The Nineteenth Century 1815-1914
INTRODUCTION:
The nineteenth century brought dramatic changes to the world economy and society. Economic, political, social, cultural, and technological factors worked together to reshape how countries traded, how people migrated for work, and how capital moved across borders. This section explores how a global economy took shape during 1815-1914, driven by Britain's food needs, technological advances like railways and steamships, the darker side of colonialism, and the large-scale migration of Indian indentured labourers.
Three types of economic flows
Economists identify three main types of movement in international economic exchanges during this period:
1. Flow of trade – mainly trade in goods like cloth, wheat, cotton
2. Flow of labour – migration of people searching for employment
3. Flow of capital – movement of money for investments over long distances
All three flows were closely connected
and affected people's lives more deeply than ever before.
Class 10 Science – Chapter: How Do Organisms Reproduce?
A World Economy Takes Shape
Britain's food problem
In the nineteenth century, Britain faced a dilemma: should it grow its own food or import it? Population growth from the late eighteenth century increased demand for food grains, and as cities expanded and industries grew, food prices rose.
Under pressure from landowners, the British government restricted corn (grain) imports through laws called the Corn Laws. Industrialists and urban workers were unhappy with high food prices and forced the government to abolish the Corn Laws.
What happened after Corn Laws were scrapped?
After the Corn Laws were removed, food could be imported into Britain more cheaply than it could be produced within the country. British agriculture could not compete with imports, so vast areas of land were left uncultivated and thousands of workers lost their jobs. Many flocked to cities or migrated overseas.
As food prices fell, consumption in Britain rose. From the mid-nineteenth century, faster industrial growth also led to higher incomes, which meant more food imports.
Global response to British demand
Around the world—in Eastern Europe, Russia, America, and Australia—lands were cleared and food production expanded to meet British demand.
But it was not just about clearing land. Railways were needed to link farms to ports, new harbours had to be built, and people had to settle on these lands. All these activities required capital (which flowed from financial centres like London) and labour (which led to migration).
Mass migration
Nearly 50 million people emigrated from Europe
to America and Australia in the nineteenth century. Worldwide, an estimated 150 million people
left their homes and crossed oceans in search of better lives.
Chapter 3: The Making of a Global World — NCERT
Role of Technology
Why technology mattered
Technological advances like railways, steamships, and the telegraph transformed the nineteenth-century world. But these technologies were often driven by larger social, political, and economic needs—especially colonization, which stimulated new investments in faster and cheaper transport.
Example: The meat trade
Until the 1870s, animals were shipped alive from America to Europe and slaughtered on arrival. But live animals took up ship space, many died during the voyage, and meat remained an expensive luxury.
The development of refrigerated ships changed everything. Now animals could be slaughtered in America, Australia, or New Zealand and transported to Europe as frozen meat. This reduced costs and lowered meat prices, allowing Europe's poor to add meat, butter, and eggs to their previously monotonous diet of bread and potatoes.
Better living conditions created
social peace within European countries and increased support for imperialism
abroad.
Class 10 Science – Chapter 6: Control and Coordination
Late Nineteenth-Century Colonialism
The darker side
The nineteenth century was not only about expanding trade and prosperity. In many parts of the world, closer ties to the global economy meant loss of freedoms and livelihoods. Late-nineteenth-century European conquests brought painful economic, social, and ecological changes to colonized societies.
Carving up Africa
In 1885, major European powers met in
Berlin to divide Africa among themselves. Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany
became colonial powers, and the US also took colonies from Spain in the late
1890s.
Section: THE SENSE OF COLLECTIVE BELONGING (Chapter 2: Nationalism in India — NCERT)
Rinderpest, or the Cattle Plague
What was Rinderpest?
Rinderpest was a devastating cattle disease that arrived in Africa in the late 1880s. It was carried by infected cattle imported from British Asia to feed Italian soldiers invading Eritrea in East Africa.
How it spread
Entering Africa from the east, Rinderpest moved west "like forest fire," reaching Africa's Atlantic coast by 1892 and the southern tip (Cape) by 1897. Along the way, it killed 90 percent of the cattle.
Impact on African livelihoods
Historically, Africa had abundant land and a small population. Africans sustained themselves through land and livestock and rarely worked for wages. Europeans who came to Africa to establish plantations and mines faced a labour shortage because Africans saw no reason to work for wages when they had enough land and cattle.
Employers used many methods to force Africans into wage labour: heavy taxes (payable only through wages), inheritance laws that displaced peasants from land, and confinement of mineworkers in compounds.
The loss of cattle due to Rinderpest
destroyed African livelihoods. Planters, mine owners, and colonial governments
monopolized the remaining cattle and forced Africans into the labour market.
