C. The World, 1650–1789 · The World, 1650–1789Companies and Colonies: Europeans in Asia, Africa and the Pacific
C2 C1 A1.3 A1.4About 70 minutes
Learning goals- I can explain how the British East India Company went from trading company to ruler of Bengal.
- I can describe Dutch power in Java and the Cape Colony and its effects on the Khoikhoi and San.
- I can describe Russian expansion across Siberia into Alaska.
- I can explain the significance of Cook's Pacific voyages and the British colony at Sydney (1788) for Indigenous peoples.
- I can evaluate sources, such as company records and trial speeches, for bias and purpose.
Words to know
nawab
A Mughal provincial governor; by the 1700s, often a hereditary ruler, such as the Nawab of Bengal.
diwani
The right to collect land revenue and run civil finance in a province of the Mughal Empire.
sepoy
An Indian soldier serving in a European-led army, such as the East India Company's.
company state
A private company that also acts as a government: making war, collecting taxes and ruling territory.
trekboers
Dutch-speaking livestock farmers who moved inland from the Cape in the 1700s.
terra nullius
Latin for "land belonging to no one"; the false idea that lands occupied by Indigenous peoples could be claimed as empty.
Aotearoa
The Māori name for New Zealand.
Small companies, big consequences
In 1700, Europeans in Asia were mostly guests: traders who rented space in ports, paid fees to local rulers and depended on Asian merchants and bankers. The Qing, Mughal and Tokugawa governments set the terms. By 1789, one private company ruled the rich province of Bengal, the Dutch dominated Java, settlers were pushing inland from the Cape of Good Hope, Russians were hunting sea otters in Alaska, and a British colony had been founded at Sydney.
This lesson looks at how that happened, and at the peoples whose lands and lives were changed.
The East India Company in India
The English (later British) East India Company began as traders buying Indian cotton cloth, paying mostly in silver. It held fortified posts at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, protected by its own soldiers, most of them Indian sepoys.
After 1707, as Mughal power fragmented (see the lesson on the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires), the British and French companies took sides in Indian rulers' disputes. In 1756 the new Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daula, captured Calcutta. In 1757 Robert Clive led Company forces against him at Plassey. Clive had secretly agreed with Siraj's commander Mir Jafar, who held back his troops; Siraj was defeated and Mir Jafar became nawab, dependent on the Company. After another victory at Buxar (1764), the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II granted the Company the diwani (revenue rights) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1765.
The Company now collected taxes from millions of people. Company servants grew very rich; returning "nabobs" bought estates and seats in Parliament. When famine struck Bengal in 1769–1770, revenue collection continued; estimates of the dead run into the millions. Scandal led Parliament to pass the Regulating Act (1773), which made Warren Hastings the first Governor-General, and the India Act (1784), which put the Company under government supervision. Indian states resisted: in Mysore, Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan fought the Company in a series of wars, using iron-cased rockets that impressed British observers.
The Dutch in Java and at the Cape
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) ruled from Batavia (Jakarta). Through wars and treaties with the kingdom of Mataram, it gained control over much of Java by the mid-1700s and forced farmers to deliver crops such as coffee.
In 1652 the VOC set up a supply station at the Cape of Good Hope to provide fresh food for its ships. The land belonged to the Khoikhoi, herding peoples, and the San, hunter-gatherers. As Dutch farmers took land and cattle, Khoikhoi groups fought wars (1659, 1670s) but lost much of their grazing land. A smallpox epidemic in 1713 killed a large part of the Khoikhoi in the southwestern Cape. In the 1700s trekboers moved far inland; armed settler groups called commandos attacked San communities. The Cape also relied on enslaved people brought from Indonesia, India, Madagascar and Mozambique; their descendants, including the Cape Malay community, are part of South Africa today.
Russia: across Siberia to Alaska
Russia expanded east across Siberia in the 1600s, demanding fur tribute (yasak) from Indigenous peoples such as the Evenki, Yakut (Sakha) and Chukchi. Moving south brought conflict with the Qing, settled by the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689). In 1741 an expedition led by Vitus Bering reached Alaska. Russian fur traders then forced Unangax̂ (Aleut) men to hunt sea otters, often holding their families hostage. Disease and violence devastated Unangax̂ communities. Sea-otter pelts were sold to China, linking Alaska to the Qing economy.
