inaccuracies though, the Mercator world map is very useful for navigation and is still in use today, in schools, books and even Google Maps

The map shows the countries under British rule by 1886 in pink and the main trading routes and colonies of the time. It is decorated with illustrations of figures from all round the world in the border – an Aboriginal person from Australia, a Native American chief, Canadian fur trappers as well as others. The mythical figurehead for Great Britain, Britannia, is front and centre, with her trident pointing to Britain, resting on a globe of her own.

The art of the map could be telling two conflicting stories. On the one hand, it’s clearly putting the British Empire at the top with all the other countries and continents underneath – Britain here is represented by Britannia, commonly shown as a helmeted female warrior. On the other hand, whilst India is represented by a Rajah, tiger and elephant in all their splendour, there is also an Indian labourer bent double under a bale of cotton, standing between two British colonial officers. Britannia is also sitting in triumph on top of a globe held up by the mythological Greek Titan Atlas, who has a banner around him saying ‘Human Labour’. Perhaps the illustrator for this map felt that both stories should be told?

Over the course of its life the company gained control of large chunks of the region and at its peak it was the largest corporation in the world with its own army twice the size of the entire British Army.

Yes - you read this correctly! The EIC was a private company with it’s own army. It’s as if Amazon or Microsoft owned a military to help them to improve their business! At one point it had a hand in half of the world’s trade, especially in staples like cotton, spices, sugar, salt, indigo and tea. As well as being involved in the Transatlantic slave trade, the company came to rule over large parts of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Originally the flag was the cross of St George in the left corner with lots of horizontal red stripes around it. This caused a bit of a problem when trading with Japan because the cross was seen by Japanese rulers as a symbol of Christianity. In 1616 EIC ships were turned away from Japanese ports because the cross had been banned.

The flag changed when Scotland and Northern Ireland became part of the United Kingdom. It is possible the EIC flag might even have inspired the first flag of the United States, America had been part of the British Empire and some historians believe the Founding Fathers of America wanted a flag that symbolised American loyalty to the British whilst also representing the self-governance of the EIC. There’s alsoa theory that Americanss wanted a flag that would ally them with the EIC against the British Crown in their War of Independence!

Soon after founding, the company began branding its cargoes with this 'balemark' to allow easy identification of their goods in busy ports and markets.

In exchange for linen, gold and silver, Drake was able to bring back huge amounts of exotic new spices like cloves and nutmeg. These can be bought today in any supermarket in the UK, but back then they caused a huge stir.

Before then, British food was traditionally fairly bland, with only traditional homegrown herbs.

A lot of money could be made out of these new spices that added such flavour to food and during Elizabeth I’s reign London merchants petitioned the Queen to allow them to go to the Indian Ocean and start challenging the Spanish and Portuguese trade monopoly there.

In 1592 Portuguese rutter was captured. A rutter is asailor’s handbook with information on how to safely navigate the oceans. With this information, the English now had access to new routes to China, Japan and India.

In 1602 another Portuguese ship was captured by the newly formed British East India Company. The goods on this ship were so valuable they allowed the EIC to set up two trading posts for spices. By the late 1600s the EIC had grown in power and established trading stations all across Eastern Asia to funnel spices back to England.

Although Elizabeth I originally did not at first agree to slavery, she later allowed John Hawkins - the first British transatlantic slaver - to go to West Africa for the purpose of procuring slaves for British territory in the Americas. Over the next hundred years slavery became a royally-appointed business.

The company laid claim to small islands in the Gambia River, establishing outposts like James Island to make its trading easier. This part of Africa became known to the West as ‘Guinea’.

Chocolate had already been drunk for centuries in South America where the cocoa pods grow but it eventually made its way to Europe with the Spanish conquistadors.

Slave trading companies like the Royal Africa Cormpany quickly became essential to the chocolate trade. The Spanish had been using indigenous people to grow and harvest the crop in Jamaica before the British arrived and took the island from them.

The work was hard and the climate unforgiving, and the indigenous workers eventually died out.

Moving goods around the world in the 1800s was a slow process, and so the British cocoa bean production was moved from the Caribbean to other parts of the world. Many factories were opened in Asia to sell to its many citizens there, reducing transport times and costs.

The advert offers a reward of one guinea and illustrates how enslaved people were branded with their owners' marks.

