Indian Merchants Research Articles

東アフリカの長距離交易について

Trade in East Africa is the so called “the long distance caravan trade”. It is different from the caravan trade of other areas; the Sahara, Arabia peninsular, Middle East, etc., because of the means of transportation. The transportation in East Africa depends on manpower, because the existence of tsetse flies prevents the use of animals for transportation. For this reason the trade caravan consisted of many thousands of people. The caravan trade was mainly for ivory. At first slavery was not the main item, but later it became a major item of the trade. The caravan trade had been started by African peoples, the Yao, Nyamweji, Kamba, about the first decade of the 19th century. They extended trade routes upcountry. Then Arab and Swahili caravan traders came into the scene in the third or fourth decades of the 19th century. The organization of the caravan trade came to need so much money, only Indian merchants were soon able to provide enough money for large caravans at that time. In the latter half of the 19th century the caravan trade became international. African, Arab, Swahili, and Indian traders took part in these caravans. Africans were mainly porters, Indians were financiers, Arab and Swahili traders were organizers and conducters. It could be said that the real owners of the trade caravans were Indian merchants. The significance of the caravan trade in the 19th century is that the first direct trade between the East African coast and the inland, which had no contact with each other before the 19th century, started. The inland regions were strongly influenced, e.g., the introduction of guns, the appearance of the Arab Settlements, the extention of Swahili language, the slave trade, the appearance of powerful African chiefs like Mirambo, Arab trade kingdoms like Tippu Tip ruling territories, and so on. As for the slave trade, since ancient times many African slaves were sent to Arabia, India, China, and other places. There is a record of a slave who came to Japan in the 16th century. It must be noted that the caravan trade in East Africa was one of the first movements to connect the East African coast with the inland regions, and brought an international economic element into the inland countries.

ペルシャ湾とイギリス -オマーンにおけるイギリス支配の確立過程-

After the death of Said b. Sultan in 1856, a dispute arose between his sons as to the possesion of Oman and Zanzibar. In consequence of the British arbitration in the dispute which severed Zanzibar from Oman, the British influence on the administration of Muscat became preponderant. However, the declaration of 1862 between Great Britain and France, engaging reciprocally to respect the independence of the Sultans of Muscat and Zanzibar, required the British government to abstain from establishing a direct control on the Sultanate administration. Thus, since 1862 the British government was obliged to maintain a influence on the Sultanate administration mainly by granting an annual subsidy.Toward the end of the 19th century, the French government again developed its involvement in Muscat affairs. Owing to this renewal of French influence in Oman, the British government started to consider the possibilities of establishing a direct control on the Sultanate administration.In consequence of the civil war in Oman which started in 1913, the Sultanate fell into the financial difficulties. Eventually, the Sultan owed a heavy debt to the Indian merchants in Oman. To pay off his debts the British government offered to grant loans to the Sultan on the condition of the British financial control on the Sultanate. And the reform in the structure of the administration was also one of the important conditions of loans. Thus in return for British loans granted since 1918 the Sultanate came to be under the British control.

Urban development and death: Bombay City, 1870-1914.

Historians, statesmen, administrators, nationalists and others have disagreed sharply about the impact of modernization in the era of Western domination. Did Western rule provide the tools for Indian progress but did economically medieval, ‘other-worldly’ Indians fail to maximize the benefits of modernization and even thwart advances? Conversely, did Western imperialism systematically impoverish India by making it a ‘satellite,’ freezing the subcontinent into a neo-feudal social pattern while sucking up its wealth? Finally, is a ‘new revisionist’ interpretation correct that India experienced real if undramatic economic growth during the Western era and that notions of exploitation or Indian suffering induced by development were myths? Interpretations expressing either the great success and benign innovations of Western rule, or its exploitiveness both appear flawed, according to Bombay's modernizing experience. Bombay underwent a great expansion of wealth and became the source of India's new factory textile production, the hub of a great newwork of trasport and trade, and the cosmopolitan abode of wealth Indian merchants, industrialist and professionals, whose affluence, modernity, industrializing activies and eventual nationalist orientation distinguished them from a supine or neo-feudal comprador class, cooperating with Western masters in exploiting ‘natives’ for a myrmidon's share of the profits. Alternatively, Bombay's prosperity did not flow down to the masses; its modernization was complex, dynamically helping to produce progress and wealth, but for some decades impoverishing and destroying many lives. In the half-century of rapid development preceding the first world war, the great majority of Bombay's populace, its ordinary working classes, experienced significant declines in living standards, worsening environmental conditions and escalating death-rates. Diminished real income and increased mortality among Bombay's ordinary inhabitants warn against extrapolating from rising indices of material production an optimistic conclusion about the general human condition in the city or in British India.

