From Plantations to Military: Heritage of Galle Fort in Sri Lanka

Reviewed by: A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire Ned Bertz A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire. By Sugata Bose. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006. 333 pp. $27.95 (cloth). Revealing early on that his title is paraphrased from none other than Fernand Braudel, Sugata Bose alerts his readers that he intends his book to be an epic journey of "human agency, imagination, and action" (p. 4) carried on the warm waves of the Indian Ocean. This body of water's scholarship suffers neglect in comparison to the rich literatures of the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. This was clear from the unfortunate omission of the Indian Ocean from The American Historical Review's otherwise stimulating June 2006 forum on "Oceans of History." Who better than Bose, then—with a title of Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University—to captain Indian Ocean studies back into the conversation with theorists of oceanic world history and globalization? While he does sail into this discussion briefly, and with incisive skill, the author's eyes are fonder of other horizons: those that bound Indian Ocean world historiography, especially as seen from the shores of South Asia. It is here that Bose makes his greatest contributions, in particular by extending early modern understandings of the Indian Ocean into the twentieth century, in exploring cosmopolitan notions of anticolonialism across the region, and through the South Asianist project of deterritorializing Indian nationalism. One tension that has long beset Indian Ocean studies, like other transnational or world or global historical fields, is the question of balancing the ebb and flow of movement with the power structures that prevent or control it. At a 2002 conference on the Indian Ocean world, South Asian historian Vinay Lal of UCLA commented, in response to many papers about interregional flows and fluidity, that we needed to think more about "constipating" the Indian Ocean world. On the other end of the balance, the dominant view established by leading historians Kenneth McPherson and Michael Pearson is that European global empires sundered or subordinated preexisting Indian Ocean [End Page 377] linkages while fusing the region to the world economy. Bose offers a nuanced corrective by borrowing from Ranajit Guha, founder of India's subaltern studies collective, to argue that Europeans merely achieved "dominance without hegemony" in the Indian Ocean: "The peoples of the Indian Ocean made their own history, albeit not without having to contend with economic exploitation and political oppression, and the oceanic space supplied a key venue for articulating different universalisms from the one to which Europe claimed monopoly" (p. 273). The human agents Bose follows to illustrate his argument are a motley crew: Indian laborers in the oilfields of Bahrain and on the rubber plantations of Malaya; Gujarati merchants in Zanzibar and Tamil financiers in Burma; Indian soldiers deployed overseas in service of the British empire to France, Mesopotamia, and Southeast Asia; "expatriate patriots" such as Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa and Subhas Chandra Bose, who marched from Singapore to northeastern India with an army of colonial liberation during World War II; Muslim hajjis who traveled from India to Arabia on spiritual pilgrimage; and finally Rabindranath Tagore, whose peripatetic poetry written while on oceanic voyages made him a pilgrim of another sort, one in search of a "Greater India." This dazzling ensemble provides Bose with just a handful of the "hundred horizons" that represent the varied shared experiences found across the interregional Indian Ocean arena. Bose argues that the same scholars who sought out a precolonial Indian Ocean world "organic unity" inevitably read its collapse with the coming of European power (p. 20). Bose tells us that we must instead "keep in play an Indian Ocean interregional arena of economic and cultural interaction as an analytical unit while avoiding the pitfalls of assuming any uncomplicated and unsustainable thesis about continuity" (p. 21). The method employed here is to sketch the histories of the "circular migrants" listed above, centering their encounters with the Indian Ocean as the backdrop. However, one can see the challenge in trying to hold these stories together within a single ambitious book. One downside of...

