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

Author(s):  
A. C. S. Peacock

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.

Author(s):  
A S Shngreiyo

Why Christopher Columbus did discovered America the new world, why did Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to reach India. They went and risk their life if search of the Spice Islands. The spices that European was searching were found in Indonesia Archipelago, Bandas famous for nutmeg and mace and Moluccas for its clove. After the formation of the East India Company in the early seventeenth century both the Dutch and English were competing against each other and outmaneuver one another for control of the islands. In the end, it was the Dutch who emerge victories. The Dutch established a monopoly on the spice trade from the Moluccas. They gained control over the clove trade through an alliance with the sultan of Ternate. Dutch occupation of the Banda’s gave them control of the nutmeg trade. Dutch control of the region was fully realized when Malacca was captured from the Portuguese in 1641. The Dutch were quite merciless when it suited their purposes; sometime obliterate the whole native population. By its brutal conquest over the Spice Islands they were able to control over the spice trade. Nevertheless, the English were not left behind whenever there is opportunity they set in to take the advantage of the sour relation between the native and Dutch, as the English played a role of more mercantile communities than occupation. The beginning of the seventeenth century is very important for the two companies as it decide the fate of the spices trade. Both companies were not willing to back out.


Itinerario ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Marné Strydom

The events of September 1652 on the island of Formosa were one of the bloodiest chapters in the history of Dutch management of the island, and could arguably be viewed as one of the most severe suppressions of a rebellious group in the seventeenth century. The unexpected, ill-prepared uprising of thousands of frustrated, angry and impoverished Chinese farmers and field hands against Dutch colonial management were successfully, yet in the most severe and savage way, suppressed through a military collaboration between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the local Aborigines of the island. In total some 3,000 Chinese residents of the island were killed, the ‘hacked-off’ head of the leader ‘displayed on a stake […] to frighten the Chinese as a sign of victory over those dastardly traitors’, while three of his lieutenants were tortured to death by Company officials in an effort to extract confessions and information from them. Indeed severe action towards a section of the Formosan colonial society that was primarily responsible for the economic success of the Dutch settlement enterprise.


1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Nguyen-Long

This paper examines the trade in ceramics from northern Vietnam into island Southeast Asia in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. It focuses on two issues: the question of typology of Vietnamese ceramics and the feasibility of these wares entering the southern Philippines during the years 1663–82. The compilation of an accurate typology has been inhibited by exceedingly brief descriptions in trade records, and the difficulty has been further compounded by the fact that although the Dutch East India Company (VOC) records show Vietnamese ceramics were imported into Batavia and dispersed to regional godowns, no material has yet been reported from either archaeological excavations or accidental finds in island Southeast Asia that can with certainty be ascribed to this era. Furthermore, items proposed in the ceramic literature as wares exported to Southeast Asia in the seventeenth century are, in the face of new evidence, no longer convincing. The typology put forward in this paper is based on VOC trade records and the contemporary literature. It broadly matches material from archaeological sites in Vietnam and in Japan that are from co-eval contexts. Previously untapped archaeological findings from Vietnam contribute a new dimension to this issue.


2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 414-435
Author(s):  
Peter Borschberg

Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge (also Cornelis Cornelisz. Matelief) was a director of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and fleet commander of a voyage to the East Indies in 1605–08. On his return to the Dutch Republic in September 1608, he wrote a series of epistolary memorials, or ‘discourses’, in which he recommended sweeping reforms in the way in which the VOC conducted business in Asia. Not only did these recommendations serve as a blueprint for subsequent developments of the VOC during the early seventeenth century, the documents also made astute observations about the dynamics of trade, geopolitics, agency of the Asian rulers as well as political power on the Malay Peninsula, Java, Maluku and Borneo. This article problematises these primary sources and demonstrates how they can be profitably mined for the history of trade and diplomacy of early seventeenth century Southeast Asia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER BORSCHBERG

AbstractThis article addresses the proactive agency of the Siamese kings in cementing commercial and diplomatic ties with the Dutch in the first two decades of the seventeenth century. The focus will be on two interrelated developments: one, the first diplomatic mission to the Dutch Republic in 1608–1610 and, two, a scheme hatched by Siamese officials to assist the Dutch in obtaining access to the Chinese market. This was deemed necessary after the Dutch, supported by some overseas Chinese businessmen from Southeast Asia, failed to gain trading access in 1604. On the Dutch side, two men stand in the limelight: Admiral Cornelis Matelief de Jonge, a director of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and supreme commander of its second fleet to Asia, and Hugo Grotius, who at the time was a rising star in the Dutch government and would later be celebrated as one of the pathfinders of modern international law. Both their published and unpublished manuscripts will be examined to ascertain how Matelief and the VOC directors reacted to these Siamese initiatives and how, in turn, the admiral sought to mobilize and co-opt the Siamese into his own commercial and military agenda, with the help of Grotius.


