The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations — Fexingo History

In this episode of The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations, Lucas and Luna explore how smallpox shaped Company rule in 18th-century India. They trace the arrival of variolation and Jennerian vaccination via Indian practitioners and British surgeons like John Shoolbred and William Anderson. The conversation covers the 1767 Madras outbreak that decimated the Company army, the...

In July 1806, sepoys of the 1st and 23rd Madras Native Infantry rose up in the Vellore Fort, killing over a hundred British soldiers before being crushed by reinforcements from Arcot. The immediate cause was new dress regulations banning caste marks and requiring a turban shape that looked like a hat—an affront to Hindu and Muslim soldiers alike. But tensions had been building for years: missionar...

How did the East India Company feed its armies and its cities? This episode looks beyond the usual story of spices and tea to ask what the Company's soldiers, merchants, and clerks actually ate. We trace the origins of the first 'curry' exported to Britain, the massive rice shipments from Bengal that sustained Madras and Bombay, and the strange case of the Company's failed breadfruit scheme. Along...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the little-known story of Surat Castle, the East India Company's first fortified stronghold in India, built in 1612 to protect its trade against the Portuguese and the Marathas. They discuss how the castle became the seat of the Company's presidency before Bombay, its role in the Mughal decline, and its eventual transformation into a jail during the 1857 Reb...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna uncover the hidden role of Indian moneylenders, or shroffs, in powering the East India Company's expansion. While Company histories focus on battles and governors, it was often local bankers who financed armies, collected taxes, and kept the wheels of commerce turning. We trace how shroffs like the Jagat Seth of Bengal bankrolled the Company's conquests, how their h...

When the French seized Madras in 1746, the East India Company lost its most valuable Indian possession — and got it back not by force, but by treaty. This episode walks through the Siege of Madras, the role of Fort St. George, the leadership of Governor Nicholas Morse, and the decisive intervention of the Royal Navy under Admiral Edward Boscawen. We explore how the First Carnatic War exposed the v...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore a crucial but overlooked piece of the East India Company's machinery: its mints. From the 1640s onward, the Company didn't just trade — it minted coins. In Surat, Bombay, and Madras, Company workshops struck silver rupees, gold pagodas, and copper dams that circulated alongside Mughal and local currencies. Lucas explains how the Company obtained bullion from...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the history of Bombay Castle, the fortified headquarters of the East India Company in western India. They trace its origins from a Portuguese manor house to a formidable stronghold that protected the fledgling Bombay settlement. The conversation covers the castle's strategic role during the Anglo-Maratha conflicts, its evolution into a naval base for the Bom...

Lucas and Luna dive into the story of the Bombay Marine — the East India Company's own navy that protected trade routes, fought pirates, and battled European rivals long before the Royal Navy dominated the Indian Ocean. From the capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai by pirate Henry Every to the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816, they explore how this small, privately-funded force evolved from a handful of arme...

In this episode of The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations, Lucas and Luna explore a little-known institution: the Bombay Lunatic Asylum. Established in the 1740s, it was one of the earliest mental health facilities in British India. They discuss the asylum's founding within the Bombay Castle complex, its role in Company policy, and the harsh treatments of the era. Key figur...

In 1699, the East India Company sent Sir William Norris on a desperate diplomatic mission to the court of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. The stakes could not have been higher: the Company had lost its trading privileges, its factories were under threat, and a rival English interloper had poisoned the well. Norris, a man with no diplomatic experience, was tasked with securing a new imperial farman —...

In this episode of The East India Company, Lucas and Luna dive into the overlooked career of Vice-Admiral Charles Watson, the naval commander who helped Robert Clive secure Bengal after Plassey. Watson's Royal Navy squadron bombarded the Mughal fort at Chandernagore, crippling French power in the region. His capture of the French ship Le Duc de Penthièvre and his role in the siege of Calcutta in 1...

