Historiography of Europeans in Africa and Asia, 1450–1800 0860785033, 9780860785033, 9781315253312

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An Expanding World Volume 4

Historiography o f Europeans in Africa and A sia,

1450-1800

AN EXPANDING WORLD The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800 General Editor: A.J.R. Russell-Wood with the assistance of Mark Steele EXPANSION, INTERACTION, ENCOUNTERS 1 The Global Opportunity Felipe Femdndez-Armesto 2 The European Opportunity Felipe Ferndndez-Armesto 3 The Globe Encircled and the World Revealed Ursula Lamb 4 Europeans in Africa and Asia Anthony Disney 5 The Colonial Americas Amy Turner Bushnell TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE

6 7

Scientific Aspects of European Expansion William Storey Technology and European Overseas Enterprise Michael Adas

TRADE AND COMMODITIES

• • • • • • • •

Merchant Networks in the Early Modern World Sanjay Subrahmanyam The Atlantic Staple TYade (Parts I & II) Susan Socolow European Commercial Expansion in Early Modern Asia Om Prakash Spices in the Indian Ocean World M.N. Pearson Textiles: Production, Trade and Demand Maureen Mazzaoui Interoceanic Trade in European Expansion Pieter Emmer and Femme Gaastra Metals and Monies in a Global Economy Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giraldez Slave Trades Patrick Manning

EXPLOITATION

• • • •

From Indentured Servitude to Slavery Colin Palmer Agriculture, Resource Exploitation, and Environmental Change Plantation Societies Judy Bieber Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas Peter Bakewell

Helen Wheatley

GOVERNMENT AND EMPIRE • Theories of Empire David Armitage

• • • •

Government and Governance of Empires A.J.R. Russell-Wood Imperial Administrators Mark Burkholder Local Government in European Empires A.J.R. Russell-Wood Warfare and Empires Douglas M. Peers

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

• • • • • • •

Settlement Patterns in Early Modern Colonization Joyce Lorimer Biological Consequences of the European Expansion Kenneth Kiple, with Steve Beck European and non-European Societies (Parts I & II) Robert Forster Christianity and Missions J.S. Cummins Families in the Expansion of Europe Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva Changes in Africa, America and Asia Murdo MacLeod and Evelyn Rawski Intellectual Life of Europeans Beyond Europe George Winius

THE WORLD AND EUROPE

•

Europe and Europe’s Perception of the World (Parts I & II) Anthony Pagden

Please note that unnumbered titles are provisional and titles may change before publication.

An Expanding World The European Impact on World History 1450-1800

Volume 4

Historiography o f Europeans in Africa and Asia,

1450-1800 e d ite d b y

Anthony Disney

First published 1995 in the Variorum Expanding World Series by Ashgate Publishing Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition copyright © 1995 by Variorum, Taylor & Francis, and Introductory Essay Anthony Disney. For copyright of individual articles refer to the Acknowledgements. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library CIP data Historiography of Europeans in Africa and Asia, 1450-1800. (Expanding World: The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800; Vol. 4) I. Disney, Anthony. II. Series 909.08 US Library of Congress CIP data Historiography of Europeans in Africa and Asia, 1450-1800 / edited by Anthony Disney. Includes index. ISBN 0-86078-503-3 l. Asia-History. 2. Africa-History-To 1884. 3. Asia-Relations-Europe. 4. Europe-Relations-Asia. 5. Africa-Relations-Europe. 6. Europe-RelationsAfrica. 7. Asia-Historiography. 8. Africa-Historiography. I. Disney, A.R. (Anthony R.), 1938II. Series. DS33.7.H57 1995 95-23892 303.48'26'04-dc20 CIP ISBN 13: 978-0-86078-503-3 (hbk)

AN EXPANDING WORLD 4

Contents Acknowledgements

vii

General Editor’s Preface

ix

Introductory Essay

xiii

PART ONE — ON INVESTIGATING AND UNDERSTANDING EUROPEAN PRESENCES: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CHANGE AND CONTINUITY 1 2 3

On the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Indonesian History J. C. van Leur

1

Some Considerations on Portuguese Colonial Historiography C. R. Boxer

27

Retrospect on J.C. van Leur’s Essay on the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Asian History P.J. Marshall

39

PART TWO — ON BEGINNINGS: MAKING CONTACTS, CONFRONTING THE UNFAMILIAR AND SURVIVING 4

5

6 7

The European Approach to the Interior of Africa in the Eighteenth Century Robin Hallett

53

New Data on European Mortality in West Africa: The Dutch on the Gold Coast, 1719-1760 H.M. Feinberg

69

Prince Henry and the Origins of European Expansion Malyn Newitt

85

Early Ming Images of the Portuguese K. C. Fok

113

PART THREE — ON FORMAL PRESENCES: ORGANIZED SETTLEMENTS AND THE TREND TOWARDS DOMINION 8 9

Early English Trade and Settlement in Asia, 1602-1690 D. K. Bassett

127

The Portuguese on the Zambesi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System Malyn Newitt

155

VI

CONTENTS

10 Freehold Farmers and Frontier Settlers, 1657-1780 Leonard Guelke

174

11 Economic and Political Expansion: The Case of Oudh P.J. Marshall

217

PART FOUR — INFORMAL PRESENCES: INDIVIDUAL ENTERPRISE AND MERGING IN 12 Exiles and Renegades in Early Sixteenth Century Portuguese Asia Maria Augusta Lima Cruz

235

13 Indian Merchants and English Private Interests: 1659-1760 Bruce Watson

249

14 Merchant in Royal Service: Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya, 1683-1688 Jurrien van Goor

265

15 European Exiles, Renegades and Outlaws and the Maritime Economy of Asia, c. 1500-1750 G. V. Scammell

289

Index

311

Acknowledgements The chapters in this volume are taken from the sources listed below, for which the editor and publishers wish to thank their authors, original publishers or other copyright holders for permission to use their material as follows: C h a p te r 1: J.C. van Leur, ‘On the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Indonesian History’, in J.C. van Leur, Indonesian Trade and Society. Essays in Asian Social and Economic History (The Hague, 1955), pp. 268-289, 404-407. C h a p te r 2: C.R. Boxer, ‘Some C onsiderations on Portuguese Colonial Historiography’, in Proceedings o f the International Colloquim on Luso-Brazilian Studies (Nashville, Tennessee, 1953), pp. 169-180. Copyright © 1953 by Vanderbilt University Press. C hapter 3: P.J. Marshall, ‘Retrospect on J.C. van Leur’s Essay on the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Asian History’, Itinerario XVII, no. 1 (Leiden, 1993), pp. 45-58. Copyright © 1993 by Leiden University. C hapter 4: Robin Hallett, ‘The European Approach to the Interior of Africa in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal o f African History IV, no. 2 (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 191-206. Copyright © 1963 by Cambridge University Press. C hapter 5: H.M. Feinberg, ‘New Data on European Mortality in West Africa: The Dutch on the Gold Coast, 1719-1760’, Journal o f African History XV, no. 3 (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 357-371. Copyright © 1974 by Cambridge University Press. C h a p te r 6: Malyn Newitt, ‘Prince Henry and the Origins of Portuguese Expansion’, in ed. Malyn Newitt, The First Portuguese Colonial Empire (Exeter, 1986), pp. 9-35). Copyright © 1986 by Exeter University. C hapter 7: K.C. Fok, ‘Early Ming Images of the Portuguese’, in ed. Roderich Ptak, Aspects in History and Economic History, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 143-155. Copyright © 1987 by Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH. C hapter 8: D.K. Bassett, ‘Early English Trade and Settlement in Asia, 16021690’, in eds. J.S. Bromley and E.H. Kossmann, Britain and the Netherlands in

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Europe and Asia (London, 1968), pp. 83-109. Copyright © 1968 by Macmillan Publishers Ltd. C h ap ter 9: Malyn Newitt, ‘The Portuguese on the Zambesi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System’, Journal o f African History X, no. 1 (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 67-85. Copyright © 1969 by Cambridge University Press. C hapter 10: Leonard Guelke, ‘Freehold Farmers and Frontier Settlers, 1657— 1780’, in eds. Richard Elphick and Hermann Giliomee, The Shaping o f South African Society, 1652-1840 (Middletown, Connecticut, 1989), pp. 66-108. Copyright © 1989 by Weslayan University Press. C hapter 11: P.J. Marshall, ‘Economic and Political Expansion: The Case of Oudh’, Modern Asian Studies IX, No. 4 (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 465-482. Copyright © 1975 by Cambridge University Press. C hapter 12: Maria Augusta Lima Cruz, ‘Exiles and Renegades in Early Sixteenth Century Portuguese India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review XXIII, no. 3 (New Delhi, 1986), pp. 249-262. Copyright © 1986 by Sage Publications Ltd. C hapter 13: Bruce Watson, ‘Indian Merchants and English Private Interests: 1659-1760’, in eds. Ashin Das Gupta and M.N. Pearson, India and the Indian Ocean, 1500-1800 (Calcutta, 1987), pp. 301-316. Copyright © 1987 by the Oxford University Press. C hapter 14: Jurrien van Goor, ‘Merchant in Royal Service: Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya, 1683-1688’, in eds. Roderich Ptak and Dietmar Rothermund, Emporia, Commodities and Entrepreneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, c. 1400-1750 (Stuttgart, 1991), pp. 445-465. Copyright © 1991 by Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH. C hapter 15: G.V. Scammell, ‘European Exiles, Renegades and Outlaws and the Maritime Economy of Asia, c. 1500-1750’, Modem Asian Studies XXVI, no. 4 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 641-661. Copyright © 1992 by Cambridge University Press. Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

General Editor’s Preface A.J.R. Russell-Wood An Expanding World: The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800 is designed to meet two objectives: first, each volume covers a specific aspect of the European initiative and reaction across time and space; second, the series represents a superb overview and compendium of knowledge and is an invaluable reference source on the European presence beyond Europe in the early modem period, interaction with non-Europeans, and experiences of peoples of other continents, religions, and races in relation to Europe and Europeans. The series reflects revisionist interpretations and new approaches to what has been called ‘the expansion of Europe’ and whose historiography traditionally bore the hallmarks of a narrowly Eurocentric perspective, focus on the achievements of individual nations, and characterization of the European presence as one of dominance, conquest, and control. Fragmentation characterized much of this literature: fragmentation by national groups, by geography, and by chronology. The volumes of An Expanding World seek to transcend nationalist histories and to examine on the global stage rather than in discrete regions important selected facets of the European presence overseas. One result has been to bring to the fore the multicontinental, multi-oceanic and multinational dimension of the European activities. A further outcome is compensatory in the emphasis placed on the cross-cultural context of European activities and on how collaboration and cooperation between peoples transcended real or perceived boundaries of religion, nationality, race, and language and were no less important aspects of the European experience in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia than the highly publicized confrontational, bellicose, and exploitative dimensions. Recent scholarship has not only led to greater understanding of peoples, cultures, and institutions of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australasia with whom Europeans interacted and the complexity of such interactions and transactions, but also of relations between Europeans of different nationalities and religious persuasions. The initial five volumes reflect the changing historiography and set the stage for volumes encompassing the broad themes of technology and science, trade and commerce, exploitation as reflected in agriculture and the extractive industries and through systems of forced and coerced labour, government of empire, and society and culture in European colonies and settlements overseas. Final volumes examine the image of Europe and Europeans as ‘the other’ and the impact of the wider world on European mentalités and mores. An international team of editors was selected to reflect a diversity of educational backgrounds, nationalities, and scholars at different stages of their professional careers. Few would claim to be ‘world historians’, but each is a

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recognized authority in his or her field and has the demonstrated capacity to ask the significant questions and provide a conceptual framework for the selection of articles which combine analysis with interpretation. Editors were exhorted to place their specific subjects within a global context and over the longue durée. I have been delighted by the enthusiasm with which they took up this intellectual challenge, their courage in venturing beyond their immediate research fields to look over the fences into the gardens of their academic neighbours, and the collegiality which has led to a generous informal exchange of information. Editors were posed the daunting task of surveying a rich historical literature and selecting those essays which they regarded as significant contributions to an understanding of the specific field or representative of the historiography. They were asked to give priority to articles in scholarly journals; essays from conference volumes and Festschriften were acceptable; excluded (with some few exceptions) were excerpts from recent monographs or paperback volumes. After much discussion and agonizing, the decision was taken to incorporate essays only in English, French, and Spanish. This has led to the exclusion of the extensive scholarly literature in Danish, Dutch, German and Portuguese. The ramifications of these decisions and how these have had an impact on the representative quality of selections of articles have varied depending on the theme, and have been addressed by editors in their introducii The introduction to each volume enables readers to assess the importance of the topic per se and place this in the broader context of European activities overseas. It acquaints readers with broad trends in the historiography and alerts them to controversies and conflicting interpretations. Editors clarify the conceptual framework for each volume and explain the rationale for the selection of articles and how they relate to each other. Introductions permit volume editors to assess the impact on their treatments of discrete topics of constraints of language, format, and chronology, assess the completeness of the journal literature, and address lacunae. A further charge to editors was to describe and evaluate the importance of change over time, explain differences attributable to differing geographical, cultural, institutional, and economic circumstances and suggest the potential for cross-cultural, comparative, and interdisciplinary approaches. The addition of notes and bibliographies enhances the scholarly value of the introductions and suggests avenues for further enquiry. I should like to express my thanks to the volume editors for their willing participation, enthusiasm, sage counsel, invaluable suggestions, and good judgment. Evidence of the timeliness and importance of the series was illustrated by the decision, based on extensive consultation with the scholarly community, to expand a series, which had originally been projected not to exceed eight volumes, to more than thirty volumes. As General Editor, my task has been facilitated by the tireless assistance of Dr Mark Steele who was responsible for the ‘operations’ component of the series, and of John Smedley whose initiative

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gave rise to discussion as to the viability and need for such a series and who has overseen the publishing, publicity, and marketing of An Expanding World. The Department o f History, The Johns Hopkins University

