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Indian Merchants and the Western Indian Ocean: The Early Seventeenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Ashin Das Gupta
Ashin Das Gupta
Affiliation:
National Library of India, Calcutta
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Extract

Researches in Indian economic history have stimulated curiosity about India's connections with the Indian Ocean area. Work done on European expansion in the non-European world has also contributed to the development of this area of enquiry. Recent writings on the Indian Ocean and the Indian maritime merchant have indicated important possibilities of further research. I shall first briefly consider some of these, and then pass on to an examination of a concrete historical problem where Indian economic history meets the history of European expansion and the two themes are held together by the Indian Ocean.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1985 , pp. 481 - 499
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

1 Reeves, Peter, Broeze, Frank and McPherson, Kenneth, Ports and Port Cities as Places of Interaction in the Indian Ocean, A Preliminary Historical Bibliography (Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Western Australia, 09 1981).Google Scholar According to the classification adopted in this bibliography the kind of area I discuss would be the northwestern Indian Ocean. A collection of papers presented to this conference was published in South Asia (1979). Also see McPherson, K. ‘The History of the Indian Ocean Region: A Conceptual Framework’, The Great Circle, vol. 3, no. 1 (04 1981), pp. 10–19Google Scholar. I note that the Second International Conference on the Indian Ocean, scheduled for December 1984 at Perth, will focus more on the networks of interaction.

2 For a very liberal Anglo-Saxon definition see Frank Broeze in the Preliminary Newsletter, The Great Circle, 1978.Google ScholarPearson, M. N. comments on the scope of maritime history in his introduction to Coastal Western India (New Delhi, 1981)Google Scholar. I wonder whether we may usefully think of a shade of difference between maritime history and oceanic history. In any case the history of sailing is not the same thing as the history of connections built through the mediation of the sea or the history of men as moulded by the sea. Pearson also points out, and quite rightly, that ships at sea can hardly be understood except in terms of the society which produced them and kept them at sea.

3 For a recent important attempt to explore the nature of coastal society see Pearson, M. N., ‘Littoral Society: A Preliminary Investigation’, paper presented at the Biennial Conference of the Australian Association of Asian Studies,Adelaide,1984.Google Scholar There is the well-known anthropological analysis of maritime culture in Prins, H. J., Sailing From Lamu (Assen, 1965)Google Scholar. Arasaratnam's studies include: ‘The Dutch East India Company and the Kingdom of Madura, 1650–1700’, Tamil Culture, vol. x, no. 1 (01–03 1963), pp. 48–74Google Scholar; ‘Politics and Commerce in the Coastal Kingdoms of Tamilnad, 1650–1700’, South Asia, I (1971), pp. 1–20Google Scholar; ‘Pre-Modern Commerce and Society in Southern Asia’, Inaugural Lecture at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 1972. For the sea-people of Southeast Asia: Lapian, A. B., ‘Le rôle des Orang Laut dans l'histoire de Riau’, Archipel, XVIII (1979)Google Scholar, and Sopher, David, The Sea Nomads (National Museum of Singapore, 1965, 1977Google Scholar). For the maritime Arabs, Hakima, A. M. Abu, History of Eastern Arabia, The Rise of Kuwait and Bahrain (Beirut, 1973).Google Scholar

4 In one of his many charming but little-known pieces, ‘On the Eighteenth Century as a Category of Indonesian History: A Reconsideration of Van Leur’, Documenlatieblad Werkgroup 18e-Eeuw (February, 1979), Boxer conceded that to write the history of the Dutch in Indonesia is not writing Indonesian history, but he added that it would be unwise to exclude them altogether. The main tendency now among the historians of Southeast Asia is to try and reconstruct the Malay-Indonesian world; by and large they are critical of older histories concerned with the Europeans in the area. Barbara, and Andaya, Leonard, A History of Malaysia (Londons, Macmillan, 1982)Google Scholar sums up much of this trend. Warren, J. F., The Sulu Zone, 1768–1898 (Singapore University Press, 1981)Google Scholar is an example of a historian using European documents to explore the non-European world. On the whole there is more of the older kind of Euro-centric writing among Indian historians than among their peers in Asian history. Mathew, K. S., Portuguese Trade with India in the Sixteenth Century (New Delhi, 1983)Google Scholar, a recent example.

5 The important French historian Geneviève Bouchon in her review of Pearson's Merchants and Rulers of Gujarat (1973) has taken issue with Pearson for harping on the limitations of the Portuguese: cf. ‘Pour une histoire du Gujarat du XVe au X Vile siècle’, Mare Luso Indicum, IV (1980), 145–58Google Scholar. She herself demonstrates in her own work the utility of close and detailed analysis of specific problems: cf. Mamale de Cananor, un adversaire de l'Inde portugaise, 1507–1528 (Paris, 1975)Google Scholar. Marshall's, P. J. views are still best read in his East India Fortunes, The British in Bengalin the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar. Professor Arasaratnam has now completed a rich historical exploration of the Indian world along the Coromandel coast and his book, Merchants, Companies and Commerce in the Commandel Coast, 1650–1740, awaits early publication.

