History week 4 journal entry

Trade and Intrusion in the Indian Ocean and South Asia History 111 – World History since 1500

Spring 2022

Jorge Minella ([email protected])

Indian Ocean World

 Ancient trade and cultural interaction.

 East Africa, Arabian Peninsula, and South and Southeast Asia.

 Trade network.

 Spread of Islam through Muslim traders.

Today’s Class

 East Africa.

 Vijaynagara and Mughal Empires.

 European intruders.

 Global trade and commodities.

East Africa and the Indian Ocean

Swahili Coast

 Independent port city-states.

 Focused on trade, not territorial expansion.

 Bantu culture; Arabic, Persian, and South Asian influence.

Port Cities and the Interior

 City’s prince.  Protected merchants.

 In exchange of tribute.

 Mediated with interior chiefdoms.

 Coastal cities and interior independent, but important linkages.  Food supply.

 Trade goods.

Western vs. Eastern Africa

 Western, Atlantic Ocean.

 Some trade.

 Relatively self-sufficient chiefdoms.

 Occurrence of expanding Kingdoms and Empires.

 Eastern, Indian Ocean.

 Trade essential.

 Independent port cities.

 Interior chiefdoms connected to port cities through trade.

The Indian Ocean Trade  Environmental factor:

monsoon winds.

 Trade vessels: Arab dhows; Chinese junks.

 East Africa’s main trade goods.  Exported: gold and ivory.  Imported: textiles (South

Asia); porcelain (China); spices (Persia).

 Mostly peaceful trade relations.

Depiction of a dhow.

South Asia in Early Modernity

The Trade Cities of South Asia

 Port cities engaged in trade.

 Populous and diverse.

 Hindu princes or Muslim sultans.

 Ties with the interior through Vijaynagara and Mughal empires.

Vijaynagara

 Hindu kingdom, south India (1336-1565)

 Centered on religion.

 Indian Ocean trade networks.

 Portuguese arrived in 1500s.

Virupaksha Temple

Mughal Empire

 1520s expansion, northern India.  Peak territory in 1700.

 Military innovation.

 Tolerance with local religion and local power.

 Immense wealth with the Indian Ocean trade.

 Declined in the eighteenth century.Shah Jahan, 5 th Mughal Emperor

(1628-1658).

Taj Mahal, mausoleum commissioned by Shah Jahan in 1632.

European Intrusion in the Indian Ocean

The Portuguese

 Pioneered European expansion.

 But found a well consolidated Indian Ocean trade network.

 Not much room for Portuguese merchants.

Early 20th century depiction of Vasco da Gama’s arrival in Calicut, an important trade hub in southwest India,1498

Portuguese Piracy and Plunder

 Aggressive approach to trade.

 Took Goa and Melaka from Muslim rulers.

 Feitorias more military bases than trade outposts.

 Established control of strategic areas for extorsion of Indian Ocean merchants.

1600s – Northern European Arrival

 British, Dutch, and French.

 New Strategies.

 Trading Companies.  Private corporations with multiple investors licensed by the early modern

European states to monopolize Asian and other overseas trade goods.

The Dutch East India Company

 1602, Dutch investors.

 Took possession of Portuguese and Asian trade hubs.

 Private company, functioned as an imperial power.  Army.  Navy.

 Monopolistic. Dutch East India fortified trade city built in current day Indonesia, late seventeenth century.

Spanish American Silver in the Indian Ocean  Dutch East India Company obtained silver from Spanish America.

 Piracy.  Legal and illegal trade.  Slave trade.

 Silver used in Asian trade.

 + Freight service to local merchants.

 Some level of acceptance in the Indian Ocean trade networks.

Global Trade Networks and Local Realities

Emeralds in the 16th and 17th centuries

 Demanded in Mughal India for cultural reasons.

 Extracted by enslaved Africans and native American draft laborers.

 From Spanish owned mines in South America.

 Taken to Goa by Portuguese merchants.

 Bought by local Mughal merchants.

Sri Lanka’s Cinnamon

 Sixteenth century: Portuguese trade.  Local control production.  Peasants collect cinnamon.  Give tribute to nobles.  Who sell it to the Portuguese.

 Seventeenth century: Dutch control.  Monopolized Dutch controlled

production.  Enslavement of locals.

 Local lives changes with global trade.

Cinnamon peeling, Romeyn de Hooghe, 1682

Global Trade – Local Realities

 Shaped each other.

 Global Trade Networks.  Trade relations involving actors spread across the globe.

 Novelty of the 16th and 17th centuries.