Introductory Essay Anthony Disney The fifteen articles, papers and essays contained in this volume are necessarily very selective. They are intended to illustrate some of the more important trends that have occurred in the historiography of Europeans in Asia and Africa between 1450 and 1800, rather than to represent a full range of views on all aspects of the subject.1 For this purpose they have been divided into four parts, the first of which deals with general historiographical change and continuity as they have evolved during approximately the last fifty years, while the others focus respectively on initial contacts, formal presences, and informal presences. Some of the pieces selected are well-known and widely-recognised as important contributions in their fields. Others are more obscure, though they may well deserve to be better known. In making the selection, emphasis has been placed in all four parts on the major European players in Asia and Africa before 1800 - the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English - but some notice has also been accorded to the French, Spanish, Scandinavians and others. The selection is confined to works on Europeans who approached the two continents by sea the continental expansion through eastern Europe into Asia is not represented, for this would have stretched an already very extended brief, too far. Part 1. On Investigating and Understanding European Presences: Historiographical Change and Continuity The historiography of Europeans in Asia and Africa before 1800 has evolved in the last fifty years largely in response to a series of enormous changes economic, social and above all political - that have transformed both continents since the Second World War. At the end of the 1930s the European empires in Asia and Africa remained largely intact, and imperial contexts and values continued to have great influence. To Western historians - and the historiography was then dominated by Westerners - to view the history of the European presence in these regions from a non-imperial or even non-Eurocentric standpoint was then still unusual, even somewhat startling.2 1 Works expounding economic theories and models, or that focus on particular European commercial institutions and their modus operandi, on specific commodities or forms of economic exploitation, on colonial governments, on naval and military affairs, on churches and missions, or on other particular aspects of social and cultural history, have been omitted from this selection, as these subjects are dealt with in other volumes of the series. 2 Among the classic traditional histories of this kind are R.S. Whiteway, The Rise o f the Portuguese Power in India 1497-1550 (London, 1899); H.H. Dodwell, ed., The Cambridge History

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But in the aftermath of the War all this changed. The eclipse of European power, followed by rapid decolonisation - first in Asia, then in Africa - led to both an upsurge and an internationalisation in the study of Asian and African histories, now increasingly viewed from outside of the European context. An early consequence was that the era of European dominance in Asia - ‘the Vasco da Gama Epoch of Asian History’ as K.M. Panikkar labelled it - began to be recognised as a distinct era with not only a precise beginning but a well-defined end.*3 This involved a re-assessment of the overseas role of the Europeans, and Panikkar was in fact one of the first post-War historians (and one of the first Asian scholars), to aim explicitly ‘to see and understand European activities’ in the Asian context.4 The retreat from Eurocentrism in the history of Asia had been foreshadowed even before the end of the war in the extraordinarily insightful work of J.C. van Leur, a Dutch historian far ahead of his time. Van Leur’s now celebrated and frequently-cited essay ‘On the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Indonesian History’ (chapter 1 below) probably did more that any other single work to encourage scholars to try to see the history of Europeans in Asia from an Asian perspective.5 In this work, originally published in Dutch in 1940, van Leur argued that in the eighteenth century the major Asian countries were stable, almost equal to Europe technologically-speaking, and much larger in population. Asian history had its own framework of meanings, and the European concept of a coherent eighteenth century had little relevance to it. Moreover, nowhere in Asia did Europeans achieve an ascendancy during that century - certainly not in Indonesia, and neither in India - their control being confined to small outposts. There was therefore no eighteenth century European Asia, and historians should abandon their traditional Company-centred viewpoint recognising instead, in East and West, ‘two equal civilisations’. Charles Boxer drew attention to the radical views of van Leur as early as 1953, even before selected parts of van Leur’s work had become available in English - as is made clear in the second essay in this collection (chapter 2 below). Here, in a wide-ranging review of the historiography of the Portuguese overseas before 1815, with particular stress on Asia and Africa, Boxer called for ‘less national catechism and more genuine history’ - and particularly singled out for criticism the then standard history of F.C. Danvers, which he castigated as

o f the British Empire IV. British India (Cambridge, 1929); Alfred Martineau, Dupleix et l'Inde Française, 4 vols. (Paris, 1923-29). 3 See K.M. Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance (London, 1953). 4 Ibid., p.17. 5 This essay was actually a review of a now otherwise forgotten history of the traditional Eurocentric School - E.C. Godée Molsbergen, Geschiednis van Nederlansch Indie, IV (Amsterdam, 1940).

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poorly researched, and rejected above all for its failure to integrate its subject into the histories of the Asian peoples among whom it was set.6 Boxer pointed out the need for historians to be able to read Asian as well as European languages. He also echoed van Leur in advocating a less Eurocentric approach, and urging the adoption of more locally appropriate categories for studying Europeans in Asia, rather than simply applying those taken from the history of Europe. But at the same time he criticised van Leur for underestimating the Portuguese presence in Asia, particularly their role in the China-Japan trade.7 Van Leur’s most important successor in the immediate post-War period was M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, whose attempt to construct a comparative analysis of Southeast Asian maritime trade in the pre-European, Portuguese, and Dutch eras, became the second great cornerstone of Dutch revisionist history on pre-1800 Europeans in Asia.8 Better informed than van Leur because backed by much more rigorous documentary research, Meilink-Roelofsz endorsed much of what her predecessor had argued, but nevertheless disagreed with him on some points. Like Boxer, she considered that van Leur underestimated the role of the Portuguese. She drew attention to their modernising impact on Asians, and she was one of the first to recognise in particular the influence of private Portuguese, living and trading beyond the confines of the formal Estado da India.9 Dutch scholarship took another major step forward with the foundation in 1974 of the Centre for the History of European Expansion, at Leiden University. The Centre has stimulated a great deal of productive research and encouraged a lively interchange of ideas, expressed through the pages of its journal, Itinerario. Although much of the work emanating from Leiden has been focused specifically on the Dutch and the former Dutch empire, the policy of the Centre has been to encourage the comparative history of European expansion, viewed as a general phenomenon involving all those maritime nations which were active overseas.10 6 F.C. Danvers, The Portuguese in India, 2 vols. (London, 1894). 7 The extent to which Boxer considered progress had been made in the history of the Portuguese in Asia thirty years later can be seen in his ‘Some Second Thoughts on Indo-Portuguese Historiography* in ed. John Correia-Afonso, Indo-Portuguese History. Sources and Problems (Bombay, 1981), pp.132-47. 8 M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago between 1500 and about 1630 (The Hague, 1962). 9 See D.K. Bassett’s useful review of Meilink-Roelofsz’s book in Journal of Southeast Asian History, no.4 (1963), pp.175-209. Bassett thought that Meilink-Roelofsz herself accorded insufficient importance to the role of the Portuguese in the Southeast Asian interport trade. Ibid., pp.185, 195-6. 10 For Dutch expansion historiography in the post-War years, and the work of the Leiden school in particular, see H.L. Wesseling, ‘Dutch Historiography on the European Expansion since 1945* in eds. P.C. Emmer and H.L. Wesseling, Reappraisals in Overseas History, (Leiden, 1979), pp. 122-139; and M. Mimler, ‘Some Problems in Redefining European Expansion as a Historical Discipline: Taking Stock*, Itinerario VII, no. 1 (1983), pp. 125-43.

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The Centre has published work by a wide range of international scholars, and its main language has been English. Its stress on seeking com parative understandings and analysing the big picture inevitably involved borrowing ideas and methods from the French Annales School. An exemplary model was the work of Fernand Braudel, with his disregard for national boundaries, his masterly expositions of long-term history, and his disdain for histoire événementielle. Since about the mid 1970s, of particular relevance and interest to historians of Europeans in Asia and Africa have been the theories of Immanuel Wallerstein. Wallerstein’s work has been in sympathy with that of Braudel - and perhaps second only to Braudel in its scale and ambition. Wallerstein’s contention that European capitalism, rising in the ‘long’ sixteenth century, expanded until it became the capitalist world economy, and that Asia and Africa were incorporated into it as part of the periphery to the European core, emerged at this time as an important if controversial new way of looking at European expansion.11 As Michael Pearson has pointed out, part of the ensuing debate has really been a confrontation between those who believe more generally in the utility of ‘theory’ as practised in the Social Sciences, and those who prefer to rely on purely empirical research in the Humanist tradition. Some have also objected to Wallerstein’s analysis on the grounds that it is too Eurocentric - a charge Pearson refutes, and Wallerstein himself has denied.1112 Another attempt in this period at a comparative analysis, this time of different institutional forms of the European presence in Asia, was made by the Danish historian, Neils Steensgaard. Steensgaard attributed the decline in Asia of the Portuguese in the seventeenth century, and the simultaneous success of the Dutch and English, to structural differences between their respective trade systems. These differences enabled the VOC, and to a lesser extent the EIC, to achieve far more effective market control, and to internalise their protection costs.13 In the light of reviewers’ criticisms, Steensgaard subsequently modified his conclusions in some respects, agreeing that they had involved a degree of reductionism, and in particular an underestimation of the significance of the Portuguese as agents of

11 Wallerstein was already developing his ideas in the 1960s, but they were chiefly expounded in his three-volume study of ‘the Modem World-System’, published between 1974 and 1989 (see bibliography below). For an excellent evaluation of Wallerstein’s ideas see M.N. Pearson, Before Colonialism. Theories on Asian-European Relations 1500-1750 (Delhi, 1988), which was, however, written before the publication of Wallerstein’s third volume. 12 Pearson, op. cit., pp.l, 8; Wallerstein, ‘The Incorporation of the Indian Subcontinent into the Capitalist World Economy’, ed., Satish Chandra, The Indian Ocean. Explorations, History, Commerce and Politics (New Delhi, 1987), pp.252-3. 13 Niels Steensgaard, Carracks, Caravans and Companies: The Structural Crisis in the European-Asian Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century (Copenhagen, 1972). Republished as The Asian Trade Revolution o f the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline o f the Caravan Trade (Chicago, 1975).

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change.14 But his structural analysis nevertheless remained as an important contribution to expansion studies, and a further tribute to the influence of van Leur. An incisive survey of half a century’s evolution in scholarly thinking since the publication of van Leur’s essay on the eighteenth century, is provided in Peter Marshall’s 1993 ‘Retrospect’, the third item in this selection (chapter 3 below). Here Marshall demonstrates just how influential the ideas of this pioneer Dutch historian have continued to be. Van Leur’s conclusion that Asian states in the eighteenth century remained largely in place, was still valid - though with the proviso that the disintegration of the Moghul Empire gave rise to successor states which were much more vulnerable to European takeover through infiltration. Van Leur underestimated the extent and importance of British infiltration into Bengal, and did not sufficiently appreciate, Marshall points out, how the foundations for nineteenth century European dominance had already been laid in the eighteenth.15 Just as Asian history was rejuvenated in the aftermath of the Second World War, so the exciting new field of African history was bom.16 No longer could African history be construed as merely the history of Europeans, and Europeandominated activity, in the African continent. European dominance in Africa was recognised for what it was - a short, passing phase, that needed to be set in perspective against the longue durée of indigenous histories. Indeed to some in those heady days it seemed barely legitimate to write about Europeans in Africa at all - except to condemn their excesses, and proclaim their marginality. Looking back some twenty years later, A.G. Hopkins saw the fifties and sixties in West African historiography as a phase of ‘liberal optimism’ - soon to be succeeded in the seventies by a phase of ‘radical pessimism’ .17 In time, as the era of empires receded, both the transforming importance of the colonial experience, and the contact period that preceded it, received greater scrutiny, though anchored this time to their African contexts.18 Beyond both imperialism and post-imperialism, the presences of Europeans in Asia or Africa have been increasingly assessed from more objective standpoints. 14 See Niels Steensgaard, ‘The Indian Ocean Network and the Emerging World Economy, circa 1500-1750’, in The Indian Ocean, pp. 125-150. The most important critique of Steensgaard’s ideas was M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, ‘The Structure of Trade in Asia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’ in Mare Luso-Indicum IV (Paris, 1980), pp.1-43. 15 See also Remco Raben, ‘The Broad Waft and Fragile Warp. Conference on the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Asian History’, Itinerario XVIII, no.l (1994), pp.10-18. 16 For the post World War II birth of African history see particularly ed. Christopher Fyfe, African Studies Since 1945. A Tribute to Basil Davidson (London, 1976). 17 A.G. Hopkins, ‘European Expansion into West Africa: A Historiographical Survey of English-language Publications Since 1945’ in Reappraisals, pp.54-68. 18 For a recent survey of trends in African history since the beginnings of decolonisation see Jan Vansina, ‘Some Perceptions on the Writing of African History: 1948-1992’, Itinerario XVI, no.l (1992), pp.77-91.

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Part 2. On Beginnings: Making Contacts, Confronting the Unfamiliar and Surviving Before Europeans established a lasting presence in Asia and Africa, formal or informal, they first had to undertake reconnaissances, to investigate whether further contacts would be worthwhile and then, if this were thought to be the case, seek to put in place a viable structure for developing such contacts. A significant part of the historiography of Europeans in these continents has been concerned with this distinctive preliminary phase - a phase which was often, though not always, quite short-lived, but which invariably had to be experienced before a more lasting presence could be achieved. Broadly the historiography of this phase has accepted that Europeans were involved in two processes - on the one hand trying to understand and come to terms with worlds that were in varying degrees unfamiliar, strange and often seemingly threatening, and on the other seeking to exploit whatever short and then long term profits contact with such places could offer, and calculating whether they were commensurate with the high risks involved. The balance between these two processes, and their relative importance in the contact phase of European expansion, have generated much debate. Malyn Newitt wrote an excellent review of how long-hallowed assumptions concerning the advance of the Portuguese along the west coast of Africa in the fifteenth century had come under challenge in post-War scholarship (see chapter 6 below). Traditionally Prince Henry had been presented as the pivotal figure in this process, his role as heroic as it was dominant. The Henrician interpretation of early Portuguese expansion, which had been ascendant since the later nineteenth century, and had with some historians reached almost the dimensions of a cult, attained its apogee at about the time of the quincentenary of the prince’s death in 1960. This tradition is clearly reflected in the work of writers like Boies Penrose, who as late as 1967 presented ‘noble and lofty-minded’ Henry as ‘the epic figure in the first phase of Renaissance discovery’ .19 But, as Newitt demonstrates, it was also at about this time that revisionist historians, among whom Vitorino Magalhaes Godinho was pre-eminent, strongly challenged such views.20 Godinho placed the evolution of fifteenth century contacts with North and West Africa firmly within the contexts of Iberian and Mediterranean economic and social conditions at the time, and of contemporary Portuguese values. According to Godinho and Newitt, early Portuguese voyagers to West Africa, along with their sponsors, investigated the unfamiliar and sought gain - but their 19 Boies Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance 1420-1620 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967). In this book Penrose heaps copious praise on Prince Henry, claiming that it was *his vision and his determination alone which launched Portugal on a century of voyaging, discovery and conquest such as the world had never seen’. Op. cit., p.33. 20 Godinho’s views on the ‘Henrician Discoveries’ were most fully expounded in A Economia dos Descobrimentos Henriquinos (Lisbon, 1962).

