X. The Run to the Coast: Comparative Notes on Early Dutch and English Expansion and State Formation in Asia

Itinerario ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Blussé
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Expansion Process ◽  
Consolidation Process ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
English East India Company ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Fernand Braudel

Certain stages of the European expansion process into Asia during the Age of Commercial Capitalism lend themselves well to the comparative historical approach because of the startling similarities and contrasts they offer. The Dutch and English commercial leaps forward into the Orient, for instance, occurred at the same time in the organisational framework of chartered East India Companies - the English East India Company (EIC) and the Dutch Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) — which, moreover, chose the same theatre of action: Southeast Asia (Banten, Spice Islands) and South Asia (Surat and Coromandel). But although the aims, modes of operation and organisation of the two companies had much in common, these nonetheless each finally carved out their own sphere of influence in the trading world of Asia - the Dutch in Southeast Asia and the English in South Asia. While this consolidation process was taking place, the EIC and VOC gradually shed their semblance of being purely maritime trading organisations and, towards the second half of the eighteenth century, acquired the character of territorial powers. A shift in the balance of power also occurred between the two companies: if the Dutch were still paramount in the seventeenth century, the English totally overshadowed them as powerbrokers in Asian waters during the eighteenth. Did this transition of maritime hegemony occur gradually or should we rather speak of a ‘passage brusque et rapide’ as Fernand Braudel has suggested? Was it, as the traditional explanation has it, the inevitable outcome of the decline of the Dutch Republic to a second-rate power in Europe, or were local Asian developments, be they political or commercial, also involved?

From Japan to Manila and Back to Europe: The Abortive English Trade with Tonkin in the 1670s

Itinerario ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hoang Anh Tuan
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Precious Metals ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Regional Trade ◽  
Considerable Success ◽  
English East India Company ◽  
Silver Trade

It is a well-known fact that the reconstitution of the English East India Company in the 1660s caused a significant revolution in its Asia trade. Coincidently with this improvement, the Company also attempted to expand its trade to East Asian countries, using its Bantam Agent, its only base in Southeast Asia, as a springboard for launching this strategy. Around 1668 the Court of Committees in London was looking for an appropriate opportunity to re-open relations with Japan through the channel of Cambodia. The plan of re-entering the Japan trade – in this the directors in London might have been influenced by their officials in Bantam or they themselves had overestimated its prospects – was then put into practice at the end of 1671. Forthe Company itself, trading with Japan would obviously be profitable, as it had observed at first hand the considerable success of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) over the last decades. The English in the East also grew convinced that the regional trade between Japan and other areas would reap extra profits for the Company. Among the selected targets was Tonkin, present-day northern Vietnam. At that time, its silks and other textiles were highly valued and could fetch good prices in Japan. Traders who took Tonkinese silks to Nagasaki were then able to purchase Japanese silver and copper. These precious metals would be brought back to invest in local merchandize at other factories to keep up the flow of the Japan trade and to supply marketable goods for Europe. The ultimate aim of the English in tradingwith Tonkin was, therefore, to create the so-called Tonkinese silk-for-Japanese silver trade, like that successfully undertaken by the Dutch since 1637. Besides, the search for new markets for English manufactured goods was another reason that spurred the Company on to carry out this plan.

The Office of Akhbār Nawīs: The Transition from Mughal to British Forms

1993 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Political Power ◽  
East India Company ◽  
British Raj ◽  
Essential Nature ◽  
Constant Change ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
English East India Company

The persistence and yet transformation of the office of akhbār nawīs (‘newswriter’) reflected fundamental aspects of the transition from the Mughal to the British Empires. The Mughals appointed akhbār nawīs to collect and transmit specific kinds of information. This office continued, albeit with new functions, through the decentralizing of political power that characterized eighteenth-century South Asia. The expansion fo hte English East India Company meant constant change in the essential nature of political relations, changes mirrored in this office. Indeed, the Company, and its political Residents, subordinated and redefined this office. Under the British Raj, the concept ‘akhbār nawīs’ stood transformed, like the nature of the information it conveyed.

scholarly journals Dinamika Kultural Tabot Bengkulu

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-254
Author(s):  
Rizqi Handayani
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Cultural Orientation ◽  
East India Company ◽  
The Other ◽  
Indian People ◽  
Religious Orientations ◽  
Cultural Element ◽  
English East India Company ◽  
The Moment