Just for funFunny but true: When Russia and Qing China signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, the authoritative text was written in Latin, since the negotiators worked through Jesuit interpreters and Latin was the language both sides' translators shared. A treaty between China and Russia, signed in eastern Siberia, was finalized in the language of ancient Rome.
The Pacific: Cook's voyages and Sydney
The British naval officer James Cook made three Pacific voyages (1768–1779):
- In Tahiti (1769) his expedition observed the transit of Venus for astronomers; the Tahitian navigator and priest Tupaia joined the voyage and helped communicate with Māori in Aotearoa (New Zealand).
- In 1770 Cook charted Australia's east coast and claimed it for Britain, without the consent of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who had lived there for more than 60 000 years.
- In 1778 he reached Hawaiʻi and the Pacific Northwest coast, where his crews traded with the Mowachaht at Yuquot (Nootka Sound). He was killed in Hawaiʻi in 1779.
On 26 January 1788 the First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove to found a penal colony. The British treated the land as if it belonged to no one, an idea later called terra nullius. Aboriginal peoples resisted; the Bidjigal warrior Pemulwuy led resistance from 1790. Australia's High Court rejected terra nullius in the Mabo decision of 1992. Many Aboriginal people today call 26 January Survival Day or Invasion Day.
Worked exampleModelled example: A trial speech as evidence
From 1788 Parliament tried Warren Hastings, the former Governor-General of Bengal, through impeachment. The politician Edmund Burke gave long speeches accusing him of corruption and cruelty toward Indians. (Hastings was acquitted in 1795.) How should a historian use Burke's speeches as evidence about Company rule?
- Origin and purpose: the speeches are prosecution speeches meant to win a political case and to change Company rule. Burke also had political rivals in the Company and was famous for dramatic rhetoric.
- Strengths: Burke had studied many Company documents and testimonies; the speeches show that some British people criticized imperial abuse at the time; they reveal debates about whether British rights applied to Indians.
- Limits: he exaggerated, and speeches are not neutral reports. They tell us mostly about British views; Indian voices appear only as Burke presents them.
- Corroborate: compare with Company revenue records, the Bengal famine reports, Hastings's own defence, and Indian sources, such as the Persian-language history by Ghulam Husain Khan, Siyar al-Mutakhkherin (1780s), which criticizes both Indian rulers and the British.
- Judge: the speeches are credible evidence of British debate and of charges made against Company rule, but each specific accusation must be checked.
Use Burke's speeches as evidence of what was argued in Britain and of serious concerns about Company rule, not as proof of every charge. Combining them with Company records and Indian accounts gives a balanced picture (A1.3).
Hands-on activityWho signed, and who was asked?
You need: paper, a pencil and 20 minutes.
- Make a table with four rows: Plassey and the diwani (1757–1765), Cape Colony (1652 onward), Alaska (1741 onward), Sydney (1788).
- Make three columns: Who made the decision?, Whose land or people were affected?, Was consent given? How do we know?
- Fill it in from the lesson.
- Write a paragraph comparing two rows. Which case involved the most negotiation, and which the least?
Look for: careful distinctions. In Bengal, Indian rulers and the Mughal emperor were involved in the agreements (under pressure); at Sydney, no agreement was sought at all.
Your turn
1How did the East India Company win at Plassey in 1757?
Robert Clive made a secret deal with Mir Jafar, Siraj ud-Daula's commander, who held back his troops; Siraj lost and Mir Jafar became a Company-dependent nawab.
2What was the diwani, and why did it matter?
The right to collect land revenue in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, granted by the Mughal emperor in 1765. It gave the Company the taxes of millions of people and made it a government.
3What did the Regulating Act (1773) do?
It gave Parliament oversight of the Company and created a Governor-General (Warren Hastings), after scandals including the Bengal famine.
4How did Dutch settlement at the Cape affect the Khoikhoi?
Settlers took their grazing land and cattle; after wars and the 1713 smallpox epidemic, many Khoikhoi lost their independence and became labourers.
5How did Russian fur traders treat the Unangax̂?