The first interdisciplinary study of the history of contact between Iranians and the peoples and polities of the Indian Ocean. Most of the historiography of the Iranian world focuses on interactions and migrations between Iran, Central Asia and India. Nonetheless, this Iranian world was also closely connected to the maritime one of the Indian Ocean. While scholarship has drawn attention to diverse elements of these latter interactions, ranging from the claims to Shirazi descent of East African communities, to Persian elements in Malay literature, and Iranian communities of merchants in China, such studies have remained largely isolated from one another. The consensus of historiography on the Indian Ocean presents it as an ‘Arabic cosmopolis’, or, in earlier times, a Sanskrit one. The aim of this book is thus to bring together scholars working on disparate aspects of Persianate interactions with the Indian Ocean world from antiquity to modern times to provide a more rounded picture of both the history of the Persianate world, broadly conceived, and that of the Indian Ocean. The book brings together a collection of internationally renowned scholars from a variety of disciplines – including archaeology, history, literature, linguistics, art history – and covers interactions in Iran’s political and commercial relations with the Indian Ocean world in history, Persian-speaking communities in the Indian Ocean world, Persian(ate) elements in Indian Ocean languages and literatures, Persian texts dealing with the Indian Ocean, and connections in material culture.

Slavery existed in Africa for a long time before there was a slave trade with North Africans, the Middle East, Europeans, or the Indian Ocean world. The first contact between peoples north and south of the Sahara came in the Nile Valley. Ancient Egypt was not a slave society, but captives were often enslaved. Northeast Africa and the coast of East Africa were influenced by the penetration of the Indian Ocean by Greek and Roman navigators. Farther west, the development of trade was influenced by camels, which facilitated the growth of trade, and horses, which were useful in warfare. The availability of gold underwrote the creation of three empires centered on the Niger River, but the export of slaves from both West and Central Sudan supplemented the gold trade. Islam provided sanctions for slaving and a market for slaves. The transatlantic slave trade began in the 15th century and by the end of the 17th century achieved a greater scale than the trans-Saharan trade. It also led to the formation of a series of centralized and highly militarized states. The same period saw the growth of Indian Ocean trade and a penetration of East Africa by Arab and Swahili slave trades. The abolition of the slave trade and then slavery by European states in the 19th century did not reduce the trade but instead increased it as slaves were put to work producing commodities for European markets. Slaves were used in different ways within Africa, but the greatest difference from the Americas was in the importance of women, soldiers, and elite slaves.

1. Introduction: Maritime History and the Indian Ocean World 2. The Worlds of the Indian Ocean 3. The Southeast Asian Connection in the First Eurasian World Economy, 200 BCE - CE 500 4. Chinese Engagement with the Indian Ocean during the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties (10th-16th centuries) 5. Massoi and Kain Timur in the Birdshead Peninsula of New Guinea, the Easternmost Corner of the Indian Ocean World 6. Continuity and Change in Maritime Trade in the Straits of Melaka in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 7. Competing Spatial Networks: Kasimbazar and Chandernagore in Overland and Indian Ocean worlds 8. Fernando Rosa Ribeiro, Two Sixteenth Century Indian Ocean Intellectuals in Goa and Malabar: Orta and Zainuddin 9. East African Travellers and Traders in the Indian Ocean: Swahili ships, Swahili Mobilities ca.1500-1800

Using newly developed concepts of network theory, this paper tries to advance the theoretical analysis of Zheng He’s seven epic voyages across the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433, and to resolve some long-debated key issues on the subject. It also attempts to reveal how Zheng He helped change Sino-foreign relations in the early fifteenth century by developing tribute-trade networks overseas, and thereby influenced the history of China, the Indian Ocean region, and globalization in general. An examination of the primary sources from the network perspective indicates that the development of tribute-trade relations overseas made up the primary purpose, major activities and enduring historical legacies of Zheng He’s voyages. Zheng He initiated the construction of overseas bases for navigation and trade, and thus greatly promoted the institutionalization and expansion of tribute-trade relations between China and the Indian Ocean world. Both the tribute and trade networks contracted after Zheng He’s voyages ended because of their failure to diversify beyond state-monopolized diplomacy and trade. But their development in the early fifteenth century and their continuity thereafter brought China and Indian Ocean countries into unprecedented interactions. The dual networks also provided a foundation for the European “geographic discoveries” in the Indian Ocean later on, for the early contact between China and the West and ultimately for the globalization of the modern world. Therefore, a network analysis of Zheng He’s voyages and the subsequent tribute-trade relations between China and the Indian Ocean world can refine the current theoretical paradigms and narrative frameworks of world history, which are still centered on the rise and expansion of modern Europe and the West. It also reveals how such non-Western historical movements and premodern tribute-trade relations exerted influence on a global network revolution, which linked the old and new worlds through an unprecedented level of relational institutionalization, expansion, diversification and interactions between varied network members in global history.

