The Indian Ocean (26 page)

This chapter provides a long analysis of the arrival, and impact, of Europeans in the Indian Ocean up to the mid eighteenth century. The aim is to locate these Europeans in the structures we have already described in the previous chapter. In a possibly perverse way, what we intend to show is that the European presence over its first 250 years certainly varied from place to place and time to time, but overall the effects on the Indian Ocean, its trade, its people, even its politics, was limited. The next chapter deals in detail with continuing structures, which by and large the Europeans were forced to accommodate, or concerning which they had no knowledge at all. Here we will look not only at trade, the topic which so far has dominated the historiography of the Indian Ocean, but also at religious movements, and the social history of people on ships. Finally we will note how the Indian Ocean was now much more part of a wider world than had been the case in previous centuries. In the terms set out by Horden and Purcell, we increasingly have to write a history where the history
in
the ocean, that is a history which looks beyond its geographical bounds, is more important than an autonomous history
of
the ocean. Yet so far these links to the rest of the world were relatively benign: in the last two chapters of this book we will see how their nature changed as Europe changed, and the Indian Ocean became peripheral in the capitalist world economy.

Few writers today would follow the Indian scholar-diplomat K.M. Panikkar and write about a Vasco da Gama period of Asian history, beginning in 1498 when the Portuguese navigator arrived in southwest India. Some however would accept his succeeding claim, that it 'was a great event from the point of view of the results that followed from it.'
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The tendency here, much to be found also in Victorian English accounts of their empire, is that this was the crucial insertion of the wedge which later led to European dominance. My whole argument is that the presence of Europeans is one thing, and certainly there were increasing numbers of them in the Indian Ocean region in the period covered by this chapter, but to see this as the beginning of the demonstrable dominance of the nineteenth century is to take a very teleological view indeed. There had, after all, been 'foreigners' in the Indian Ocean for millennia: Romans, Greeks, a host of others. Early Europeans fitted into a very broad and diverse complex of people living around and sailing across the ocean. There was
contact certainly, both hostile and peaceful, but until the power dimension changed in the later eighteenth century this did not become an impact, let alone dominance.

One useful way to get a perspective is to remember Zheng He's expeditions, which we described in the previous chapter (see pages 90–1). He commanded massive fleets. The first one in 1405 included sixty-two large ships, some of them over 100 metres long. There were about 28,000 men in this expedition. The best perspective is to remember that in the early fifteenth century, as the Portuguese began their slow progress down the West African coast (they took Ceuta, in Morocco, in 1415), Chinese fleets came close to the Cape of Good Hope; some think they sailed around it. At the end of this century Europeans rounded the Cape, and soon after reached the Straits of Melaka, at the other end of the ocean. Thus at the beginning of this century these straits saw a great Chinese fleet, and at the beginning of the next a much smaller European one. At these two times the port city of Melaka became first a sender of tribute to the Chinese emperor, and then at the end was conquered by the Portuguese.

Another even wider comparison is also instructive. Andrew Hess points out that between the Portuguese capture of Ceuta and 1522, when Magellan set off around the world, the Europeans began maritime expansion, or even empires. The Ottoman Turks did this at the same time, and the two collided in the northern Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century. By the accession of Suleyman in 1520 the Ottomans ruled a coastline stretching from the Crimea to Yemen, and also including the Black Sea and much of the Mediterranean. Yet the Portuguese and Ottoman empires were very different. As we will see, the Portuguese version was essentially maritime, but for the Ottomans taxing and controlling land was always the key, with maritime matters merely an adjunct. In 1526 Suleyman lost interest in the Indian Ocean and instead turned to Hungary.
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Broadly speaking, the evolution of the European presence goes like this. From 1500 to well into the eighteenth century Europeans controlled some ports: some they created, some they conquered. In this period these ports had a totally maritime focus; the Europeans controlled little except some mostly long-distance oceanic trade. Only the umland was usually also taken, this being where food came from. Indigenous ports were different, for they had connections with the inland as well as the umland, even if they were not part of an inland state. The at least tacit support and patronage of land-based powers was essential for them to survive. In the eighteenth century some European ports began to be more closely linked to their hinterlands, and soon after, Europeans conquered these hinterlands, fundamentally altering the situation. The focus of the ports moved from one concentrating on the foreland to one looking more to the hinterland.

