The Indian Rebellion

1376 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: British colonization of India

In 1600 a group of London put in the East India Company. Queen Elizabeth I allowed it a monopoly of English commerce with ‘the East’ and at its height, it ruled half the world’s trade. Its first ships attained in India in 1608. For 250 years its trading activities - followed by hypnotization and colonization - profoundly affected both India and Britain, moving forward to the establishment of the British Empire (Raj).
The East India Company rapidly established plentiful trading bases along India’s coastline. Cheap cotton textiles and other goods were exported from Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. Until the East India Company ran its business from these major commercial towns, it was protected by private armies recruited in England.
For the first …show more content…

There were many reasons for this rebellion, and the Company’s rapid spread through the sub-continent during the 18th and early 19th century had not boosted matters.
The rebels, many of whom were the Indian troops within the Company’s army (which at this time was over 200,000 men strong, with around 80% of the force made up of Indian recruits) arrested their employers off guard and succeeded in killing many British soldiers, civilians and Indians loyal to the Company. In revenge for this rebellion, the Company killed thousands of Indians, both rebel fighters as well as a large number of civilians realized to be sympathetic to the insurgence. This was the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The Indian uprising was to be the end of the East India Company. In the wake of this bloody rebellion, the British government effectively stamped out the Company in 1858. All of its administrative and taxing powers, along with its property and armed forces, were taken over by the Crown. This was the begin of the British Raj, a period of direct British colonial rule over India which carried on until independence in …show more content…

I. C monopoly, and at that time the efforts of provincial merchants to try to demolish these privileges had come tolittle. It had been sectarian London merchants and thoughtless E. I. C. officials who had brought the potential raw materials to the attention of parliament, so providing the basis for the import strategy of ministries. Stronger discipline and organization among the London merchants, and careful management of the information they provided to parliament, such as was accomplished by provincial interest, might have avoided of this view in governing

Show More
Related

  • Shays Rebellion

    871 Words  | 2 Pages

    1) Shays' Rebellion, the post-Revolutionary clash between New England farmers and merchants that tested the precarious institutions of the new republic, threatened to plunge the "disunited states" into a civil war. The rebellion arose in Massachusetts in 1786, spread to other states, and culminated in an abortive attack on a federal arsenal.

    Read More

  • Shays Rebellion

    1679 Words  | 4 Pages

    “In the first years of peacetime, following the Revolutionary War, the future of both the agrarian and commercial society appeared threatened by a strangling chain of debt which aggravated the depressed economy of the postwar years”.1 This poor economy affected almost everyone in New England especially the farmers. For years these farmers, or yeomen as they were commonly called, had been used to growing just enough for what they needed and grew little in surplus. As one farmer explained “ My farm provides me and my family with a good living. Nothing we wear, eat, or drink was purchased, because my farm provides it all.”2 The only problem with this way of life is that with no surplus there was no way to make enough money to pay excessive debts. For example, since farmer possessed little money the merchants offered the articles they needed on short-term credit and accepted any surplus farm goods on a seasonal basis for payment. However if the farmer experienced a poor crop, shopkeepers usually extended credit and thereby tied the farmer to their businesses on a yearly basis.3 During a credit crisis, the gradual disintegration of the traditional culture became more apparent. During hard times, merchants in need of ready cash withdrew credit from their yeomen customers and called for the repayment of loans in hard cash. Such demands showed the growing power of the commercial elite.4 As one could imagine this brought much social and economic unrest to the farmers of New England. Many of the farmers in debt were dragged into court and in many cases they were put into debtors prison. Many decided to take action: The farmers waited for the legal due process as long as them could. The Legislature, also know as the General Court, took little action to address the farmers complaints. 5 “So without waiting for General Court to come back into session to work on grievances as requested, the People took matters into their own hands.”6 This is when the idea for the Rebellion is decided upon and the need for a leader was eminent.

    Read More

  • American Rebellion In 1776

    1739 Words  | 4 Pages

    Evaluate the relative importance of three of the following as factors prompting Americans to rebel in 1776.

    Read More

  • The American Revolution, A Fight for Colonial Independence

    1040 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Is there a single trait of resemblance between those few towns and a great and growing people spread over a vast quarter of the globe, separated by a mighty ocean?” This question posed by Edmund Burke was in the hearts of nearly every colonist before the colonies gained their independence from Britain. The colonists’ heritage was largely British, as was their outlook on a great array of subjects; however, the position and prejudices they held concerning their independence were comprised entirely from American ingenuity. This identity crisis of these “British Americans” played an enormous role in the colonists’ battle for independence, and paved the road to revolution.

    Read More

  • Shay's Rebellion

    1474 Words  | 3 Pages

    “I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing” (Jefferson). Thomas Jefferson wrote these words in a letter to James Madison after hearing about Shay’s Rebellion while he was a foreign diplomat in Paris. After the rebellion happened, the “Shaysites” as they were called, were labeled as traitors to their country and the democratic form of government. But were they really? Many of the men fighting in the rebellion felt that they were being oppressed just as they had been under British rule.

    Read More

  • Civil Disobedience

    577 Words  | 2 Pages

    Under British rule in India, the British were harshly oppressive and only interested in exploiting products from India for their own use, causing many Indians to become extremely poor. They became so oppressed they were on the verge of violent civil disobedience, when Gandhi appeared to negotiate with the British threw non-violent tactics such as sit-ins and hunger strikes. The people were supportive on Gandhi and were set to become violent if anything happened to him. Things were resolved without violence.

