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Royal Charter
Sir Thomas Smythe was The Company’s first Governor since he got a charter approved for the East India Company from Queen Elizabeth I. -
Period: to
East India Company
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The First Voyage
Five vessels left Woolwich for the Spice Islands or East Indies led by James Lancaster holding six letters of introduction from The Queen, each with a blank space for the name of the local King. -
Landed in India
Ships belonging to The Company docked at Surat and in the next two years established its first “factory” as trading posts were called, in the town of Machilipatnam of the Coromandel coast of The Bay of Bengal. Landing in India gave The Company access to spices that were not controlled by Dutch traders. -
First Indian Treaty
Emperor Nurudin Salim Jahangir gave the company rights to set ports around Surat. -
London Weavers Attack East India House
Weavers, dyers and linen drapers in England protest that imports of Indian cloth are threatening their own industries. They soon rioted and attacked the East India House in London. -
Expansion
By 1668 The Company had established many factories in places such as Goa, Chittagong, Bombay, Madras, Sutanati, Gobindapore and Kalikata (Calcutta). -
Trade with China
The Company receives permission from China to trade from Guangzhou (Canton) to import silk, tea and porcelain. Trade was made with the Chinese Hongs (trading company) who controlled trade within China. -
St. Helena, The Forgotten Coffee
The East India Company brought coffee plants and seeds from Yemen to St Helena on board the ‘Houghton’ from the Red Sea Port of Mocha. Napoleon Bonaparte, exiled to the island in 1816, remarked the quality of St Helena coffee. -
Seven Years War
The French and British East India Companies and their respective Indian allies were at war with each other. This war was judged to be one of the pivotal events leading to the formation of the British Empire in South Asia. The resulting central administration and governance starts a process that leads eventually to the formation of unification of India. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea party was driven by resistance throughout British America against the Tea Act, passed by the British Parliament in 1773. The colonists objected to the Tea Act because it violated their right of being taxed only by their own elected representatives. -
East India Company Act
The East India Company had grown into a powerful political and trading organization. The process of alowing The British Government to fully separate The Company’s political control from its commercial activities took lots of Parliment acts to be passed. -
The Charter Act
The charter act let the British Crown took power in India where the company held territories. The chaarter renewed except they could not trade with India. At this point India was open to missionaries since the comapny was compelled to do so. -
Darjeeling Tea Established
Robert Fortune, a botanist, was hired by the East India Company to take tea plants from China and plant them in India. He was successful in sending 20,000 plants to the Himalayas. They soon established Darjeeling as one of the finest tea producing regions in the world, and India is still one of the dominant tea companies. -
East India Company Stock Redemption Act
This act led to all the company's power to vanish but at that time it had already been destroyed. The power did not vanish but instead got shifted to Queen Elizabeth who was known as the Empress of India later on.