A Brief Note on Business Organisation of Indian Merchants in Russia in the 17th Century

A Brief Note on Business Organisation of Indian Merchants in Russia in the 17th Century

Indian Merchants and the Western Indian Ocean: The Early Seventeenth Century

Researches in Indian economic history have stimulated curiosity about India's connections with the Indian Ocean area. Work done on European expansion in the non-European world has also contributed to the development of this area of enquiry. Recent writings on the Indian Ocean and the Indian maritime merchant have indicated important possibilities of further research. I shall first briefly consider some of these, and then pass on to an examination of a concrete historical problem where Indian economic history meets the history of European expansion and the two themes are held together by the Indian Ocean.

Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, c. 1700-1750

Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, c. 1700-1750

Review: Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600-1800, by Holden Furber; The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660-1760, by K. N. Chaudhuri; and Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, c. 1700-1750, by Ashin Das Gupta

Review: <i>Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600-1800</i>, by Holden Furber; <i>The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660-1760</i>, by K. N. Chaudhuri; and <i>Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, c. 1700-1750</i>, by Ashin Das Gupta

Indian merchants in East Africa part II British imperialism and the transformation of the slave economy

(1981). Indian merchants in East Africa part II British imperialism and the transformation of the slave economy. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 2-30.

The Indian merchant community of Masqaṭ

In 1836 the Arabian traveller J. R. Wellsted described the Hindu community of Masqaṭ, 'Umān, as constituting ‘a body of the principal merchants’ of that port. By the 1870s the Indian merchants dominated the commercial life of Masqaṭ and had replaced the Āl Bū Sa'īd rulers of the town as the paramount economic power in 'Umān. While this community has much wider significance than their pivotal role in the commerce of Masqaṭ and 'Umān (the Indian merchants in Masqaṭ were a component of the great Indian Ocean trading network, and as Hindus and Shī'īs in a Sunnī, more properly Khārijī, country they offer potential insights into the status of minority groups in Muslim states) the focus of this study is the more specific problem of their origins, development and social and economic activities in Masqaṭ to the end of the nineteenth century.

Indian merchants in East Africa part I the triangular trade and the slave economy

(1980). Indian merchants in East Africa part I the triangular trade and the slave economy. Slavery & Abolition: Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 292-338.

James Haward Taylor, 1909-1968

The untimely death of Professor J. H. Taylor while pursuing underwater studies of modern limestone formation off the Seychelles on 25 January 1968, deprived the Society and the science of geology of an outstanding man in the prime of his life. He was born at Esher on 24 February 1909, the only child of James Taylor of Milngavie, Dunbartonshire, a partner in the firm of Balmer, Lawrie and Co., Indian merchants, and Lilian Dudley Ward Haward of Spalding, Lincolnshire. His paternal grandfather, James Smith Taylor, and great-grandfather were both ministers of the Church of Scotland; his maternal grandfather, Henry Haward, served on the staff of the Surveyor- General of India. Both his parents spent much of their lives in that sub-continent and James passed his early years at Calcutta and Mussooree. The family settled at Thames Ditton after returning from India, but Mr Taylor did not long survive. Mrs Taylor, however, lived until 1967 and between mother and son there was a lifelong bond of affection so strong that it was certainly a major influence in James’s life. Holidays from Thames Ditton were often spent in Scotland, where the interest of the growing boy in science was stimulated by his aunt, Margaret Taylor, one of the first women to complete the Natural Science Tripos at Cambridge.

The case of Ḥjj Nr al-Dn, 182347: a study in land tenure

Among the British Indian merchants engaged in trade with Persia in the first half of the nineteenth century was Hjj Nr al-Dn Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dn Muhammad, a native of Masulipatam. He was a rich and highly respected merchant, holding at one time a position of influence at Shrz, where he had settled at the beginning of the century and married. He was a Sh' and reputed to be pious and well versed in the tenets of Sh'ism. He had intercourse with Husayn 'Al Mrz Farmn Farm (the son of Fath 'Al Shh and governor of Frs from 1214179980 to 12501834), Fath 'Al Shh, and Muhammad Shh; he also enjoyed the favour of the latter's prime minister Hjj Mrz Aqs, who referred to him in 1843 as his esteemed friend,2 but eventually forfeited this because of the partiality which Muhammad Shh showed him for many years.3 In due course Hjj Nr al-Dn acquired possession of two estates in Frs. His title to them was subsequently questioned and the dispute led to a long and complicated case with the Persian government.

