In 1600 the Honourable East India Company was formed by Royal Assent (permission given by Queen Elizabeth the 1st of England).

The East India Company was supposed to be a trading corporation, but it grew into something much more powerful. It had its own armies, and, together with unfair and forceful trading practices, swept away rulers that stood in its path. It became tremendously powerful and took over most of India, causing a lot of suffering and impoverishment. For example, they forced the skilled cotton muslin weavers of India to trade only with them, and imposed high taxes, until they had destroyed this three-thousand-year-old craft.

The East India Company also used force to colonise other parts of Asia, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma and parts of Malaysia. The Chinese were forced to trade in opium, a strong drug, against their will, which resulted in a short war. The British Navy bombarded the Chinese ports until they had to accept defeat.

The British government took much more interest in India after losing its colonies in America.

In India, there was a rebellion against the British in 1857, called a ‘mutiny’, which was very violent. This led to the East India Company being taken over by the Crown, and from then on, colonies were directly ruled by Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria was declared Empress of India in 1874. The Indian people were told that they would have an equal say in running their country, but this did not happen. What do you think of this picture? Does this look like two equal partners?

India eventually regained its independence in 1947, following the campaign of peaceful resistance led by Mahatma Ghandi.

The first British colony in America was established at Jamestown in Virginia in 1607. It was named after Scottish King James the 6th and 1st, son of Mary Queen of Scots.

The new settlers learned about tobacco smoking from the Native American people, and soon took to smoking pipes. Tobacco began to be sent back to Britain, where the craze caught on. As the settlers found out they could make lots of money from growing and selling tobacco, the population surged.

Many thousands of convicts, including prisoners of war, were shipped out to the colonies to provide cheap labour. Soon people were flooding into

America from Britain and the rest of Europe. Most were poor, ordinary people including many Scots, and Highlanders from Lochaber.

It was a different story for the rich. Wealthy people bought land for tobacco and cotton plantations, and slaves were used as the main workforce.

America won its independence from Britain in 1776.

Slavery continued in the American South until the Civil War in the 1860’s. It was finally banned in 1863.

Britain had officially banned slavery in 1833, but was still buying most of their tobacco and cotton grown with slave labour from America. So, Britain was still profiting from slavery until the 1860’s.

Britain also established colonies throughout the Caribbean islands, which became very profitable as a place for growing and refining sugar.

What do you think of when you hear ‘history of the Caribbean’? Maybe beaches, palm trees..and pirates! But the reality was a horrific one. Many thousands of enslaved Africans were captured and brought here to work in unimaginably horrible conditions. Those who survived the terrible sea voyage often died within three years.

Many territories in Africa also came under British rule.

Colonies were also founded in Canada, Australia and New Zealand – that is why these are English-speaking countries.

You might have heard of the ‘Commonwealth’, perhaps the Commonwealth Games. This is a group of 56 countries who were formerly part of the British Empire, and who still have the King or Queen as their official Head of State.

At the height of its power, the British Empire ruled a quarter of the world. You can see that these two maps are almost the same.

Britain had a mighty navy which allowed it to become a superpower.

This mighty trading Empire was driven by colonialism and financed by the labour of enslaved people.

What does ‘enslaved’ mean?

‘Chattel slavery’ means people who were legally defined as the personal property of their owner. They could be bought, sold, and split up from their families. They were forced to work hard and often treated very badly.

The transatlantic slave trade is a terrible stain on the history of humanity. Around 12 million human beings were captured and sold, in horrible conditions.

How on earth was this terrible trade in human lives possible? Slavery has always existed, in almost every society, since ancient times. But it had never been seen on this industrial scale in the history of humanity, until the 18th and 19th centuries.

The slave trade began with Portuguese and Spanish traders capturing African people, and transporting them to their South American colonies.

In the 16th century, English pirates started selling enslaved people to the Spanish colonies.

Britain soon became the main slave trading nation. The trade reached its height in the 1790’s. The money pouring in allowed some people to get very rich, and working with goods like cotton and tobacco gave employment to many thousands of working class people.

A Scottish slave trading captain actually named his ship after his daughter – this shows he thought it was fine to be a slave trader, and nothing to be ashamed of.

However, many decent people were horrified at what was going on, and became abolitionists. Frederick Douglas from Maryland in America, was a former slave who became an abolitionist leader. He was inspired by the words of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet; ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’. In the 1840’s, Douglas toured all over Scotland giving speeches. Burns had published an anti-slavery poem, The Slave’s Lament, in 1792, the first verse of which read: ‘It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral,/For the lands of Virginia, /O Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more’.

How did Scotland play its part specifically? What about ordinary, poor working class people – surely it was nothing to do with them?

It’s true that such people also suffered during this period, often due to exploitative working conditions, down mines or in industrial mills.

Poverty, hunger, disease and insanitary housing were commonplace. Highlanders who’d been cleared from their lands found themselves living in the slums of Glasgow, their children hungry and in rags. Children were coming to school barefoot even in the 1930’s. New diseases of urban squalor such as tuberculosis, typhoid and cholera were killers.

Yet even poor people could be caught up in the slave economy, becoming both victims and perpetrators in the Age of Empire.

Working with slave-grown goods like cotton and tobacco gave employment to many thousands of working class people.

Scotland’s working class could be employed in manufacturing things specifically for slaves.

Osnaburg linen is the name of a rough, cheap linen cloth that was used for slave clothing. It was deliberately made as cheaply as possible, and was processed as little as possible, leaving bits of flax seed stuck in the cloth.

The flax seeds made the clothing rough and horrible to wear – like ‘a hundred pinpricks’. This image is from the Dundee Tapestry, currently on display at the V&A museum.

There is an Osnaburg street in Forfar. It was made in many places in Scotland before being exported to the colonies. Scotland used to have a thriving flax-growing and linen spinning industry. Of course, linen was worn by everybody, of every social class, but it would not have been like Osnaburg.

Herrings – salted herrings were exported from Scotland as food for slaves. Girls and women were employed all over Scotland in the herring industry. Mallaig was a major port for the export of herring.

Jobs – Scots were employed as soldiers, clerks, overseers and all kinds of jobs in the colonies.

Consumers – tea, sugar, tobacco and cotton were everyday essentials, which even the poorest person would have some access to. Therefore, as working class people are the majority in the population, the market for these goods was vast.

We’re going to learn more about the Age of Empire by looking at three major traded goods: sugar, tobacco and cotton. The story of these common items is full of human suffering.