Abstrak Tabut Bengkulu adalah sebuah upacara keagamaan yang diadaptasi menjadi festival etnis kultural. Upacara in berasal dari tradisi sekte syiah yang berupaya mengenang kematian Husen di Padang Karbala, pada tahun 680. Upacara Tabot ini kemudian diklaim oleh orang Bengkulu sebagai warisan budaya. Dalam kasus ini, unsur keagamaan dalam upacara tersebut telah berkurang, sementara unsur etnis budayanya menjadi semakin kuat. Tradisi Tabot ini dibawah dari Irak ke selatan Asis oleh orang India pada tahun 136-1405. Kemudian, tradisi ini dibawa dari India ke Bengkulu oleh para muslim India yang bekerja di perusahaan Inggris India Selatan yang sedang mengerjakan proyek Fort Malborough pada tahun 1336. Jadi, para pekerja itu ada orang pertama yang menggelar festival Tabor tersebut di Bengkulu. Sejalan dengan perjalan waktu, bukang hanya orang Syiah India saja yang merayakan festival tersebut, tetapi juga orang Bengkulu sendiri. Saat para pekerja merayakan festival tersebut sebagai upacaa keagamaan, orang Bengkulu merayakannya sebagai upacara etnis kultural.---Abstract Bengkulu’s Tabot is a religious-based ceremony, being adapted into an ethno-cultural festival.  Coming from Shi’i tradition of memorizing the moment of the Husain’s death in Karbala in 680. Tabot has changed to people festival which claimed by Bengkulu people as their cultural heritage. In this case, the religious element of Tabot has been reduced, while that ethno-cultural element exaggerated.  This tradition of Tabot was brought from Iraq to South Asia by Indian people in 1336-1405. Then, this tradition was brought from India to Bengkulu by Indian Muslims who were the workers of the English East India Company in building Fort Malborough in 1336. So, the workers were the first people who performed Tabot festival in Bengkulu. As time goes on, not only those Indian Shi’i-Muslim workers celebrated the ceremony of Tabot, but also other people of Bengkulu. While those workers and their early descendants celebrated that ceremony of Tabot because of their religious orientations, the other carried out that ceremony because of ethno-cultural orientation.

Indigo in Precolonial South Asia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghulam A. Nadri
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
South Asia ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Blue Dye ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
English East India Company ◽  
Indigo Production

South Asia is the home of natural blue dye extracted from the indigo plant species indigofera tinctoria. Its production for commercial purposes began very early and peaked during the early modern period. Growing Asian and European demand for indigo in the 16th and early 17th centuries raised its status as a major commodity in Asian and Eurasian trade. Indigo production in South Asia increased, and Indian and other Asian merchants exported large quantities of it to West Asia from where some of it was re-exported to Europe via the Levantine trade of the eastern Mediterranean. From the mid-16th century, the Portuguese Estado da India exported large quantities of indigo to Lisbon. By the early 1600s, when the English and Dutch East India companies began trading with India, indigo had become a highly sought-after commodity in the markets of England and the Dutch Republic. Consequently, the English East India Company (EIC) and Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company or VOC) exported large quantities of it to Europe in the first half of the 17th century. With the rise of new indigo commodity chains in Europe’s transatlantic colonies, such as Guatemala, Jamaica, South Carolina, and Saint-Domingue, exports from South Asia declined. However, there was a substantial local demand, which kept the industry going well up to the end of the 18th century when indigo production would expand on an unprecedented scale in Bengal and some other parts of colonial India.

scholarly journals The Despotic State? : The Nature and Role of 18th Century Mughal Administration in the Great Divergence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sagnik Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Central Government ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Divergence ◽  
English East India Company

Why Europe grew rich and ‘Asia’ became poor is the substance for the fiercely contested ‘Great Divergence’ debate where the prevailing Eurocentric view posits that European exceptionalism was responsible for the former’s success. The essence of the picture painted in the arguments against ‘oriental states’ is a despotic and extractive one that hinders commercial activities. This paper tries to address this debate through looking at the nature and role of Mughal the administrative machinery and challenge image of despotic hegemony. In order to address the issue of commensurability of sources, the present author has only used European accounts and correspondences produced by the English East India Company and the Dutch VOC. The paper argues that the Eurocentric perspective essentially paints an ahistorical picture of the Mughal state by investigating European responses to the deaths of important Mughal emperors (Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb) and the economic consequences following it. Additionally, this paper also provides evidence of a strong role of bankers in the internal commercial system further undermining the image of the extractive state and supporting the ‘Great Firm theory’ of Karen Leonard. In conclusion, it is argued that the European-exceptionalism theory is fundamentally based on an orientalist imagination of South Asia and essentially suffers from the pitfalls of the ‘historiography of decline’ that plague the history of other ‘Asian’ empires such as the Qing and the Ottomans. Eighteenth century South Asia shows considerable similarities with early modern Europe and its commercial viability and agility does not appear to be dependent on the central government or the abilities of the emperor.