They forced Unangax̂ men to hunt sea otters, often holding families hostage; violence and disease devastated communities.
A Tahitian navigator and priest who joined Cook's first voyage and helped communicate with Māori in Aotearoa.
7What is terra nullius, and when was it rejected in Australia?
The false idea that land occupied by Indigenous peoples was empty and could be claimed; Australia's High Court rejected it in the Mabo decision (1992).
More practice: warm-up
1Who led Company forces at Plassey?
2What was the VOC's capital in Asia?
3In what year did the VOC found its station at the Cape?
4Who reached Alaska in 1741?
Vitus Bering's expedition.
5When did the First Fleet arrive at Sydney Cove?
More practice: on your own
1Why was the East India Company able to expand after 1707?
Mughal fragmentation created rival successor states; the Company could ally with one side, use sepoy armies trained in European tactics, and tap Indian bankers and revenue. Victory over France removed its main European rival.
2Explain why the Bengal famine of 1769–1770 became a political scandal in Britain.
Millions died while the Company kept collecting revenue and its servants grew rich. Critics argued the Company was abusing power; this led to the Regulating Act (1773) and later the India Act (1784).
3Compare the Cape Colony and the Sydney colony as settler colonies.
Similar: both took Indigenous land (Khoikhoi and San; Aboriginal peoples) without consent, and both met resistance. Different: the Cape began as a supply station for a trading company and relied on enslaved labour; Sydney began as a British government penal colony using convict labour.
4How did sea otters connect Alaska and China?
Russian traders forced Unangax̂ hunters to take sea-otter pelts, which were sold at high prices in China (through Kyakhta). The trade linked the North Pacific to the Qing economy.
5Why is 26 January a contested date in Australia?
It marks the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people it marks the beginning of invasion and dispossession, so they call it Survival Day or Invasion Day.
Challenge
1"In 1789 European empires dominated Asia and Africa." Evaluate this claim.
Mostly false for 1789. The Qing, Tokugawa, Ottoman and many Indian, Southeast Asian and African states were independent and powerful. Europeans held coastal enclaves, Java, the Cape, Siberia and Bengal. The big exception was Bengal, where a European company ruled millions. Domination of most of Asia and Africa came in the 1800s (studied in The World, 1789–1900). A strong answer separates trade influence, which was large, from territorial rule, which was limited.
2Assess the historical significance of the Battle of Plassey (1757).
Militarily small, but highly significant: it began British territorial rule in India; it gave the Company Bengal's wealth; it led to the diwani (1765), the famine scandal and parliamentary control; and over the next century British rule spread across South Asia. Its consequences affected hundreds of millions of people over nearly two centuries.
3Using historical perspective, explain why Cook could claim Australia for Britain without consent, and why that claim is rejected today.
In Cook's time, many Europeans believed lands not farmed in the European way were legally empty, and that discovery by a Christian European power created a right to claim. Indigenous peoples' own law, land tenure and sovereignty were ignored. Today those ideas are recognized as false and discriminatory; the Mabo decision (1992) recognized native title, and the doctrine of discovery has been widely repudiated.
Quiz
1. At which battle in 1757 did the East India Company defeat the Nawab of Bengal?
2. What did the Mughal emperor grant the Company in 1765?
3. Which peoples lived at the Cape when the VOC arrived in 1652?
4. Who helped Cook's expedition communicate with Māori in 1769?
5. What did the Mabo decision (1992) reject?
6. Why should historians be cautious with Burke's speeches against Hastings?
Big idea: This lesson addresses C2 (interactions between Europeans and peoples of Asia, Africa and the Pacific) and C1 (economic and political developments), and practises judging sources (A1.3) and using an inquiry tool, the comparison table (A1.4).
Sensitivity: The lesson mentions famine, dispossession and forced labour without graphic detail. Indigenous peoples of Australia, Aotearoa, Alaska and southern Africa are presented as living peoples with ongoing histories.
How to help: Ask your teen to explain how a company could become a government. Then ask whether any companies today have government-like power.
Common difficulties: Assuming Europeans already ruled most of Asia and Africa by 1789. Stress that large-scale colonial rule mostly came later; Bengal was the major exception.