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focus was strongly on the seeking of gain. Hence in this interpretation short shrift is given to fifteenth century Portuguese expansion as a search for new knowledge - the rounding of Cape Bojador was no particular barrier, Henry had little disinterested thirst for geographical information, and he was certainly no scholar or scientist. Virtually all the earliest West African voyages were plundering expeditions, while from the 1440s they were mostly slaving enterprises. Europeans undertook the great risks of entering into North and West Africa pre-eminently for profit. Other historians, including Charles Boxer, and Bailey Diffie and George Winius, also adopted revisionist positions critical of the Henrician tradition. Robin Hallett has shown that the preliminary contact phase of expansion could nonetheless sometimes be remarkably prolonged (see chapter 4 below). If the west coast of Africa was one of the earliest regions beyond Europe to be reconnoitred by Europeans, its interior remained still largely a mystery to them as late as the mid-eighteenth century, its image as vague and its reputation as fantastic as they had been three hundred years before. Hallett argues that it was neither Africa’s physical barriers, nor the hostility of its inhabitants, that explain the failure of Europeans to penetrate its interior for so long. Instead he stresses the absence of any sufficiently compelling motive, and in particular the absence of any expectation of profits sufficient to attract the necessary sponsors - apart from the slave trade, which north of the Equator was coastal. The breakthrough finally came in the late eighteenth century with the creation in Britain of the Africa Association - a new kind of sponsor motivated as much by the search for knowledge as by the search for profit. The eventual outcome was not only to dispel old geographical and other fantasies, but to reveal once again new opportunities for investors, and pave the way for formal empire in the nineteenth century. Reputedly the most formidable and long-lasting barrier, both physical and psychological, to European penetration of Africa was its extreme unhealthiness. For centuries, tropical West Africa in particular was regarded as an exceptionally insalubrious environment for Europeans, who sickened and died there like flies. Accordingly, most historians would have found unimpeachable Philip Curtin’s 1964 claim that, before the era of modem medicine, 25 to 75 per cent of Europeans arriving on the West African Coast died within a year.21 But in an article published in 1974 H.M. Feinberg re-opened this question by arguing that no credible pre-1800 statistical evidence existed to support such exceptionally high death rates (see chapter 5 below). On the contrary, the records of the Dutch West India Company indicated an eighteenth century death rate of below 20 per cent a year - which, while still a considerable figure, was much less spectacular than that previously assumed. 21 Philip D. Curtin, The Image o f Africa. British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850 (Madison, 1964), p.71.

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In the totally different geographical context of South China, confronting the unfamiliar and seeking profit are again prominent in an article by K.C. Fok (see chapter 7 below) - but this time the view is from the opposite side of the fence.22 Using contemporary Chinese sources, Fok shows how unfamiliar, exotic and dangerous the Portuguese appeared to the Ming when contact was first made in the early sixteenth century. The Portuguese were seemingly goblins, or at best only superficially human; or they were menacing and unmanageable barbarians, and they kidnapped and ate Chinese children. Their desperate desire to do trade with the em peror’s subjects was quickly understood, but could not be accommodated to the Chinese tribute system. In this first phase of a European presence on the fringes of China the Portuguese eagerness both to learn and to do business was unquestioned, but the barriers confronting them were as formidable as, if different from, those they faced in Africa. Part 3. On Formal Presences: Organized Settlements and the Trend Towards Dominion M ost pre-1945 historians of Europeans in Asia and A frica focussed overwhelmingly on formal presences, and especially on the forging of political dominion. Historians of this era felt they knew the final outcome, they wrote with that outcome in mind, and they saw what preceded it - from the early Portuguese voyages onwards - as a background, a preparation, and a source of explanations for the triumphs of imperialism. After 1945 historians realized or at least had every reason to quickly learn, that empire was not in fact the crowning climax of the European presence overseas, but only another passing phase. The investigation of formal European structures overseas in general, and the creation of empires in particular, continued to be central concerns; but more sophistication was shown in both the questions asked, and the responses given. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Europeans created institutionalised trading structures in the form of first the Portuguese Estado da India, then the various northern European East India companies. They established small settlements, sometimes they built forts, and they acquired enclaves. Charles Boxer was the undisputed doyen of post-War scholarship on these processes, with his enormous contribution to the histories of both the Dutch and more particularly Portuguese, in Asia and Africa.23 S. Arasaratnam, K.N. Chaudhuri, Ashin Das Gupta, F.S. Gaastra, M.N. Pearson, Om Prakash, F. Mauro, and John Wills, among others, also contributed significantly. The work of such historians led to a much 22 For the impact of Asia on Europe, as discerned through an exhaustive review of European reports on Asia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the reader is directed to the monumental studies of Donald Lach. (See the bibliography below). 23 Boxer, of course, began his prodigious scholarly output in the 1920s, but virtually all his major works were published after 1945.

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fuller understanding of European commercial relationships and processes in the trading world of Asia and of the Asian contexts of European expansion. Virtually all historians now accept a notional periodisation which distinguishes an earlier, pre-imperial era from a later imperial one; but there has been less agreement on how sharp the break was, precisely where in time it should be located, and on the relationship between the two eras it separated. As it is generally conceded that the seventeenth century was pre-imperial and the nineteenth imperial, debate has tended to be most intense in relation to the eighteenth century. On the pre-imperial period, D.K. Bassett’s overview of the English presence in Asia in the seventeenth century is a classic example of the new scholarship of the 1960s (see chapter 8 below). Bassett’s concern was primarily the functioning of the EIC in Asia as a formal institution. He demonstrated with admirable lucidity how the company pursued in this century, with few and brief exceptions, a peaceful, factory-based strategy in its drive for trade in both West and East Asia - in contrast to the more aggressive and overtly imperial Dutch and Portuguese, who built fortresses and occupied territory. The EIC, confining itself to commerce, remained almost entirely a peaceful presence in this era - a presence on Asian terms, submitting to Asian conditions and, indeed, often to Asian rulers’ tyrannies and exactions. Because pre-War historians mostly studied the transition from commerce to empire within its European context rather than its Asian ones, they generally stressed the political and military sequence of events.24 Early post-War historians like Holden Furber and Kristof Glamann shifted the emphasis to concentrate much more on commerce, investigating the trading operations of not only the EIC and the VOC, but of private individuals. Their successors have continued to study European maritime trade in Asia, and an increasing range of monographs has resulted. Efforts have also been made to bring together aspects of this early postWar approach, and the more traditional political approach, into a new synthesis. In a 1975 article on British expansion into India, Peter Marshall reviewed the links between new military developments on the one hand, and company and private trading interests on the other - a potent mix which, he argued, drove the move towards conquest, the reluctance of the company directors in London notwithstanding.25 In another article published the same year (see chapter 11 below), Marshall sought to explain the dynamics of formal British expansion into the interior of India, further bridging political and economic explanations for that expansion. Using Oudh as a case study, he explored and analysed the often subtle links and overlaps between British commercial interests, and British political expansion, into 24 See, for example, H.H. Dodwell, Dupleix and Clive (London, 1920). ^P.J. Marshall, ‘British Expansion in India in the Eighteenth Century: A Historical Revision’, History LX (1975), pp.28-43.

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the deep interior of the sub-continent. While in the final analysis Marshall was not prepared to argue that merchants were actually responsible for the annexation of Oudh, he showed that theirs was certainly a deep and pervading involvement. C.A. Bayly, who studied a somewhat later period than Marshall, argued that independent developments within Asia and North Africa were as important in triggering the rise of European empires as European trade interests. Bayly pointed to massive social and economic change within indigenous Asian and North African states in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries brought about by causes quite independent of the European presence. These changes caused the decline of the old non-European empires. They were replaced, from Egypt to India, by a series of ‘sultanist states’ with neo-mercantilist policies that conflicted with European interests, so encouraging European intervention and conquest.26 More recently, the issue of ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ - that is, the debate over whether commercial and financial wealth based in southern Britain, rather than industrial wealth from the north, played the key role in late eighteenth and nineteenth century British imperial expansion - has attracted attention.27 Some scholars have responded to the ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ claims by suggesting its proponents have defined the Industrial Revolution too narrowly, and that the role of British industrial exports brought by the EIC to China in the 1780s and 1790s has been underestimated.28 This is a significant departure from the usually held view that the Company’s China trade was based almost solely on Indian products such as opium, and a challenge to the trend in recent times to place increased stress on Asian rather than European circumstances in seeking explanations for the growth of European empires. The Dutch shift to empire in Southeast Asia was both earlier and slower than that of the British in India. The VOC pursued a more aggressive, monopolistic policy in the seventeenth century, eventually excluding its European rivals from this region, almost entirely. Through a gradual process VOC officials established the Company’s control in Java, edging in to the traditional Javanese patron-client relationship, and progressing from an institution with privileged trading rights, to a protecting and finally an administering power. But in the later eighteenth century VOC over-reliance on Company as opposed to private trade, and its failure to compete with the English EIC in direct trade with South China, led to its eclipse.29

26 C.A. Bayly, ‘The Middle East and Asia during the Age of Revolutions, 1760-1830’, Itinerario X, no.2 (1986), pp.69-84. 27 See P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas, 1: the Old Colonial System,’ Economic History Review XXXIX, no.2 (1986), pp.501-25, and the same authors' British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688-1914 (London, 1993). 28 J.R. Ward, ‘The Industrial Revolution and British Imperialism’, The Economic History Review XLVII, no.l (February 1994), pp.44-65.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA - xxiii In Africa, it was primarily the Portuguese and the Dutch who established organised settlements before 1800. While these pre-nineteenth century European settlements all had much in common, particularly in the early stages, they diverged during the course of the period, ultimately producing very different results. Traditionally the differences between them have been seen to reflect their European backgrounds, conforming more or less to a ‘feudal’ model in the Portuguese case, and a ‘capitalist’ one in the Dutch. But more recently their respective African contexts have been given more weight, and their differences attributed as much to these contexts as to their European backgrounds.29 30 For the Dutch in South Africa the historiography has tended to concentrate on how and why their settlements adopted a culture of such emphatic exclusivity, whereas for the Portuguese the question has been the opposite - to explain the increasing Africanisation of their settlements in the Zambesi Valley. Leonard Guelke examined the development of a European frontier of settlement in the interior of South Africa (see chapter 10 below), which grew from the VOC establishment at Cape Town during the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries. As the trekboers advanced, seeking ever more distant pastures for their herds of cattle, the local KhoiKhoi communities gradually disintegrated under their impact. The trekboers acquired sway over a vast territory, and by the eighteenth century their self-reliant, stable society dominated the veldt, nurtured and protected by a strictly maintained racial and religious exclusivity. Whites in a land of Blacks, and Christians in a land of heathens, they saw their survival as dependent on a strict preservation of their racial, religious and cultural identity. There could therefore be no ethnic mixing, and virtually no Christianisation of Africans - and those Dutchmen who broke out of this protective cultural laager and took KhoiKhoi wives, together with their half-caste offspring, could not be accepted into trekboer society. Further to the north, on both the western and particularly on the eastern sides of Africa, the Portuguese had begun to form frontiers of settlement, even earlier. The seminal study of Malyn Newitt (see chapter 9 below) tracks the formation, growth and eventual demise of the prazos da coroa - huge Portuguese land­ holdings in Zambesia - between the late sixteenth and late nineteenth centuries. The rapid accumulation of prazos had by the early seventeenth century created a vast domain dominated by great conquistador clans. The Portuguese crown formally recognised the prazeiros - but exercised even less control over them

29 See Leonard Bluss6’s clear exposition of these developments in ‘The Run to the Coast: Comparative Notes on Early Dutch and English Expansion and State Formation in Asia’, Itinerario XII, no.l (1988), pp.195-214. Also W. Remmelink, ‘Expansion without Design. The Snare of Javanese Politics’, ibid., pp.111-128. 30Robert Ross, ‘The Portuguese and Dutch in Southern Africa’, Itinerario XV, no.l (1991), pp.29-35.

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than did the VOC over the trekboers in South Africa. Unlike the trekboers, the prazeiros did not seek security by separating themselves from the local population, but rather by acquiring and exercising the traditional authority of African chieftains, and enforcing it with the aid of slave retinues. The ultimate outcome was increasing Africanisation, and the emergence of a society that in the nineteenth century opposed and resisted the encroachments of im perial administration - and did so, as Newitt points out, more effectively than almost anywhere else in Africa. Part 4.