    Read More

  • The Impact of Sepoy Revolution on India's Movement

    1597 Words  | 4 Pages

    After the Battle of Plussey in 1757, Britain gained a much control over India. The British East India Company exercised power in this region instead of the Queen of England. The Company brought British soldiers and missionaries to the foreign land. The military in India was comprised of European troops and Indian troops resulting in a variety of weapons present. The weapons of the English people were a lot more different than those of the Indian people. The Europeans were the officers in this military and the Indians were common soldiers. The Indian Soldiers were known as the Sepoys. There were various events before the actual revolution that were significant to the cause of the Sepoy Revolution. In 1806, the introduction of new clothing/appearance regulations sparked a minor rebellion, but this was easily controlled and suppressed by the British. In 1856, the East India Company anne...

    Read More

  • The Red River Rebellion

    1614 Words  | 4 Pages

    During the late 1860s the Red River Settlement was rapidly changing and along with these changes came multiple causes and conflicts that would subsequently to a resistance called the Red River Rebellion. Many profound changes occurred in the Red River Settlement that had caused problems and hostility among the inhabitants to emerge such as:the arrival of Canadians to the settlement, the economic problems and the decline of the Hudson Bay Company. However, the Red River Rebellion was sparked by the Hudson Bay Company selling Rupert’s Land to the new Dominion of Canada without consulting with the inhabitants nor paying any regards to their interests.The colonists of the Red River Settlement, many of whom were Metis, feared for their culture and land rights under the dominion’s control. In order to ascertain that their rights would be protected, the Metis set up a provisional government under the leadership of Louis Riel to negotiate an agreement with the new Dominion of Canada that the Red River Settlement and the lands surrounding it, could enter Confederation as the province of Manitoba under their own terms.

    Read More

  • How Did The First World War Affect South Asia

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    A revolt in which angered Iraqis fought the British in hope for their once promised independence. The revolution was lost and Iraq didn't manage independence until it was granted to them in 1932. Meanwhile in India the total polar opposite happened. Even Though Indian protest against British colonial rule brought violence it was in the form of the Amritsar Massacre, which was committed by the british. This massacre instead of leading to a violent uprising within the Indian people led it to a

    Read More

  • The Sepoy Mutiny

    459 Words  | 1 Pages

    As a direct result of the Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian presence in the British army was reduced to almost a half of what it had been. Also whereas before Indian regiments had been allowed to exist separately, they were now incorporated to be part of larger British regiments. High caste Hindus and Brahmins were stereotyped as dishonest, because of their role as provokers and their nationalist sympathies. The opposite can be said of such groups as the Sikhs, who were portrayed as model citizens and soldiers.

    Read More

  • The Indian Mutiny And The Taiping Rebellion

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Indian Mutiny began as a revolt in 1857, it was also known as the Sepoy Mutiny. It was a series of anti-British uprisings that successfully demonstrated a unification of spirit. The indigenous people of India resented the burdens of domination by the British. The Indians tolerated the British in the beginning largely because the British did not infringe on the Indians’ traditional cultural practices. Some of the British even inter-married with the Indians. As time moved on the British began to impose itself on the Indians. The most significant incident that sparked the Indian Mutiny was the British not respecting the Indian religious and cultural practices. “A series of incidents bega...

    Read More

  • Role of Colonial PResence in Indian Tea Plantion Industry in Assam and Darjeeling

    2073 Words  | 5 Pages

    The William Pitts India Act of 1784 gave the crown the power of guiding the politics of India with as little means of corrupt influence as possible, which in effect established a concrete link between the doings of the East India Company and the approval of the Royal Government, Because East India Company’s products were seen as “necessary” returns for public funds and trust put into the joint stock, the parliament was responsible for raising the finances to pay for the trade, the company’s power to authorize letters and make laws awarded the company sovereign authority of many Indian provinces. The new regime of East India Company served as a precedent for a later tea plantation as the Assam Company and business who utilized manipulation and profiteering methods, the accumulation of personal wealthy was a prime intention, first by 1834, the Waste Land Rules was enacted to allow government granted lands to be free of revenue for 20 years. The legislation marginalized Indian labourers and peasants, the cycle of debt and dependence chained labourers to a life of exploitation.

    Read More

  • Indian Nationalism and Indian Independence

    3241 Words  | 7 Pages

    Whilst the growth of Indian nationalism put considerable pressure on the Raj, historians offer many interpretations as to the fundamental cause of Independence. Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement and subsequent campaigns meant that nationalism began to appeal to the masses and helped establish a broad based movement for Independence. However, the British were always able to supress the nationalist movements, through reform or by using force, up to the Quit India movement of 1942. British involvement in the Great War and particularly the Second World War placed them in a weaker position economically, whilst the social and political expectations of the Indian people were changing, which strengthened nationalism and discontent.

    Read More

  • Colonialism in India

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    India was the first major Asian civilizations to fall victim to European predatory activities (Duiker 31). With conquering India, the British had various purposes behind it. Their main purpose was to achieve a monopolistic trading position (The Economic and Social Impact of Colonial Rule in India). The second purpose was the control of India; this was a key element in the world power structure, in terms of geography, logistics and military manpower (The Economic and Social Impact of Colonial Rule in India). When the East India Company continued to trade under the British, huge armies were created, largely composed of Indian sepoys (Marshall). The armies were used to defend the Company’s territories protect the Indian states (Marshall).

    Read More

  • Essay On The History Of Bangladesh

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    The supremacy of the East India Company lasted for an entire century. As the wealt...

    Read More

More about The Indian Rebellion

Open Document