How did Great Britain have so much power and influence considering how small it is? How did they manage to colonise the entirety of India so easily?
In: 167
Others gave great answers re navy, industry, trade, so I’ll just add one thing about colonial strategy.
Different colonizers had different strategies. They weren’t always consistent (see North America) but it was generally the British way to go to a place they wanted, find the existing ruling class, and tell the existing ruling class that they could keep ruling as long as they permitted Britain to sit at the top of the totem pole. They’d get some benefits, they’d keep most of what they had, and they’d bow their heads to the Crown. So many soon-to-be colonies weren’t given the choice of “become slaves or die.” It was more like “hey you are already subjugating your population to stay wealthy and in power. Want to keep doing that, with our armies behind you, but we get final say and a cut of everything and safety to travel and stay here etc etc.”
It wasn’t the worst offer for the ruling class of existing political entities that knew if they did force a war with Britain they’d likely lose anyways.
This is also why lots of British colonies have more stable democracies than other former colonies. The British came in and integrated the ruling class instead of running them over. So when the British left they didn’t need to suddenly reshape their institutions, since the same people would be in power either way.
Not trying to make light of famines and genocide, the poor in colonized regions often had it as bad or worse under British rule as before colonization, but the British didn’t piss off the wealthy rulers directly below them if they didn’t need to. And if they did need to, guns.
I always wondered about Portugal.
Whenever there was talk about powerful Navies – it was England, Spain and Portugal.
WTF happened to them?
In no particular order:
– The ends justified the means, especially when it came to employing privateers and unsavoury characters.
– An good ability to raise capital to employ cheap local soldiers, no need to transport loads of Brits across the world to fight. Many of the soldiers fighting for Britiah interests were, in fact, Indians.
– A large proportion of the time in India from a British perspective was via the EIC, not the English nation. It was the equivalent of giving a modern-day multinational carte blanche to do what they want (oh wait…)
– An astounding ability to turn local rulers and strongmen against each other.
– A fair bit of good fortune!
Fat navy. Biggest boats with biggest guns and best trade routes for big money. Before planes revolutionized combat, Britain had the chonkiest military force around in the form of big boats and cannonballs that defended the island without fail.
There are some hilariously bad answers here. You should really do some proper reading on this rather than asking a lot of pseudo historians
I love this question because the high school historians always come in with “Island = navy! Navy = power!” If that were true, why wasn’t Japan a colossal naval power in the East before 1890? And put away any notion that England didn’t become involved in continental conflicts. England invaded France, continually, for half a millennium.
Also remember that Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands were all huge naval powers before England became one. What did England have that those countries lacked? The answer is durable, stable institutions. These started with the Magna Carta and got stronger as time went on.
England was able to maintain its naval power for longer than its rivals because Parliamentary representation granted the country increasing stability. Over time power drifted away from the monarch and towards the electorate. If you look at England’s rival monarchies, they frequently reversed course and drastically changed policies. England did this less often, which resulted in the government wasting less money on crazy projects. England’s stable government institutions also created the perfect business climate for the Industrial Revolution. Industry was the real secret behind England’s globe spanning empire. They were just richer than everyone else, and that wealth didn’t all belong to a series of fickle kings.
I might have the best possible perspective: I’m Indian and a history buff. Let me give you the short version.
So the British (East India Company) came to India in the 1700s to just do business. Items like spices, indigo, muslin fabric were worth their weight in gold, and they would turn a huge profit taking these back to Europe.
They aggressively increased their business here (port areas like current day Bengal and Maharashtra) until the kings at these places allowed them to set up their own manufacturing here. India was comprised of different kingdoms at that point in time, and they could be individually enticed to what the EIC required.
They slowly found more items for purchase, and wanted to set up manufacturing units for each of them for better profits. Labour was also cheap, and they used a mixture of bribery and seduction to get involved in local courts. They pushed for having military powers with the kings, citing reasons for protection required at their facilities, and EIC started to bring in soldiers from Britain for the same.
Soon enough they had armies large enough to start taking over kingdoms one by one. They weren’t battles at first, they used debt trapping, bribing, betraying trusts of the important court members. Battle of Plassey fought in Bengal was the last battle that literally turned the tide in their favour, and most of India was under them (the kings and kingdoms still existed, just in servitude to the EIC). Post that they just used Indians to create Indian products that could be sold abroad and then made Indians pay taxes for the same. They used ‘divide and rule’ political tactics to make sure Indians stay divided.
This was until 1857, when Indians united for a nation wide rebellion. This was quashed by the EIC with taking help from the British commonwealth, and due to having access to better military equipment they just about managed to do so. But the English royalty used this moment in time to take over administration from the EIC – which was a privately owned institution.
From then to 1947 they continued to rule is under the pretext of ‘civilising’ us from savagery. Since they didn’t understand the depth to which our culture, traditions, history, technology, arts, music worked – they treated us as savages and no less than slaves.
But by 1947 the Free India movement had taken an unstoppable force. Fuelled by the likes of Subhas Chandra Bose, Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Bhagat Singh (to name just a few) the British couldn’t control India and fight WW2 at the same time. August 15th 1947, India was finally free of the British.
A nation of manufacturers and shopkeepers needs armed force to keep the trade routes open, and colonies to service the armed forces that keep the trade routes open.
Ships are good for transporting things other people want to buy. Britain is small, but it has a lot of stuff for making ships. That means they made many ships and those many ships could transport the stuff people want to buy, so Britain got so much money that they became rich.
When you are rich, people want to be nice to you, so they will listen to what you have to say and do as you want them to do. That gives you power.
India was colonized very easy because instead of one guy being in charge of the whole country a bunch of guys had their own kingdoms and clubhouses, and these guys agreed to let Britain use their many ships to sell their cool stuff like silk, tea and spices.
Since Britain was very powerful, all these guys got rich from trading their stuff so they let Britain do as it wanted, and after many years, Britain was ruling the Indian colonies because India was not united against Britain.
Piece by piece Britain got more control of India until they controlled all of it.
The British were masters of putting an oppressed minority in charge and supporting them. That way the hatred wasn’t aimed at the British, but the oppressive minority that was now in charge. We are still feeling the effects of that around the world.
They also had the best Navy in the world for a long time. A british Admiral once said “The British Army should be a projectile fired by the British Navy”
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