India

The Romantic era witnessed the transformation of India from the Mughal realm (1526–c.1761) into a British Crown colony (1858–1947). After India was largely under the rule of the East India Company in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the British Government began to restrict the merchant federation’s autonomy in 1773. In 1858, it seized control of the Indian subcontinent, subsuming two-thirds of its landmass into the British Empire. European women had no official standing in British India, either under the East India Company, or under the Raj (1858–1947). They made the passage to India as wives, sisters, and daughters, or sailed in the so-called “fishing fleets” that headed for the subcontinent after 1800 (de Courcy 2012, 9–16).