Description
The East Indies are a group of islands in Southeast Asia rich in many valuable products. John Watts and George White founded the English East India Company on December 31, 1600 to pursue trade and profits with the East Indies. The Dutch East India Company was created in 1602 by the merger of several companies, which allowed the companies to work as one instead of competing against each other. Among the main products that these two companies traded were cloth and spices. These companies might have started as trading enterprises, but in the end, they were looking for much more. They became empire builders, and their goals began to extend beyond mere trade to learning about other people’s culture. What started as trade turned into a mission to learn about culture, religion, and ideas. According to historian William Pettigrew, “The engagements of the English East India Company in South Asia also went beyond politics and trade. This engagement opened new forms of exchange between England and South Asia, resulting in a two- way dissemination of knowledge, ideas, institutions, social practices, languages, religion and dietary practices.”1 Historian Anthony Farrington adds, “Over the next 233 years, the Company came to dominate European trade with South and East Asia.”2 The East India Company became the most dominant trading power of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its far-reaching influenced helped launch British imperialism.