Cotton fabric was the saviour of the East India Company. Originally they had planned to trade British wool fabrics and heavy cloths for spices, but no one in India wanted British tweeds and wool in such a hot climate. Instead, the EIC switched to trading in the many different types of cotton fabrics they found in India and established ports near the biggest producers of them. Even today, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata (which the British called Bombay, Madras and Calcutta) are some of the largest cities in India, and part of that is because of the early cloth trade. The East India Company called the trade in Indian cotton the ‘Piece Trade’.

Once it got to Britain, it would make its way through ports like Liverpool or Manchester, who grew very rich from the cotton trade. From there, some of it might be made into clothes for slaves and sent to the Caribbean, or it might be taken to West Africa to swap for more slaves. A large part of it stayed in the UK, where it became incredibly popular.

In fact, cotton became so popular that in the early 1700s laws were passed to stop so much being imported because it was feared to be damaging the trade in British wool and linen. When the Industrial Revolution happened though, wool factories in Yorkshire and Lancashire switched to become cotton mills. They became extremely wealthy from the switch and cotton was cemented as a staple part of British life and clothing, as it still is today.

Chintz was one of the first fabrics the British turned to when their wool and linen fabrics failed to sell in India. Over time it was so popular in Britain and Europe that its designs changed and Indian flowers and plants were replaced with British ones instead.

When the British tried to make their own versions of Chintz it wasn’t as nice as the Indian fabric, so the poorer English reproductions were called ‘a bit chintzy’ and we gained a whole new word for the dictionary!

Madras fabric was shipped by the British all over the world. In Africa it could be swapped for slaves and eventually the trade in Indian fabrics made up 30% of Anglo-African business.

The Kalabari people of southern Nigeria called madras fabric ‘injiri’ (meaning ‘George’, for the port it came from) and it was almost sacred. For others it was used for special and religious occasions, like weddings or other ceremonies. It’s possible that when Nigerians were captured and shipped to the Caribbean as part of the Transatlantic slave trade they took this tradition with them.

The traditional headtie for example was originally seen as a way to separate out black women as slaves and prove they were ‘inferior’ to white women because they couldn’t have their hair on show. But black women turned this on its head and instead their colourful eye-catching Madras headties became a symbol of colonial rebellion, especially when freed black women wore them.

Madras fabric became a way for both men and women to subvert the colonisers and keep their identity. Today Madras fabric is still used as part of the national dress and costume of several Caribbean islands, including Antigua, Barbuda, Trinidad, Haiti, Jamaica and Guadeloupe.

The traditional headtie for example was originally seen as a way to separate out black women as slaves and prove they were ‘inferior’ to white women because they couldn’t have their hair on show. But black women turned this on its head and instead their colourful eye-catching Madras headties became a symbol of colonial rebellion, especially when freed black women wore them.

Madras fabric became a way for both men and women to subvert the colonisers and keep their identity. Today Madras fabric is still used as part of the national dress and costume of several Caribbean islands, including Antigua, Barbuda, Trinidad, Haiti, Jamaica and Guadeloupe.

The name ‘paisley’ is not its original name, though. In Persia it was called the boteh or buta, so the name ‘paisley’ actually comes from the town of Paisley in Scotland, who made so many imitation paisley shawls that the town gave its name to the pattern in the UK. Other names the pattern is known by are ‘Persian pickles’ in the US and ‘Welsh pears’ in Wales.

Indigo had been used in West Africa and India for centuries. When the British and other European traders discovered it, the dye became incredibly popular and one of the most lucrative items to trade. It even became the basis of the British Navy’s uniform and we still have ‘navy blue’ to this day.

By the 1800s Indigo was being grown on Caribbean plantations and in India. Indigo-dyed cotton was then traded in the UK for money or in West Africa for more slaves. The trade in indigo was so lucrative that it became known as ‘blue gold’

In 1859 the Bengal farmers revolted and won a landmark case against the British meaning that they were no longer forced to grow Indigo, but it remaind an important part of the Bengal economy. But in 1878 a synthetic blue dye was discovered and the West no longer had to rely on indigo plants. Indigo production in Bengal and Bihar collapsed. This eventually led to Gandhi’s battle for Indian Independence.

