East India Company 1600-1874: The Firm That Ruled India

The full story of the British East India Company (1600-1874): how a London trading firm with a royal charter won Plassey, took the taxes of Bengal, needed a bailout, and came to rule India. On the morning of the twenty-third of June, 1757, three thousand men working for a London company stood in a mango grove in Bengal, facing fifty thousand. By nightfall, the company had won a country. Its commander, Robert Clive, had already done the hard part, on paper, before a single gun was fired. The East India Company began as a pepper-trading venture with a few hundred London investors and ended up collecting the taxes of Bengal with a private army twice the size of the British Army. Most people picture redcoats and the Crown conquering India; for a hundred years it was a company with shareholders, dividends and a share price, and when it nearly went bust the government bailed it out. CHAPTERS 0:00 Rain on the Mango Grove 3:19 Pepper, Pirates and a Piece of Paper 8:49 The Battle Bought in Advance 15:09 The Tax Collector of Bengal 21:08 Too Big to Fail 28:14 A Company With an Army, Then a Company With Nothing SOURCES East India Company - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_In... Battle of Plassey - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_... Bengal famine of 1770 - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_... Regulating Act 1773 - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulat... Tea Act - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Act Government of India Act 1858 - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governm... The East India Company: The original corporate raiders - William Dalrymple, The Guardian, 2015 - https://www.theguardian.com/world/201... Boston Tea Party - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_... Indian Rebellion of 1857 - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_... East India Company - Mark Cartwright, World History Encyclopedia - https://www.worldhistory.org/East_Ind... Where the sources disagree, the narration says so. IMAGE CREDITS (archival images, used under the licences shown) • Siraj-ud-Daula, Subedar of Bengal - SpeakingArch - CC BY-SA 4.0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... • Lahori Gate (Red Fort), Delhi, India (2017) - Lucky181993 - CC BY-SA 4.0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... • Lloyd's Building - Exterior Staircase - Colin - CC BY-SA 4.0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Public domain / CC0 (Wikimedia Commons): Nathaniel Dance-Holland (1735-1811) - Robert Clive (1725–177; An elephant with his mahout attacked by a spearman on horse.; Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plasse; Anonymous - A View of the East-India House, Leadenhall Stree; London panorama, 1616; Elizabeth I (Armada Portrait); Mughal - Portrait of Emperor Jahangir - 1981.249 - Art Insti; Sir Thomas Roe by Michiel Jansz. van Miereveldt; Lely Catherine of Braganza; Peter Lely - Portrait of Charles II of England; The Old East India House in Leadenhall Street 1648 to 1726; Mir Ja'afar with his Courtiers; Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) - Robert, Lord Clive (1725–1; James Gillray - The Nabob Rumbled or a Lord Advocates Amusem; Nawab Mir Jafar Ali Khan (r. 1757-1760 and 1763-1765); Equestrian Portrait of Shah Alam II, 18th century; Shah 'Alam conveying the grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive; Fort William, Calcutta, 1735; Horace Walpole; England. Principal front, Bank of England as designed by Sir; Sir Joshua Reynolds - Edmund Burke, 1729 - 1797. Statesman, ; Frederick, Lord North MET DP807823; Warren Hastings by Tilly Kettle; Boston Tea Party Currier colored; The trial of Warren Hastings, 1788; Political Banditti India; British Pattern 1853 Rifle-NMAH-AHB2015q027969; Bahadur Shah in exile; Franz Xaver Winterhalter Queen Victoria. Archival images are real historical material; other illustrations are artistic reconstructions created with AI tools; narration voice is synthetic. #businesshistory #documentary #economics