1997 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Subrahmanyam

AbstractThis paper is concerned with the travails of the factors of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC) in the northern Burmese kingdom of Mrauk-U (or Arakan). The Dutch entered into trade in this rather obscure region, at the frontier of South and Southeast Asia, primarily owing to their interest in slaves, to be used in urban and rural settlements under their control in Indonesia. Dutch demand fed into the logic by which the Mrauk-U state from the latter half of the sixteenth century developed a formidable war-fleet, through which raids on the peasantry in eastern Bengal were conducted by Magh captains and Luso-Asian mercenaries, who collaborated with them. However, the whole commercial relationship was underwritten by a moral and cultural tension. The Dutch factors in their writings analysed here, insisted that the Mrauk-U kings were "tyrants," citing their slave trade as a key sign; a particular target for their attacks was the ruler Thado Mintara (r. 1645-52). Yet the Dutch too were complicit in the very same slave trade, and were perhaps even aware of their own "bad faith." For their part, the rulers of Mrauk-U regarded the Dutch with suspicion, while criticising their hypocrisy and double-dealing. Such tensions, negotiated through the 1630s and a part of the 1640s, eventually led the Dutch to withdraw from the trade, and then to re-establish tenuous contacts with some difficulty in the 1650s. The paper thus explores both the history of a form of hostile trade, and the process of the creation of mutual stereotypes, that went with the nature of commercial relations.


Author(s):  
Alison Games

This book explains how a conspiracy trial featuring English, Japanese, and Indo-Portuguese co-conspirators who allegedly plotted against the Dutch East India Company in the Indian Ocean in 1623 produced a diplomatic crisis in Europe and became known for four centuries in British culture as the Amboyna Massacre. The story of the transformation of this conspiracy into a massacre is a story of Anglo-Dutch relations in the seventeenth century and of a new word in the English language, massacre. The English East India Company drew on this new word to craft an enduring story of cruelty, violence, and ingratitude. Printed works—both pamphlets and images—were central to the East India Company’s creation of the massacre and to the story’s tenacity over four centuries as the texts and images were reproduced during conflicts with the Dutch and internal political disputes in England. By the eighteenth century, the story emerged as a familiar and shared cultural touchstone. By the nineteenth century, the Amboyna Massacre became the linchpin of the British Empire, an event that historians argued well into the twentieth century had changed the course of history and explained why the British had a stronghold in India. The broad familiarity with the incident and the Amboyna Massacre’s position as an early and formative violent event turned the episode into the first English massacre. It shaped the meaning of subsequent acts of violence, and placed intimacy, treachery, and cruelty at the center of massacres in ways that endure to the present day.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Der-yuan Wu

In the wake of globalization, cities have increasingly engaged in international affairs. Positioning as in-between administrative entities and to reconcile between competing national interests and universal objectives like the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), cities could demonstrate their agency in providing alternative pursuit of global development. In particular, while international affairs have in a way environmentalized, global environmentalism in turn has strongly urbanized in recent decades. Many cities along the coast, in Asia or broader world alike, are at the forefront of climate change impacts and would be vulnerable to any catastrophes such as the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. After all, given the size of city economies, the material losses caused by climate-induced extreme weather can be tremendous. Thus, it is worthwhile to examine the role of Southeast Asian cities in international development in terms of their transnational networking. Moreover, the phenomenon that cities becoming active players in international affairs has been explored mostly in relation to North American, European or Western setting. Literature on cities’ transnational and multi-level engagement in the EU has been abundant. By contrast, there is very few researches focusing on the part of ASEAN in mainstream literature on city diplomacy or paradiplomacy. The primary purpose of this paper is thus to examine the state of play by Southeast Asian cities in some key multilateral networkings such as C40 Cities, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG).Keywords: city diplomacy, Southeast Asia, transnational networking, multilateral networkingKota-kota semakin terlibat dalam urusan internasional setelah globalisasi mulai muncul ke permukaan. Memposisikan sebagai entitas administratif di antara dan untuk merekonsiliasi antara kepentingan nasional yang bersaing dan tujuan universal seperti Tujuan Pembangunan Berkelanjutan PBB (SDGs), kota-kota dapat menunjukkan peran mereka dalam memberikan alternatif pengejaran pembangunan global. Lebih lanjut, ketika isu lingkungan telah mendominasi dunia internasional, para pemikir lingkungan global telah membuatnya menjadi lebih urban dalam beberapa dekade. Banyak kota di daerah pantai, baik di regional Asia ataupun di regional lainnya di dunia, berada dalam resiko tinggi akan perubahan iklim dan rentan terhadap bencana seperti tsunami, seperti yang terjadi di Samudra Hindia tahun 2004. Terlebih lagi, mengingat ukuran ekonomi kota, kerugian materiil disebabkan oleh cuaca ekstrem yang disebabkan oleh iklim cenderung cukup besar. Dengan demikian, ada baiknya untuk memeriksa peran kota-kota Asia Tenggara dalam pengembangan internasional dalam hal jaringan transnasional mereka. Selain itu, fenomena bahwa kota menjadi pemain aktif dalam urusan internasional telah dieksplorasi sebagian besar di kawasan Amerika Utara, Eropa atau Barat. Literatur tentang keterlibatan transnasional dan multi-level kota-kota di Uni Eropa telah berlimpah. Sebaliknya, masih sedikit penelitian yang berfokus pada bagian ASEAN dalam literatur arus utama tentang diplomasi kota atau paradiplomasi. Tujuan utama dari tulisan prospektif ini adalah untuk menguji keadaan permainan oleh kota-kota Asia Tenggara di beberapa jaringan multilateral utama seperti Kota C40, Dewan Internasional untuk Inisiatif Lingkungan Lokal (ICLEI) dan United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG).Kata-Kata Kunci: diplomasi antar kota, Asia Tenggara, jaringan transnasional, jaringan multilateral


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