East India Company Essay

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Introduction

The East India Company (EIC), formally chartered as the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East, it was also well known as the Honourable East India Company, and its primary purpose was to trade with the East Indies, though it mainly landed up trading with the Indian subcontinent. It started off as a Joint stock company. The company petitioned Queen Elisabeth I to sail to the East Indies after the defeat of the Spanish armada which prevented privateers from sailing to those waters because of the trade monopoly it owned over there.
They finally reached India after 2 failures and 3 ships lost at sea, they received a charter. The charter was given to George, Earl of Cumberland, and 215 Knights, Aldermen, and Burgesses under the name, Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies. Their main competition was the Dutch East India Company. The company built its first factory in south India in the town of Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal.
The company continued to take on its competition (Dutch and Portuguese) in the Indian Ocean, their first significant victory over the Portuguese was the Battle of Swally in 1612, after this they tried to gain territory in India by asking the queen to send a diplomatic mission to India. This was the beginning of the east India Company in India. This company would later be accountable for half the world’s trade.
It’s Dealings with the Mughals
In the year