How did India become a British colony?

Vasco da Gama of Portugal

1600 – British East India Company

Cotton

Silk

Tea

Seven Years’ War: British defeat French

East India Company rulebecame like a

foreign gov’t.took more landforced Indian rulers

to sign treaties granting it power

collected taxes from Indians

est. law code & courts

Robert Clive (1725-1774)

1857 – Sepoy Rebellion

1858-1947 – British colonial rule

Was British rule good or bad for India?

Source 1: Famine victims, 1877

Source 2: Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India

Information on Sources 1-2There was a devastating famine in India, 1876-1878. Lord Lytton, viceroy of India, opposed any efforts to intervene in the famine as violating the principles of laissez faire economics. In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith had written that “famine has never arisen from any other cause but the violence of government attempting, by improper means, to remedy the inconvenience of death.” Lytton opposed government charity because it would diminish the work ethic of those receiving it. The only charity he allowed was given out in small amounts and included difficult requirements for those receiving it. Lytton appointed Sir Richard Temple a Famine Delegate to control government expenditures. He set up a government program where those in need could get work as manual labor for railroad and canal projects. However, the workers had to travel far away from their homes and live in camps in order to do this work. They were given food, but the prescribed ration was 1627 calories per day. By comparison, the ration provided to prisoners at Buchenwald, a Holocaust concentration camp, was 1750 calories.There were calls for a Famine Fund to counteract future famines. However, Lytton opposed financing it with an income tax, which would affect the rich, and instead supported a land tax on the peasantry. This was rejected, so Lytton pushed taxes on small traders and on salt. In the end, the Famine Fund wasn’t even spend on famine relief, but rather was used to reduce the tariff on cotton goods imported into India and on the war in Afghanistan.In 1876, at the beginning of the famine, the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India was celebrated with a weak-long feast for 68,000 officials. Meanwhile, a British journalist estimated that 100,000 people died during the course of the festivities.The death toll of the famine is hard to calculate. One British demographer provides a figure of 7.1 million deaths.- Adapted from Mr. Carroll’s synopsis of Late Victorian Holocausts (2001) by Mike Davis

Source 3: British Railways in India

Source 4: “Christmas in India,” 1881

Source 5: “Inoculation against Plague, Bombay,” postcard, early 20th c.

Source 6: 1815 print showing Hindu religious custom of sati

British officer: “This Custom tho' shocking to humanity we still allow in consequence of the revenue it brings in, which is of importance. I have also private reasons for not suppressing the burning system immediately.”

British bishop: “Why my Lord, with a view to [O]economy under existing circumstances it might be imprudent to press the measure at present. Besides I think I feel also the private motives which actuates your Lordship.”

Source 7: Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, 1898-1905

“There has never been anything so great in the world’s history as the British empire, so great an instrument for the good of humanity.”

- Lord Curzon, British Viceroy of India, 1898-1905

Source 8.1: Trade that the British East India Co. was involved in, 1814-1835

Source 8.2: Trade that the British East India Co. was involved in, 1814-1835