Post

In 1770, a famine struck Bengal that is estimated to have killed ten million people, nearly a third of the population. Failed monsoons brought drought that dried rivers and ruined rice harvests. The East India Company, a British trading corporation that had taken over Bengal’s revenues in the 1760s, kept taxes high and gave little relief. Food prices tripled, merchants hoarded grain, and hunger mixed with smallpox emptied villages and left lasting scars on the land and its people.