Colonial India

Uncommon card · No. 132262

Colonial India was the part of the Indian subcontinent that was occupied by European colonial powers during and after the Age of Discovery. European power was exerted both by conquest and trade, especially in spices. Near the end of the 15th century, Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama became the first European to re-establish direct trade links with India by being the first to arrive by circumnavigating Africa (c. 1497–1499). Arriving in Calicut – by then one of the major trading ports of the eastern world – he obtained permission to trade in the city from the Saamoothiris (Zamorins). The next to arrive were the Dutch, with their main base in Ceylon, but their expansion into India was halted after their defeat in the Battle of Colachel to the Kingdom of Travancore, during the Travancore–Dutch War on the hands of Marthanda Varma. Trading rivalries among the seafaring European powers brought other coastal powers from the empires of Europe to India. The Dutch Republic, England, France, and Denmark...

Read on Wikipedia · Image British Information Services, an agency of the British Government, restoration by Wilfredor, Public domain