Tag: history

With the growing demand for rubber in the mid-nineteenth  century, the Mundurucu peoples of the Brazilian Amazon who lived in villages on high ground and cultivated manioc, began to collect latex from wild rubber trees for supplying  to traders. Gradually, they descended to live in trading posts and became completely dependent on traders.

 In many cases, across India, from Mizoram to Kerala, dense forests have survived only because villages protected them in sacred groves known as sarnas, devarakudu, kan, rai, etc. 

Diversity in forests has been disappearing very quickly. Disappearance of forests is called deforestation. The process of deforestation began many centuries ago, but became more systematic and extensive during the colonial period.

Shifting cultivation is a traditional practice of agriculture prevalent in various parts of Asia, Africa and South-America. It is known as ladang in south-east Asia, milpa in Central America, Chitemene or tavy in Africa and Chena in Sri Lanka. In India it has different local names like dhya, penda, bewar, nevad, Jhum, podu.

A society that has similar kinds of people, especially where there are no significant ethnic differences is called as a homogeneous society. Germany and Sweden were highly homogeneous at one point of time.

The economic policies pursued by the colonial government in India were concerned more with the protection of the economic interests of their home country than with the development of the Indian economy. Such policies brought about a fundamental change in the structure of the Indian economy i.e., transforming the country into a supplier of raw materials and consumer of finished industrial products from Britain. 

Bombay was handed over to the British as part of the dowry when King Charles II of England married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza in 1661.

The very first section of the Underground in the world opened on 10 January 1863 between Paddington and Farrington Street in London. On that day 10,000 passengers were carried, with trains running every ten minutes.

Private landlord- A private landlord can increase his earning by renting out tenements. This was the case during the later part of nineteenth century and early twentieth century in London. The situation was same in Bombay during the early twentieth century.

During the War years, many women got employment in the factories because most of the men were busy at the battlefronts. Once the War was over, women gradually lost their jobs. Most of them were forced to household duties. Some women began to start tailoring, washing and matchbox making to earn some money.