In 1775, a high-stakes drama unfolded in Calcutta that exposed the dark underbelly of East India Company power. Maharaja Nanda Kumar, a respected Brahmin and former zamindar, accused Warren Hastings of accepting bribes — only to be himself arrested, tried for forgery by a court packed with Hastings's allies, and hanged within weeks. This episode explores the trial of Nanda Kumar as a pivotal momen...

In 1782, the East Indiaman Grosvenor set sail from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) with a cargo of treasure, silver, and passengers including British officers and Indian women. It never made it to England. Wrecked on the treacherous coast of Pondoland in South Africa, the survivors faced a brutal 115-day trek through hostile terrain. Only 14 of the original 132 made it to safety. This episode follows the Grosv...

While the East India Company is famous for its armies, tea, and trade, its secret intelligence network was equally vital to maintaining power in India. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the shadowy world of Company spies, focusing on the little-known figure of Ross Daniels, a Scottish agent who operated in the Deccan and Mysore during the 1770s and 1780s. They discuss how the Company's intel...

In 1782, the East Indiaman Grosvenor wrecked on the coast of South Africa, stranding over 100 survivors in a harsh, unfamiliar land. This episode explores the harrowing aftermath: the long march toward civilization, the breakdown of authority, and the cultural encounter with local Xhosa communities. We follow the stories of survivors like William Hynes and John Baird, examine the scandal of the re...

In the late 18th century, the East India Company undertook one of the most ambitious cartographic projects in history: the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. But before that, a young surveyor named James Rennell was tasked with mapping Bengal and Bihar after the Battle of Plassey. This episode follows Rennell from his early career as a midshipman to his appointment as Surveyor General of Benga...

In the early 1800s, the East India Company sent a relatively unknown civil servant, Sir John Wood, on a mission to the remote Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim. The result was the Treaty of Titalia of 1817, which secured Company influence in a strategically vital region bordering Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan. This episode unpacks the treaty's terms, the geopolitical chess game between the Company, the Gurkh...

In 1816, the British East India Company joined forces with the Dutch navy to bombard Algiers, the capital of the Barbary state that had long terrorized Mediterranean shipping with piracy and enslavement. This episode follows the unlikely alliance between the Company, fresh from its wars in India, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, against a common enemy. We explore the brutal history of Barbary c...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the Battle of Buxar in 1764, a pivotal but often overlooked conflict that transformed the East India Company from a trading corporation into a territorial power. They discuss the key players: Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal who rebelled against Company control; Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh; and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, who allied against the Bri...

The Battle of Buxar, fought on October 22, 1764, was the decisive conflict that transformed the East India Company from a trading corporation into a sovereign power in India. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how a military engagement involving just 7,000 Company troops against a combined Mughal, Nawab of Awadh, and Nawab of Bengal army of over 40,000 led to the Treaty of Allahabad and the D...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into a lesser-known but pivotal chapter of the East India Company's history: its fraught and transformative relationship with China. From the early silver-for-tea trade that drained British coffers to the Company's disastrous diplomatic mission led by Lord Macartney in 1793, they explore how the EIC's desperate need to balance its books drove it into the opium...

For Episode 100 of The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations, we turn to the decisive clash that broke French power in India: the Battle of Wandiwash in 1760. While Robert Clive gets most of the glory, it was Sir Eyre Coote who outmaneuvered the legendary Comte de Lally at Wandiwash, capturing the French standard and cementing British supremacy in the Carnatic. We explore Coot...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into the Anglo-Mysore Wars, a brutal series of conflicts that shaped British India in the late 18th century. They focus on Tipu Sultan, the 'Tiger of Mysore', and his innovations in warfare, including the use of Mysorean rockets, which were precursors to modern artillery. Lucas explains how Tipu's father, Haidar Ali, built a formidable state through military an...

This episode explores the transformative governorship of Gerald Aungier, the EIC leader who turned a scattered collection of malarial islands into the thriving city of Bombay. We cover his negotiations with the Maratha Empire, his fortification of Bombay Castle, his attack on piracy along the Malabar Coast, and his visionary urban planning—including the first English common law court in India and...