Military Intelligence and Early Modern Warfare: The Dutch East India Company and China 1622–1624

2014 ◽  
pp. 113-135
Author(s):  
Barend Noordam
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Military Intelligence ◽  
Modern Warfare

“NOTHING IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE”: GLOBAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE TIME REGIME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 821-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
SEBASTIAN CONRAD
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New Technology ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Time Regime ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Way

When European clocks first arrived in seventeenth-century Japan they generated a commotion. The highly complex but also very precise instruments had been brought to Nagasaki by the Dutch East India Company that monopolized the sparse and highly regulated trade between Japan and Europe for more than two centuries. As an expression of the technological sophistication achieved in early modern Europe, mechanical clocks were hi-tech products of their time. They operated with a spring to store the energy, and their making required highly developed skills in casting and metalwork. The new technology made it possible to emancipate the measurement of time from sunshine and to achieve an evenness of temporal rhythms, not only during the day, but also at night.

scholarly journals Dutch trade and patronage networks as facilitators of transcontinental mobility in early modern Russia and the VOC Cape

Historia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
B. Gorelik ◽  
G.J. Schutte
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
East India Company ◽  
High Status ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
The Social ◽  
Upward Social Mobility ◽  
Identity Transformations

The Swellengrebels were the most important family at the Cape under Dutch East India Company (VOC) rule to become members of the Netherlands governing elite. Hendrik Swellengrebel was the colony's only locally-born governor, while his father and other members of the family at the Cape were born in Russia. Their migration between Europe, Africa and Asia reflected the development and functioning of the Dutch trade and patrimonial networks. Even on the periphery, at the Cape and among Dutch expatriates in Russia, those networks provided opportunities for overseas employment and upward social mobility. The case of the Swellengrebels shows that not only goods but also people could make their way from Russia to the Cape and the VOC Asia. Patronage enabled both spatial and upward social mobility. Keeping mutually beneficial relations with influential patrons such as Nicolaes Witsen, members of the Swellengrebel family navigated their way within the Dutch trade networks and achieved prosperity and a high status in such culturally diverse societies as Russia and the Cape. The social advancement, identity transformations and transcontinental migrations of the Swellengrebel family demonstrate the materiality of transcontinental patrimonial networks in the early modern period.

scholarly journals Administering Empire. Business Diplomacy in Early Modern Sweden: The Cases of Abraham Cabiljau and the Gothenburg Company

2022 ◽  
pp. 21-51
Author(s):  
Kaarle Wirta ◽  
Katja Tikka ◽  
Jaakko Björklund
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Commercial Law ◽  
International Commerce ◽  
Military Recruitment ◽  
New Era ◽  
Economic Relationships ◽  
Northern European

The article illustrates the importance of business diplomacy practised by free agents, who navigated and negotiated between northern European empires for widespread commercial, legal and administrative developments. Abraham Cabiljau’s career is an example from the early modern Swedish empire, which stands on the threshold of a new era. In the Swedish empire, Cabiljau was involved in several different sectors, from military recruitment to the development of state accounting and administration of international trade. He represents the Swedish empire’s vast economic relationships with international merchant networks operating in a broad spectrum of military and commercial arenas. The Swedish empire was economically dependent on the financial resources of the merchants in Amsterdam, and economic prosperity was not the sole contribution of these merchants. The education, knowledge and connections provided by Cabiljau greatly enhanced the administration and organisation of Sweden’s international trade by importing a new legal mindset and organisational culture. In return, northern mining resources and Baltic commerce were alluring for Dutch merchants. We argue that the modelling of international organisations was an essential part of Swedish economic development. However, the first Swedish trading companies remained an experimental attempt to transplant the Dutch East India Company (VOC) model to Sweden. Individuals like Cabiljau represent key actors who ignited, taught and promoted commercial law development in Sweden, on which international commerce was later built upon, with long-lasting impacts.

Comparisons and Consequences in Global Perspective, 1500–1750

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merry Wiesner-Hanks
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Missionary Work ◽  
The Reformation

This chapter places the Protestant Reformation in a global perspective in two ways, using methods and examining themes common in world history as a field. First, it compares the Reformation to other religious transformations that were occurring at roughly the same time, including the early development of Sikhism, reform movements within Chinese Confucianism, and the reinvigoration of Islam in the Songhay Empire by King Askia the Great. Second, it examines the spread of Protestant ideology and institutions in the increasingly interconnected early modern world, with the colonies of the Dutch East India Company and the missionary work of the Moravians serving as the primary examples of such cultural encounters. It argues that moving beyond Europe to adopt a broader spatial scale enhances our understanding of the religious dynamism of the period, which does not diminish the importance of the Protestant Reformation, but allows us to view it in new ways.

