| 200 Years Ago |
The English stop trading in slaves, started in earnest some 500 years ago. During this period England was endlessly at war with France as the French perused their concept of European domination and at the same time tried to stop the English with their mission to extent their empire globally. The two French leaders who built up the French army into a European dominating fighting machine were; firstly King Louis the 14th, The Sun King (1638 -1715) and after the French revolution and the guillotine for Louis 16th and his wife Marie Antoinette (1793), Emperor Napoleon (1769-1821). Both were for the expansion of France across Europe. Both were highly successful particularly Napoleon who at one time virtually ruled the whole of continental Europe all the way to the walls of Moscow in Russia.
Napoleon determined to invade the English territories of Egypt and India. He was stopped by the famous English fleet commander Admiral Nelson who first completely destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile (1798) and then the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar at the gateway to the Mediterranean (1805). Napoleon was finally defeated on land by the English Duke of Wellington in Belgium at the Battle of Waterloo.
The Enlightenment
This was a European movement starting in England and France following the new discoveries of the physicists (particularly Sir Isaac Newton) and Chemists of the day who were using logical thought to explain life as opposed to the rigid dogmas of the Church. This movement had started some 150 years previously with Englishman John Locke (1632- 1704). He wrote on subjects like “Essay Concerning the Human Understanding” (1689) and “Some Thoughts Concerning Education”.
Other influential papers were; Frenchman Voltaire, Philosophical Letters, Englishman Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the principles of Morals and Legislation.(1789) Englishman Thomas Paine “The Rights of Man” (1791).
There followed;
- In 1807 the English Parliament banished Slavery in England following the tireless campaigning of the member of parliament for Hull (a slave port), Mr William Wilberforce and his friend the Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.
- The adoption of the Union Jack flag across the whole of the British Isles which included Ireland
- Income tax was levied for the first time (1799)
England rule in India including present day Pakistan in the west through Bangladesh and Malaya and Burma in the east. England’s focus in India and further east was always for trade and raw materials. The vehicle formed (in 1600) to protect England’s trade, then political interests in this area was the East India Company based in Bengal now Bangladesh.
The English had to overpower the French trying to establish themselves in the same area for the same purpose. This was achieved some 200 years later as the superior power of the English Navy sank the French ships as they tried to feed the French garrison with food and arms. Plus the fact that France were more focussed on European than World domination.
The English also had to persuade the local Indian rulers and people (more than 30 million people compared with 8 in England) that English rule was best. This was slightly more difficult than walking into North America or Australia because the Indian peoples were numerous and had a sophisticated culture with considerable wealth generated from minerals, farming, manufacture and trade.
The Indus river valley in present day Pakistan rivalled the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in present day Iraq (then Babylon) as one of the origins of civilisation (About 8000 years ago).
There followed invasions and rule by Aryans 3500 years ago who established the Hindu religion. The Mauryan Empire followed 2500 years ago until the arrival of the Muslims 1500 years ago and then an invasion via Afghanistan by a relation of Genghis Khan (Babur) culminating in the highly successful Muslim Mughal Empire in 1526.
Babur’s grandson Akbar set up the golden age for India with agricultural prosperity and a buoyant export trade.
The English arrived at this time and a little later the Persians by land, they took Delhi and created the Maratha confederation covering whole of the north and central areas of India.
A Muslim area Mysore became an equally formidable power in the south. The old Mughal Emperor was no more than a Maratha puppet.
The English therefore had three battles to win. The French to eliminate from their settlement in Bengal (Bangladesh), the Maratha in the north and the Mysore in the south.
The English smartly persuaded the weak Mughal emperor to “give” them the whole of prosperous Bengal and then could sustain a local army of over 100,000 men. Military victories followed over both the Maratha and the Mysore and the Mughal emperor then rapidly accepted the protection of the English in 1803. English rule was then widely accepted across the whole of India. By 1843 the English were ruling from Pakistan (then called Sind) in the west to Burma in the east.
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