Early Global Interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World, Volume I

Commercial Structures and Exchanges

Angela Schottenhammer

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783319976662
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319976679
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This volume investigates the emergence and spread of maritime commerce and interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World—the world's first "global economy"—from a longue durée perspective. Spanning from antiquity to the nineteenth century, these essays move beyond the usual focus on geographical sub-regions or thematic aspects to foreground inter- and trans-regional connections. Analyzing multi-lingual records and recent archaeological findings, volume I examines mercantile networks, the role of merchants, routes, and commodities, as well as diasporas and port cities.

© The Author(s) 2019

A. Schottenhammer (ed.)Early Global Interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World, Volume IPalgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97667-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Angela Schottenhammer^{1, 2}

(1)

University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

(2)

Research Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC), McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Angela Schottenhammer

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

This publication focuses on the emergence and gradual development of maritime commerce and interconnectivity across the world’s first “global economy”, the Indian Ocean World (IOW), Map 1.1. While former studies have primarily concentrated on geographical sub-regions or thematic aspects, we pursue what may be considered a nascent field of Asian and Indian Ocean Studies (including the Asia-Pacific), namely the examination of intra- and trans-regional connections, of Asian and IOW interactions over the longue durée. This emerging field addresses a wide range of phenomena and investigates how different parts of Asia have long been connected with each other and changed in response to trans-regional phenomena. Studies undertaken include analysis of transportation links, the development of mercantile networks and diasporic communities, the spread of religions, language and script dispersal, political alliances and polity expansions, technological interflows and the spread of artistic forms, and ideological influences across various parts of the macro-region. Such ways of looking at things bring with them entirely new insight for many fields of Asian and Indian Ocean history and in terms of the relations of the Indian Ocean region to the world beyond.

Looking less at the empires and “global” power players that dominated parts of the IOW throughout its long history than is conventional, these volumes aim at challenging the traditional centre/empire-periphery model because it has increasingly become evident that such a strict juxtaposition cannot be maintained. Frequently, such a model of antagonisms obscures the true nature of exchanges. It tends to pigeonhole regions, developments and people a priori, considering them as less important or even neglecting them, overemphasizing exchanges from so-called centres or empires. Traditional ideas of empires and their peripheries—for example with China, the traditional Middle Kingdom as the centre and empire that influenced its surrounding neighbours, frequently portrayed as “barbarians”—changed over time and geographical space. And in recent years historians have come to see much clearer than in the past to what extent, for one example, China has been influenced by surrounding cultures, traditionally considered as nothing more than marginal.¹ This revelation does not mean that we should now deny the influence and political, economic and cultural role and importance of empires. The argument is instead that one has to pay due attention to and credit all historical actors involved and free oneself from oversimplified generalization and categorization.

Within the give and take, the research of my own team, for example, has particularly focused on the examination of the emergence and development of maritime commerce in the East Asian world. There, China undoubtedly constituted one of the most important “core” IOW economies—very much as a “centre” in the IOW; but the surrounding polities, economies and cultures did matter, too. Inasmuch as conventional studies usually do little justice to the complex trans-frontier, trans-IOW exchanges of commodities, monies, technologies, ideas and people that have characterized interaction on the micro-level, our research has concentrated specifically on such interactions in the East Asian world and beyond. Geographically speaking, East Asia appears as a peripheral space, but it is still essential culturally, economically and politically, sometimes even to the point of being a predominant part of a larger Asian and Indian Ocean space.

These volumes also seek to provide readers with a balanced introduction into the manifold facets of interaction and a solid survey of the interconnectedness of various regions within the Indian Ocean macro-region over time. In this way, we seek to offer insights into major aspects of this world’s first true “global economy”. Doing this, it goes without saying that we cannot claim to cover systematically all aspects of the conceptual divisions examined here.

We introduce our studies by beginning with our understanding of an emerging “global economy”, both in terms of geographical focus and timelines and in terms of thematic emphasis. The chapters included consider a wide range of themes related to the history of interactions in the IOW. Most authors also seek to provide a comparative analysis of both textual and archaeological sources. We present new archaeological findings, especially shipwrecks and nautical archaeology, and discuss technologies, sea routes and cargoes, but also cultural and religious objects. The reader will time and again observe the close interrelationships between commercial exchanges, knowledge transfers and human movement and social mobility or migration.