Informal Presences: Individual Enterprise and Merging In

Despite the attention focussed on it, formal empire was not the only outcome of contact, nor in the long run the most lasting. Europeans in Asia and Africa before 1800 did not necessarily see themselves as part of a formal imperial process, and their experiences of Asia and Africa more often than not occurred outside and independent of any imperial framework. Similarly, the Asian or African experience of Europeans was not necessarily imperial. Not surprisingly, with the passing of European hegemony, a partial shift also occurred away from the long­ standing pre-occupation with empires and their origins, towards the investigation of informal European presences. This has resulted in the development of new perspectives on the period before 1800. Maria Augusta Lima Cruz’s article (see chapter 12 below) is a significant pioneering study of individual Portuguese who merged into Asia beyond the formal confines of the Estado da India. The article is based on a careful analysis of references to ‘exiles’ and ‘renegades’ in the four major chronicles of the Portuguese expansion in Asia - Gaspar Correia, Femao Lopes de Castanheda, Joao de Barros and Diogo do Couto. These exiles and renegades - the first regarded by the Portuguese leadership as expendable stalking horses, and the second as traitors - were among the first Europeans in the Age of Expansion to integrate into Asian societies. They defected, as it were, to ‘the world of the other’. They did so as individuals seeking their own betterment, not as forerunners of imperial takeover - and they consequently adapted rather than imposed themselves. Rich seams in the Portuguese sources have been mined in recent years on this kind of informal European presence, with particularly insightful contributions coming from George Souza, and from the versatile pen of Sanjay Subrahmanyam.31 That this shadowy presence of Europeans in Asia was extensive and extremely varied - and that it soon came to include Englishmen, Dutchmen, 31 Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Improvising Empire. Portuguese Trade and Settlement in the Bay o f Bengal 1500-1700 (Delhi, 1990). It was George Winius who popularised the term ‘shadow empire’. See his ‘The Shadow Empire of Goa in the Bay of Bengal’, Itinerario VII, no.2 (1983), pp.83-101.

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Frenchmen, Danes and many others, as well as Portuguese - is vividly demonstrated by Geoffrey Scammell (see chapter 15 below). Scammell shows that European adventurers and misfits had been attracted to Asia, in search of both profit and freedom, from long before the time of Vasco da Gama. To exiles and renegades he adds pirates, to Portuguese he adds Englishmen, Dutchmen, Frenchmen and Scandinavians, and he sees them as present and active everywhere, from Mesopotamia to China, and from the Persian Gulf to the Pacific. This veritable diaspora was facilitated by a widespread demand in Asian states for European technical skills, especially in gunnery, by numerous openings for military and naval mercenaries, and - particularly from the mid-seventeenth century - by immense opportunities for plundering both European and Asian shipping. Scammell argues that cumulatively these activities were on a sufficient scale to have considerable impact. In particular, as a result of European piracy in Asian seas large quantities of Asian goods were transferred to the West in the seventeenth century by clandestine means, outside of the formal commercial channels. The structural links between the phenomenon of piracy and the kinds of commercial empires created by Europeans overseas in the sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries, are also revealingly explored in a recent paper by Anne P6rotin-Dumont.32 It was not, however, necessary for a European to be a renegade or pirate to make a fortune in the Asia of these centuries, for this could also be done through the more acceptable means of private trade. Private trade was particularly the forte of the Portuguese from the early sixteenth century, and of the English from the early seventeenth - while the Dutch, French, Danes and others, likewise participated. Private trade and its ramifications have provided a growing focus of attention for those studying the Portuguese in Asia, and in English have particularly featured in works by Charles Boxer, Michael Pearson, George B. Souza, James Boyajian, Sanjay Subrahmanyam and by several younger Portuguese historians active since the 1970s.33 While private trade within the Dutch system was less developed because of the hostility of the VOC to this kind of activity, it has also attracted some attention, as has the private trading of Frenchmen.34 But the principal studies in this area have concerned the English, much being owed in the first instance to the seminal work of Holden Furber, and a little later to that of Peter Marshall and I. Bruce Watson. Bruce Watson is a good example

32 Anne Pérotin-Dumont, ‘The Pirate and the Emperor: Power and the Law on the Seas, 1450-1850’ in James D. Tracy, ed., The Political Economy o f Merchant Empires (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 196-227. 33 See the accompanying bibliography, and also the excellent overview in Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Luis Filipe F.R. Thomas, ‘Evolution of Empire: The Portuguese in the Indian Ocean During the Sixteenth Century’, in James B. Tracy, ed., The Political Economy o f Merchant Empires, pp.298-331.

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of this tradition, his article (see chapter 13 below) stressing the point that Englishmen went to India with the primary purpose of making their personal fortunes, as quickly as possible. The EIC’s servants therefore almost invariably found themselves acting in a double capacity, partly for the Company and partly for their own private interests, and they often used the same Indian middlemen for both purposes. Unlike the VOC, the EIC dealt with the problem of private trade by striving to control it, and even to a degree to facilitate it, rather than resisting it. This was a strategy of great consequential significance. Under its benign protection the scale and variety of English private trade, not only in India but from Persia to China, grew inexorably as the power and influence of the Company grew - until, by the later eighteenth century, Englishmen had largely displaced Indians as the dominant force in Asian maritime trade. Just as private Portuguese trade had flourished under the convenient shelter of the Estado da India so English trade flourished, on a larger scale, in the shadow of the EIC. Of course, success for these European private traders was never assured. As Watson asserts, many suffered setbacks and most eventually failed; but always enough great fortunes were made to encourage the hopes of newcomers. Perhaps the most sensational careers of all among the Europeans who sought their private fortunes in Asia in these centuries were those of individuals who achieved not just wealth, but political power. As one of numerous examples of such half-Asianised Europeans, Jurrien Van Goor - in the penultimate article of this selection (see chapter 14 below) - reviews the career of the seventeenth century Greek adventurer, Constant Phaulkon. Using mainly VOC sources Van Goor shows how Phaulkon, in a classic case of its kind, rose from cabin boy to phraklang at the court of King Narai of Siam, a position from which he virtually controlled Thailand’s foreign trade, and became the intermediary through whom all foreigners at court had to operate. Though Phaulkon’s time as phraklang was relatively short, and he was ultimately overthrown and beheaded, his career was salutary. He was only one of many Europeans who attained positions of prominence and power at Asian courts - as interpreters, technological experts, spiritual advisers, and above all military commanders. The informal presence of Europeans in Asia was thus as varied and almost as important as the formal. It was demonstrably unnecessary for Europeans in Asia or Africa in the centuries before 1800 to work within an imperial framework, or to have close relations or even any relations at all - with formal European-controlled enclaves. As much Post-War scholarship has demonstrated, they could make their way in these continents quite successfully, on Asia’s and Africa’s own terms.

54 For the Dutch see the special number of Itinerario IX, no.2 (1985), and on the French, Anne Kroell, ‘Marchands Français en Asie à la fin du XVIIe siècle’. Moyen Orient et Ocean Indien VII (1990), pp.137-43.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA - xxvii Select Additional Bibliography Arasaratnam, S., Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast 1650-1740 (Delhi, 1986). Axelson, Eric, Portuguese in South East Africa 1600-1700 (Johannesburg, 1960). Bayly, C.A., The New Cambridge History o f India ll.l. Indian Society and the Making o f the British Empire (Cambridge, 1988). Birmingham, David, Trade and Conflict in Angola: the Mbundu and their Neighbours under the Influence o f the Portuguese, 1483-1790 (Oxford, 1966). Blussd, Leonard, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (Dordrecht, 1986). Boxer, C.R., South China in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1953). Boxer, C.R., The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600-1800 (London, 1965). Boxer, C.R., The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825 (London, 1969). Chaudhuri, K.N., The Trading World o f Asia and the English East India Company 1660-1760 (1978). Crais, Clifton C., White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre-Industrial South Africa. The Making o f the Colonial Order in the Eastern Cape, 1770-1805 (Cambridge, 1992). Curtin, Philip D., The Image o f Africa. British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850 (Madison, 1964). Cushner, Nicholas P., Landed Estates in the Colonial Philippines (New Haven 1976). Das Gupta, Ashin and Pearson, M.N., eds., India and the Indian Ocean 15001800 (Calcutta, 1987). Davies, K.G., The Royal Africa Company (New York, 1970). Dermigny, L., La Chine et I’Occident, 1719-1833 (Paris, 1964). Diffie, Bailey W. and Winius, George D., Foundations o f the Portuguese Empire 1415-1580 (Minneapolis, 1977). Dodwell, H.H., ed., The Cambridge History o f the British Empire. Vol. 4. British India (Cambridge, 1929). Elphick, Richard and Giliomee, Hermann, The Shaping o f South African Society 1652-1840 (Middletown, 1989). Emmer, P.C. and Wesseling, H.L., eds., Reappraisals in Overseas History. Essays on Post War Historiography about European Expansion (Leiden, 1979). Feldbaek, Ole, India Trade Under the Danish Flag 1772-1808 (Lund, 1969). Furber, Holden, John Company at Work (Cambridge, Mass., 1949). Furber, Holden, Rival Empires o f Trade in the Orient, 1600-1800 (Minneapolis, 1976). Gaastra, F.S., De Geschiednis van de VOC (Bossum, 1982).

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Ghosh, S.C., Social Conditions o f the British Community in Bengal 1757-1800 (Leiden, 1970). Glamann, Kristof, Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620-1640 (The Hague, 1958). Godinho, Vitorino Magalhaes, Os Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial, two/ four vols. (Lisbon, 1965-71/83). Goor, J. van, ed., Trading Companies in Asia 1600-1830 (Utrecht, 1986). Hess, Andrew, The Forgotten Frontier. A History o f the Sixteenth Century IberoAfrican Frontier (Chicago, 1978). Isaacman, Allen F., Mozambique. The Africanization o f a European Institution. The Zambezi Prazos 1750-1902, (Madison, 1972). Kea, Ray A., Settlements, Trade and Politics in the Seventeenth Century Gold Coast (Baltimore and London, 1982). Kley, Edwin J. Van, and Pullapilly, C.K., Asia and the West: Encounters and Exchanges from the Age o f Explorations (Notre Dame, 1986). Lach, Donald F., and Kley, Edwin J. Van, Asia in the Making o f Europe, 3 vols. to date (Chicago, 1965-). Marshall, P.J., East Indian Fortunes. The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1976). Marshall, P.J., Bengal. The British Bridgehead: Eastern India 1740-1828 (Cambridge, 1987). Marshall, P.J., et. al., India and Indonesia during the Ancien Regime (Leiden and New York, 1989). Massarella, Derek, A World Elsewhere. Europe’s Encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New Haven, 1990). Rhoades, Murphey, The Outsiders: The Western Experience in India and China (Ann Arbor, 1977). Pearson, M.N., Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat. The Response to the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley, 1976). Pearson, M.N., The New Cambridge History o f India. 1.1. The Portuguese in India (Cambridge, 1987). Prakash, Om, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy o f Bengal, 16301720 (Princeton, 1985). Ptak, Roderich, Portugal in China (Bad Boll, 1980). Ptak, R., and Rothermund, D., eds., Emporia, Commodities and Entrepreneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, C.1400-1750 (Stuttgart, 1991). Reid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the Age o f Commerce, 1450-1680, vol.l. The Lands Below the Winds, (new Haven, 1988). Ross, Robert J., and Telkamp, Gerard J., eds., Colonial Cities (Dordrecht, 1985). Russell-Wood, A.J.R., A World on the Move: The Portuguese in Africa, Asia and America, 1415-1808 (Manchester, 1992). Scammell, G.V., The First Imperial Age: European Overseas Expansion c. MOO1715 (London, 1989).

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA - xxix Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, The Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500-1700 (London and New York, 1993). Taylor, Jean Galman, The Social World o f Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia (Minneapolis, 1983). Voght, John, Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast 1469-1682 (Athens, Georgia, 1979). Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modem World System, 3 vols. (New York, 1974-89). Watson, I. Bruce, Foundation fo r Empire: English Private Trade in India 16591760 (New Delhi, 1980). Wesseling, H.L., ed., Expansion and Reaction: Essays on European Expansion and Reaction in Asia and Africa (The Hague, 1978). Wills, John E., Pepper, Guns and Parleys: The Dutch East India Company and China 1622-81 (Cambridge, Mass., 1974).

1

On the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Indonesian History J.C. van Leur n the series of volumes edited by Dr Stapel under the title Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch Indieythe fourth volume, from the hand of the late Professor E. C. Godée Molsbergen, deals with the eighteenth century.1 It is somewhat surprising to see such a periodization proposed, but on further consideration it gains a broader background. While actually up to now the only chro­ nology of Indonesian history for that era has been the one begun by J. P. I. Du Bois in 17632 and followed by De Jonge and Van Deventer3 as well as H. T. Colenbrander4 - the succession of governor-generalships, - in Professor Godée’s work the eighteenth century is seen as having a certain coherency, as being a certain unity. The theme is introduced on page seven with the happy images which recur on page 391 to close the account : the legends on the two faces of the medallion the East India Company struck in commemoration of its first centenary in In altera saecula pergo and Invia nulla viafavente Deo. Traditionally in the writing of Indonesian history the eighteenth century has merely been a sequel to the seventeenth in the series of governor-generalships continuing up to the fall of the Dutch Republic in 1795. After that the periodization would go on either in the same way or with differentiation according to the many transformations in political system in the motherland (the Bata­ vian Republic, with, successively, its directory, its state govern­ ment, and its council-pensionary; the Kingdom of Holland; the departments annexed to the French Empire) and consequently in the Indies (successively a colony under the republic, the kingdom, and the empire, then a territory under British administration interim administration, as it could later be happily called), trans­ formations finally ending in the restored authority of the sover-

I

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THREE REVIEW S

eign prince, later king of the Netherlands. Now Professor Godée has consciously chosen the eighteenth century as an historical whole. It is apparent from the definition in the opening words of his first chapter : Just as during the growth of every living organism there are transitional forms, the eighteenth century is such a form in the history of the devel­ opment of the Netherlands as a colonial power, differing [from the seventeenth century] in its structure, political system, morality, sense of responsibility.5

Thus is called up the image of a closed historical unity (with characteristics, however, the heuristic value of which cannot be highly rated), the Eighteenth Century. Just as the categories quattrocento and cinquecentoy the Eighteenth Century, the dixhuitièmey is an historical category, an expedient perhaps, not a con­ cept, but “laden with meaningful speculation” .6 Actually it is a category for the periodization of time borrowed from western European and North American history. In the eighteenth century the coming-of-age of seventeenth-century civilization took place. It was the world of baroque and oldfashioned classicism, of conservative kingship and official church power, of the old oligarchies in states and factions, of political capitalism and early capitalism - the world of Louis XV, M aria Theresa, Stadtholder William IV, Van Slingelandt, Walpole, the fermiers généraux, the colonial companies, John Law, the world of Abbé Prévost, Swift, Pope, Holberg, Fontenelle, Marivaux, Boucher, and Bach. But at the same time the new bourgeois civ­ ilization was taking shape, the modem democratic movement, constitutional kingship on the continent, secularization and the lessening of the coercive power of the dogmas, modern capitalism, the new classicism, the first cosmopolitanism. Thus was it also the world of Louis X V I, Joseph II, Washington, the Encyclope­ dia, Rousseau, Voltaire, Priestley, Price, Franklin, Van der Capellen, Pieter Paulus, Arkwright, Stephenson, Adam Smith, Richardson, Diderot, Aagje Wolff and Betje Deken, Alfieri, Bishop Percy, Sir William Jones, Georg Foster, Herder. The turning point came around 1760. Even so a definite unity within

