The Coming of the Europeans 16
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UNIT The Coming of the Europeans 16 Learning Objectives To acquaint yourself with I European interactions with Indian states and society from 1600 to 1750 Commercial networks and institutions in India in the early modern period The Indian ports and their importance in Indian Ocean trade The impact of the entry of the European trading companies on Indian merchants, trade and commerce II Portuguese trade interests in India The impact of the Portuguese and Dutch presence in India Rivalry and wars between the French and the Dutch The colonial settlements of Denmark and their importance Clashes over trading monopoly between the French and the British in the Carnatic region The emergence of England as an undisputed power after the three Carnatic Wars Introduction coast in 1510. Goa then became the political headquarters for the Portuguese in India and The beginning of British rule in India is further east in Malacca and Java. The Portuguese conventionally ascribed to 1757, after the Battle perfected a pattern of controlling the Indian of Plassey was won by the English East India Ocean trade through a combination of political Company against the Nawab of Bengal. But the aggressiveness and naval superiority. Their forts Europeans had arrived in India by the beginning at Daman and Diu enabled them to control the of the sixteenth century. Their original intention shipping in the Arabian Sea, using their well- was to procure pepper, cinnamon, cloves and armed ships. The other European nations who other spices for the European markets and came to India nearly a century later, especially the participate in the trade of the Indian Ocean. Dutch and the English, modelled their activities The Portuguese were the first Europeans to on the Portuguese blueprint. Thus we need to establish themselves in India. Vasco da Gama understand the advent of the European trading discovered the direct sea route to India from companies as an on-going process of engagement Europe around the Cape of Good Hope of Africa with Indian political authorities, local merchants at the end of the fifteenth century. Subsequently, and society, which culminated in the conquest of the Portuguese conquered Goa on the west Bengal by the British in 1757. 243 XI History - Lesson 16.indd 243 29-02-2020 15:48:31 This lesson has two parts. The political Akbar had also tried to extend his empire history of India and the changing scenario that in the east beyond Bihar by conquering Bengal. emerged after 1600 are discussed in the first But Bengal was not really integrated into the part. The second part deals with the arrival of empire until nearly three decades later, when European trading companies in India and the it became one of the provinces (subah) under impact each one made on Indian society. Jahangir. Under Akbar, the revenue system of the empire had been revamped by Todar Mal I so that a unified system of governance and 16.1 Political Affairs revenue collection could function throughout 1600-1650: The Mughal Empire the empire. At his death, therefore, Akbar left a powerful, economically prosperous and well- This was the period when the Mughal administered empire. empire was at the peak of its power. The The Dutch, followed by the English, Europeans were quite aware of the wealth and arrived in Surat in the early years of the 1600s power of the Mughals, and English poets even to begin their trading activities. The Mughal wrote about the fabulous “wealth of India”. governor permitted them to trade, and to set Travellers from all parts of Europe visited India up their “factories” (as the business premises regularly during the sixteenth and seventeenth of the European traders which also functioned centuries. The journals of their travels present as warehouses were termed), but they were a detailed contemporary account of the empire not allowed to have any territorial authority and society in India. over any part of the city. This frustrated their By 1600, Akbar had achieved his imperial ambitions to follow the Portuguese model. dream and extended the frontiers of the Mughal The English acquired the islands of empire through his conquests in Rajasthan and Bombay in 1668, and set up their headquarters Gujarat. Gujarat was conquered in 1573, and in Bombay in 1687. Their primary objective was this gave the Mughal empire valuable access to develop Bombay as an alternate base for their to the port of Surat, which was the gateway to operations. But Surat under the protection of west Asia and Europe. Besides trade, the ships the Mughal state still remained the preferred carrying pilgrims to Mecca left from Surat. centre of commercial activity for the merchants. The importance of Surat to the Mughals can be appreciated from the fact that Surat had 1600-1650: South India after two governors, one the governor of the city, Vijayanagar and the other, the governor of the castle which