How and Why the Dutch East India Company Became Competitive in Intra-Asian Trade in East Asia in the 1630s

Itinerario ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 41-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Van Dyke
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
East Asia ◽  
World Economy ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Cape Of Good Hope ◽  
The World ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Global Operations

Many of the principles we know today about the world economy were first discovered in Early Modern Asia. The Portuguese and the Spanish were the first to extend their sphere of trade to encompass the world. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the English, Dutch, French, Danes, Swedes and others, all made their way past the Cape of Good Hope seeking their share of the Asian trade. By the middle of the century, one of them became so successful that, aside from being the envy of the others, they set a new standard of efficiency in global operations. It was of course the Dutch.

scholarly journals Labouring Transformations of Amphibious Monsters: Exploring Early Modern Globalization, Diversity, and Shifting Clusters of Labour Relations in the Context of the Dutch East India Company (1600–1800)

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (S27) ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
Matthias van Rossum
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
Trading Company ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Early Modern Globalization

AbstractEarly modern globalization depended on labour-intensive production and transport of global commodities. Throughout the Dutch Empire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries labour was mobilized through a variety of different labour relations (especially casual, contract, slave, and corvée labour). The mobilization of these workers often entailed movements over short, but more often long, distances. Port cities were crucial nodal points connecting various sites of production and circuits of distribution. Furthermore, these ports were themselves also important working environments (ranging from transport and storage, to production and security). As a result, workers from various regional, social, and cultural backgrounds worked in the same environments and were confronted with each other – as well as with the legal and disciplining regimes of early modern urban and corporate authorities. This article studies the development of labour relations in the port work of the Dutch Asian empire, looking at the mobilization and control of labour for dock work (loading and unloading of ships) and transport in its urban surroundings. It will analyse and compare the development of the need for labour, the employment of different sets of labour relations, and the mechanisms of control that developed from it. As the largest trading company active in Asia (up to the 1750s), the case of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) is crucial in understanding the impact of early imperial and capitalist development in changing global social and labour relations.

scholarly journals Knowledge-making Endeavours of the Dutch East India Company in Malabar, 1663-1795

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Meera Muralidharan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Natural World ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
English East India Company

<p>The Malabar Coast of south-western India, presently comprising the modern state of Kerala, played a unique role in the history of Indian Ocean trade in the early modern period. Of the spices involved in expanding trade networks, the most important was pepper (Piper nigrum), indigenous to the region. Malabar’s fame as a garden of spices (prompting European authors to call it the Pepper Coast) attracted ships from Europe, Africa, Arabia and East Asia. The Portuguese trading company, Estado da India, was the sole European enterprise that traded in Malabar in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, in the seventeenth century, the Dutch challenged Portugal’s monopoly on trade. In 1663, the Dutch successfully captured the Portuguese settlements in Malabar including their major fort in Cochin. The Dutch remained in Malabar for the next hundred and thirty-two years after which the settlements passed to the English East India Company.  The primary motive behind European territorial expansion to Asia was not the production of knowledge; rather, trading networks required a detailed understanding of the natural world, especially its land, flora and fauna. By the late seventeenth century, the pursuit of knowledge, commerce and colonies, and a nascent patriotism were bound together. In this context, the present thesis examines the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Dutch) trade in Malabar. The thesis is set in the period between 1663 (when it first took over the territory from the Portuguese) and 1795 (when the Dutch possessions were usurped by the English East India Company). Two significant themes pursued in this context are how the VOC produced knowledge of the region, and how that knowledge-production relied heavily on patronage from the Dutch Republic as well as inputs from a variety of local actors in Malabar itself, as well as the Company’s other territories. Nowhere can these themes be better explained than in the synergistic relationship of the sciences of botany and cartography.   The study analyses a variety of works produced about Malabar. This includes the Hortus Malabaricus, a seventeenth-century botanical work, which is analysed in the context of the development of botany in the Dutch Republic and early modern European trade in medicinal plants. Alongside natural history works, the study examines the VOC maps, topographical plans, and surveys of forts and gardens in Malabar to understand why the Dutch enterprise in Malabar failed in the eighteenth century. While scientific botany reflected the European need to master the natural world, the science of cartography reflected the need to govern it. In contrast to the Golden image of the Republic (in the seventeenth century), arts and science were not effectively promoted by the Company administration. By re-examining and contextualising official and unofficial records of Dutch trading settlements in Asia, this thesis argues that contrary to dominant historiography, ‘science’ was not used as an effective tool by the Company in Malabar.  Using Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer’s theory of ‘boundary objects’, the chapters in the thesis address the heterogeneity in Company knowledge-production. The first half of the thesis focuses on botanical knowledge-production and the many actors involved in the making of early modern natural history works. The second half of the thesis examines geographical and bureaucratic knowledge-production and a significant shift in the Company policies from trade to land revenue in the second half of the eighteenth century. By historicising how knowledge was produced, the thesis attempts to understand if ‘knowledge-making’ was crucial for ‘profit-making’ in Malabar. This thesis thereby explores the intersectional character of early modern knowledge-production.</p>

scholarly journals Knowledge-making Endeavours of the Dutch East India Company in Malabar, 1663-1795