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this sharp division is indicated in the concept Eighteenth Cen­ tury. Notwithstanding all the internal political and dynastic differences, the concept can pass the test of being applied to the history of every state. In Dutch history, for example, the move­ ment from one pole to the other within this cultural whole is illustrated by the relationship regarding the stadtholdership of Lieven de Beaufort to Van Slingelandt in the thirties, or of Van der Capellen to Van de Spiegel in the eighties.7 Professor Godée is therefore consistent when he relates his use of the Eighteenth Century as a category in Indonesian history to its use in European history,8 “The history of the Company in the eighteenth century is the reflected image of that of its mother country, in fact of the Europe of that day” - with the addition, “sometimes more fiercely lighted by the tropical sun, and in­ fluenced by the almost legendary distance that lay between the Netherlands and the archipelago” . Thus the history of Indonesia is fitted into the framework of eighteenth-century cultural history. Thus, furthermore, as the last quotation witnesses, it is fitted into the framework of the history of the Dutch East India Company. When one considers this, the question immediately arises whether it is correct. Can the category Eighteenth Century, then, be used for Indonesian history? Is it possible to write the history of Indonesia in the eighteenth century as the history of the Company? I have already indicated regarding the seventeenth century* that the history of Indonesia definitely cannot be made equiva­ lent to the history of the Company, that it is incorrect to make a break in describing the course of history upon the arrival of the first scattered seafarers, merchants, and privateers from north­ west Europe10 and change over to the point of view of the small, oppressed European fortress, the stuffy trading-house, and the armed ship riding at anchor. The theme needs to be taken up again, this time for the eighteenth century. One should call to mind the picture of the over-all political sit­ uation in eastern and southeastern Asia during the eighteenth

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century - and of the position of the Company and the other European powers there. First, the Oriental states, scanned from west to east, as was done in the general reports of the governor-general in Batavia to the members of the Company in Holland. The immeasurable tech­ nical progress of the nineteenth century has introduced the exotic element into literature concerning the East, and along with it at the same time the picture of decaying Oriental states and lawless despotisms, in contrast to the driving power, the perfection, and the liberality of the Christian states of the West. Commencing with Turkey, political and missionary literature has applied such a configuration all the way from Persia to China and Jap an .11 In general one without the necessary acquaintance with and use of contemporary literature on the Orient must be wary of this picture of decay projected backwards from the nineteenth century. This is especially true for the eighteenth century. One has only to think of the habit, originated in later times and prac­ tised most of all by Marxist class ideologists, of painting the miseries of France before 1789 and of England under the first stirrings (actually still so modest) of modern capitalism.12 Persia, then, was in the eighteenth century a country still intact. In India the establishment of local, even regional power by France and England did not disturb the power of the Mogol Empire more than fleetingly. Burma and Farther India harboured inviolate states. The excellent organization of the mandarin bureaucracy in Annam and Tonkin13 was to disappear only with the colonial wars of the French under the Second Empire. Under the Manchu emperors, eighteenth-century China reached a pinnacle of political power and cultural achievement. Emperor K ’ang Hsi ( 1662- 1723) once more extended the military influence of the empire as far as into West Turkestan and placed Tibet under Chinese suzerainty. Emperor Ch’ien Lung (1736- 1796) made the distant western borders secure, drove Nepal out of Tibet back over the Himalayas, and gained recognition of Chinese suzerainty from Burma (1769) and Annam (1789).

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Never, not even under the T ’angs, were such vast regions in Mongolia and Turkestan so completely annexed to the empire. ... Never in all history had China’s power and supremacy seemed to be so securely safeguarded.14

In Japan the shogunate remained unshaken. The new develop­ ment of more influence shifting to a ‘bourgeois’ class of rich mer­ chants, speculators, and money-holders15 did not affect the existent order of things; the reverses through volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, and crop failures16 were of a completely static nature. Also deserving consideration is the social and economic signifi­ cance of the great masses of population: from sixty or eighty to a hundred million people in China,17 twenty-six million in Jap an ,18 a hundred million in India19 - as opposed to the number of people in France, the most heavily populated European country: nine­ teen million at the end of the seventeenth century and twentythree million at the end of the eighteenth (England counted only six million inhabitants; with Scotland, seven).20 Such a compar­ ison has a far-reaching validity in a world whose means of sub­ sistence were practically equal technically in Asia and in Europe. Then, on the other hand, one should look at the position of the European outposts in Asia. Russia had pushed across Siberia to the Sea of Okhotsk, but it remained completely peripheral in re­ lation to China (as is shown by the treaties of 1688 and 1724) as well as to Japan. Nor had it yet begun its central Asian con­ quests. In the older strongholds in southeast Asia, did a change take place, did the balance shift and the Western element come to dominate? In the seventeenth-century political picture the Asian element had dominated completely when compared to that of the tiny outposts the Europeans had established. Was a balance struck later, and did the scales tip the other way in the eighteenth century? Certainly not for China, Japan, Indo-China, India, and Persia. Not even for India. The beginning of British territorial control dated from Plassey, 1757. But after all Clive’s battle was really only one against a provincial authority, the nawab of Bengal; the first territory gained was a zemindari apanage, the twenty-four

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Parganas, granted by a firman from the nawab and later, in 1759, confirmed by the mogul. The expansion over Bihar and Orissa in 1765 took place in the form of a grant of the right to establish a divan for farming land taxes, completely in Mogol style. So strong was the influence of the Irano-Indian bureaucracy, supe­ rior to the English colonial one. It was not the first retinue of aggressive foreigners thus brought within the framework of the central power. Nor did the wars that came to India with Has­ tings establish English supremacy. That happened only in the nineteenth century. Though Plassey, like the capture of the town of Jakarta in 1619, may be a landmark in the light of later history, at the moment of the military feat itself it held no preponderant significance, and there was no drastic change as a result of it. There was not yet a Near East serving England as a basis for an Asian policy; that concept became a living one only with Napo­ leon’s enormous plans of 1799, though there was a hint of what was coming in the trade agreement France reached with Egypt in 1785, stipulating free transit of Indian goods to Europe via Egypt.21 The English settlements in India were still isolated transoceanic points. The France of the ancien regime, with its superior organization of army and navy, held only a temporary position as a colonial power in Asia: the Dupleix episode did not last. Spain continued to exert its chief power in its American lands, using the Philip­ pines mainly for trade with China, and hardly at all for exercising political power in southeast Asia. Portugal only retained control of its scattered outposts on the coasts of Africa, India, and China, without exercising any military or economic power. In the eighteenth century, too, the Dutch East India Company maintained the most widely extended power and carried on the most distant active relations of all: on Ceylon, on Java, in M a­ cassar, from Surat to Deshima, from the Cape to Ternate. In comparison to that net of strongholds, stations, and trading posts, the activities of the English were definitely more limited. The Dutch trading posts in Arabia and Persia were abandoned, in 1755 and 1766. Those in India lost in commercial significance for

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the Company; territorial significance they had never had. The hold on Ceylon became more certain. The outpost in Tonkin was liquidated in 1700, that in Siam in 1762. Formosa had been lost in the seventeenth century, and trade with China remained closed. The factory at Deshima carried on a profitable trade, but it was completely under the regulation of the central and munici­ pal authorities in Nagasaki and had no power in its own right. In Indonesia, the importance of the Sumatra and Borneo ports for the Company was diminishing. The spice islands re­ mained under its occupation and administration. Its interests were being concentrated on Java, and it was there its power ex­ panded. In colonial campaigns of the utmost difficulty - it would be worth the trouble to compare their military significance to that of the campaigns carried on at the same time in China, as well as in India and Siberia - the Company subdued the princes and lords, intervened in dynastic disputes, and pacified popular uprisings, until the arrangement in 1755 and 1757 for the tri­ partition of the former empire of M ataram into the realms of the susuhunan of Surakarta, the sultan of Jogjakarta, and the Mangkunagara gave the government at Batavia a predominant politi­ cal influence - albeit a precarious one - over the course of affairs on Java. On the whole, then, Dutch influence in southeast Asia undoubtedly diminished. But in Indonesia, though an interin­ sular authority was not achieved, influence was growing on Java. The threads coming together at Batavia stretched far and wide, but they were fragile and often without political significance. A general view of the whole can only lead to the conclusion that any talk of a European Asia in the eighteenth century is out of the question, that a few European centres of power had been consoli­ dated on a very limited scale, that in general - and here the em­ phasis should lie - the Oriental lands continued to form active factors in the course of events as valid entities, militarily, econom­ ically, and politically. If one looks at Indonesia more closely, the question of a moment ago can be stated more specifically. The Company was a political

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power in the archipelago: Batavia, town and castle, gave irre­ futable evidence of it. W hat was the importance of the Oriental opponent? Did the general rule of continuing equality militarily and economically, which in the case of India and China spoke out so clearly, hold also for the Indonesian states? Here we are pinched by the scarcity of material. De Jonge’s great edition of sources moves quickly from the consideration of the rise of control in the whole of the East Indies to a similar con­ sideration for Java only, and others have not completed his work for eighteenth-century episodes in the outer islands. The many studies of the outlying posts in the seventeenth century throw light on countless aspects of all southeast Asia, but such studies for the eighteenth century are almost completely lacking. Even if the outlying posts had become of secondary importance in the trade of the Company, that is by no means meant to imply that the O uter Quarters declined in significance in a general sense.22 For the posts in the Middle East that is at once obvious. But for the posts in Indonesia it still has to be investigated. Here are a few tentative comments aiming in that direction. If one pictures in one’s mind the palaces and fortifications and strong Mogol castles of the Persian and Indian towns, the might of the Chinese cities, the fastnesses of the Japanese, the moving image of town and land as it is rendered by the Japanese artists of the eighteenth century, inspiring profound familiarity - then if one compares images from Indonesian lands, kampong and kraton towns such as Surabaya, Surakarta, Palembang, and Martapura, the result of the comparison seems unfavourable for the latter. Neither in power nor extent, in refinement nor diversity do the images of Indonesian civilization seem to excel. Even taking into consideration all the environmental and climatic fac­ tors which make different demands in subtropical and temperate zones than in tropical, they seem inferior to the images of conti­ nental Asian civilizations. On the other hand, if one calls to mind the complexity of the Javanese governmental machinery, or if one looks at the graceful aristocratic figures shown (for the first, time, actually, as they were) in the prints to Sir Stamford

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Raffles’ History of Java, one will immediately savour their ex­ ceeding refinement, their matchlessness. A civilization23 of as great dimensions and as great validity as that of Europe? Stapel has touched on the question.24 Writing over the Company’s blockade of the Indonesian coasts for monop­ oly purposes, he finds a gradual impoverishment of the popu­ lace - to be inferred, for example, from the decline in the sale of Indian cloth. Even before the end of the seventeenth century, supposedly, the money of the populace had flowed away and poverty arisen. Thus is created the concept of an impoverished, enfeebled Oriental world, economically undermined, politically second-rate. Is it correct? Even without knowing further details, it seems to me inaccurate to dispose of such Indonesian states as Palembang, Siak, Achin, or Johore with the qualifications corrupt despotisms, pirate states, arid slave states, hotbeds of political danger and decay. Inaccu­ rate, if for no other reason, because despotism, piracy, and slavery are historical terms, and history is not written with value judge­ ments. To choose examples from the field of Dutch history, the town of Flushing based its existence in the seventeenth and eight­ eenth centuries in no small measure on privateering and smug­ gling, and Middelburg’s renowned trading company of 1720 occupied itself with privateering, smuggling to and from Spanish America, and slave trade,25 which activities must have supplied the funds for building many of the fine mansions of Zeeland’s capital. The chief point is something else: what was the power - political, maritime, economic —of the harbour principalities? For source materials in usable form on the subject one will, so far as I can find, search in vain.26 For Jav a the question is applicable in an­ other relation. If one makes an attempt to measure Javanese military might in the wars of the eighteenth century - the imperial troops plus the Madurese units on the Company’s side, that really impressive force of resistance - then, it seems to me, one will quietly set aside the possibility that the native element there was one without first-rate political significance, without any power at

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all equivalent to that of the Europeans. W ar is a rough measuring stick of degree and value, but nevertheless a very important one. Are the criteria of the seventeenth century - when an Ala ed-din and an Iskander managed to impress the admirals and the crews of the Dutch ships in Achin with their power and princely gran­ deur, when the regent of Tuban sent his retinue with nobles on horseback and with elephants out of the city to welcome Heemskerck and Warwyck, the commanders of the second Dutch expe­ dition to the Indies, when Batavia watched in alarm the besieging works of the susuhunan's troops growing around the new town, are these criteria still valid in the eighteenth century, or is that all changed, diminished, decayed?27 In answer to this, among others the following things should be pointed out. In the period before the conquest of Java Sir Stam­ ford Raffles established himself at Malacca in 1810 as agent of the British governor-general for the Malay States, and from there he spun his intrigues for undermining the Franco-Dutch rule on Jav a.28 The Balinese princes, and those of M ataram, Madura, Sumbawa, Bantam, the Lampong region, Palembang, Pontianak, Mindanao, all of them were spun into his net of correspondence.29 This points out the significance of these lands as political factors: otherwise Raffles, whose discrimination in Oriental affairs cannot be denied, would not have included them as points in his pro­ gram of action. And related to this was Leyden’s and Raffles’ concept of re-establishing the Indonesian unity of Majapahit, a congress of Indonesian princes: like the old Ban of Burgundy or the later one of Germany - a General Parliament of the Malay States, like the Amphictyonic Council of the Greeks.30

