Indian Saltpeter Essay

The East India Company’s impact on England: Saltpeter, Tea, and Transcontinental Trade. The English East India Company played a key role in the formation of Britain as an empire. Through transcontinental trade, the company acquired massive amounts of wealth, that trickled down to merchants, and skilled labourers throughout England. The monopoly granted to the Company on tea and saltpeter allowed the East India Company to assist in transforming Britain’s economy, as well as contributing to the political power of the growing English empire. James Frey’s article The Indian Saltpeter Trade, the Military Revolution, and the Rise of Britain as a Global Superpower outlines the growing importance of saltpeter as a war resource, and the connection

Europeans couldn't produce saltpeter on large scales like India was able to. The hot and humid conditions of India were perfect for the production of saltpeter, and after the East India Company took care of Dutch and Indian competition, a monopoly was granted to them, and they became the sole exporters, responsible for 70 per cent of the saltpeter being used in Europe. Frey notes that the saltpeter produced in India was of the finest quality due to the natural state in which it was created, and manufactured. He also identifies that saltpeter production in Europe was costly, and expensive, due to peasants and farmers reluctance to give up the resource for free to the Crown. Securing the accommodation of Indian saltpeter is crucial to the Company, and the Crown, as wars rage throughout Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Despite the monopoly, Frey argues that the production of saltpeter was still inconsistent, due to river pirates, unpredictable weather, and price fluctuations resulting from Indian merchants hassling East India Company investors and merchants. Saltpeter helped to not only bolster the English economy, but also provided political power over the rest of Europe, as saltpeter became more and more in demand as various nations went to war with each other. Not only was saltpeter an important wartime resource, but as Frey remarks, it was used in metallurgy, textile production, and soap making, as well as gunpowder becoming an increasingly important resource to miners, fur traders, engineers, hunters, and slave traders, proving that saltpeter had a holistic effect on the formation of the British