Demotic Alexander in Indian Ocean Trading Worlds

2019 ◽  
pp. 303-332
Author(s):  
Su Fang Ng
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Prose Romance

This chapter examines the late seventeenth-century Malay prose romance, Hikayat Hang Tuah (Story of Hang Tuah), a maritime epic that projects the figure of Alexander the Great onto a merchant character in a trading world. Hikayat Hang Tuah retells the story of Melaka’s legendary admiral, Hang Tuah, a long-distance trader modeled after the Islamic Alexander. The text is structured around trade embassies to the Mughal and Ottoman Empires, in which Tuah performs the role of the long-distance merchant. The chapter considers Tuah’s kinship diplomacy, his function within Hikayat Hang Tuah’s conception of sovereignty, and how his association with Alexander rescripts the latter’s image. It also explores how Tuah’s outsider identity reworks the Southeast Asian pattern of stranger-kings, of which Alexander was the most important, before concluding with an analysis of Tuah as a commoner or demotic Alexander, who exemplifies the new non-monarchical heroic model of merchant seaborne empires.

Reinventing Romance, or the Surprising Effects of Sympathy

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 625-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Kahn
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Prose Romance ◽  
Self Interest

This study argues that English royalist prose romance of the 1650s should he read as a contribution to seventeenth-century debates about the role of the passions in forging political obligation. Taken together, Percy Herbert'sPrincess Cloria(1653-61), Richard Brathwaite's Panthalia (1659), and William Sales’ unfinishedTheophania(1655), chart a trajectory from a politics of narrow self-interest — which contemporaries identified with Hobbes — to a politics of aesthetic interest. In response to Hobbes’ critique of vainglory, they extend an invitation to imaginative identification. In doing so, they anticipate the eighteenth-century cult of sentimentality and the emerging discipline of aesthetics.

Commercial Networks Connecting Southeast Asia with the Indian Ocean

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Hoogervorst
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Commercial Networks ◽  
The Indian Ocean

Southeast Asian history has seen remarkable levels of mobility and durable connections with the rest of the Indian Ocean. The archaeological record points to prehistoric circulations of material culture within the region. Through the power of monsoon sailing, these small-scale circuits coalesced into larger networks by the 5th century bce. Commercial relations with Chinese, Indian, and West Asian traders brought great prosperity to a number of Southeast Asian ports, which were described as places of immense wealth. Professional shipping, facilitated by local watercraft and crews, reveals the indigenous agency behind such long-distance maritime contacts. By the second half of the first millennium ce, ships from the Indo-Malayan world could be found as far west as coastal East Africa. Arabic and Persian merchants started to play a larger role in the Indian Ocean trade by the 8th century, importing spices and aromatic tree resins from sea-oriented polities such as Srivijaya and later Majapahit. From the 15th century, many coastal settlements in Southeast Asia embraced Islam, partly motivated by commercial interests. The arrival of Portuguese, Dutch, and British ships increased the scale of Indian Ocean commerce, including in the domains of capitalist production systems, conquest, slavery, indentured labor, and eventually free trade. During the colonial period, the Indian Ocean was incorporated into a truly global economy. While cultural and intellectual links between Southeast Asia and the wider Indian Ocean have persisted in the 21st century, commercial networks have declined in importance.

Trade, Production, and Incorporation. The Indian Ocean in Flux, 1600–1900

Itinerario ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Tagliacozzo
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Precious Metals ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Regional Histories ◽  
Shed Light

Historians have approached the Indian Ocean from a variety of vantages in their attempts to explain the modern history of this huge maritime arena. Some scholars have concentrated on predation as a linking theme, charting how piracy connected a broad range of actors for centuries in these dangerous waters. Others have focused on environmental issues, asking how patterns of winds, currents, and weather allowed trade to flourish on such a vast, oceanic scale. These latter historians have appropriated a page out of Braudel, and have grafted his approaches to the Mediterranean to fit local, Indian Ocean realities, such as the role of cyclones and mangrove swamps in both helping and hindering long-distance commerce. Still other scholars have used different tacks, following trails of commodities such as spices or precious metals, or even focusing on far-flung archaeological remains, in an attempt to piece together trans-regional histories from the detritus civilisations left behind. All of these epistemological vectors have shed light on the region as a whole, though through different tools and lenses, and via a variety of techniques of inquiry.

