La pointe nord de Sumatra et la côte orientale de l’Inde : horizons économiques (XIIe s.-XVIIe s.)

Abstract

The northern Tip of Sumatra and the eastern Coast of India : economic opportunities (12th-17th centuries). This article considers the economic history of the northern tip of Sumatra in the longue durée by focusing on its interactions with the east coast of India, defined here as the coastline between Chittagong and Cape Comorin, from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries. It is based on two assumptions : these interactions were continuous during the period under study here, and detailed contemporaneous archaeological data from neighbouring areas, especially from Barus on the west coast, are relevant to remedy the paucity of data available for the northern tip itself. Indian inscriptions and Western sources, whether travelogues or trading companies archives, especially from the VOC, complete the corpus of sources. Three aspects are considered : the bases of the economic positioning of the northern tip of Sumatra in relation to the eastern coast of India, the various categories of actors involved in this economic history, and finally the main trading places on the eastern coast India for which economic contacts with the northern tip of Sumatra were likely or attested during the period under study here.