scholarly journals Factory of the English East India Company in Hirado (Japan)

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 83-94
Author(s):  
V. P. Oltarzhevskii ◽  
◽  
N. N. Puzynya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
English East India Company

The article analyzes the events that took place in Japan at the beginning of the 17th century, when the first English EICo mission arrived in the Land of the Rising Sun and founded a trading post in Hirado. It shows rivalry with other European traders, who, for various reasons, were ahead of the British in establishing trade relations with Japan. It was in the person of the Dutch that English merchants encountered not only serious competitors, but sometimes open enemies. The main directions of activity of the management of the trading post for the organization of trade expeditions to the markets of countries neighboring with Japan, such as Korea and China, as well as to Southeast Asia (Cochinhina, Siam) are highlighted. Shown is the work of Richard Cocks as the head of the EICo trading post in Hirado, who paid great attention to establishing relations with the Japanese authorities at all levels, primarily with the shogun government in Edo. Based on the versatile activities of R. Cocks as head of the trading post in Hirado, it is concluded that he sought to be useful not only to the EICo and the country as a whole, and the failure of the English trade enterprise in Japan was due to many objective and subjective reasons.

The Destruction of the English East India Company Factory on Condore Island, 1702–1705

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 1097-1115 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANNY WONG TZE-KEN
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Southern Vietnam ◽  
China Trade ◽  
Power Base ◽  
Trading Activities ◽  
English East India Company

AbstractThe English East India Company established a factory on the island of Condore, off the coast of southern Vietnam, in 1702 as part of its plan to maintain a settlement to direct shipping activities between trading ports in China and Southeast Asia and India. For three years, the settlement thrived and was an important part of the China trade network, especially as a stopping point for ships plying the China route. The island settlement also carried out trading activities with neighbouring ports along the Indochina coast and the Malay Archipelago. The setting up of the factory, however, coincided with the emergence of the new entity of southern Vietnam under the Nguyễn family who were expanding their power-base to the south. In the process, the Nguyễn had already subdued the Chams and were coming face-to-face with the Khmers when the English factory was established. This paper will trace the English venture on Condore Island and the reaction of the Nguyễn ruler towards this venture which culminated with the destruction of the factory in 1705. This paper will attempt to explore the following questions: the shifting importance of the islands in the Nguyễn's security and foreign relationsvis-à-visthe English factory, and will also investigate the circumstances that brought about the massacre and destruction of the English factory on Pulo Condore—a historical event that has not been properly explained thus far.

The Voyages of the “Sea Adventure” to Ayutthaya, 1615–1618: The English East India Company and its Siam–Japan Trade

Itinerario ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-69
Author(s):  
Dhiravat na Pombejra
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
East India Company ◽  
James I ◽  
King James I ◽  
English East India Company ◽  
Mainland Southeast Asia

The English East India Company (EIC) first arrived in Siam in 1612, when its traders were given a royal audience by King Songtham (r. 1610/11–28) in Ayutthaya. Peter Floris and Lucas Antheuniss, Dutchmen working for the EIC, came to Patani on theGlobeand then branched out to other ports, exploring the possibilities of trade in mainland Southeast Asia. Armed with a letter from King James I, the EIC employees led by Antheuniss and Thomas Essington were able not only to approach the court, but also to observe for themselves the possibilities of trade in Siam. This first sojourn in Ayutthaya marked the start of over a decade of Anglo–Siamese contacts, through the establishment and maintenance of an EIC factory in Ayutthaya.During this first phase, the EIC was to stay in Ayutthaya for only eleven years, closing its factory in 1623. It was not until the 1660s, after a gap of around thirty years, that the company returned to trade in Siam. After a troubled stay, the EIC once again left Siam in 1685, and was engaged in war with the court of King Narai (r. 1656–88) over several disputes. The only English merchants coming to Siam after 1688 were “country traders” mostly based in India.

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