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The Golden Bird
The Golden Bird
India has for a long time been known as the 'Golden Bird' due to the enormous amount of wealth, fertile soil, flourishing trade and general prosperity throughout the ages. However, at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, India's fortunes changed forever. The need and later greed of the European powers - Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, English and French brought an end to this period of relative peace and prosperity, ushering long centuries of oppression and exploitation of its people and resources.
Vasco-Da-Gama's discovery of a new sea route around the Cape of Good Hope, led the Portuguese to be the first to arrive in India in 1500. By 1510, under the leadership of Alfonso de Albuquerque, they won Goa and set up their base here, establishing the ports of Daman, Salsette, Bombay and Diu.
The Dutch East India Company was formed in 1600 and by 1605 CE, the Dutch came to India to trade in Indian textiles and spices. They set up several bases in Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Gujarat and even Sri Lanka. Around the same time, the Queen of England, issued a Royal Charter that gave the English East India Company the sole rights to trade with India for spices, textiles and other raw materials.
Then in 1620, the Danes began setting up ports in India at Tranquebar, Serampur and the Nicobar Islands. The French however were the last to come to India in 1668, when the established their first base at Surat. However, by this time the English had already established many factories in Northern India, built its first fort in Madras - Fort Saint George - and even received the islands of Bombay as a dowry from Catherine-de-Braganza on her wedding to Prince Phillip.
Also, the Dutch and the Danes had handed over their territories to the British after loosing to their naval supremacy on several occasions. Thus the British had become very powerful in terms of trade and commerce in India. Hence the arrival of the French and the on-going animosity between the two in Europe finally led these two powers fighting it out for control over India! These wars fought between both European powers came to be known as the Carnatic Wars or Anglo-French Wars.
These Wars fought over a period of 20 years (c.1740 - 63) resulted in the victory of the British, The French lost almost all of their territories in India, except for Pondicherry and Chandernagore.
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