Is this a figment of his imagination, or is it a concept giving evidence of a deep feeling for politics, based upon the political significance of the Indonesian states at the time? I believe the latter. It is true that in 1810 Raffles also speaks df the restoration of Indonesian states, “some of them weakened and impoverished by the ungenerous policy of the Dutch” .31 But countless notices

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plead against retrogression. These notices can only receive their full value once they arc tabulated and placed in relation to each other,32 but even incidental figures give reason for doubt. For example, Dirk van Hogendorp calculated in 1799 that with prosperity and a good government Java could export twenty thousand koyan of rice per year.33 On the basis of shipping data from the years 1600 to 1610 I have made a rough estimate that in the beginning of the seventeenth century approximately twentyeight thousand ton of rice per year were exported from Jav a east and west. The estimated figures, with two hundred years between, lie close by each other. The relative smallness of the interinsular trade is a trait common to all pre-capitalist and early-capitalist trade.34 Decay through fossilization of culture? Rouffaer and Juynboll have given their opinion for Javanese culture in this regard in sensitive remarks most precisely formulated in some passages of their book De batik-kunst in Nederlandsch-Indie.35 For them the time when the court was at Kartasura should be considered as the Byzantine period of Javanese kraton civilization, the period in which late Javanese court etiquette and court language were polished and perfected, a period of increasing rigidity, but even so one able within that rigid framework to produce the late Javanese literature and, “as the last, noble expression of true Javanese artistry”, the mid-Javanese school of batik colouring. ...bom in the Kartasura period, it saved the late Javanese spirit from the reproach of having become sterile. On the contrary, whatever stately warmth, whatever noble ardour there was alive in Javanese nature poured itself, so to speak, into that last creation of the post-fifteenthcentury Javanese spirit ...36

Further on Rouffaer and Juynboll return to this them e: Javanese plastic skill, which had become very decadent in the socalled Majapahit period ( 1300 - 1500 ), was after 1500 more and more suppressed and truncated by Islam and dry dogmatic concepts corollary to it .37

It seems to me that this quotation points the way toward a disputable premise, the influence of early Islam on Javanese cul-

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ture. It could be mentioned that Professor Hazeu sees in the nineteenth-century court pujangga Rangga Warsita (1803- 1873) the final apotheosis of medieval Javanese literary activities, thus shifting the accent even further forward in time.38 But the prob­ lem can be still more closely approached from another way. Professor Romein has pointed out the relationship between the Byzantine style in art and the structure of the state - the imperium, the church connected with it, and the Eastern Roman bureau­ cracy, - and he has shown how this structure of the state is based upon continuity and unchanging stability and how the arts, courtly as they were, had to follow the same maxim.39 It was their style, which to them could not but seem perfect, without competent rivals as they were in their own eyes, these heirs of the Roman world empire whose pride made them group their neighbours together under the name ‘barbarians’; their style, which was indeed the perfect expression of their state; their state, which measured by ideal criteria was everything except perfect, but which showed a degree of stability that makes it understandable those taking part in it should have believed it to be perfect.40

I believe that in this direction lies a fruitful working hypothesis, the relationship between the structure of the Javanese state and the courtly arts. But then the argument of rigidity and fossilization seems to be refuted, replaced as it is by the concept of closed continuity. If the economic situation of the Indonesian regions is to be measured by the Company’s trade, its use. of monopoly rights, and its application of shipping embargos, then the image of the dead seas of eighteenth-century Indonesia seems to make sense. But such a picture is incomplete. In the economic history of the eighteenth century in Indonesia the fact of ‘smuggling’ on a very extensive scale must be taken into account. The never-ending complaints about the corrupt body of Company officials, clan­ destine trade, private business, camouflaged shares in trading and shipping - all these can be explained as an attempt to comple­ ment insufficient salaries. But the other side of the coin is that Indonesian markets were ready and able to receive more goods and ship more wares. Thus the level of trade rose wherever the

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Company thought it could suppress it. Side by side with such ‘smuggling5 was the extensive violation of the monopoly area, in the eighteenth century especially by English trade, and later by American as well. As early as 1 784 the freedom of the Eastern seas had to be granted in the Treaty of Versailles.41 Even before the period of the steam engine and the triumphal march of Lancashire cotton goods, the export position of England was improved by an increase in production of piece-made goods. Sombart gives some figures.42 In 1700 the value of England’s exports to Asia amounted to £ 100,283, one and a half per cent, of the total value of its exports. In 1780 it amounted to £ 909,033, or six per cent. This illustrates, in the first place, Sombart’s finding that markets in Europe, North America, and the West Indian slave colonies had a relatively greater significance for English trade than markets in the Asian lands, with their highly developed civilizations and their own exports, manufactures, and handicrafts. These Asian handicrafts were to be destroyed only by modern capitalism. But a figure of approximately nine hun­ dred thousand pounds for the English export of goods to Asia in 1780 is interesting enough in itself. For the Dutch Company in those years, there was an average yearly shipment to Asia of £ 225,000 in merchandise, provisions, and company necessities, and £ 415,000 in gold and silver bullion and specie.43 Dutch ex­ ports were already lagging behind English. Furthermore, the English controlled the Bombay, Bengal, and China trade - which means that the most valuable parts of the internal Asian trade had slipped away from the Company. But this all means on the other hand that Asia, and Indonesia, were absorbing that increasing export of goods without the Dutch Company’s having a part in it. Side by side with the history of the monopoly trade the historian of th e Company must include, as of completely equal value, the history of the ‘smuggling’ of Eu­ ropean and Asian export goods, which made up an integral part of the economic order and deserves also to be taken into con­ sideration in evaluating the economic situation of Indonesia in th e eighteenth century. According to modern concepts this

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seems impossible. But it needs to be considered that trade with Spanish America from smuggling stations in the Antilles was carried on as an honourable business during the whole of the eighteenth century. And if such a thing is considered incompat­ ible with modern conditions, the enormous amount of smuggling carried on by Japanese traders via North China in the first stage of the China incident, a complete, romantic business with cara­ vans of trucks protected by ronins, has shown that a highly developed modern-capitalistic apparatus actually can keep that old-fashioned, romantic offshoot alive. It seems to me that, until explained otherwise, these facts are in opposition to the concept of a languishing, retarded Indonesian world and an all-dominating Company. Western trade with Asia was always a one-sided movement of goods in the sense that costly merchandise was received in ex­ change for coin and certain metals in ingot. The handicrafts of the Asian civilizations never left any important place for a sale of European craft goods. And European factory products found no admittance in Asia before the advent of steam and chemical techniques was able to bring about the beginning of a mass pro­ duction of consumers’ goods in western Europe and convert the basis of economic life from wood to iron, before the disintegration of the old, tradition-bound patterns of European life in class, town, and state was able to open up markets for mass sales to an amazingly fast-growing population. Colonial production was mobilized chiefly in the slave colonies, from which came Europe’s sugar and tobacco. Also in the shipping from Indonesia, which in the seventeenth century had known only one product that could relatively be called a mass-export product, pepper, the emphasis shifted in the eighteenth century to the new mass-export products from Java, sugar and coffee. The question whether the cultiva­ tion of these new products upset the existent agricultural pattern excessively has not to my knowledge been answered: 44 the prod­ ucts were obtained by means of the traditional pattern of com­ pulsory labour supervised by local officials for the benefit of lords and princes. Coffee was a newly imported crop; the cultivation

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of sugar had been indigenous from ancient times. Is it here, with the imposition of quotas and delivery obligations, that the ex­ haustion of village society, the basis of Javanese civilization, and thus the exhaustion of that civilization began? Tea, the next mass-export product, was supplied by China, a powerful agrarian and industrial unit, and was not significant for Indonesia as such. O f the other goods exported to Europe by the Company - Cingalese cinammon, M alay tin, indigo, salt-petre, sapanwood, camphor, spices - none of them increased noticeably in volume shipped. In 1621 the Company calculated the annual sale of spices in Europe at 1400 quarters (of 350 lb.) of cloves, 1000 quarters (of 450 lb.) of nutmeg, and 600 quarters (of 300 lb.) of mace, respectively thus 490,000 lb., 350,000 lb., and 180,000 lb.45 In 1795 the commissioners-general calculated that respectively 250,000 lb., 320,000 lb., and 100,000 lb. of the same three spices had been shipped.46 T he significance of the new products coffee and sugar, shipped in millions of pounds, contrasts sharply with this, but such figures by their nature cannot but compare favour­ ably with those of spices, produced on a small scale. The pattern of Asia in the eighteenth century was still one with a closed, indigenous village society as social and economic basis. Though intra-Asian trade provided the market with imported goods (cloth from India, earthenware and iron and steel products from China), such goods were not for everyday, large-quantity sale. They could not be, considering the closed character of home and village structure and the handicraft character of the produc­ tion centres and the trade system transporting the goods (which, rather, casually supplied the markets with relatively costly wares, many of which were stocked up as sacrosant heirlooms or financial investments) - considering, furthermore, the limited amount of money in circulation and the extremely slow turnover in trade. This is all so little different from Europe. Already arguing against economic retrogression is the fact that two of the largest branches of intra-Asian commerce, the Indian trade to the east and the Chinese trade to the south, went on throughout the eighteenth century. I f one goes on to consider that trade in the eighteenth

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century furthermore moved nothing except very limited quanti­ ties of goods in a highly traditional agrarian world still based completely on self-sufficiency, with little independent city life, then the concept of economic retrogression becomes a highly dubious one, and it is up to those who maintain its validity to produce further evidence. Thus, as soon as one has freed oneself of a Company-centred point of view, the Indonesian picture seems to fit without con­ tradiction into the general Asian picture. There is a gradually ascending line, a curve, climbing throughout the eighteenth cen­ tury, climbing even more rapidly because of the infusion of a stronger trade from Europe in the second half of the century. The line keeps on climbing over into the nineteenth century. When does it stop? Was it the destruction of Indian cloth production, the upheaval of the wars in India, Java, and Sumatra, the turn of affairs in China that changed the picture? Was it the increasing pressure of modem-capitalistic exports, and the stronger power of the modern military apparatus that went to support the ‘peaceful trade’ of Europe everywhere in Asia with threats and interven­ tion? Were there internal factors that influenced the traditional indigenous society? For the eighteenth century, at any rate, it would seem that no such factors can be detected. Economically there was no ascendancy, no preponderance; militarily the same can be said regarding land power, though perhaps there was European superiority in some seas (whether also in those around India and China is a question). Politically the power of the Oriental states remained unshaken. Also in conflict with the idea of a slow decline is the picture of Batavia as it appeared in 1816. The history of the Company and its trade on Indonesia is rather unclear for the second half of the eighteenth century. In 1816, with Dutch history breathing more easily in the air of the restoration, there would appear to have been an open centre for trade at Batavia: a bourgeois trade, strongly English, with other foreigners from America, Europe, and elsewhere in Asia, and moreover with Dutch commercial houses and independent firms for import, export, and shipping.4*

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Was this only filling the vacuum created by the disappearance of Company trade? Or, during the time of English rule (or earlier), had Java, too, been fitted into place in the expanding trade which before long would nourish Singapore as well as Batavia? What, for example, should be the evaluation of Van Hogendorp’s data that “a multitude of vessels” , bottoms of from thirty to four hun­ dred ton, were being constructed by Chinese shipbuilders on Java at the end of the eighteenth century?48 It should be noticed that it was the Asian trade which immediately took possession of the new port of Singapore. According to Colonel Farquhar’s account of 31 March, 1820: Nothing can possibly exceed the rising trade and general prosperity of the infant colony; indeed, to look at our harbour just now, where upwards of twenty junks, three of which are from China, and two from Cochin China, the rest from Siam and other quarters, are at anchor, besides ships, brigs, prows, etc. etc., a person would naturally exclaim, Surely this cannot be an establishment of only a twelve months* standing! One of the principal Chinese merchants here told me, in the course of conversation, that he would be very glad to give five hundred thousand dollars for the revenues of Singapore five years hence. Merchants of all descriptions are collecting here so fast that nothing is heard in the shape of complaint but the want of more ground to build o n .... In short, this settlement bids fair to become the emporium of Eastern trade, and in time may surpass even Batavia itself.49

Once more intra-Asian trade appears alive and active, the chief vehicle of commercial prosperity. To summarize, then, the course of Indonesian history, when checked in regard to a few episodes and economic concepts, does not appear to have coincided with that of the Dutch Company, no more so than the history of any European political foothold in Asia in the eighteenth century directed the general course of Asian history. Furthermore, there is an unbroken unity in the state of Asian civilization from the seventeenth century through the eighteenth and into the nineteenth. This makes the category Eighteenth Century useless as an instrument for ordering the facts in that historic landscape. Moreover, none of the essential ele­ ments of the category in Europe find any reflection in Asia. Two

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equal civilizations were developing separately from each other, the Asian in every way superior quantitatively. The equality remained as long as the magic poison of modern capitalism had not yet enchanted Europe and northeastern Amer­ ica to produce steam, mechanics, and grooved cannon. If the American colonies with their settlers, the West Indian colonies with their plantations and slaves, the Spanish colonies, and the Dutch Cape Colony were all of them drawn into the eighteenthcentury bourgeois movement and led on to revolution, Asia was not touched by it all. Tippo Sahib used the Jacobins as a political instrument against the English, as his predecessors had used the noble French adventurers and military commanders. The De­ cember Movement of 1795 in Batavia did not bring about a single social or political change. In the introduction to the tenth volume of De Jonge’s De opkomst van het Nederlandsck gezag in 0 ost-Indie, the last volume under his own editorship, there is a noteworthy comment which briefly sketches the general historical background and his own point of view on it. As such it is extremely valuable. Closing a survey of the events round about the year 1764, he writes, “ ...the old East India Company, along with the old improvident society of the eighteenth century, went slowly but inevitably to meet its doom” .50 Thus there, too, the link with the Eighteenth Century, the ancien regime, is made. General comments such as this one are rare with De Jonge, however indispensable for a correct understanding of history they may be. Yet, is it correct? Is the milieu of the Indies in the eighteenth century a reflection of the European world of the ancien régime? It seems to me not. In the eighteenth century, along with the strengthening of the Company’s control on Java, came the estab­ lishment of a colonial European society. It was a Dutch society only to a limited extent, because of the large number of foreigners and of the stronger, older Portuguese element in the culture of the lower groups, but above everything else because of its character, interlaced to a large extent with fragments of Oriental folkways