South India, especially the Tamil region, had been built on the river Tapti to protect the presented a sharp contrast to the centralized city. The governor of the city was in charge of stability of the Mughal empire in these decades. civilian affairs and collecting the revenues from Politically the region was fragmented and customs duties. unsettled. Under Vijayanagar rule, three Nayak kingdoms had been set up in the Tamil region: in Madurai, Thanjavur and Senji. The objective was to provide financial and manpower resources to the empire. After the defeat of Vijayanagar in 1565 in the Battle of Talikota by the combined forces of the rulers of Ahmednagar, Bijapur and Golkonda, the central authority of the once dominant kingdom became very weak. The Nayak kingdoms became virtually autonomous, though British factory at Surat they made a ritualistic acknowledgment of the 244 The Coming of the Europeans XI History - Lesson 16.indd 244 29-02-2020 15:48:31 authority of the Vijayanagar emperor. In addition overextended Mughal empire soon began to to the larger Nayak kingdoms, several local chiefs reveal its inherent weakness. This became most also controlled some parts of the region. The most apparent when the Marathas, under Shivaji, began notable of them was probably the Setupati of to grow in power and military strength. They Ramanathapuram, who was also keen to assert his attacked Surat with impunity in 1664, though independence. Between 1590 and 1649 the region it was soon abandoned. But their second raid in witnessed several military conflicts arising out of 1670 devastated Surat and its trade took several these unsettled political conditions. Madurai and years to recover. This seriously challenged the Thanjavur fought several times to establish their claim of Mughal invincibility and it sounded the superiority. There were also rebellions against beginning of the gradual disintegration of the the Vijayanagar emperor. Besides these on-going Mughal empire. conflicts, Golkonda invaded the Coromandel in After the attack on Surat, Shivaji turned his 1646 and annexed the area between Pulicat and attention to south India, and defeated the Nayaks of San Thome, which also changed the political Senji and Thanjavur. Though Senji was conquered scenario in the region. by the Mughals a few years later, Thanjavur The Dutch and the English were able to survived as a Maratha-ruled state. The Maratha acquire territorial rights on the east coast during kings, with their inclusive policy of assimilating these years. They realized that they needed a base Tamil intellectual and cultural traditions, made on the Coromandel coast to access the piece goods Thanjavur the cultural capital of the Tamil region. needed for trading with the spice-producing 1700-1750: The Mughal Empire islands of Indonesia. The Dutch had successfully negotiated to acquire Pulicat (Pazhaverkadu) and the Successor States from the Nayak of Senji and constructed a fort Aurangzeb, the last of the “great Mughals”, there. The English got a piece of land further south died in 1707. One of the major developments from the local chief, Damarla Venkatadri Nayak following his death was the establishment on which they built Fort St. George in 1639. Thus of what have been called ‘successor states’. an English settlement came up which eventually Mughal viceroys in various parts of the country grew into Chennai (Madras), the capital of the Oudh, Bengal, Hyderabad and the Carnatic Madras Presidency. set themselves up as independent rulers. The English and the Dutch had understood this vulnerability of the Mughal state. In Bengal and the Carnatic, the Nawabs had borrowed heavily from the English, and assigned vast tracts of land to them so that the English could collect the land revenue as repayment for the loans. This marks the beginning of British rule as revenue collectors. Fort St. George The name Carnatic originally refered to the 1650-1700: The Mughal Empire region occupied by the Kannada- speaking people. In the eighteenth century it included Emperor Aurangzeb began an ambitious the region lying between the Eastern Ghats programme of extending his empire south to and the Western Ghats, in the modern the Deccan, and the kingdoms of Ahmednagar, Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Bijapur and Golkonda were conquered in the southern Andhra Pradesh. The Nawab of 1680s. This extended the Mughal control of Arcot controlled this region. the Deccan as far south as Chennai. But the The Coming of the Europeans 245 XI History - Lesson 16.indd 245 29-02-2020 15:48:31 By this time the Dutch had given up Pulicat Cotton Manufactures and moved their headquarters further south to India also had a strong manufacturing base Nagapattinam. They had decided to shift their and was particularly famous for the variety of cotton focus to the spice-producing islands of Indonesia fabrics produced at various centres across the and established their capital at Jakarta (Batavia).