It’s made from a plant and originally been used for peasant clothing or for making sacks, but when the EIC began trading in Bengal the Company quickly found wider uses for it and saw a money-making opporutnity in this versatile material.

Originally jute could only be processed by hand, as it was done in India, but a factory owner in Scotland worked out that he could treat the material with whale oil and use machnes to manufacture the materials.

It became such a big industry and so important to the British Empire that the Dundee factory owners became known as the Jute Barons. Some even went over to Bengal to set up new factories along the Hooghly River. Between 1850 and the early 1900s the amount of land given over to jute production multiplied 80 times.

Jute from India moved down the Hooghly (or later by newly-built trains) to Kolkata (Calcutta), sailed to Dundee (on ships that used jute in their ropes and rigging), was processed into sacks, sailed on again to the Caribbean, where they were filled with sugar and transported once more back to Europe. The humble gunny sack (the word gunny coming form the Hindi word goni) is representative not only of the EIC’s trade but also of the slave trade in the Caribbean.

Tea at this time only came from China so the Chinese could charge huge sums for it. This made tea very expensive for people in Britain and so the EIC needed to find a way to get tea at a lower price.

As well as silver, the EIC traded opium - a powerful drug grown in India - for tea leaves, causing a devastating drug epidemic in China. This angered the Chinese and various emperors tried to ban the trade.

The story goes that to break the Chinese tea monopoly a wild tea plant was found growing in Assam, India. This was crossed with a tea plant that had been smuggled out of China. The British had created a new tea plant that would grow happily in India’s monsoon climate (unlike China’s tea that preferred the mountains) and give them the taste they liked. Assam tea was born and it was followed by Earl Grey in 1770. Tea was now affordable and everyone could have a brew.

In 1773 tea was so much a part of British life it even caused problems in its other colonies. The Tea Act of 1773 meant that tea could only be sold in British colonies if it came from England and the EIC.

In Bengal, the English and French Companies were competing with each other for trade, and in 1756 the new Nawab (governor) of Bengal - Siraj ud-Daulah - grew tired of their squabbling. He especially disliked the British because they refused to stop expanding their fort at Kolkata (Calcutta), a key city in Bengal. The Nawab was equally disliked by the EIC, who thought he preferred the French to them- something that might threaten their trade in Bengal, which was an important place for shipbuilding, cotton and cloth trading.

Siraj ud-Daulah wasn’t especially popular with some powerful Indians, including one of his military commanders, Mir Jafar. He was particularly disliked by the Jagat Seths, a monumentally rich and powerful banking family, because he demanded tribute from them. Their founder had helped establish the Mughal Emperor - the title the Emperor gave, ‘Jagat Seth’ means ‘banker of the world’. They were so wealthy and powerful they had more money than the the whole of Britain. They refused to pay the tribute. Meanwhile the EIC were close allies with the Jagat Seth - the company’s biggest moneylender!

This sparked fury within the EIC and a British army was promptly sent to fight the Nawab. In 1757 Siraj ud-Daulah fought the British at Palashi, a place close to Kolkata and where the Battle of Plassey is named for (Plassey is an anglicisation).

The Battle of Plassey was a pivotal point for the EIC. Having such influence in Bengal meant the British could push other European rivals out of India and win control from other Indian rulers, eventually ruling the entire country.

In autumn 1768 and summer 1769, disaster struck when the crops failed and there were droughts instead of usual monsoon rains. The crops that did grow were still being exported out of Bengal by the EIC, either for trade or to to feed its own army. Very little was available to the local population and some EIC officers even went so far as to create their own private rice monopolies, sensing a business opportunity. The price of rice got pushed up higher as a result so that by 1770 they had more than quadrupled and people began to starve.

By the end of Summer 1770 people were dying in the thousands. The return of the monsoon rains were good for the crops, but the damp weather also brought with it diseases which the starving people were more likely to catch. Deserted villages became a common sight and it’s thought perhaps a third of Bengal’s population died.

Britain wanted to expand its territory, connecting their terrritories in Bengal with Chennai (Madras). Meanwhile the various Indian rulers made efforts to influence the English and French (and their highly-trained armies), using them to fight their own wars.