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and social forms. Thus had developed the opulent life of the higher classes in the Indies, with their country seats, their pomp and ceremony, their retinue of slaves and serfs - a life linked to that of the Javanese nobility more than to any other. On the other hand the officials in the lower ranks of the European ad­ ministration followed a kampong way of life, in the cities living side by side with Orientals, Indonesian and Chinese. There was no antithesis Eastern-Western; there was only the antithesis higher classes-lower classes. This colonial civilization - for it definitely had a cultural style of its own, as the Batavian manor-houses wit­ ness51 - consolidated itself in the eighteenth century and con­ tinued intact through the nineteenth. Only the twentieth century saw its decay, quick and complete. The Indies of the Company lived a life completely their own. In the second half of the eighteenth century it found expression polit­ ically in the glorious period of Van der Parra’s governor-general­ ship, of which the prints of Rach preserve the memory.52 That some elements of the Enlightenment manifested themselves (for example, in the founding of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences) 53 has no deeper significance. There was no under­ current of bourgeois political aspirations with a revolutionary, or even merely a reformistic, tinge. How different it was from the movement in the Cape, like that in the American colonies clearly established on an ideological basis. Nor was there a single ele­ ment of any insurgent non-European movement ideologically nourished, like that of San Domingo. The seigneurial rule of the Company in close alliance with the princes and lords of Java did not contain any seeds of unrest or disintegration. Therefore the year 1795 does not mean a break in the history of the Indies. The Company fell. In the Netherlands because of a remarkably conservative system of accounting and market operations, so it could be said - unjustly. It fell primarily because of its political links to the ancien regime. Its downfall in the Netherlands was more than anything else a political affair. Amsterdam’s loss of its general staple market to London and Hamburg did not as such affect the Company fundamentally. By switching over to the

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basis of consignment trade and discount exchange of merchandise - a less stable basis, it is true - Amsterdam was able to keep on directing colonial trade, as after 1824 the Dutch Trading Com­ pany54 was able to do under ten times less favourable circum­ stances. The Company’s downfall in Indonesia was certainly not in the first place an economic affair. As a great centre for the shipment of Asian goods to Europe it held its own up to the moment of the last convoy homeward. No more do internal Indonesian political causes seem to have brought about its fall. The reason for it was to be found more than anywhere else, if not exclusively, in the Company’s maritime impotence (probably not at all in its mili­ tary organization: the colony’s army created in 1811 to resist the English invaders was by no means badly organized). At sea there was an absolute superiority for England. There the political im­ potence of the Dutch directors manifested itself, and for that the officials in the Indies were not responsible, or only quite obliquely so. Maritime impotence, which the government attempted in­ sufficiently and without perseverance to redress, seems solely responsible for the Company’s downfall. Certainly the ‘atmosphere of corruption’ was not. That is the Dutch refrain also sung to the finale in Dr Godee’s volume, but how unjustly. One does not write history with value judgements. If the officialdom of the Company actually was corrupt in the sense that that very extensive apparatus tolerated a great deal within and beside its by-laws, and that it derived advantage from a number of things partly by mixing private and official revenues and partly by gaining illicit earnings from official positions, even then there is no judgement passed on the regime. A modern, strict officialdom was only created with the Napoleonic state. Criticism of the integrity of eighteenth-century officials is thus ex postfacto criticism. How did matters stand regarding the integrity of the officialdom in, for example, the Dutch Republic, an offi­ cialdom by far not so extensive as that of the Company? Further­ more, such corruption did not necessarily impair the efficiency of the administration. Not a single element predetermining destruc-

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tion was contained in it. Such a regime could possess the full power to exist (to keep silent regarding its ‘right to exist*: that is not an historical question, but a political and ethical one, a value judgement) and to act. Did there actually develop a species of officials in the eighteenth century lesser in everything than the ‘great* ones of the seven­ teenth? It seems to be very doubtful. The achievements of a Hartingh, a Von Hohendorff, a Mossel, a Van der Parra, and, on the Indonesian side, of a Mangkubumi, a Mas Sahid, a Chakraningrat are certainly on a par with those of a Speelman, a Van Goens, and an Aru Palaka. The contention appears to me to be a result of the Dutch fable of the ‘weak* eighteenth century, a legend spun by the revolutionary Patriots of 1795 to use politi­ cally against the ancien regime and by the nineteenth century na­ tional romantics to use literarily in favour of the ‘Golden Age*. That the eighteenth century in the Netherlands produced no Vondel-esque dramas and no Rembrandt-esque paintings of Biblical heroes and guardsmen causes it to be overlooked that the period performed the great work of laying the foundations of modern bourgeois culture. In the Indies the situation was again different. The political achievement of the Company in the struggle for Java is one equivalent to the most important achieve­ ment of the seventeenth century, that of gaining control over Malacca, Ceylon, and Macassar. Therefore, if amended chrono­ logically, Busken H uet’s comment that in the history of Dutch expansion (conquered) Java holds one of the two most prominent positions does not seem groundless.55 In this regard Van Hogendorp is a poor witness. His Berigt van den tegenwoordigen toestand der Bataafsche bezittingen in Oost-Indie and his other writings as well give abundant evidence of his doctrinaire attitude and his lack of appreciation for the real nature of Orien­ tal life as well as for the acquired rights of the Company. Along with that there was a strongly coloured personal animosity against the regime at Batavia as a source of his abundance of invectives: “the present nonsensical system of administration’* and “the miserable and oppressive government” count among the milder

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of them.56 Factional passion and personal hatred were allowed to discolour the picture of the government in Batavia at the end of the century. Here too Dutch history has not been able to rise beyond the fable and the pamphlet. The writing of the real history has still to begin. To summarize, these few comments clearly show the inadequacy of the concept Eighteenth Century in regard to Indonesian history. In the eighteenth century that history is just as little a sequel to Dutch history as in the seventeenth, and the dates for beginning and ending periods in the course of Indonesian cultural history need to be different ones. Furthermore, also in that period of the establishment of a colonial empire, the ‘colonial’ antithesis, espe­ cially the antithesis ‘East-West’ - the fate of lands overseas in our time - is to be sought in vain. Recently, in a passage of his reply to the provisional report of the Second Chamber regarding the 1940 budget for the Indies, the Dutch Minister for the Colonies, with a slight historical touch, sketched this picture in relation to education for Indonesians: The education which the East knew long before the coming of the Westerners and which still is widespread there is of a completely different character - its aim is not that of imparting intellectual knowledge, but that of spreading and deepening religion and theology. Such an education has its own cultural value; it is harmonically developed out of the civilization of the Oriental peoples and is in response to their deepest needs. It is the education of peoples who did not know modern Western life, who shut themselves off from active, hurried life, from world trade and a world economy, by an isolation defending their mental and spiritual life, an isolation forming a stronger bulwark than a Chinese wall.57

Such ¿in East, retiring into isolation, standing to one side along the path of the West, the path of hurried activity, world trade, world economy, modern life, seems to have been foreign to the eighteenth century. That century did not know any superior Occident, nor any self-isolating Orient no longer progressing with it. It knew a mighty East, a rich fabric of a strong, broad weave with a more fragile Western warp thread inserted in it at broad intervals.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — IN D O N E S I A N T R A D E A N D S O C I E T Y 1

1 The volume bears the sub-title “ De Nederl. Oostindische Compagnie in de achtdende eeuw” (The Dutch East India Company in the Eighteenth Century). 2 Du Bois, Vies. 3 De Jonge, Opkomst. 4 Colenbrander, Geschiedenis, II. 5 Stapel, Geschiedenis, IV, 7 . 6 Huizinga, Werken, V II, 93 . See also Romein, Erflaters, III, 68. 7 Cf. Blok, Geschiedenis, III, 3 7 1 , 427 . 8 Stapel, Geschiedenis, IV, 7 . 9 See above, “The World of Southeast Asia: 1500 - 1650 ” . 10 Remarkably enough, the break does not occur with the appearance of

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Portuguese and Spanish outposts overseas; fitted into the course of Oriental history, they only increased the polyphony for the moment with one theme more. 11 Not so contemporary eighteenth-century writings. The Age of Enlighten­ ment for the most part honoured Far Eastern civilizations as highly advanced, though the reason for its esteem was exclusively a political-philosophical and speculative-historical one, and one not very much based upon a comparative evaluation of the material civilization of the Eastern lands and that of Europe. See the list of writings on the Orient used by Voltaire given in Engemann, Voltaire, 143 - 146 . Regarding Voltaire’s view on India, see ibid., 3 0 -3 1 , 36- 37 . The Islamic world was brought to the stage in Voltaire’s dramas Zairt and Mahomet, the Chinese in VOrphelin de la Chine, the Peruvian American in Alzire (ibid,, 80- 82 ). Voltaire’s comparison of Frederick the Great and Emper­ or Ch’ien Lung was also in this spirit: “Sire, vous et le roi de la Chine, vous êtes à présent les deux seuls souverains qui soient philosophes et poètes. Je venais de lire un extrait de deux poèmes de Vempereur Kien-long, lorsquej*ai reçu la prose et les vers de Frédéric le Grand” (Voltaire to Frederick the Great, 27 July, 1770 , reprinted ibid., 91 and n. 1 ). 12 Figures alone have proved that up to 1798 France was indisputably the richest country of Europe, and in spite of every apocalyptic picture the Eng­ land of 1790 , with its powerful abundance of statesmen and intellectuals, proved to be able to carry on a victorious twenty-five years* war with France and to build up a world empire: see Sombart, Kapitalismus, II, 954- 955 , and Knowles, Revolutions, 3 . 13 A report from Indo-China in the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad for 31 July, 1940 recalls the construction of the great transversal highway from south to north, the Route Mandarine, the present Route Coloniale N. /, as a work of “earlier times, when the land was still at the mercy of the despotism of its princes and chiefs” . Here is a typical example of the just-mentioned erro­ neous way of looking at Oriental affairs. From the historical point of view, this work of the Indo-Chinese mandarin bureaucracy is a technical and organizational achievement of the first order. 14 Duyvendak, Wegen, 3 0 1 , 302 . 15 Cf. Takizawa, Penetration. 16 Feenstra Kuiper, Japan, xiv-xv, 85- 86 . 17 Cf. Weber, China, 54-55 and n. 60 ; Engemann, Voltaire, 34 and nn. 1 - 3 , 108 . 18 In 1721 : Honjo, “ Population”, 65 . 19 Boeke, Dorp, 40. 20 Sombart, Kapitalismus, II, 1046 . 21 De Jonge, Opkomst, X II, vi-vii. 22 Gonggrijp, in his Schets, seems to imply just this : “The influence of the Company’s power outside the Moluccas and Java remained trifling. In this

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book, therefore, the economic history of the other outer provinces, which had little significance, may be disregarded** {ibid, 7 4 ). 2 3 One can - probably - assume an interinsular civilization. There were no great cultural differences between the courts of Sumatra, Java, and the eastern islands, so it appears. 2 4 Stapel, Geschiedenis, III, 5 1 1 , 5 1 3 - 5 1 4 . 2 5 Wisse, Compagnie, 1 1 , 5 3 - 5 4 . 2 6 The sketch by Snouck Hurgronje in his Achehnese, 1 2 0 ff., remains of the highest value for research on the harbour principalities. 2 7 Gonggrijp merely accepts the retardation of the Indonesian populace as established, without going into any detail regarding the time it began. It is ominous that such a comment finds place as early as in his observations on the period under discussion: “The people of Sumatra have in practice noticed little of the monopoly system. It is of importance for this to be stated, for scholars, seeking after the influence of a foreign domination of the Indonesian peoples, will tend to attribute all their retardation to what was bad in the European administration. That is, however, a great delusion at work. The flight which European civilization has taken in the four centuries since 1 5 0 0 is without parallel. The retardation of so many Oriental peoples is chiefly the simple result of the fact that in their civilizations the force for powerful development was not active. A glance at the Oriental peoples who have not known any domination by Europeans can convince us of this. Not only the Javanese, whose freedom of trade and movement were truncated, were retarded; so many other peoples also lost ground, relatively speaking, in economic and other fields, because the expansive Westerner pressed forward at so fast a tempo.** (Schets, 7 4 - 7 5 ). 2 8 Colenbrander, Geschiedenis, II, 3 1 9 . 2 9 Boulger, Raffles, 9 0 - 9 1 . 3 0 Leyden, quoted in ibid., 9 3 . 3 1 Ibid., 9 1 . 3 2 One should not raise the objection of lack of statistical data too quickly: the economic history of Europe has been and still is studied on a fragmentary basis. The problem is primarily one of correct evaluation of source materials and their special significance. The Daghregisters, for example, would with complete tabulation gain a significance comparable to that of the toll figures for the Sound (see Bang & Korst, Tabeller; for an analysis of the figures related to Dutch trade see Kernkamp, “Nederlanders” ). 3 3 Van Hogendorp, Berigt, 6 0 . A hoyan of from 3 4 0 0 and 3 5 0 0 to 40 0 0 lb. (ibid., n. 1 ). 3 4 But how is the information of a yearly import into Java of ten thousand ounces of gold from other parts of Indonesia reported by Van Hogendorp (Berigt, 1 0 4 - 1 0 5 ) to be evaluated? 3 5 Rouffaer & Juynboll, Batik-kunst, 3 0 6 - 3 0 7 , 4 2 6 .

