The East India Company Gains a Foothold
A London trading company opens factories at Surat, Madras, and Calcutta and begins to put down roots
Quick facts
- Company chartered
- 1600 (England)
- First factory at Surat
- 1619 (Mughal grant)
- Factory at Madras
- 1639
- Turning point to rule
- Battle of Plassey, 1757
What happened
Economic competition among European nations led to the founding of commercial companies, the English East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch company in 1602. The English arrived as traders, not conquerors: the Mughal emperor granted them permission to operate at Surat on the west coast in 1619, they built their first fortified factory at Madras in 1639, acquired Bombay, and by 1717 held a grant of villages near Calcutta. For its first century and a half in India the Company was one merchant power among several, dependent on Mughal goodwill. That relationship inverted after 1757, when the Company's victory at the Battle of Plassey turned it from a trading firm into the ruler of Bengal, the start of a path from counting-house to empire.
Why it matters
The scattered coastal factories of the seventeenth century were the seed of British rule in India. The Company's transformation from trader to territorial power, beginning at Plassey, is one of the strangest paths to empire in history: a private corporation acquiring a subcontinent.
How we know
The Company's charter, factories, and grants are documented in the Library of Congress India country study and in extensive Company and Mughal records; the founding date of 1600 is confirmed in the World History Encyclopedia timeline of India.
Sources
- Library of Congress, Federal Research Division. India: A Country Study (The Coming of the Europeans) · Primary source (author-declared)countrystudies.us · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. India timeline: the Black Hole of Calcutta · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry.
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Related timelines
- The Mughal Empire → · The Mughal Empire timeline covers the Battle of Plassey (1757), where the Company's victory turned it into the ruler of Bengal, and Sir Thomas Roe's earlier mission to secure Company trading rights.
- The British Empire → · The British Empire timeline covers the East India Company's charter, Plassey, and the Company's expansion across India within the wider imperial story.