We furthermore speak of an increasing integration of port cities and local communities and economies into the Indian Ocean space. But readers will find that this development was not linear; it underwent various qualitative changes and shifts of nodes, hubs and centres with the changing influences of polities, peoples and networks. While traditional studies on the IOW have much focused on the sudden change that was supposedly brought about with European colonialism—exemplary is probably Kirti Chaudhuri’s valuable Asia Before Europe, where the history of the Indian Ocean seemingly ends in 1757²—more recent studies look in more detail into the changes and continuities that occurred despite or because of such events as the advent of the Europeans.

One can of course observe the obvious historical fact that various different powers, polities and merchant groups dominated larger or smaller parts of the maritime space. One group of merchants that was definitely very important for the establishment of a more and more routinized long-distance shipping and commercial exchange was what I would like to call “Persian Gulf traders”, that is merchants who originated from the Persian Gulf area and the Oriental world. In the beginning, these were mostly Iranians (in some publications also called Persians). After the Arab conquests of large parts of the Eurasian continent, starting in the seventh century, growing numbers of Arab merchants became involved into maritime trade. When they cherished their religions and also converted others to Islam, scholars generally speak of Muslim merchants. Activities of Muslim merchants are passim mentioned throughout this volume. And we dedicated two separate chapters to the spread of Islam across the IOW in volume II of this publication.

Elsewhere, I have argued that it was actually Iranian and later Arab merchants, “Persian Gulf traders”, who “may be considered initiators of a more routinized long-distance trade”, spanning the entire Indian Ocean space from East Africa, via the Persian Gulf through South and Southeast Asia as far as China and Japan. They connected such distant places and port cities as Malindi, Zanzibar, Sīrāf, Melaka, Canton 廣州 or Yangzhou 揚州. This was definitely a novelty.³ In this context, one could perhaps even speak of an Iranization and later Arabization of the IOW—in a similar context as scholars use the term Indianization,⁴ reflecting the importance of South Asia in these early supra-regional relations. The term “Islamization” should be used with caution. Especially in our modern times, it has a strongly political-religious and, at least in Europe, a somewhat negative connotation. If we speak of Islamization of the IOW in middle period and early modern times, we have to be aware that the term does not comport any negative connotation and, at the same time, that Islamization greatly promoted commercial, cultural, scientific and of course religious interconnectivity—an aspect that is particularly expounded in volume II.

The significant role of South Asia, the Indian subcontinent and adjacent regions, for IO connectivity is uncontested. It was not only the name-giver for this huge maritime space; South Asian merchants have been very active in these waters since early times. Trade relations between South Asia and China had existed for centuries. Merchants from India traded in Guangzhou as early as the fifth century.⁵ Whereas the subcontinent’s role in the first three centuries CE as well as in the centuries from 1500 to 1800 has received much scholarly attention, the intervening long millennium from 500 to 1500 is relatively little studied. Chapter 8 consequently takes a close look at the thousand years, when South Asia built up networks from East Africa and the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in the west to maritime and mainland Southeast Asia and China in the east. Epigraphic documents, letters of Jewish “India traders”, mercantile organizations, ceramic evidence, shipwreck archaeology and textual sources all attest to the active Indic engagement in trade and commerce across the IOW.

Much more common in academic discourse than Indianization has been, of course, the discussion about the Islamization of the macro-region. These questions are addressed by Pierre-Yves Manguin and all three of the contributors to Part I of this volume and extensively examined in volume II.

From the Chinese perspective, scholars have also started to speak of a Sinicization of Southeast Asia, emphasizing China’s increasing cultural, political and economic influence in there,⁶ a discussion that has recently gained in importance due to the Peoples Republic of China’s “One belt one road” (OBOR) policy. Whereas from India there were no conquests, colonization or even extensive migration, as a consequence of which the term has basically been used in a cultural context—“Indians came to Southeast Asia, but they did not come to rule; and no Indian power appears to have pursued an interest in controlling a Southeast Asian power from afar”⁷—the use of the term Sinicization has been closely linked with Chinese domination, Chinese cultural imperialism or political and military expansionism.

Originally, this idea first became popular in the 1940s, especially with Herold Jacob Wiens’ famous book China’s March Toward the Tropics, in which he repeatedly spoke of the Sinicization processes of China’s southern border regions and beyond.⁸ And the implications were basically political, in the 1950s and 1960s carrying strong anti-Communist features. The intention was to point to an aggressive southward movement of the Chinese pe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• Part I. Routes and Connections
• Part II. Commercial Crossroads and New Perspectives on Archaeological Evidence
• Part III. Official and Contraband Trade in the Nineteenth Century
• Part IV. Diasporas, Trade, and Human Mobility
• Back Matter