I will argue later that the Portuguese introduced politics into the Indian Ocean. To set them in context, I will first provide a discussion of the attitudes of Asian rulers to sea trade and maritime matters more generally. In all this the crucial distinction is between Asian rulers of port cities, and those controlling vast landed empires in the interior.

As we noted in the previous chapter, the rulers of the autonomous port cities – such as Mombasa, Kilwa, Mogadishu, Aden, Hurmuz, Calicut and Melaka – were completely dependent on trade for their revenue: controlling only small areas of land, the usual Asian resource of a tax on land and its products was not available to them. Some of these rulers traded for themselves, especially those in southeast Asia, though we have claimed that this was done as a merchant rather than as a ruler. To advantage oneself as a merchant by using political power (such as monopolies or forced purchase) would be to drive away the visiting merchants on whom the ruler depended almost completely.

The link between politics and trade in the various port polities of southeast Asia was much closer to that of other port cities controllers in the western ocean than to the situation in the landed states, whether they be the three great Islamic empires or China. Kathirithamby-Wells has shown that in the Malay world the entrepot and the polity was always concentric. Controllers of port polities obtained prestige and luxury goods from their trade, and this flowed into economic and political power. The geography of the area dictated that agrarian matters were much less dominant and, unlike, say, India and China, were not set off from maritime matters: rather they were complementary. Some southeast Asian rulers at times tried to use their political control to give themselves economic advantage, such as by proclaiming a monopoly over some products. Most however acted in the way we have sketched above, in other words tried to provide fair treatment for merchants so that they would continue to call.

These rulers of port cities clearly would oppose any outside force which threatened this situation of peaceful trade. When Europeans arrived and tried to monopolise trade in some products, and tax or direct other trade, these port cities or polities had to resist: some were successful, others not.

The situation in the great landed states in this period was quite different. Historians have found these states exhibiting three attitudes to trade, to merchants, and to the sea. Some say the state took no interest, some say it took an exploitative and malevolent interest, and some see a fruitful conjunction between political power and economic interests. We can ignore East Africa in this discussion, for the only major state, the Mutapa, was far inland, and in decline anyway. We are then really dealing with the three great Muslim states of the period, the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals, and of them the Mughals deserve most of our attention. They ruled India, the area which has to be seen as the fulcrum or axis of the Indian Ocean. The Ottomans were far away and had landed, European and Middle Eastern, interests to pursue. The endemic wars between them and the Safavids show the landed focus of them both, and also means that they had little in the way of a maritime role in the Indian Ocean.

Nor, however, did seaborne Indian states. I will concentrate on the area of Gujarat, including the period after its conquest by the Mughals in 1572. The focus of the Muslim rulers of Gujarat is pithily encapsulated in a saying attributed to one of them: 'Wars by sea are merchants' affairs, and of no concern to the prestige of kings.' Their interest lay in controlling and taxing land, and the peasants on it.
Customs revenues made up only a small part of their total revenue. Any activity which they may have undertaken at sea was very much auxiliary to land matters.

The attitude of the Mughals seems to be very similar, at least as regards specifically maritime matters. It was Akbar who conquered Gujarat, and at this time he had his first and only view of the sea. He went out from Cambay on a brief excursion with a select party, and enjoyed seeing the spectacle of the ocean. His interest in sea matters was very slight.

His main concern with the sea was a result of his desire to send pilgrims to Mecca, leaving from Surat and travelling by sea. Yet this concern did not lead to his taking the trouble to found a navy: as was noted of a successor, Aurangzeb, in the second half of the seventeenth century, he contented himself 'in the enjoyment of the Continent, and styles the Christians Lions of the Sea, saying that God has allotted that Unstable Element for their Rule.'
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The whole mind-set of the Mughal emperors and their nobles was land-based. Prestige was a matter of controlling vast areas on which were located fat, meek peasants. Glory was to be won by campaigns on land, leading one's contingent of cavalry, galloping over the plains. To courtiers, including the emperors, the sea was a marvel, a curiosity, a freak. This was not an arena where power and glory were to be won.

