Roberts Ch. 5

• England challenged the "Indian Ocean supremacy"
  • England had before sought to enter spice trade of India, but had issues trying to do so
  • Had French interference when trying to do business in India
  • For a century held only Fort St. George and Bombay
  • Conducted trade in Coffee and Textiles
• Coffee!
  • Establishment of coffee-houses of London brought popularity of the drink
  • Tea drinking was also growing at the time
• Company growth
  • East India Co. 1689 defeat pivoted direction to use non-force strategies
  • Collapse of Mughals after 1707 brought energy and land to the British Trade
    • Increased polarity between the Marathas Hindus and the Mughals caused distress
    • Sikhs formed their own sect of Hinduism, detaching from both true Hindu ideology and Islamic ideology
    • 1730s Persian invasion caused loss in territory
  • Britian did not invade the Indian region until much later than the 1740s => CLAIM: because it considered trade very important
    • Finally decided to take action due to CLAIM: hostility towards the French
    • Ownership of station at Calcutta provided access to riches part of India
    • Wanted not to interfere with Indian politics, and instead employ the Mughal model of acceptance-and-profit
  • British vs French conflict
    • Supported opposite Indian princes
    • Brought armed struggle between French and British forces
    • French governor Dupleix controlled brilliantly, but was recalled
    • Provincial government of Bengal attacked + captured Calcutta
    • East India Co.'s army recaptured the city + recaptured both territory of he French and of the governors
    • Recapturing opened the way to British monopoly in India + diminishing of French dominance
  • British Raj
    • Britian proper sent an army to India, legetimizing the corporate armies of the Co.
    • Taking over Mughal government services @sushu
      • TAX FARMING: government gives a person right to collect taxes
    • The Co. formally became ruler of Bengal in 1764
      • French bases became scattered/useless
      • Peace of 1763 left only 5 French trading posts
      • 1769 Compagnie des Indies dissolved
    • Took Cerlon from Dutch year after #verify?
    • Growth => Decline
      • The company turned a bit too territorialist
      • Gave employees too many opportunities to cheat/bribe, and not enough profit for the company itself
      • British government began nationalizing
        • Set up system of "dual control" in 1784 => lasted until 1858
• Britian successful because of the tax-and-spend cycle
  • Heavy tax to citizen
  • Use tax to fund expansion
  • Citizens get benefit of expansion + don't mind high taxes
• Obviously, this works only if your contry is merchatilist where

• Roberts => empirization is because of increased commercial opportunity
• Trauttmann => empirization is due to the faliture of the silent Dutch model
• Salt hedge
  • Salt in + opium out
  • 400 miles (SF:Chicago)
  • Controlled the economy

• Brazil and Carribeans boomed due to sugar crops
• Main crops: tobacco, hardwood, coffee
• Spanish influence on Caribbean agriculture
  • Began with growth of fruit + cattle
  • Sugar and Rice was then introduced, but production was slow
• European settlements later appeared with the usual suspects => Netherlands, England, French * England established 2 colonies => St. Christopher + Barbados * St. Christopher => 3000, Barbados => 2000
  • Early successes due to tobacco: "tobacco colonies"
    • Supplied great customs values to England
    • Left the French with 7,000 and England, 50,000 in the island
  • Introduction of sugar crops lead to shift towards Slave trade
    • Tobacco economical if cultivated in small quantities
    • Sugar needed large plantation
    • => Contributed to the overall demographic change in North America
  • Spanish control now vested on its control of the slave trade
• Eventually, North Amercia emerged to be a bigger economy than that of new Spain

• Colonies had extracted varied economic benefit from their colonies
  • Spanish => Silver from South America: broke the world economy
  • England => Stimulated European exports + manufacturing: leading people to flow from Europe to Africa to Asia
  • CLAIM: colonization of Americas brought huge, incalculable economic benefits
• The Western hemisphere is decidedly European
  • Organized under European legal system
  • Christanized

Europeans did not just conquer; they exterminated local cultures and peoples and replaced them with their own.

• The older Amercian cultures cut off from populating other parts of the world
• CLAIM: the European dominance was a sign to "Asian Nationalists" (Japan??) as the sign of European injustice
• Americas suffered some species going extinct, and yet others massively planted
  • Plants
    • Potato
    • Sweet potato
    • Maize
  • Domesticated Animals
    • Pigs
    • Sheep
    • Chicken
  • => "Colombian exchange"