6 For a succinct statement of the Gopal thesis see Gopal, Surendra, ‘Nobility and the Mercantile Community in India, XVI–XVII Centuries’, Journal of Indian History, vol. L, pt III (12 1972), pp. 793–803.Google Scholar

7 I have already referred to the works of Pearson and Arasaratnam. In my essay, Malabar in Asian Trade, 1740–1800 (Cambridge, 1967)Google Scholar, I tried to explore the coastal society of Kerala with the help of Dutch documents. Very recently S. Krishna Iyer has supplemented the picture from Malayalam sources in a thesis submitted for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Kerala, Trivandrum. His thesis is entitled ‘Travancore–Dutch Relations, 1729–1741’. The important work done by Van Santen, H. W., ‘De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, 1620–1660’ (Leiden Ph.D., 1982)Google Scholar is, I believe, soon to appear in English translation.

8 Steensgaard, N., Carracks, Caravans and Companies (Copenhagen, 1972)Google Scholar is the most discussed book which has underlined the crucial importance of the fall of Portuguese Hormuz in 1622. Professor M. A. P. Meilink-Roelofsz has criticized Steensgaard for concentrating too much on the western Indian Ocean. See her review article ‘The Structure of Trade in Asia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Mare Luso-Indicum, IV (1980), 1–41Google Scholar. Since I am discussing the western Indian Ocean I have no hesitation in accepting the significance of the fall of Hormuz but I seek to show what it meant for the Indian and Asian world. As to the character of Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean, I shall only cite Professor Boxer when he says: ‘Whatever the state of affairs in Afonso de Albuquerque's day and generation, by the seventeenth century the Portuguese in Asia were no longer primarily crusaders but traders’, Portuguese India in the Mid-Seventeenth Century (O.U.P., Delhi, 1980), p. 42.Google Scholar

9 For a recent assessment of Van den Broecke see the admirable introduction in Kolff, D. H. A. and Van Santen, H. W. (eds), De Geshrieflen van Francisco Pelsaert (The Hague, 1979).Google Scholar

10 For these first visits and information gathered see Coolhaas, , Van den Broecke in Azie, I, 28–44Google Scholar (for the 1614 visit) and 80–6 (for the 1616 visit). The picture I have presented is brief and therefore simplified. There was no consistent Portuguese policy, at any rate there was little of consistent conduct. The Portuguese Jesuit, Jeronimo Lobo, who travelled in these parts at this time supports Van den Broecke when he says that the ruler of Qishn ‘was an old and loyal friend of the Portuguese’: cf. Costa, M. G. Da (ed.), The Itinerario of Jeronimo Lobo (London, Hakluyt, 1984), p. 49Google Scholar. But while Van den Broecke was at Shihr a ship belonging to the brother of the ruler of Qishn was attacked by them. Indian ships were often molested by them without much regard to existing friendship. In the season 1619/20, for instance, four warships of the Portuguese went into the Red Sea ‘to intercept the junckes, thereby to reduce the Indians into conformity and subjection’, English Factories, 1618–1621, p. 206–7.Google Scholar

11 For Van den Broecke's encounter with Malik Seto see Van den Broecke in Azie, I, 81Google Scholar. Pearson has a valuable appendix to his Coastal Western India which tabulates Portuguese passes lent to Indian vessels between 1618 and 1622. From these figures it would appear that the Adil Shah of Bijapur had about three to four of these large ships of around six hundred tons and upwards, counting three khandies to a ton. The Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar had probably two. Sidi Sarur (differently spelled in the documents) was nakhuda of one of these large Ahmadnagar ships. This ship was captured by the English in 1621 and was in fact owned by Malik Ambar. Sidi Sarur was a good friend of Ambar's. See English Factories, 1618–21, p. 296–7.Google Scholar Letters exchanged between the king of Portugal and the viceroy at Goa clarify some of the points about Dabhol. The important role of the great ships of Dabhol in sustaining the customs at Hormuz was mentioned in the royal letter of 31 January 1615: cf. de Bulhao, R. A. (ed.), Documentos Remettidos da India III (Lisboa, 1885), 185–6Google Scholar. For the reluctance to grant cartazes see the royal letter of 21 February 1615 in ibid., 267–8. For the distrust of the smaller craft, the royal letter of 24 March 1618 in Documentos Remettidos da India, V (Lisboa, 1935, ed. unspecified), 100–1Google Scholar. The royal letter of 6 February 1616 described Ahmadnagar as the wall that stood between the Estado da India and the Mughal, see Documentos Remettidos, III, 382–3Google Scholar. I am grateful to Mr Sanjay Subramanian of the Delhi School of Economics for kindly locating and translating these letters for me. For Portuguese policy towards the Deccan states the reader may also see P. Pissurlencar, ‘The Extinction of the Nizamshahis’, in Tikekar, S. R. (ed.), Sardesai Commemoration Volume (Bombay, 1938)Google Scholar. A thumb-nail sketch of Dabhol's history in Maharashtra State Gazetteer, Ratnagiri District (Bombay, 1962), pp. 138f.Google Scholar

