Toward a Global Network Revolution: Zheng He’s Maritime Voyages and Tribute-Trade Relations between China and the Indian Ocean World

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-49
Author(s):  
Zhongping Chen
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The West ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Ocean Region ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Indian Ocean World

Using newly developed concepts of network theory, this paper tries to advance the theoretical analysis of Zheng He’s seven epic voyages across the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433, and to resolve some long-debated key issues on the subject. It also attempts to reveal how Zheng He helped change Sino-foreign relations in the early fifteenth century by developing tribute-trade networks overseas, and thereby influenced the history of China, the Indian Ocean region, and globalization in general. An examination of the primary sources from the network perspective indicates that the development of tribute-trade relations overseas made up the primary purpose, major activities and enduring historical legacies of Zheng He’s voyages. Zheng He initiated the construction of overseas bases for navigation and trade, and thus greatly promoted the institutionalization and expansion of tribute-trade relations between China and the Indian Ocean world. Both the tribute and trade networks contracted after Zheng He’s voyages ended because of their failure to diversify beyond state-monopolized diplomacy and trade. But their development in the early fifteenth century and their continuity thereafter brought China and Indian Ocean countries into unprecedented interactions. The dual networks also provided a foundation for the European “geographic discoveries” in the Indian Ocean later on, for the early contact between China and the West and ultimately for the globalization of the modern world. Therefore, a network analysis of Zheng He’s voyages and the subsequent tribute-trade relations between China and the Indian Ocean world can refine the current theoretical paradigms and narrative frameworks of world history, which are still centered on the rise and expansion of modern Europe and the West. It also reveals how such non-Western historical movements and premodern tribute-trade relations exerted influence on a global network revolution, which linked the old and new worlds through an unprecedented level of relational institutionalization, expansion, diversification and interactions between varied network members in global history.

English Private Trade on the West Coast of India, c. 1680–c. 1740

Itinerario ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Davies
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
East India Company ◽  
The West ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
West Coast Of India ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
English East India Company ◽  
Indian Ocean World

This article explores the private trade networks of English East India Company merchants on the west coast of India during the first half of the eighteenth century. Existing studies of English private trade in the Indian Ocean have almost exclusively focused on India's eastern seaboard, the Coromandel Coast and the Bay of Bengal regions. This article argues that looking at private trade from the perspective of the western Indian Ocean provides a different picture of this important branch of European trade. It uses EIC records and merchants' private papers to argue against recent metropolitan-centred approaches to English private trade, instead emphasising the importance of more localised political and economic contexts, within the Indian Ocean world, for shaping the conduct and success of this commerce.

Intersections: Peoples, ports and trade in seventeenth-century Surat and Madras

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Radhika Seshan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
North India ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Indian Ocean World

The article discusses the ways in which, in the seventeenth century, as India drew the attention of more Europeans, both as private traders and as part of larger east India companies, networks of contacts were established. Two ports in particular, Surat and Madras (now Chennai), became points of intersection of Europeans and Asians, through the multi-pronged trade networks that linked these two ports to other ports in the Indian Ocean world, through traders from across regions. Focus is on the English in particular, as their main port of trade for Mughal North India was Surat, and Madras, their first fortified establishment on the coast of India.

Islam and the Indian Ocean: Legal Culture and Economic Life to c. 1900

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahad Ahmad Bishara
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
World History ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Economic Constitution ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Law ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Indian Ocean World ◽  
A Site

For historians of the Indian Ocean, the stakes in thinking about law and economic life are very high. As a key arena of world history, the Indian Ocean world has emerged as a site for reflecting on issues of connectivity and circulation, and for writing histories that cover broad spans of space and time. Many of these histories—and indeed, the pioneering works in the field—have focused on matters of trade and empire, the twin pillars of world history more broadly. Since around 2000, research has taken on different forms of migration as well as matters of ideology, culture, epidemiology, and more, but many of these discussions are still built on foundations of trade and empire: people, books, ideas, and diseases primarily circulate through networks forged via trade or through imperial channels. All of it, however, requires a rigorous engagement with questions of law, which undergirded production and trade in the region. The history of law and economic life in the Indian Ocean might be mapped onto three arenas. First, law played an important role in the politico-economic constitution of empires (Muslim or otherwise) in the Indian Ocean. Beyond that, though, one must consider the legal dynamics of trade networks within this world of empires, examining the intersecting private-order and public mechanisms that merchants drew on to regulate their commercial affairs. And finally, the histories of law, empire, and economic life all intersected in courtrooms around the Indian Ocean world, as economic actors took their disputes to different tribunals, shaping the contours of the legal history of the region.

scholarly journals India-Africa: Rediscovering Trade Relations through Cultural Assimilation

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Manish Karmwar
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Cultural Assimilation ◽  
East African ◽  
East African Coast ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Ancient Times

Indo-African trade relations are one of the imperative segments to understand African settlements in different parts of Indian sub-continent. Several Africans rose to positions of authority as generals and governors, in the Janjira and Sachin kingdoms they rose from king-makers to Emperors. The evidence of African trade in India has a significant history. From ancient times, three valuable export commodities which were prized in Africa: pepper, silk and cotton. The migration from the African sub-continent into India went up only in the sixth century A.D. but we have had an incredible trade-relation from time immemorial. From the Sixth century through the fifteenth century the history of the East African coast is somewhat illuminated by Arabs, Persians and Europeans. During the course of the sixteenth century the Portuguese dominated the Indian Ocean and its shoreline. Portugal was determined to remove Muslim merchants, especially Arabs, in the Indian Ocean system. This paper tries to explore India Africa relation especially with east Africa from earliest times to nineteenth century A.D. The paper recognizes the fact that trade and natural resources have been the principal reason   behind the age-old links between Africa and India. The paper identifies the Cultural assimilation and African diaspora through the ages which has a vital facet to further strengthen the Trade Relations.