Control over scarce cattle resources enabled European colonizers to conquer and
subdue Africa.
Class 10 Students (Board Exam 2026)! Chapter 6 Life Processes complete notes.
Indentured Labour Migration from India
What was indentured labour?
In the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Indian and Chinese labourers went to work on plantations, in mines, and in construction projects around the world. Indian indentured workers were hired under contracts that promised return travel to India after five years of work.
Where did they come from?
Most Indian indentured workers came from present-day eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, central India, and dry districts of Tamil Nadu. In the mid-nineteenth century, these regions experienced cottage industry decline, rising land rents, and land clearance for mines and plantations. Poor people failed to pay rents, became indebted, and were forced to migrate.
Where did they go?
Main destinations were the Caribbean islands (Trinidad, Guyana, Surinam), Mauritius, and Fiji. Tamil migrants went to Ceylon and Malaya, and workers were also recruited for tea plantations in Assam.
How were they recruited?
Recruitment was done by agents who were paid commissions. Many migrants hoped to escape poverty, but agents often provided false information about destinations, work, and living conditions. Some migrants were even forcibly abducted.
Living and working conditions
On arrival, labourers found conditions harsh, with few legal rights. Nineteenth-century indenture has been called a "new system of slavery."
But workers found their own ways of surviving: some escaped (though they faced severe punishment if caught), and others created new forms of cultural expression blending old and new traditions. In Trinidad, the Muharram procession became a carnival called "Hosay" where workers of all races joined. Rastafarianism and "chutney music" are other examples of cultural fusion born from the indenture experience.
Most indentured workers stayed on after contracts ended, creating large communities of people of Indian descent in these countries (like Nobel Prize-winner V.S. Naipaul and cricketers Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan).
From the 1900s, India's nationalist
leaders opposed indenture as abusive and cruel, and it was abolished in 1921.
Class 10 Students (Board Exam 2026)! Chapter 4 Carbon and its Compounds
Indian Entrepreneurs Abroad
Bankers and traders
Indian bankers like the Shikaripuri Shroffs and Nattukottai Chettiars financed export agriculture in Central and Southeast Asia using their own funds or money borrowed from European banks. They had sophisticated systems for transferring money over long distances.
Indian traders and moneylenders also
followed European colonizers into Africa. Hyderabadi Sindhi traders established
trading emporia at busy ports worldwide, selling local and imported goods to
growing numbers of tourists.
Chapter 3 Metals & Non-metals
Indian Trade, Colonialism and the Global System
Decline of Indian cotton exports
Historically, fine Indian cottons were exported to Europe. But with British industrialization, the government imposed tariffs on cloth imports to protect local industries, and the inflow of Indian cotton began to decline.
From the early nineteenth century, British manufacturers sought overseas markets. Indian cotton textile exports dropped from 30 percent around 1800 to 15 percent by 1815, and below 3 percent by the 1870s.
What did India export instead?
While manufactured exports declined, raw material exports increased rapidly. Between 1812 and 1871, raw cotton exports rose from 5 percent to 35 percent. Indigo (used for dyeing cloth) and opium (exported to China) were also major exports.
Britain's trade surplus with India
British exports to India were much higher in value than British imports from India, giving Britain a trade surplus with India. Britain used this surplus to balance its trade deficits with other countries—a system called multilateral settlement.
India's trade surplus also helped
Britain pay "home charges" (remittances by British officials,
interest on India's debt, and pensions). Thus, India played a crucial role in
the late-nineteenth-century world economy.
Class 10 History (NCERT) Chapter 2 — Section 2: Differing Strands within the Movement
MCQs PYQ
1. The Corn Laws in Britain restricted
the import of:
A. Textiles
B. Food grains
C. Coal
D. Machinery
Answer:
B
2. After the Corn Laws were abolished,
British agriculture:
A. Expanded rapidly
B. Could not compete with cheap imports
C. Became more profitable
D. Stopped completely
Answer:
B
3. Refrigerated ships were important
because they:
A. Made voyages
faster
B. Allowed transport of perishable food like meat over long distances
C. Reduced ship size
D. Stopped diseases
Answer:
B
4. Rinderpest entered Africa in the:
A. 1850s
B. Late 1880s
C. 1920s
D. 1950s
Answer:
B
5. Rinderpest killed what percentage of
African cattle?
A. 50%
B. 70%
C. 90%
D. 100%
Answer:
C
6. Indentured labour from India mainly
went to:
A. Europe and America
B. Caribbean, Mauritius, Fiji
C. China and Japan
D. Africa only
Answer:
B
7. The indentured labour system was
abolished in:
A. 1857
B. 1905
C. 1921
D. 1947
Answer:
C
8. Indian cotton textile exports declined
because:
A. India stopped production
B. British imposed tariffs and industrialized
C. There was no demand
D. All cotton was used domestically
Answer:
B
9. Britain used its trade surplus with
India to:
A. Invest in Indian industries
B. Balance deficits with other countries
C. Stop all imports
D. Reduce Indian exports
Answer:
B
10.