There were two Sultans of Mysore during the wars, Hyder Ali and his son Tipu who took over after his father’s death in the second war. Known as the Tiger of Mysore, the legend goes that Tipu was out hunting one day when he was confronted by a tiger. His gun didn’t work and as the tiger leapt on him, Tipu was forced to use his dagger instead to kill the beast. After this he enjoyed using the tiger as a symbol of his strength and power. He had tigers everywhere, from his war turban to his throne, his coins, swords, even his soldiers’ uniforms.

At first glance this is a lifesized wooden statue of a tiger sinking it’s teeth into a Britsih soldier’s neck. However, at the back fo the tiger there’s a crank, and the statue is revealed to be an automaton. It’s a pipe organ with a keyboard that can have a tune played on it, whilst the organ mimics the soldier’s screams and a tiger’s roars. When the instrument is being played, the soldier’s arm moves up and down, as if he was trying to push the tiger off.

The tiger made it’s way to the Victoria & Albert museum, where it is one of the most popular exhibits in the entire museum to this day. It’s a masterpiece of engineering and craftsmanship and also a life-sized testament to how deeply Tipu Sultan loathed the East India Company and the British.

Whilst the top jobs were overwhelmingly dominated by the British, a large number of Indians still worked for the EIC. At the height of its power, the vast majority of the EIC’s 300,000 strong army was Indian. These local soldiers were called sepoys and they swore an oath of loyalty not to Britain but to the EIC. Other locals worked in roles such as engineers, porters and cooks.

In those days, rifle ammunition was a paper wrapping with a bullet at one end and gunpowder at the other. To load the rifle, soldiers had to bite off the end off the cartridge, pour the powder down the barrel of the rifle and then ram the rest of the cartridge with the bullet after it.

To make the cartridges slide down the barrel of the rifle more easily, they had been greased with animal fats, and a rumour went round that this was a mix of cow and pig fats. The Muslim soldiers would not touch it because it contained pork whilst the Hindus wouldn’t because it contained beef.

From there violence and rebellion spread quickly across Northern India. This was the last straw after decades of mistreatment by the British and soon even state rulers and royalty began rebelling.

The British were slow to respond, often refusing to believe their units would disobey them until it was too late. Some sepoys rebelled by refusing to turn up at all and staying at home, whilst others took up arms. The only common factor between the rebels was their hatred of the British and the EIC, otherwise they were from different states, castes, backgrounds, language groups and religions.

The fighting was brutal on both sides. After British women and children were killed, the British sent in over 70,000 troops in retalliation. Rebels were hanged in trees or notorously ’blown from a gun’ - tied in front of a cannon as it was fired. The British were slow but incredibly ruthless in their suppression of the rebellion.

Rani Lakshmi Bai was an unusual woman for her time. She was well-educated and had been taught to ride, shoot and fight with a sword. She was known for having a unique outlook on the world and her love of horses.

When her husband the Maharaja died in 1853, the British refused to recognise their son as heir and the EIC took over Jhansi under one of their new laws.

After asking for help from the EIC and getting none because the EIC believed she had helped the sepoys earlier, Lakshmi Bai secured the kingdom of Jhansi herself. When the EIC did come and told her to relinquish it, she refused and instead demanded independence. When the EIC attacked, Rani Lakshmi Bai led a successful defence of Jhansi.

In 1858 though, Jhansi fell to the EIC and Rani Lakshmi Bai was forced to escape on her horse. She died later that year defending another state from an EIC attack, legend has it dressed as a sowar (a type of soldier) and carrying a talwar or sword. Before she died, the legend says that she asked for her body to be cremated, so the British could not have it.

For many in India then and now she is a symbol of resistance against oppression and the British Empire.

Enslaved people could also rebel by speaking their own language in private, ruining tools and machines, practicing their own religion in secret, and in many small ways, such as wearing Madras cloth.

‘Bussa’s Rebellion’ was the largest rebellion in Barbados and was arguably the first of several movements across the Caribbean that shook support for slavery in the UK and led to its abolition.

It is thought that Bussa was a in charge of checking the fences and boundaries of his plantation. It would have given him ample opportunity to meet with other slaves on his and neighbouring plantations and organise their fight. On 14th April 1816 Bussa led 400 enslaved people against the local military. They set fire to the sugarcane fields which were the signal for others to do the same to the fields in their parishes. Fierce fighting ensued. Bussa was killed in the fighting and afterwards hundreds were executed or split up and sent to other islands for their part in the rebellion.