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Meera Muralidharan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Natural World ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
English East India Company

<p>The Malabar Coast of south-western India, presently comprising the modern state of Kerala, played a unique role in the history of Indian Ocean trade in the early modern period. Of the spices involved in expanding trade networks, the most important was pepper (Piper nigrum), indigenous to the region. Malabar’s fame as a garden of spices (prompting European authors to call it the Pepper Coast) attracted ships from Europe, Africa, Arabia and East Asia. The Portuguese trading company, Estado da India, was the sole European enterprise that traded in Malabar in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, in the seventeenth century, the Dutch challenged Portugal’s monopoly on trade. In 1663, the Dutch successfully captured the Portuguese settlements in Malabar including their major fort in Cochin. The Dutch remained in Malabar for the next hundred and thirty-two years after which the settlements passed to the English East India Company.  The primary motive behind European territorial expansion to Asia was not the production of knowledge; rather, trading networks required a detailed understanding of the natural world, especially its land, flora and fauna. By the late seventeenth century, the pursuit of knowledge, commerce and colonies, and a nascent patriotism were bound together. In this context, the present thesis examines the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Dutch) trade in Malabar. The thesis is set in the period between 1663 (when it first took over the territory from the Portuguese) and 1795 (when the Dutch possessions were usurped by the English East India Company). Two significant themes pursued in this context are how the VOC produced knowledge of the region, and how that knowledge-production relied heavily on patronage from the Dutch Republic as well as inputs from a variety of local actors in Malabar itself, as well as the Company’s other territories. Nowhere can these themes be better explained than in the synergistic relationship of the sciences of botany and cartography.   The study analyses a variety of works produced about Malabar. This includes the Hortus Malabaricus, a seventeenth-century botanical work, which is analysed in the context of the development of botany in the Dutch Republic and early modern European trade in medicinal plants. Alongside natural history works, the study examines the VOC maps, topographical plans, and surveys of forts and gardens in Malabar to understand why the Dutch enterprise in Malabar failed in the eighteenth century. While scientific botany reflected the European need to master the natural world, the science of cartography reflected the need to govern it. In contrast to the Golden image of the Republic (in the seventeenth century), arts and science were not effectively promoted by the Company administration. By re-examining and contextualising official and unofficial records of Dutch trading settlements in Asia, this thesis argues that contrary to dominant historiography, ‘science’ was not used as an effective tool by the Company in Malabar.  Using Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer’s theory of ‘boundary objects’, the chapters in the thesis address the heterogeneity in Company knowledge-production. The first half of the thesis focuses on botanical knowledge-production and the many actors involved in the making of early modern natural history works. The second half of the thesis examines geographical and bureaucratic knowledge-production and a significant shift in the Company policies from trade to land revenue in the second half of the eighteenth century. By historicising how knowledge was produced, the thesis attempts to understand if ‘knowledge-making’ was crucial for ‘profit-making’ in Malabar. This thesis thereby explores the intersectional character of early modern knowledge-production.</p>

Asian Despotism? Mughal Government as Seen From the Dutch East India Company Factory in Surat

1999 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Tracy
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
European Trade ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Asian Government ◽  
Over Time

AbstractIn the current debate about early modern European perceptions of Asia, the rich documentation produced by the Dutch East India Company has been largely overlooked. The Surat factory, whose correspondence is extant from 1636, was in close connection with the centers of Mughal authority, and the factory here, unlike in some other Dutch outposts, was never allowed to be transformed into a fortified enclosure from which the "hatmen" could challenge the agents of the state with impunity. In published accounts of Asian government, including those written in Dutch, "despots" held sway over lands whose only law was the ruler's whim. But Company documents from Surat (and elsewhere in India) consistently depict local officials as manipulating for their own profit their control over European trade, often in flagrant disregard of trading privileges carefully negotiated with the Mughal court. The image of an all-powerful sovereign, though not altogether absent, is sometimes evoked as a way of explaining to Company superiors in Batavia (Djakarta) or Amsterdam why their servants in Surat could not do as they were bidden. But if Company men developed over time a credible local knowledge of Mughal government, they were no different from stay-at-home European Christians in their view of the Mughal realm's Muslim elites: in this age of continuing warfare between Christendom and Islamdom, a "faithless Moor" was always and everywhere the same.

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