HIEU 3152 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: East India Company
Document Summary
August 25: the globe painted pink (or red): a misleading image. But it covers up/masks major disparities within the empire: the people in each of these territories are vastly different. Big theme: british rule never as total or complete as the map shows. Controlling a territory is very different than holding it. No set date of founding people disagree on when it was technically founded. Definition of empire: means different things at different times. 1 of 2 different things: buying/selling of commodities. Typically monopolies of the state (east india trading company, va comp. of london: using british capital, land, managers, etc. to capitalize on british holding. Sugar in the w. indies, tea and opium in india, etc. Depends on some level of slaves of indigenous peoples. Regardless, it helps to support people who remain at home in britain: financiers, insurers, merchants, etc. who are still part of the trade empire and thus profit from it, empire of rule.