History1400_10-21-10.docx

History 1400 Lecture 10-21-10 The Height of Empire? Imperial Wars in India, Afghanistan, and Southern Africa, 1857-1901 Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar and Pretoria Born in Cawnpore, India, 1832 Goes to Addiscombe Military Academy 1624, Virginia Company is dissolved and becomes a British territory British East India Company ? Charles gets married to Portuguese Princess, is handed over the title to Portuguese trading posts. William is head of Dutch and British East India Company, and then decides to choose the British East India Company over the Dutch. Now there is only the British East India Company. Main product is tea but can?t keep up with North America tea. Leads to Boston Tea Party. British East India Company loses English ties, so it becomes East India Company. East India Company starts recruiting huge numbers of Native Indians. Then they start recruiting white men to lead the army they are making. By 1857, 350,000 men total in East India Company Army. East India Company is acting like a government, tries to start some social reform. Revolt starts in 1857 at the Mosque at Meerut, soldiers were not happy about their pay. Soldiers believed their new guns were greased with pork meat which was offensive and started the revolt. Soldiers are revolting against the East India Company and do very well at first. Indian soldiers take over Cawnpore. The soldiers kill all people outside the city of Cawnpore, including women and children. Indians start to slow down progress and British come and start to help turn around revolt. British then take over all land that belongs to East India Company and dissolves the company. So the revolt ultimately led to the defeat of the East India Company. Britain now has control over India, and they need to figure out how to control all the land. They decide to make Afghanistan a ?buffer? state. The British then invade Afghanistan, win a few battles, get rid of old King and appoint a new King. British go all the way across the country to Kandahar, win battle of Kandahar. Led by Frederick Roberts (Earl of Afghanistan). Boers ? descended from Dutch settlers that settled in South Africa. Boers go north to Orange Free State, Natal, and Transvaal. British want this land as well. They fight each other, no one wins and a treaty is formed. But the Boers attack the British again because they are tired of being pushed around by the British. Boers do well at first and defeat the British in quite a few battles. Boers siege some cities, and Lord Roberts is hired by Britain to relieve cities of siege. He thinks he defeated the war by winning the siege. Boers are still not defeated; they then make guerilla warfare groups to go around destroying things. British then organize all Boer women and children to concentration camps, and starve them. Boers then surrender because of the starvation. Some British people also believe these camps are wrong. British then win, and empire is now bigger than ever. Britain hires Indians to help run all of this territory, but will not let them get to the top. They can only help out.