Merchant Kings

choi

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Jeffrey Collins, Companies to Colonies; Privatizing the business of empire. Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9, 2010.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704156304576003390736369596.html
(book review on Stephen Bown, Merchant Kings; When Companies Ruled the World, 1600--1900. Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's, 2010)

Note:
(a) Robert Clive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Clive
(1725-1774; Together with Warren Hastings he was one of the key figures in the creation of British India)
(b) cannonade (n): "a heavy fire of artillery"

All definitions are from www.m-w.com.
(c) glut (vt; from Anglo-French glutir to swallow, from Latin gluttire--more at GLUTTON): "to fill especially with food to satiety"
(d) Cecil Rhodes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes
(1853-1902; founder of the diamond company De Beers; South Africa's Rhodes University is named after him;  He set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate)
(e) machine gun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_gun
(section 3 History)
(f) mordant (adj): "biting and caustic in thought, manner, or style : incisive <a mordant wit>"
(g) versify (vi): "to compose verses"
(h) East India Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
(Founded 1600, Defunct 1 January 1874, headquarters London; also known as English East India Company, and, after the Treaty of Union [of 1707], the British East India Company; was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China; The oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies)

For East Indies, see Indies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indies

(i) British South Africa Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_South_Africa_Company
(established by Cecil Rhodes in 1889, modeling after the British East India Company; headquarters London; Acquired in 1965)
(j) The article states

"private economic interests did as much as statesmen to colonize the globe on behalf of Europe. Particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, when European states struggled to modernize themselves while burdened by the costs of war, monarchs regularly privatized the business of empire."
(k) Royal Africa Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Africa_Company
(a slaving company set up by the Stuart family and London merchants once the former retook the English throne in the English Restoration of 1660. It was led by James, Duke of York, Charles II's brother./ Many [slaves] were branded with the letters 'DY', after its chief, the Duke of York, who succeeded his brother on the throne in 1685, becoming James II. Other slaves were branded with the company's initials, RAC, on their chests./ Between 1672 and 1689 it transported around 90,000-100,000 slaves.)

(l) Hudson's Bay Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company
(incorporated in 1670)

Henry Hudson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hudson
(c. 1560/70s-1611?; English; Explored the present-day Hudson River in New York state in 1609; discovered Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay in 1611)

(m) free marketeer (n): "a proponent of a free-market economy"

, which is different from
marketeer (n): "a specialist in promoting or selling a product or service"
(n) The article also comments,

"the companies' governing efforts rarely turned a profit.

"Rhodes's South Africa Co., seeking docile black laborers, laid the legal groundwork for apartheid.
(o) Russian-American Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian-American_Company
(chartered in 1799; Russia's first joint stock company; In 1801 the Company's headquarters were moved from Irkutsk to St.Petersburg; In 1867, the Alaska Purchase transferred control of Alaska to the United States and the company was sold)
(p) Jan Pieterszoon Coen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Pieterszoon_Coen
(1587-1629; A quote of his from 1618 is well known, "Despair not, spare your enemies not, for God is with us")

(q) Dutch East India Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company
(1602-1798, headquarters Amsterdam; was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock)
(r) potted (adj): "briefly and superficially summarized <a dull, pedestrian potted history — Times Literary Supplement>"

(s) The article does not say it, but the British government funded, and British East India Company manned, the First Opium War of 1839-1842. In other words, the soldiers and sailors came from British East India Company, many of whom were Indians.


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