scholarly journals Coral Stone Architecture, Chinese Porcelain, and Indian Ocean Artifacts along the Swahili Coast: Cross-Cultural Dynamics in Medieval East Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera-Simone Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Swahili Coast ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean

While the use of Chinese porcelain dishes in the stone towns along the Swahili coast has recently found much attention in art historical scholarship regarding the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, the pre-history of these dynamics in the medieval period has up to now only been fully considered in other fields such as archaeology and anthropology. This paper sheds new light on the interrelations between the built environment and material culture in coastal East Africa from an art historical perspective, focusing on premodern Indian Ocean trajectories, the role of Chinese porcelain bowls that were immured into Swahili coral stone buildings, and on architecture across boundaries in a medieval world characterized by far-reaching transcultural entanglements and connectivity. It will show how Chinese porcelain bowls in premodern Swahili architecture linked the stone towns along the coast with other sites both inland and across the Indian Ocean and beyond, and how these dynamics were shaped by complex intersections between short-distance and long-distance-relationships and negotiations between the local and the global along the Swahili coast and beyond.

Ships and Shipwrecks in the Pre-Modern Indian Ocean

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre-Yves Manguin
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
The Persian Gulf

The Indian Ocean and its adjoining seas, from the Middle East and East Africa to Southeast Asia, have been witness to the nautical ventures of most, if not all, major sea powers of world history. Progress in nautical archaeology in the past few decades has brought about a much better understanding of shipbuilding traditions of the Indian Ocean, until then limited to textual and ethnographic sources. Only a few shipwreck sites and terrestrial sites with ship remains have been studied so far along the shores of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, or the Indian Ocean proper. Many more were found in recent excavations in the Southeast Asian seas, which were built along Southeast Asian or Indian Ocean shipbuilding traditions. Two main technical traditions can now be clearly identified for pre-modern times: the Arabo-Indian sewn-plank ships of the western Indian Ocean, which survived into our times, and the Southeast Asian vessels that evolved from a distinctive sewn-plank technology to fully doweled assemblages, as could still be observed in Indonesian vessels of the late 20th century. The still limited number of shipwrecks brought to light in the Indian Ocean as well as the considerable imbalance in archaeological research between the Indian Ocean proper and the Southeast Asian seas have hindered the advancement of the discipline. Considerable difficulties and interpretation problems have moreover been generated by biased commercial excavations and subsequent incomplete excavation records, not to speak of the ethical problems raised in the process. Such deficiencies still prevent solid conclusions being drawn on the development of regional shipbuilding traditions, and on the historical role of the ships and people who sailed along the essential Indian Ocean maritime networks.

On Principals and Agency: Reassembling Trust in Indian Ocean Commerce

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Mathew
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
World War ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Indian Ocean Trade ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Contingent Factor ◽  
First World

AbstractThe role of trust in long-distance trade has been a topic of inquiry and debate among economists, sociologists, and historians. Much of this literature hinges on the social, legal, and economic structures that undergird, if not obviate, the concept of trust. This article draws on assemblage theory to suggest that trust in Indian Ocean trade is better understood as a key component of a commercial assemblage. Laws or social mores are not external to but rather enrolled within an assemblage constituted by people, commodities, profits, and “feelings,” as well as judicial systems. This conceptualization of trust is demonstrated through a close analysis of one trading relationship between a Somali merchant and an Indian merchant based in Aden and trading in the Idrisi Emirate of Asir. They established a partnership to exploit elevated prices in Asir during the First World War. After several months of trading, accusations of fraud and embezzling unraveled the partnership and entangled both men in years of legal battles. By tracing the changing socio-material assemblage of this partnership, the article demonstrates how trust should be understood as a dynamic and contingent factor in the operation of commercial agency.