In 1617 Akbar's successor, Jahangir, also came to Cambay. His account of what he saw is of a piece with his numerous other observations in his memoirs where he is describing curiosities, such as a rare fruit, or a brave man. 'In these days during which I was encamped on the shore of the salt sea, merchants, traders, indigent people, and other inhabitants of the port of Cambay having been summoned before me, I gave each according to his condition a dress of honour or a horse or travelling money or assistance in living.' He found out that 'Before the arrival of the victorious host some ghurabs from European ports had come to Cambay to buy and sell, and were about to return. On Sunday, the 10th, they decorated them and showed them to me. Taking leave they went about their business.' He concludes, 'As my desire was to see the sea and the flow and ebb of the water, I halted for ten days' and then went off to Ahmadabad.
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The Mughals, and other Indian rulers of large states, by and large pursued a hands-off attitude to trade in general, including that by sea. As Barendse puts it, the Mughals and the Safavids neither exploited trade nor encouraged it: they had very little in the way of a trade policy at all.
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However, at times merchant and ruler interests coincided, and then the state could help the merchant while helping itself. Studies by Om Prakash and Van Santen show a closer nexus between state and merchant in Mughal India than was depicted in my own earliest work. For example, the Mughals actively encouraged the importation of bullion, and also provided a very sophisticated minting process.
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Om Prakash's characterisation of the essential element in Indian trade being that of 'bullion for goods' is completely appropriate. Obviously merchants were concerned to acquire bullion, but rulers also were concerned to accumulate their own stocks of precious metals. They also more generally wanted there to be plenty of precious metals in India. It seems that they shared some of the preconceptions of their European fellow-rulers at this time, that is that a rich
country was one with a large stock of bullion. Given that few European products found markets in India, while Indian products had ready acceptance all over the Indian Ocean area and also in Europe, 'bullionist' aspirations were much more adequately achieved in India than in Europe.

The general attitude of most Indian rulers, whether Hindu or Muslim, seems to be one of a rather remote benevolence. Trade could certainly provide revenue, and more inchoately it was meritorious for any ruler to rule over happy, prosperous people, but actual intervention either for or against was most unusual. A Marathi treatise on statecraft from the early eighteenth century describes this sort of attitude:

Capitalists are the ornaments of the kingdom. The land is prosperous and populous because of them. Goods otherwise unavailable are procured through them. In times of crisis their loans enable the ruler to overcome difficulties. Protecting them brings great advantages. For this they should be respected and honoured. Do not allow them to be harassed or molested for any reason.

Similarly,

If a wealthy businessman is captured during raids on enemy territory or during sea expeditions, then he should pay a suitable ransom. Detain him until this is paid; when that is done treat him honourably and return him to his own land. It is not right to subject businessfolk to the severities reserved for the soldiers and employees of an enemy.
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It has often been argued that the decline of great empires led to economic problems, including a decline in sea trade. The late Ashin Das Gupta was an influential proponent of this thesis. He claimed that the decline, in the eighteenth century, of all three of the great Islamic empires – the Ottoman, the Safavid and the Mughal – affected Indian Ocean trade deleteriously. At the least these states had provided a certain stability and law and order, and had defended their borders against raids from outside. Locally powerful figures in all of them were to an extent controlled, and where possible their revenue raising activities (often more or less plunder) were curtailed in favour of the central state levying a more routine tribute or tax. This sort of predicability was obviously good for merchants. As the countrysides were monetised merchants had a larger role, buying the crop for money which the cultivator used to pay land revenue, and then on-selling the produce at a regional market. Merchants need information and communications, and large empires do too. Imperial networks of communication served not only to keep a ruler informed of events in distant places, they also made it possible for merchants to learn of distant markets, and to transmit funds via letters of credit. All this, we are told, was ended as these empires collapsed into anarchy.
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