The history of the Koh-i-Noor often starts with the ruler Shah Jahan - famous for building the Taj Mahal. eventually had most fot he gemstones including the Koh-i-noor made into a legendary peacock throne - a throne with a canopy covered in diamonds.

The diamond made it’s way down through Indian history until it came to Duleep Singh, who was made Maharaja of Lahore when he was only 5 years old.

Lahore was part of the Kingdom of Punjab, and when the EIC too over this part of India in 1849, the diamond was taken by the British as a ‘spoil of war’, and forced the 11-year-old Maharaja to sign it over to Queen Victoria.

Today no less than four countries other than the UK claim the Koh-i-Noor should be theirs. For India the diamond has come to represent centuries of colonial rule and cruelty, but the British govenerment insists the gem was obtained legally. The diamond passed through many countries before the British took it, so it could be claimed by Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan or India.

English has one of the largest vocabularies of any language on the planet and has an ever-changing set of grammar rules and mannerisms, making it one of the hardest to learn. Despite that, it is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, both through native speakers and as a foreign language. The biggest reason for that is the British Empire, which spread English across the continents as the language of trade and business.

The Empire also explains English’s huge vocabulary because of the British penchant of adopting and adapting other countries’ words into English. The British spent several centuries in India and as a result added Urdu, Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali and Sanskrit words to its vocabulary, alongside Canadian, Chinese, Caribbean and African words too. Sometimes it went further and the British not only took the word but also the object into British culture as well.

Pundit : From the Hindu term ‘Pandit’ - an expert who had memorised lots of the Hindu holy texts

Trek : Originally an African word meaning a long journey by oxen

Juggernaut : in Hinduism Jaganath Krishna meant ‘a world-moving god’. Locals used the term to describe the British as they conquered the lands.

Shampoo : From the Hindi ‘Champi’ meaning to ‘knead or massage’.

Bungalow : From ‘Bangla’ - ‘belonging to Bengal’. This word was used used to describe the one-storey houses built in Bengal by European settlers.

This movement of people forced by the British Empire is still felt today. There are now recognised Indo-Caribbean and Indo-African ethnic groups made up of the indentured labourers’ descendants, especially in Trinidad, Guyana, South Africa, Fiji and Mauritius. In Guyana, Indo-Guyanese people make up 40% of the population.

By the end of the Second World War, Britain’s place in the world had changed dramatically and the demand for independence could no longer be ignored.

India gained independence from the British in 1947.The Muslim population wanted a separate homeland, whereas the Hindu majority wanted to keep India together. As a result, the British split the country, resulting in what we know as the mainly Hindu India and the mainly Muslim countries of West Pakistan (modern day Pakistan) and East Pakistan (modern Day Bangladesh). This partitioning caused bloody fighting between the countries, the effects of which are still being felt today.

By the late 1800s many of Britain’s colonies no longer wished to be under imperial control. Britain didn’t want more expensive rebellions like the ones in India and the Caribbean, and so began to allow colonies to become ‘dominions’ - these were countries that could self-govern but that would still have the British monarch as their head of state.

When India became independent in 1947, it asked to join the commonwealth, joining other countries such as Australia, Canada and South Africa. Over the 20th century more countries would join or leave and - most importantly - it was declared that all countries were equal within the commonwealth.

In 1948, Britain introduced the British Nationality Act - declaring than everyone within the Commonwealth was a British suject - meaning that they had freedom of movement to travel to Britain. This helped Britain to rebuild after the war.

Today Commonweath countries benefit from political, social and economic ties and no longer have to declare allegiance to the British crown.

In a twist of fate, after 135 years, the Indian entrepreneur Sanjiv Mehta bought the EIC in 2005. He re-launched the company as a luxury food, tea and coffee brand with a store in London’s wealthy Mayfair area. Since then, he’s received many emails from Indians all over the world, expressing their support for him for repurposing something that was once a symbol of oppression and humiliation.

The Jagat Seth paid the British commander £4,000,000 to overthrow Siraj-ud-Daulah - that’s nearly half a billion pounds today - plus the equivalent of over £1m per month for troops and other expenses! On top of this, Mir Jafar had promised to refuse to fight if the British made him the next Nawab of Bengal.