Introduction Islam, Trade and Politics Across the Indian Ocean

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. S. Peacock ◽  
Annabel Teh Gallop
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Malay Peninsula ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Indian Ocean World ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the emergence and development of the relationship between Southeast Asia and the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, concentrating on the three principal themes that defined this relationship: Islam, trade relations and politics. While particular attention is given to the Ottoman relationship with Aceh, their involvement with other Muslim polities on the Malay peninsula and archipelagic Southeast Asia is also considered. An overview is given of the state of the art of historiography in the field, as well as its broader relevance to the study of the Indian Ocean world and to the history of colonialism. The chapter also reflects on the Southeast Asian idealisation of Rum, as the Ottoman lands were known.

The impact of Zheng He's expeditions on Indian Ocean interactions

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 609-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tansen Sen
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Indian Ocean Region ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Swahili Coast ◽  
Ocean Region ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cultural Interactions

AbstractThis article examines the consequences of the Ming maritime expeditions led by Admiral Zheng He (1371–1433) in the early fifteenth century on Indian Ocean diplomacy, trade, and cross-cultural interactions. The presence of the powerful Ming navy not only introduced an unprecedented militaristic aspect to the Indian Ocean region, but also led to the emergence of state-directed commercial activity in the maritime world that extended from Ming China to the Swahili coast of Africa. Additionally, these expeditions stimulated the movement of people and animals across the oceanic space and might eventually have facilitated the rapid entry of European commercial enterprises into the Indian Ocean region during the second half of the fifteenth century.

scholarly journals Slavery and Post-Slavery in the Indian Ocean World

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Stanziani
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
The West ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Atlantic Slavery ◽  
Indian Ocean World

Unlike the Atlantic, slavery and slave trade in the Indian Ocean persisted over centuries, from antiquity to the present: slavery involved many actors, not necessarily attributed to tensions between the “West and the rest.” Multiple forms of bondage, debt dependence, and slavery persisted and coexisted over centuries, since ancient times, then with the expansion of Islam in the 8th century, and reached a peak with the intrusion of European powers between the 16th and the 19th centuries. However, even after the official abolition of slavery in the western colonies, forms of bondage and illegal slavery have persisted and were openly practiced in the Gulf region through much of the 20th century.

Editorial Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Editors of the JIOWS
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Indian Ocean World ◽  
Shed Light

The editors are proud to present the first issue of the fourth volume of the Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies. This issue contains three articles, by James Francis Warren (Murdoch University), Kelsey McFaul (University of California, Santa Cruz), and Marek Pawelczak (University of Warsaw), respectively. Warren’s and McFaul’s articles take different approaches to the growing body of work that discusses pirates in the Indian Ocean World, past and present. Warren’s article is historical, exploring the life and times of Julano Taupan in the nineteenth-century Philippines. He invites us to question the meaning of the word ‘pirate’ and the several ways in which Taupan’s life has been interpreted by different European colonists and by anti-colonial movements from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. McFaul’s article, meanwhile, takes a literary approach to discuss the much more recent phenomenon of Somali Piracy, which reached its apex in the last decade. Its contribution is to analyse the works of authors based in the region, challenging paradigms that have mostly been developed from analysis of works written in the West. Finally, Pawelczak’s article is a legal history of British jurisdiction in mid-late nineteenth-century Zanzibar. It examines one of the facets that underpinned European influence in the western Indian Ocean World before the establishment of colonial rule. In sum, this issue uses two key threads to shed light on the complex relationships between European and other Western powers and the Indian Ocean World.

Shipped but Not Sold

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Um
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
The West ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
The Indian Ocean

In the early decades of the eighteenth century, Yemen hosted a lively community of merchants that came to the southern Arabian Peninsula from the east and the west, seeking, among other products, coffee, at a time when this new social habit was on the rise. Shipped but not Sold argues that many of the diverse goods that these merchants carried, bought, and sold at the port, also played ceremonial, social, and utilitarian roles in this intensely commercial society that was oriented toward the Indian Ocean. Including sumptuous foreign textiles and robes, Arabian horses, porcelain vessels, spices, aromatics, and Yemeni coffee, these items were offered, displayed, exchanged, consumed, or utilized by major merchants in a number of socially exclusive practices that affirmed their identity and status, but also sustained the livelihood of their business ventures. These traders invested these objects with layers of social meaning through a number of repetitive ceremonial exercises and observances, in addition to their everyday protocols of the trade. This study looks at what happened to these local and imported commodities that were diverted from the marketplace to be used for a set of directives that were seemingly quite non-transactional.

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