East India Company

[MASCARO at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU]

Having had the words "East India Company" whispered to me by a passing stranger 
dressed in black, here are some interesting factoids forwarded by my buddy who usually 
sends me those swell jokes.  Check out the origins of Yale U. and the good ol' Stars 'n' 
Strips. A-and that Mayflower! 

 Hmmmmm . . . . . .

john m


The East India Company in North America
Although its Charter only gave the East India Company a monopoly on 
trade to the east of the Cape of Good Hope, the sheer scale of its 
enterprise meant that the Company had a significant influence on the 
newly emerging American colonies. Indeed the American historian Henry 
Newton Stevens maintained that the Mayflower which participated in the 
third voyage of the Company was the same ship that later was to take the 
Pilgrim Fathers on their voyage from Plymouth. 

The Virginia Company
In the early days of the seventeenth century the small circle of 
influential merchants in the City of London who formed the East India 
Company in 1600 had their fingers in a number of other trading pies. The 
Governor of the East India Company in its first decade, Sir Thomas 
Smyth, was also the first Governor of the Virginia Company founded in 
1606, and the two Companies shared their headquarters in Smyth's house, 
along with that of the Levant Company. The Virginia Company was the 
first British colonial enterprise in North America, following on the 
naming of that state after the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I. The Virginia 
Company founded the colonial port of Jamestown on Chesapeake Bay, now a 
Colonial Heritage site. 

Captains from Hudson to Kidd 
One of the key issues at the time of the foundation of the Company was 
the search for the "North West Passage" over the top of North America to 
the Indies, considered of vital interest because of the continued 
dominance of the sea routes east by the Spanish and Portugese. The 
Company financed expeditions in order to find the supposed passage, and 
on one such voyage the Captain, Henry Hudson, was cast ashore to die by 
his mutinous crew in the bay which now bears his name. Forced to share 
the sea-lanes on the more conventional route to China and the Spice 
Islands, the Company had little contact with America until it had 
successfully established its trade in India; then private traders or 
"interlopers" based in New England caused many headaches for the Company 
by joining in with the trade and, as the Company saw it, interfering 
with their monopoly. The situation was aggravated by the activities of 
American pirates on the trading lanes between India and the Middle East. 
Eventually the Company gave a contract to the newly-appointed Governor 
of New York to get rid of this menace. He found a well-armed ship and an 
experienced commander named Captain Kidd, who soon, far from suppressing 
piracy, became one of its most notorious practitioners until his capture 
and execution in 1701. 

The Yale brothers
The second-generation American bothers, Elihu and Thomas Yale, forged 
notable careers for themselves in the Company's service. Elihu rose to 
become Governor of Madras, and from there in 1689 he sent Thomas on what 
was the Company's first direct trading mission to China, paving the way 
for the eventual opening up of that unknown country to the Company's 
traders. Although his brother was later disgraced, Elihu returned to 
America with the fortune that he had earned in India, donating part of 
it to his old school, which, in gratitude, renamed itself " Yale 
College" in 1718. 

The Union Jack and Stripes
The story of the origin of the Stars and Stripes, the American flag, 
forms an essential part of every schoolchild's education in the United 
States, but it is not commonly known that the inspiration for Betsy 
Rose's gift to Washington was the flag of the East India Company, which 
consisted of a Union Jack and stripes. Even now the state flag of Hawaii 
is the same as the East India Company's flag -- a memorial to the 
Company's involvement in the voyages of Captain Cook, who was to die 
there. 

Colonies lost and won
Two events marked the low point of the Company's involvement with the 
fledgling independence movement in the American colonies. One, the 
infamous Boston Tea Party in 1773, was a direct result of the drawback 
of the government in London of duties on tea which enabled the East 
India Company to dump excess stocks on the American colonies, and acted 
as a rallying point for the discontented. The other, the defeat of 
General Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781 resulted in American 
Independence; Cornwallis himself was later to serve with great 
distinction in the Company's service in India, and it was said of him 
that whilst he lost a colony in the West, he won one in the East. 

Whilst the East India Company brought new goods and fashions to Europe, 
America was never far behind. The light cottons of India were 
well-suited to the humid summers of the South Eastern states, and 
calicoes, chintzes, silks, spices, coffee, cocoa and Chinese earthenware 
as well as tea all found their way across the water, mainly shipped by 
private traders from the Company's warehouses in London. Even after 
Independence the East India Company remained a highly competitive 
importer of goods into the United States, resulting in occasional 
flare-ups such as the trade war between 1812 and 1814.