The
Shikaripuri Shroffs and Nattukottai Chettiars were:
A. British officials
B. Indian bankers and traders who financed export agriculture
C. African tribal leaders
D. European industrialists
Answer:
B
Chapter 2: Acids, Bases & Salts.
Short
Answer Questions (PYQ)
Q1. What were the Corn Laws? Why were they abolished?
Answer: The Corn Laws restricted food grain imports into Britain to protect local landowners. They were abolished because industrialists and urban workers were unhappy with high food prices caused by these restrictions. After abolition, food could be imported cheaply, benefiting consumers but hurting British farmers.
Q2. How did technology help expand nineteenth-century trade?
Answer: Railways, steamships, and telegraph made transport faster and cheaper, helping move food and goods over long distances. Refrigerated ships allowed perishable foods like meat to be transported, lowering prices and increasing consumption. Colonization also stimulated investment in these technologies.
Q3. What was Rinderpest? How did it affect Africa?
Answer: Rinderpest was a cattle disease that arrived in Africa in the late 1880s and killed 90 percent of the cattle. This destroyed African livelihoods because Africans depended on livestock. European colonizers then monopolized remaining cattle and forced Africans into wage labour on plantations and mines.
Q4. Why did indentured labourers migrate from India?
Answer: Most came from regions experiencing cottage industry decline, rising rents, and land clearance for plantations and mines. Poor people became indebted and migrated hoping to escape poverty. Recruitment agents also tempted or forcibly took workers by providing false information about work and destinations.
Q5. How did India's role in global trade change in the nineteenth century?
Answer: Indian cotton textile exports
declined sharply due to British tariffs and industrialization. India began
exporting raw materials like raw cotton, indigo, and opium instead. Britain's
trade surplus with India helped balance Britain's deficits with other
countries, making India crucial to the global economy.
Class 10 Science Chapter-1: Chemical Reactions and Equations.
Long Answer Questions (PYQ)
Q1. Explain how a global agricultural economy developed in the nineteenth century.
Answer: Britain's population growth increased food demand, but the Corn Laws kept prices high by restricting imports. After the Corn Laws were abolished, cheap food imports made British agriculture uncompetitive, and workers lost jobs and migrated overseas. To meet British demand, lands were cleared for agriculture in Eastern Europe, Russia, America, and Australia. Railways were built to link farms to ports, which required capital (from London) and labour (through migration). Nearly 50 million Europeans migrated, and by 1890 a global agricultural economy had emerged, with food traveling thousands of miles and being grown by migrant workers on large farms.
Q2. Discuss the impact of Rinderpest on Africa and its people.
Answer: Rinderpest was a cattle disease that arrived in Africa in the late 1880s through infected cattle imported to feed Italian soldiers. It spread rapidly across Africa and killed 90 percent of the cattle by the late 1890s. This destroyed African livelihoods because Africans depended on land and livestock and rarely worked for wages. European colonizers monopolized the remaining scarce cattle resources and used heavy taxes, changed inheritance laws, and confined workers to force Africans into wage labour on plantations and mines. Control over cattle enabled Europeans to conquer and subdue Africa, showing the destructive impact of colonialism.
Q3. Describe the system of indentured labour migration from India. What were the living and working conditions?
Answer: In the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Indians migrated as indentured labourers to Caribbean islands, Mauritius, Fiji, Ceylon, and Malaya under contracts promising return after five years. Most came from eastern UP, Bihar, central India, and Tamil Nadu, where cottage industries declined, rents rose, and people became indebted. Recruitment agents tempted or forcibly abducted workers using false information. On arrival, conditions were harsh with few legal rights, and the system has been called "new slavery." Workers survived by escaping (risking punishment) or creating new cultural forms like "Hosay" carnival and chutney music, blending different traditions.
Conclusion
The nineteenth century saw the emergence of a truly global economy driven by
trade, labour migration, and capital flows. Britain's food needs reshaped
agriculture worldwide, new technologies like railways and refrigerated ships
transformed trade, but colonialism also brought suffering through conquest, forced
labour, and diseases like Rinderpest. India played a crucial role by exporting
raw materials and providing indentured labour, while also helping Britain
balance its global trade through surplus earnings. For board exams, focus on
examples like Corn Laws, Rinderpest, indentured labour, and India's changing
trade patterns—these are frequently tested.
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