A New Look at Culture and Trade on the Azanian Coast

Slavery was a key feature of the Cape Colony in South Africa from the establishment of the colony by the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) in the 1650s, throughout the period of DEIC and Dutch Batavian rule in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and under British rule until the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in the 1830s. Until the abolition of the slave trade in 1808, slaves were imported from a wide range of areas in the Indian Ocean world, including India, Sri Lanka, maritime southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Mozambique. Children born to slave women in the Cape Colony were also slaves and this was the sole source after the abolition of the slave trade. Slaves played a major role in the economy and society of the Cape Colony and during the DEIC period there were as many, or more, slaves than settlers. Most lived in Cape Town or on the arable farms of the southwestern Cape, although slaves were also located in the pastoral northern and eastern districts of the colony. Only a few were manumitted before general emancipation in the 1830s. Slaves worked on settler farms alongside some of the Indigenous Khoesan inhabitants of the Cape. The slaves, Khoesan, and their descendants subsequently became the main laboring class of the colonial Cape region of South Africa and the legacy of their impoverishment remains to this day. Raiding for slaves also took place on the frontiers of the Dutch colony and examples of forced and captive labor existed in the interior regions of South Africa when these were occupied by settlers from the Cape in the 19th century.

Contents List of Figures, Maps and Tables Notes on Contributors Travelling Pasts: An Introduction Burkhard Schnepel Part 1: Indian Ocean Cultural Heritage and the 'World' 1 Global Linkages, Connectivity and the Indian Ocean in the UNESCO World Heritage Arena Christoph Brumann 2 'Project Mausam'. India's Transnational Initiative: Revisiting UNESCO's World Heritage Convention Himanshu Prabha Ray 3 The History of the Hajj as Heritage: Asset or Burden to the Saudi State? Ulrike Freitag Part 2: (Im-)materialities on the Move 4 Materiality and Mobility: Comparative Notes on Heritagization in the Indian Ocean World Katja Muller and Boris Wille 5 Ambiguous Pasts: The Indian Ocean World in Cape Town's Public History Nigel Worden Part 3: Travelling Pasts in the Eastern Indian Ocean World 6 Temple Heritage of a Chinese Migrant Community: Movement, Connectivity, and Identity in the Maritime World Tansen Sen 7 The Uses of 'Chinese Heritage': Foreign Policy of the People's Republic of China in the Contemporary Indo-Pacific World Geoffrey Wade 8 Heritage Food: The Materialization of Connectivity in Nyonya Cooking Mareike Pampus Part 4: Travelling Pasts in the Western Indian Ocean World 9 Contradictions in the Heritagization of Zanzibar 'Stone Town' Abdul Sheriff 10 The Production of Identities on the Island of Mayotte: A Historical Perspective Iain Walker Index

