Asking this for my 5-year-old niece. I, myself am 21 years old, don’t know how exactly they did it and am exceptionally bad at Humanities.
I don’t quite understand how the Britishers convinced/bewitched/overruled the rulers of a nation. From what I understand, they struck deals and what-not. Can you please explain a **bird’s eye view** of the entire situation so that I can explain it to my niece?
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European military technology was superior to most of the rest of the world. It will be Muslim nations like the ottoman empire that was on par.
Taking over land that is already occupied by other people likely requires force. Kill the ones that live there, force them away, force them to accept that you are the one in charge. People will likely resist that and then the result is violence. If you have enough technological advantage you do not need a lot of people to take control of a large area.
That said it is possible that is all starts with peaceful contact that initially is trade. Then you can get the right to set up a trading outpost and to use the land around too. You will likely need to pay for that. If you later what to control all of the land which usually is the case you need lily need at some point to use force. The trade outpost did not always grow large, Hong Kong and Macao in China did not. There was small French and Portuguese territories in India, Goa was the largest of them.
You can also exploit already existent grievances between different local groups. If you support one and arm them they can help you in conquering the land of their enemies. Give them some of the land and take the rest for yourself. You can let the one that cooperates with you remain semi-independent and under your protection. Total control is not always needed or what is best for you.
If you look at a map of India before 1947 you can see that a large part of it are princely state https://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/india/prepartitionmap.htm If the option for a leader is a war that you likely lose or not war but you loose some of your independence but you can still continue to live you like mostly like before it is not surprising that a lot of sovereign rulers selected to submit to the British. It is the independent nation of India that was formed in 1947 the take direct control of all of India.
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