How Did East India Company Influence British Imperialism

During this presentation, we will discuss the different aspects of the East India Company that helped influence British imperialism. Before going into the presentation let’s start with what the East India Company is. The East India Trading Company was founded specifically to get in on the industry based on the spice trade in East India. Given its monopolistic practices and size, it had a lot of political influence in England. The company even employed a private army, to control trade into and out of India. In the nineteenth century, Thomas Creevey saw the Company as a burden and grievance to the nation and themselves. This concern was no longer the main problem after the attention turned to the question of whether the current monopoly trade arrangements represented the best possible form of economic link between Asia and Britain. Citizens …show more content…
The East India Company was accused of having gained territory with the use of the British fleets and armies, and no subjects of Great Britain could hold territory independent of the Crown. Only through an agreement with the British government to pay them £400,000 each year was the East India Company able to salvage their existence. In the years during which the Opium trade was popular in China, the East India Company controlled almost all opium that went through Bengal beginning in the year 1773. Since company ships were not officially allowed to carry opium, they sold in Calcutta, provided it be sent to China. The ban on opium in China was reinforced in 1799, however, the amount of Opium estimated to have been smuggled in that year by the East India Company was 900 tons. In the year 1838 China imposed the death penalty on anyone caught smuggling opium, but, in that year, the estimated amount of opium smuggled into the country reached 1,400