This text focuses on the early encounters, 1790-1840, between the officers in the British East India Company and landowners and rulers of the local polities. Estate holders, kingdoms and small polities were pressured to comply with British interests for minerals and control of communication routes. Large revenue settlements are discussed in view of the estate holders’ Mughal rights, and the impact of surveys for getting control of people and land shows the importance of modern science in imperial conquest. Finally, the British colonial government and private capital simultaneously intensified mineral extraction and commercial control of markets and routes, including attempts at securing the land routes to reach China’s markets.