| Former type | Publicly traded corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Trade |
| Founded | 1664 |
| Founder(s) | Jean-Baptiste Colbert |
| Defunct | 1792 (Nationalized by the National Convention, but in rebellion in India) and 1826 (nationalization of property in India) |
| Headquarters | Paris France (1664-1666), Lorient France (1660-1792) Pondicherry India (1792-1826) |
| Number of Locations | Pondichéry, Mahe and Yanaon |
| Area served | India and Madagascar[1] |
| Key People | François Caron, Joseph François Dupleix, Charles Joseph Patissier de Bussy, Hyder Ali Khan and Ananda Ranga Pillai. |
| Products | Cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpeter, tea, opium, pearls, spices and other commodities. |
| Services | Shipping, military (Régiments de Compagnie des Indes) |
The French East India Company (Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) was a commercial enterprise and trading company, founded in 1664 to compete with the British and Dutch East India companies in India and Eastern Asia. Liquidate and its property and assets made public in 1792 for France and 1826 for India.
The Compagnie, for short, was planned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere. It resulted from the fusion of three earlier companies, the Compagnie de Chine (1660-1664), the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar. The first Director General for the Company was De Faye, who was adjoined two Directors belonging to the two most successful trading organizations at that time: François Caron, who had spent 30 years working for the Dutch East India Company, including more than 20 years in Japan, and Marcara Avanchintz, a trader from Ispahan, Persia. The Compagnie was authorised to mint its own currency in the territories that it trade and controlled, the French Indian rupee (Roupie de l'Inde française).
The main competitors of the Compagnie were the British East India Company (EIC), Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), Danish East India Company and the Flemish Ostend Company.
The Compagnie along the Compagnie du Mississippi, Compagnie de la Louisiane and the Compagnie de la Baie du Nord, were the most successful royal sponsored French trading companies and the basis of trade with India and Louisiana.
The Carnatic Wars[]
The 18th century Carnatic Wars established the present colonial strongholds and system of Indian alliances. At the end of the Wars, the winner was France that had full control of Hyderabad and South India. The Clive-Dupleix Agreement formalized the division and mutual concessions between the two colonial powers of India. However the contents of the Agreement provoked a major scandal for the British East India Company when they were publicly revealed leading to the Commonwealth government enacting legislation to regulate the EIC.
Royalist India[]
Prince Louis-Charles de Bourbon. Viceroy of India (1792-1825)
With the proclamation of the French Republic (1790) and downfall of monarchy the managers of the Company lobbied to keep their profitable trading benefits. However in the Metropolis the climate was to end all royal monopolies and open up colonial free trade. So in 1792 the National Convention declared the Company nationalized in benefit of the public treasury all its properties and goods and opened Indian trade to all merchants under a system of licenses and payment of duties. On being notified the directors and managers transferred the administrative headquarters to Pondicherry, India. The Company had the tacit support of the EIC and the British government who sought it has a way to cut the rich Indian income to the Republic's treasury. Some of the regiments sweared loyalty to the Republic but after brief skirmishes with the royalist majority Regiments of the Company that left them in a weak strategic position and minority its troops and officers decided to embark to the Australian colony of Cygne that had unequivocally sided with the new republican regime of the Metropolis.
The Company broke ties with the Republic and declared their allegiance to the Royalist under Louis XVIII at Louisiana. Later that year Louis XVIII's brother Prince Louis-Charles de Bourbon arrives to Pondicherry as Viceroy of India. Under Royalist India (1792-1825) kept some of its economic predominance regardless of the freedom of trade decreed by Prince Louis-Charles in order to circumvent French trade embargo.
The defeat of Royalist India meant the liquidation of all property in India (1826), its assets becoming national property and the state organisation of French India.
| Before the Carnatic Wars | After the Carnatic Wars[2]. |
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