Techno‐Economic Survey of Konkan Region. Indian Merchants' Chamber, Bombay

Techno‐Economic Survey of Konkan Region. Indian Merchants' Chamber, Bombay

Nationalism and Communism in South-East Asia

The history of mankind is studded with narratives of human conflicts, inspired largely by man's desire of domination. Domination gave rise to resentment and agitation and finally gave way to freedom. Thus the struggle between man's desire to dominate and yet to be free determined the changing patterns of society and the course of human civilization. With the march of time and growth of experience the frontiers and concepts of loyalties widened and the tribal and clan conflicts developed into organised and highly mechanised national warfare. Consequently at the turn of this century most of the world lay humble at the feet of a few industrially and technologically advanced nations of the West. South East Asia belonged to the majority community of the humbled. Known as the “economic bulwark of western Imperialsm”, its economic wealth had, in fact, attracted over a period of centuries peoples of various cultures and races. The Europeans were only the last to come; before them had come the Indian, Chinese and Arab merchants. Of all these the Europeans were the most organised and persistent intruders. Their commercial rivalries through a process of political intrigues and military strifes inevitably led to the colonisation of South East Asia for several centuries. Except Thailand, all the nations of this region suffered a period of European domination; even Thailand's independence remained at its best precarious. Some remnants of this domination are still to be seen, for instance, in West Irian and Timor.

The Bajun Islands and Birikau

APPROXIMATELY 600 miles south of Cape Guardafui, and practically on the Equator, are the Bajun Islands (pronounced Bar-Joon) which lie within 3 miles of the main coast, not far from the boundary of Italian Somaliland and Kenya Colony. The mainland of Eastern Africa, which stretches 200 miles or more inland towards the boundary of Abyssinia in a westerly direction, is as dry, sandy, and arid as those six hundred sun-scorched miles stretching towards Guardafui; and the character of the country does not change until it reaches the Tana River, which now forms the boundary between Italian and British territories. From this river southerly the country becomes more tropical in vegetation, and most of the coast-line where there are no inhabitants is thickly clothed with dense bush or forest. The Bajun Islands are a part of a coral reef which runs from Zanzibar, 200 miles farther south, to a point opposite Kismayu and Italian Somaliland, whence I sailed in 19I3 in a small boat to visit the Islands. Kismayu was at that time in British East Africa (now known as Kenya Colony), but after the war it was ceded to the Italian Government. I was then British Political Officer at Kismayu and was responsible for the Administration of Jubaland, as it was then called, as well as for keeping in check the warlike Somalis who roamed with their flocks and herds over the wide area comprising that province. I decided to explore the coast-line and the islands lying off it, and to leave the exploration of the hinterland for another time. I ordered the Administrative sailing-cutter, with her smart crew of six Somalis, to be ready for a week's absence; so her spars, mast, and sails were overhauled, and sufficient rations put aboard to last us for that period. Early one morning we embarked from the little Kismayu jetty, and sailed out of the harbour before a fresh land breeze. Outside the protecting arms of the harbour we felt the breeze more noticeably and the cutter danced gaily through the little waves, purling along at a steady rate and leaving quite a wake behind her. The coral reef which stretches from Kismayu to Zanzibar is not continuous, but broken here and there; and it is through these gaps that deeper-draught vessels make their way in and out of the East African harbours, such as Kismayu, Lamu, and Mombasa. But sailing-boats and dhows usually keep inside the reef, so as to avoid the heavy swells which roll in from the Indian Ocean and break in thundering foam on outcropping rocks. Occasionally we passed high-pooped double-masted dhows with heavy hulks and square bows making their way towards Mombasa laden with hides and often carrying cattle on their decks. They are owned by Indian merchants, and not only trade up and down the coast but also sail across to India from East Africa during the favourable monsoons. Other craft which we saw passing were long low piratical-looking vessels with huge lateen sails, usually manned by Swahilis or coast natives. These mostly trade in fish and copra (dried coconut), for which there is a steady demand in Zanzibar and Mombasa. Overhead a brilliant tropical sun blazed down, making the water sparkle

The Hinterland of Liberia

were able to get money. That coincides precisely with my own experience in 1887 when I was a very young subaltern. I arrived in Yarkand, the chief town in Chinese Turkestan, and there I came to the end of my monetary resources, but by signing a piece of paper upon the Treasury in India, Indian merchants in Yarkand were perfectly ready to give as much money as I liked. Those instances show that practically throughout Asia the word of a British officer, or I suppose any Englishman, is quite as good as a bank note or piece of gold. I am sure you will all wish to accord to the lecturer a very hearty vote of thanks for what he has told us, and besides that, I know you will wish to record your sympathy with his two companions, Tipton, who was killed flying in France, and Sweet, who after all his daring adventures died so tragically just as the armistice was signed. We should like to thank the lecturer and express our admiration of his indomitable courage, of his endurance and resource.