Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of plates
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I General problems and historical events
- 1 Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean: social, cultural, economic, and temporal dimensions
- 2 The rise of Islam and the pattern of pre-emporia trade in early Asia
- 3 The Portuguese seaborne empire in the Indian Ocean
- 4 The Dutch and English East India Companies and the bureaucratic form of trade in Asia
- 5 Emporia trade and the great port-towns in the Indian Ocean
- Part II Structure and la longue durée
- Notes
- Glossary
- Guide to sources and further reading
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Dutch and English East India Companies and the bureaucratic form of trade in Asia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of plates
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I General problems and historical events
- 1 Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean: social, cultural, economic, and temporal dimensions
- 2 The rise of Islam and the pattern of pre-emporia trade in early Asia
- 3 The Portuguese seaborne empire in the Indian Ocean
- 4 The Dutch and English East India Companies and the bureaucratic form of trade in Asia
- 5 Emporia trade and the great port-towns in the Indian Ocean
- Part II Structure and la longue durée
- Notes
- Glossary
- Guide to sources and further reading
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
By the end of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean had achieved a certain degree of integration with the local political and commercial environment. The viceroy of Goa acted in much the same way as the ruler of a former free port or trading town might have done. Jan Huygen van Linschoten, the Dutch clerk in the service of Archbishop Don Frey Vincente da Fonseca, lived in Goa for five years (1583—9). His work, published under the title of Itinerario, is a remarkable testimony from an independent witness to the extent of Portuguese involvement in Indian Ocean trade and society. Although recent arrivals from Portugal, articulate clergy and laymen, might feel that they belonged to an exclusive European culture and religion, financial and social necessity often pointed in the direction of ethnic assimilation. In seaborne trade, the most visible expression of the Portuguese integration was the rise of a new and active line of trans-oceanic commerce based on a number of substantial commercial towns and cities. The maritime trade of Mocha, Aden, and Surat in the western Indian Ocean had its counterparts in other areas. There were Meliapur, Masulipatam, and Hugh in southern and eastern India; Acheh, Bantam, and Manila in the Indonesian archipelago, supplementing the trade of Malacca; Canton, Macau, and Nagasaki in the Far East.
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- Information
- Trade and Civilisation in the Indian OceanAn Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750, pp. 80 - 97Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1985