How European traders came to India and the British gained control: Plassey, subsidiary alliances and the Doctrine of Lapse, land revenue, railways, textiles, uprisings and 1857.
Key ideas
Colonialism is one country taking control of another region and imposing its political, economic and cultural systems.
The Portuguese, Dutch, French and British came as traders and set up bases along the coasts.
After the Battle of Plassey (1757), the British East India Company gained power in Bengal.
Under a subsidiary alliance, a ruler paid for British troops and dealt with other states only through the British.
The Doctrine of Lapse annexed a state whose ruler died without a natural male heir.
The Permanent Settlement (Bengal, 1793) fixed land revenue for ever, collected through zamindars.
Indian cloth was taxed heavily in Britain while British goods entered India cheaply, and many weavers lost their work.
There were many uprisings, such as the Santhal Rebellion and the Indigo Revolt; after 1857 India was ruled by the British Crown.