12 The port of Dabhol went out of its way to show its kindness to visiting English ships, even when the intention of the callers was clearly unfriendly. For an instance of this see the reception of Captain Bonner in 1618 in English Factories, 1618–21, p. 69.Google Scholar Captain Bickley on a símílar occasion in 1620 noted: ‘I knowe no such place in all that coaste as Dabulle for kind usadge ore refreshinge for sick men if occasione should be’, in Ibid., p. 233. For perceptive comments on the general attack on Dabhol by the north Europeans see Macleod, N., De Oost-Indische Compagnie als zeemogendheid in Azie vol. I, 1602–1632 (Rijswijk, 1927), pp. 401f.Google Scholar

13 To follow the changing character of the mercantile fleet during the seventeenth century in any detail will take us much beyond the scope of the present paper. I have indicated the composition of the fleet of Hindustan, as these ships calling at Mocha were known at the turn of the eighteenth century in my paper ‘Gujarati Merchants and the Red Sea Trade, 1700–1725’, in Kling, B. B. and Pearson, M. N. (eds), The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia Before Dominion (Hawaii University Press, Honolulu, 1979)Google Scholar. The role of the medium ship is clear in that kind of situation. The small craft appear prominently in all the relevant documentation of the early seventeenth century, for example in the shipping lists provided by Van den Broecke. I may add that the two large Dabhol vessels which Van den Broecke saw at Mocha in 1616 belonged to the thanadar Aga Raza. I have taken six hundred tons as the measure of the great ship following the Batavia Dag Register which gave 300 lasts for a large ship and 100 lasts for a yacht: cf. Batavia Dag Register, I, 263Google Scholar, a last being the equivalent of two tons. Immediately below in the text I try to indicate the changing relations between the merchant and the ruler. The classic picture of the merchants demanding and obtaining protection at sea through the Mughal is in the report of the meeting between Thomas Roe and the Itimaduddaula and Asaf Khan at Ahmadabad in 1618. The two topmost men in the empire personally attempted to obtain English safe-conduct for the imperial vessel Jahangir before it sailed for Mocha because the principal merchants would not freight on it otherwise: cf. English Factories, 1618–23, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar Van Santen makes the important point, although in a completely different context, that in 1645 the Mughal authorities were making it obligatory on merchants to put some of their freight on royal vessels and that by 1663 the Mughal vessels had been much reduced because of representations by the merchants that the royal ships were hurting their own freight trade: cf. Santen, H. W. Van, De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, 1620–60, pp. 77–8.Google Scholar The fact that a balance of blackmail as between land and sea was being established was clear as early as 1619. Khurram was urged by the merchants not to yield to English threats on the assumption that they would not dare to attack at sea when they had so much property on land: cf. English Factories, 1618–23, 174–5.

14 Coen's first letter on the Red Sea was dated 22 October 1615 and is in Beschieden, I, 230, followed by two others in October 1616; the intention to attack Dabhol ships indicated pp. 237–9.Google Scholar The discussions at Bantam and Batavia in 1616 and then in 1620 which changed the justification can be followed in Beschieden, III, 380–1, 619–20.Google Scholar Also relevant is Coen's correspondence with Van den Broecke in ibid., 184, 212. Coen's displeasure at ineptitude in ibid., 230.

15 The English attacks on Dabhol in 1621/22 and the following season can be followed in some detail in English Factories, 1618–21, pp. 286–9, 297–7, 300 and English Factories, 1622–23, p. 228.Google Scholar

16 The furious reactions to the piratical attack by the Dutch is best followed in the letters of Coen himself, who also faithfully notes the dismay of Van den Broecke: cf. Beschieden, I, 696–7, 721, 753–4Google Scholar. The English noticed how Ambar had appealed to Khurram and how positive the response had been: cf. English Factories, 1618–21, p. 274.Google Scholar For the reprisals at Mocha see Batavia Dag Register, I, 30.

17 The English attack on the ships of Surat in 1623 can be read in English Factories, 1622–23, pp. 264–71.Google Scholar The sense in which we may speak of a Red Sea fleet in the late seventeenth century would be inappropriate in these early years, but there is no doubt that the English managed to capture all the great ships of Surat and Cambay in this swoop. Van den Broecke was called upon to help release the royal ships but pleaded inability. He was put under house arrest but honourably released when the accord with the English was reached. In 1624 when the Mughal authorities struck, Van den Broecke abandoned his strict neutrality and helped several Indian vessels by lending them the Dutch flag. See Van den Broecke in Azie, II, 285–95.Google Scholar As to efforts for peace between the Dutch and Dabhol see Generale Missiven, I, 152Google Scholar which indicates how several noblemen and merchants of Surat were trying in 1625 for it.

18 For the visit of Pieter Vlack to Dabhol at the end of 1634 see Dunlop, H. (ed.), Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis der Oostindische Compagnie in Perzie, I, 515Google Scholar. Van den Broecke at Surat noted how the English effort to revive trade at Dabhol were rebuffed in 1628 and how pleased the merchants of Surat were as a result: cf. Van den Broecke, II, 340.Google Scholar