The Horn of Africa and South Asia have shared a vibrant, multidimensional relationship since ancient times. A number of factors enabled this relationship, including: the Indian Ocean monsoons; the location of coastal northeast Africa on trade routes between India, Egypt, and the Mediterranean; and a complementarity of resources and economic needs and wants. The Indian Ocean World (IOW) has been described as the first global economy. Trade also played roles in the spread of plants, animals, and religious and other cultural beliefs and practices across the IOW. For these and other reasons, it is surprising that the IOW has only been a frame for research and an object of study in its own right for a few decades. The dual status of the Horn of Africa as a component of both the African and IOW makes it a contact zone par excellence. It also provides fertile opportunities to advance understanding of the historiography of oceans, islands, port towns, and hinterlands. Many important lessons learned from scholarly study of relations between the Horn of Africa and South Asia have wider applicability, such as the need for new ways of thinking to tackle biases apparent in area studies, and ubiquitous Eurocentrism. Recent investigations have begun to address the neglected history and agency of indigenous communities and endogenous historical processes, such as the importance of short trading journeys by multitudes of local entrepreneurs, and the diverse histories of Sidis—Indians of African descent. Sidi studies continues to shed new and valuable insights into many other matters, including slavery, diaspora, and identity. The Portuguese intensified ties between Ethiopia and India. Portuguese colonies in Goa, Daman, and Diu became bases for Portuguese relations with Ethiopia. Although the Portuguese interlude in Ethiopia was relatively short, its legacy included Indian influences on material culture, including religious painting and architecture. Small numbers of Europeans visited the interior of the Horn of Africa over the next two and a half centuries, but Indian traders mostly conducted their business from Red Sea and Indian Ocean ports. Following the opening of Anglo-Ethiopian relations in 1897, Indian merchants ventured into the interior. Indian craftsmen were also to leave their mark. Most Indians left Ethiopia during the Italian Occupation between 1935 to 1941. Postwar, Emperor Haile Selassie focused on reconstruction and reform, which included recruiting large numbers of Indian school teachers. A new generation of Indian entrepreneurs also arrived. Following partition, India–Africa relations initially focused on political solidarities. With the beginning of economic liberalization in India in 1991, economic relations were foregrounded, with India becoming a significant trade and investment partner.

The Indian Ocean has occupied an important place in the history of Africa for millennia, linking the continental land mass to the peoples, products, and ideas of the wider Indian Ocean world (IOW). Central to this relationship are environmental factors, including the biannual operation of monsoon winds, which determined the maritime movement of people, things, and ideas. The earliest of these connections involve the movement of food crops, domestic animals, and commensals both from and into Africa and its offshore islands. From the beginnings of the Current Era, Africa was an important Indian Ocean source of valuable commodities, such as ivory and gold; in more recent times, hardwood products like mangrove poles, and agricultural products like cloves, coconuts, and copra gained economic prominence. Enslaved African labor also had a long history in the IOW, the sources and destinations for the export trade varying over time. In addition, for centuries many different Indian Ocean immigrant communities played important roles as settlers, merchants, sailors, and soldiers. In the realm of culture and ideas, African music, dance, and spiritual concepts accompanied those Africans who were forcibly removed from the continent to the different Indian Ocean lands where they were enslaved. A further indicator of Indian Ocean connectivity is Islam, the introduction of which marks an important watershed in African history. The human settlement of Madagascar marks another significant Indian Ocean connection for Africa. At different times and in different ways, colonial rule—Portuguese, Dutch, Omani, French, and British—tied eastern African territories to India, Arabia, and Southeast Asia. Since regaining independence, African nation-states have established a variety of new linkages to other Indian Ocean states.

In West Africa, long-distance trade across the sands of the Sahara made possible the exchange of commodities from the Mediterranean world for those of Africa, which encouraged the expansion of states south of the desert. In East Africa, long-distance trade over the waters of the Indian Ocean made possible the exchange of commodities from Asia for those of Africa, which cultivated the rise of commercial emporiums and city-states to promote them. There are striking similarities between Saharan and Indian Oceanic commerce. Both traversed great distances. The Bilma Trail (Garamantean Road) was the shortest route, 1,500 miles across the Sahara. The trade routes of the Indian Ocean were longer, thousands of miles of open water between the coast of East Africa to southern Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian subcontinent. Along these two great passages of economic, cultural, political, and religious intercourse the merchandise for trade in the great market towns were much the same – gold, ivory, perfumes, exotic woods, and slaves from East Africa in return for cloth, porcelain, salt, and hardware from Asia. There were accepted standards of exchange, tariffs, and a royal monopoly on special items such as gold and slaves and commercial agreements between rulers and merchants to promote their own and mutual interests.