Gujarati Merchant Diaspora in South East Asia (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries)

2019 ◽  
pp. 305-314
Author(s):  
Ruby Maloni
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Trading Systems ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Indian Ocean World

Gujarat was concentric to the early modern Indian Ocean world. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the fine tuning of long distance trading systems. In South East Asia, the Indo-Portuguese trade network flourished in the sixteenth century, followed by the English and the Dutch in the seventeenth. Equilibrium was established between European and Asian traders, both indispensable to the other. Profitable trade in pepper and spices in the eastern archipelago was based on cotton textiles from Gujarat. In the sixteenth century, Cambay stretched out two arms—towards Aden and Malacca. Commercial connections included ports like Acheh, Kedah, Tenasserim, Pegu, Pase, and Pidie. In the seventeenth century, Surat’s mercantile marine facilitated the consolidation of Gujarati trade. This chapter shows how Gujarati merchant diaspora was intrinsic to the intricate patterns of trade practices and traditions of the Indian Ocean.

The Role of Indian Textiles in Southeast Asian Trade in the Seventeenth Century

1962 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. Sen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
World History ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Asian History

The role of Indian textiles in Southeast Asian trade in the seventeenth century was important in three ways. First, there was a great, almost unlimited, demand for these goods in all the Southeast Asian markets; second, they constituted the principal medium of exchange for the trade of Southeast Asia with the outside world; and third, they shaped the pattern of Inter-Asian trade of the European Companies, which laid the foundation of their wealth and commerce and later political power in the eighteenth century. The first two were important for Southeast Asian history only, but the last was of very great importance from the point of view of world history, not less important, in its far-reaching effects, than the voyages of discovery at the beginning of the modern period or the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution in the eighteenth century. The poor Indian weavers shaped the course of world history by unconsciously laying the foundation of British and Dutch colonial empires.

The Economic Relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Southeast Asia in the Seventeenth Century

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. S. Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Economic Relationship ◽  
Spice Trade ◽  
Economic Ties

Southeast Asia was linked to the Ottoman Empire by economic ties, in particular the spice trade, but the nature of this relationship is poorly understood, especially for the seventeenth century. Its study is hampered by the lack of archival evidence, and this chapter draws on a variety of sources, both literary and archival, to investigate Southeast Asian exports to the Ottoman lands. It argues, in contrast to much existing scholarship, that direct commercial links remained important throughout the period, and that European traders such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC) remained largely excluded from this trade till the end of the seventeenth century. Ottoman exports to Southeast Asia, predominantly textiles and horses, are also examined. The chapter also considers the role of Ottoman subjects who sought to make their fortunes in Southeast Asia.

A Long-Distance Nexus in the Indian Ocean: Gujarati Banias, Brokers, and Middlemen in Eighteenth-Century Portuguese East Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-254
Author(s):  
Luís Frederico Dias Antunes
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Small Island ◽  
East African ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
East African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
The Indian Ocean

Abstract Historiography has long recognized the strategic importance of Diu as a commercial hub in the Indian Ocean, despite the decline it experienced in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. A great deal of Diuese commerce, along with the island’s privileged connections with East Africa (especially Mozambique), was sustained by the activity of the Banias—Hindus and Jain—who had long used this small island as a platform for trade. This article analyzes the forms of organization, commercial and financial techniques, and main roles of the Banias of Gujarat, one of the largest and most important urban merchant communities in India and in other Asian and African markets along the Indian Ocean. In the case of Diu, we seek to understand the extent to which the financial capacity and commercial experience of the local Banias allowed them to dominate most commercial activity in Mozambique from the late seventeenth century onwards. We examine the internal structure of the Banias’ merchant communities, the hierarchical dependencies and trade links between the Banias of Diu and of Mozambique, and, lastly, the adaptation of their experience and commercial techniques to the East African coast.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document