I'm Angela O'Dell and you are listening to real cool history for kids, a podcast show featuring history stories told from a biblical worldview. Welcome to episode 25 of Real Cool History for Kids. This is abandoned places of the world, number four.

Our story today starts back during the age of exploration and colonization in the year

1602. This is the year that Queen Elizabeth I authorized the establishment of the East India Company.

This company was made up of a group of London merchants who held high hopes of establishing

a spice trade in the beautiful Indonesian islands situated between

Southeast Asia and Australia. Europe at this time was split between the Catholics and the Protestants,

each warring and struggling to become the strongest in the most powerful world religion.

Elizabeth I of England was a Protestant who very much wanted to gain the edge on the gathering of riches from the east, and the formation

of a charter company held great promise of fulfilling this desire. A charter company is a special type of company that is either sponsored or funded by the government or a group of wealthy people.

Usually as is the case with this type of charter company, there is great profit to be made and split between its investors.

There was, however, one problem with the British East India Company's plan.

The Portuguese held the preeminent position in the Indonesian islands because of a special treaty

that divided the new rich territories between the Catholic nations of Spain and Portugal.

It is important to know that spices were extremely valuable during this historical period and by the time the East India

company was organized, Portuguese Explorer Vasko de Gama had already established trading post in the Indonesian islands.

When the company's desired trade routes ran into conflict with the Portuguese traders, the Englishmen were forced to focus their trading efforts

in India instead. The diamond-shaped country of India, which hangs down into the waters the Bay of

Bengal and the Arabian Sea, has a wonderfully rich and complex history and culture.

At the time about which we are learning, the Mughal Empire, the ruling power since the Middle Ages, was coming to a close.

But it was with these rulers that the East India company set up trade.

The company set up large trading outposts, many of which became cities that still exist today.

These outposts were the shipping sites for highly valuable exports, including cotton, silk, sugar, tea, and even unfortunately the drug opium.

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