A growing body of research has focused on adult Asian sailors’ employment on European ships in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. However, the experiences of children who worked on ships in the Indian Ocean World have received comparatively little attention. The scholarly lacuna is striking considering the tremendous increase in the scope and sophistication in the discussions on child slavery and abolition. This article examines the use of children as maritime laborers in the Indian Ocean World between the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, it examines the multiple pathways through which children were brought for work on ships and studies the recruitment patterns of adult and child sailors. It focuses on the various types of labor performed by children on ships and discusses how conditions of servitude on land were transferred to a ship when children accompanied their masters. It then also discusses how prevailing understandings of childhood, domestic service, and child labor shaped the actions of English East India Company officials towards child sailors while undertaking anti-slavery measures during the nineteenth century.

For centuries East Africa had an integral place within the Indian Ocean world. While it existed at the periphery of the wider Indian Ocean in earlier periods, by the 18th and 19th centuries it was much more centrally engaged in these affairs.An interregional trade linked different sub-regions of East Africa to other Indian Ocean economies. While slave trading, slave raiding and their consequences provide one thematic focus of this book, Indian Ocean commercial networks were much more complex in the range of products exchanged, including luxury goods and staple food items, as well as enforced labor. Islam provides yet another connective tissue linking Eastern Africa to the Indian Ocean world and a cultural matrix in which popular beliefs and practices were transmitted.This volume brings together a set of important essays published on various dimensions of Eastern Africa's role within the Indian Ocean world written by Edward A. Alpers, Professor of History at UCLA, over four decades. In different ways, each of these papers seeks to demonstrate that one cannot understand the history of eastern Africa without considering its wider regional setting in the western Indian Ocean.

An outstanding feature of the early modern Indian Ocean World is the large number of women who exercised formal sovereign political power. Based on a systematic survey of 277 queens regnant in the Indian Ocean World from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, this article discusses four possible explanations for the relative frequency of female rule: religion, trade, political stability, and gender relations. It concludes that the spread of world religions, particularly Islam, entailed a decrease in the acceptance of female rule in large parts of the region, although its influence varied, and, in sharp contrast to the Middle East, many Muslim polities in the Indian Ocean World were at one time or another during the period under study led by a woman. The notion that women rulers were preferred because of their commercial skills and ability to promote peaceful, open, and trade-friendly policies is rejected as a causal explanation because of its weak support in contemporary sources. The relative frequency of female rule in the Indian Ocean World can instead be explained on a general level by a combination of the desire for political and dynastic stability and the matrifocal orientation of many societies along the Indian Ocean rim. However, as in Europe during the same period, female rule tended mainly to be adopted as a last resort, and female royal power tended, apart from a few exceptions, to be weak and short-lived.

For historians of the Indian Ocean, the stakes in thinking about law and economic life are very high. As a key arena of world history, the Indian Ocean world has emerged as a site for reflecting on issues of connectivity and circulation, and for writing histories that cover broad spans of space and time. Many of these histories—and indeed, the pioneering works in the field—have focused on matters of trade and empire, the twin pillars of world history more broadly. Since around 2000, research has taken on different forms of migration as well as matters of ideology, culture, epidemiology, and more, but many of these discussions are still built on foundations of trade and empire: people, books, ideas, and diseases primarily circulate through networks forged via trade or through imperial channels. All of it, however, requires a rigorous engagement with questions of law, which undergirded production and trade in the region. The history of law and economic life in the Indian Ocean might be mapped onto three arenas. First, law played an important role in the politico-economic constitution of empires (Muslim or otherwise) in the Indian Ocean. Beyond that, though, one must consider the legal dynamics of trade networks within this world of empires, examining the intersecting private-order and public mechanisms that merchants drew on to regulate their commercial affairs. And finally, the histories of law, empire, and economic life all intersected in courtrooms around the Indian Ocean world, as economic actors took their disputes to different tribunals, shaping the contours of the legal history of the region.