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36 Ibid., 307 . 37 Ibid., 426. 38 Hazeu, Letterkunde, 18 . 39 Romein, “ Stijl” . 40 Ibid., 184 . 41 Colenbrander, Geschiedenis, II, 232 . See Article Six of the treaty. 42 Sombart, Kapitalismus, II, 1008- 1009. 43 Van Oudermeulen’s memorandum in Van Hogendorp, Stukken, 17 1 - 172 . / 2 , 700,000 and 5 ,000,000 respectively, at twelve guilders to the pound (ibid., 187 ). 44 Cf. Gonggrijp, Schets, 59- 60, 63- 65 . 45 Colenbrander, Coen, IV, 432 . 46 Raffles, History, I, xxxii-xxxiii. 47 See Mansvelt, Handelshuizen. The Dutch colonial government re­ established in 1816 closed a cash money loan with the Danish Insurance Company of Batavia (Resolution of 24 December, 1816 , no 20), and others with the Messrs Thalmann ( 15,000 copper [?] rupees), Siberg (a former governor-general - 22,000 Spanish piastres), and Garok Manok (an Arme­ nian? - 7,000 silver rupees). 48 Van Hogendorp, Berigt, 84. 49 Quoted in Boulger, Raffles, 329 . 50 De Jonge, Opkomst, X, lxxxv. 51 See Van de Wall, Buitenplaatsen. 52 See De Loos-Haaxman, Rack. 53 Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen. 54 Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, N.V. 55 Busken Huet, Rembrandt, II, Part Two, 436 . Busken Huet makes the

comment regarding the seventeenth century, but in this case, too, the continuity which carried the development of things on deep into the eighteenth century has to be taken into consideration. Cf. ibid., II, Part One, 280, n. 2 . 56 Van Hogendorp, Berigt, 93, 104 , and elsewhere. 57 Bijlagen Staten-Generaal, 247.

2

Some Considerations on Portuguese Colonial Historiography C.R. Boxer Cam5es Professor of Portuguese at the University of London, King’s College Professor C. H. Haring observes in the foreword to his masterly study, The Spanish Empire in America (New York, 1947), that ’’the present state of research into the colonial annals of Spanish America does not permit of an adequate, systematic description of government and society based upon solid documentation.” The same can be said, mutatis mutandis, of the history of the Portuguese colonial empire in three continents from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This assertion may sound rather sweeping, but mature reflection will show, I think, that it is true. There are several useful studies and histories of one or another colony at a given period, but there is nothing adequate in the way of a connected whole. The shortcomings of the latest attempts in this field are indicated in the interesting essay of Y. Magalháes Godinho, Le Portugal devant Vhistoire. Tour d3horizon bibliographique, printed in 1948, so these works need not detain us here .1 The chief reason for this unsatisfactory state of affairs is the same as that given by Professor Haring, namely, the lack of adequate documentation available in printed form. What is needed is fewer biographies of Prince Henry the Navigator, Afonso de Albuquerque, and other well-known historical figures, and more publications of the kind represented by the Archivo Portuguez Oriental (8 vols., Nova Goa, 1857-1876) ,2 the Arquivos de Macau (4 vols., Macau, 1929*1941), Arquivos de Angola (9 vols., Luanda, 19331948), and the invaluable series sponsored by the Biblioteca Nacional at Rio de Janeiro, the Anais (70 vols. to date, 1876 ), and Documentos Históricos (70 vols. to date, 1928 ). These are the raw materials of history, and it is more of them that we want. Less national catechism and more genuine history should be the motto of the research worker in this field.8 This is quite feasible without denigrating the great figures of the past or writing in the "debunking” manner of Lytton Strachey and his followers. One excuse frequently advanced for the paucity of Portuguese printed documentary 1 C f. A n n a le s. E co n o m ies. Sociétés. C ivilisa tio n s, III, 347-352, Paris, 1948, for Magalháes Godinho’s review of Fortunato de Almeida, H istó ria d e P ortugal, 6 vols., Coimbra, 1922-1929, and Damiáo Peres (ed.), H isto ria d e P ortugal. E digap M o n u m e n ta l, 8 vols., Barcelos, 1929-1935. The collective H istó ria da E xpansáo P o rtu g u esa n o M u n d o , 3 vols., Lisboa, 1937-1940, whilst containing many excellent articles, suffers from similar faults. 2 Not to be confused with its modern successor and less satisfactory namesake, edited by A. B. de Braganga Pereira, for a criticism of whose editorial methods cf. J o u rn a l o f th e R o y a l A sia tic So ciety , Parts III & IV, London, 1948, 188-189. 8 I do not mean to insinuate that Portuguese historians are the only offenders in this respect. Englishmen writing about Nelson, or Americans about George Washington, are equally liable to lose their sense of proportion. A book such as the late Professor Calendar's Sea K in g s o f B rita in amounts to little more than the lusty beating of the tiibal tom-tom.

28

INVESTIGATING AND UNDERSTANDING PRESENCES material is the damage done to the Lisbon archives by the earthquake of November, 1755, but the harm done by this catastrophe in this respect has been greatly exag­ gerated. Despite the destruction of the priceless records of the Casa da India e Mina on that occasion, there is more than sufficient material left in the Portuguese archives and those of Goa, Macau, and Brazil, to form the basis of an adequately documented Portuguese colonial history. This much is quite dear from the preliminary surveys made by Cunha Rivara, António Baiäo, Ernesto Ennes, Eric Axelson, Hedwig Fitzler, Carlos Alberto Ferreira, Luisa da Fonseca, G. Schurhammer, Le Roy Christian, and others too numerous to mention here, quite apart from the details given in the paper by Dona Virginia Rau.4* A first essential is, of course, the clarification, cataloguing, and, as soon as prac­ ticable, the publication of this material, so that it may be made available to scholars and students. The methods of classification and cataloguing which should be adopted, as also the order of priority in the publication of selected documents, are matters which will need considerable investigation and discussion. Meanwhile, it may help to clarify our ideas on this subject if we make a brief survey of some of the principal gaps in our knowledge of Portuguese colonial history from 1415 to 1815. For simplicity's sake, we will review the field from East to West; starting with "Asia Portuguesa?’ (extending from Sofala to Macau), then dealing with West Africa and Morocco, with a final glance at colonial Brazil. We shall only touch lightly on this last topic, as it forms the principal theme of several other papers in this Colloquium. The need for the publication of more documentary material on "Portuguese Asia" is emphasized by the fact that the standard work on this subject in English is the thoroughly unsatisfactory book of F. C. Danvers. With all its many faults of presen­ tation and its slipshod inaccuracies of fact, The Portuguese in India, being a history of the Rise and Decline of their Eastern Empire, 1481-1894 (2 vols., London, 1894), is still regarded as a desirable work, and commands a ridiculously high price in the second-hand book market. For reasons best known to himself, Danvers preferred to rely on secondary works of dubious value, such as Faria e Sousa’s Asia Portuguesa, rather than on the mass of transcripts which was collected for him in the archives at Lisbon and fivora, and which still reposes on the shelves of the India Office Library. His knowledge of Portuguese was clearly small, and he made no effort to integrate his history with that of the Asiatic peoples amongst whom his scene was laid. He never divested himself of his European blinkers, and his work is consequently inadequate in range and outlook. A much better book in every way is R. S. Whiteway’s The Rise of the Portuguese Power in India, 1498-1330 (London, 1899), but unfortu­ 4 J. H. Cunha Rivara, C atalogo d o s M a n u scrip to s da B ibliotheca P ublica E borense, 3 vols., Lisboa, 1850-1838; ib id em , O C hronista d e T issuary, 4 vols., Nova Goa, 1866-1868; António Baiäo and Pedro de Azevedo, O A r q u iv o d a T o rre d o T o m b o . Sua historia, cor p o s que o com pöem e o rg a n iz a d o , Lisboa, 1905; Ernesto Ennes and Hedwig Kömmerling-Fitzler, A S ecfá o U ltram arina da B ib lio teca N a c io n a l, In ven ta rio s, Lisboa, 1928; G. Schurhammer, S. J., D ie Zeitg en ö ssisch en Q u ellen zu r z e it des H l. F ranz X a v ie r, Leipzig, 1 9 3 2 ; ibidem, "Die Schätzer der Jesuitenarchive in Makao und Peking,’* D ie K a th olischen M issio n e n , LVII (1929), 224-229; Carlos Alberto Ferreira, In v e n ta rio d o s AÍS5. da B iblioteca d e A ju d a re ferentes i A m e ric a do Su l, Coimbra, 1946; J. Le Roy Christian, "Portuguese India and its historical records," H isp a n ic A m erica n H isto rica l R eview , X X V (1945), 140-151; Eric Axelson, "Report on the archives and libraries of Portugal, etc.,” pp. 184-283 of his South-E ast A fric a , 1488-1330, London, 1940; Luisa da Fonseca has a catalogue in the press (at the time of writing) of the documents in the Arquivo Histórico Colonial at Lisbon which concern Bahia (Salvador).

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HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — nately it covers only the first half-century of Portuguese activities in Asia. Although vastly superior to Danvers in his historical method, in his knowledge of India, and in his use of European and Asiatic sources, Whiteway, like the rest of us, is not without his faults. Writing at the height of Victorian England’s material prosperity, it never occurred to him that English rule in India might be a thing of the past before the Portuguese left Goa, Darnao, or Diu, whilst his dislike of Roman Catholicism occasionally clouded his judgment. If the first essentials of Portuguese colonial historiography are a) systematic cata­ loguing of the available archival material, particularly that of Goa, and b) publication of selected documents on a methodical basis, there is another vital consideration which should not be overlooked by scholars who intend to use this material. The Dutch historian, J. C. van Leur, whose promising career was cut short by death in action against the Japanese in 1942, has pointed out the major sin committed by European ‘'colonial historians” when they come to treat of Asiatic history.67 The majority of such writers, after describing the development of the Asiatic countries with which they are concerned from (so to speak) within, turn the face of the picture 180° with the arrival of the Portuguese in Asia, and deal with subsequent events from the vantage point of the deck of an East-Indiaman, the wall of a fortress, or the veranda of a trading-post. This allegation is, of course, more true of areas such as Indonesia or Indochina than of China and Japan, but it is a major error which spoils much historical writing. Van Leur also points out that many of the conventional European historical categories or periods, e.g., the eighteenth century, are not applicable to Asiatic countries. In his view, and there is much to be said for it, such terms as Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Modern Times, are not merely inadequate but misleading when applied to the history of any countries outside Western Europe. Danvers is one of the major offenders in this respect, but even far more talented historians are not exempt from this same fault. The dangers of ignoring or of mis­ understanding (for example) the Chinese viewpoint are well brought out in C. S. Ch’ien’s criticism of Father Henri Bernard-Maltre’s Le Père Matthieu Ricci et la société chinoise de son temps (1332-1610) (2 vols., Tientsin, 1937).® The danger can be avoided only by someone who knows at least one Asiatic language, and there­ fore instinctively appreciates something of the Indian, Chinese, Japanese, or Indo­ nesian viewpoint. What can be achieved by scholars so equipped is shown by the works of such writers as O. Moreland, G. Sansom, R. H. van Gulik, David Lopes, Monsenhor Dalgado and Panduronga Pissurlencar, to mention only a few from widely separated fields.7* In this connection, I should like to support Dr. van Gulik’s plea that all 6 J. C. van Leur, E en ig e b esch o u w in g en b e treffe n d e d en o u d en A zia tisc h e n handel, Middelburg, 1934; "De Wereld van Zuid Oost Azië,” T ijd sc h r ift voor G eschiedenis, 1947, 292 ff; "Eenige aanteekeningen betreffende de mogelijkheid der 18 eeuw als categorie in de Indische geschiedschrijving,” T ijd sc h r ift ln d . T . L . en V ., 1940, LX X X , 544 ff.; review in T ijd sc h r ift In d . T . L . en V ., Deel LX X IX , 1939, 589-595. ®C . S. Ch’ien, critical notice in P h ilo b ib lo n , Nanking, 1946, I, 13-19, and his critical notice of K. Scott Latourette, T h e C hinese, New York, 1946, in P h ilo b ib lo n , II, 30-37. 7 O. Moreland, In d ia at th e d ea th o f A k b a r. A n E conom ic S tu d y , London, 19 2 0 ; ib id e m , P rom A k b a r to A u ra n g ze b . A S tu d y in In d ia n econom ic history, London, 1 9 2 3 ; G. Sansom, Japan. A sh o rt cu ltu ra l h isto ry, London, 1946; ib id em , T h e W e ste r n W o r ld a n d Japan, New York, 1950; David Lopes, H isto ria dos P o rtu g u eses no M alabar p o r Z in a d im , Lisboa, 19 0 8 ; ib id em , A E xpansdo da U n g u a P ortuguesa no O rie n te nos Seculos X V I , X V 11 e X V 111, Barcelos, 19 3 6 ; S. R. Dalgado, G lossario L u so A sia tico , 2 vols., Coimbra, 19 19 *1 9 2 1 ; Panduronga Pissur-

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INVESTIGATING AND UNDERSTANDING PRESENCES Western students of Chinese should be compelled to take Japanese as a subsidiary subject, and vice versa} Only someone equipped with a reading knowledge of both of these languages, in addition to Portuguese, Spanish, English and Dutch, can hope to write a really satisfactory history of Macau.* I have not space to explain here van Leur’s interesting theories of the lines on which the history of European activities in Asia should be written; but they are largely derived from the methods of Max Weber in the fields of sociological and economic history.*10 I would add that like most people with new (and good) ideas van Leur is inclined to overstate his case at times. He unduly minimises the importance of the Portuguese hegemony in Far Eastern waters, and ignores their virtual monopoly of the China-Japan trade for over fifty years (1543-1609). Nor does he attach adequate significance to the effects of their naval blockade of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, which was largely responsible for the collapse of the Mameluke Empire in Egypt and the decline in the material prosperity of the Moslem states of Arabia and East Africa.1112* He sees the Portuguese too crudely in the light of crusading sea rovers, and does not realize the extent to which their trade in later years was organized and functioned on peaceful lines. These faults are caused by his inevitable reliance on secondary sources, and his ignorance of documentary material such as the tivros das Monroes or Antdnio Bocarro’s Livro do Estado da India Oriental.11 But this only serves to underline the importance of the publication of Portuguese colonial records, particularly those of economic interest, which would, I think, show that van Leur and others are mistaken in their assumption that Indo-Portuguese economy was of a wholly feudal type.1* Given this orientation, I should advocate the cataloguing and publication of the following types of documents, in order to fill some of the more obvious gaps in our present knowledge. Administrative and economic history being the weakest spots, we need to see in print such works as Bocarro’s previously quoted Livro do Estado da India Oriental of 1635 , the Tombos (land registers) of Ceylon, and whatever others lencar, "Portugueses e Maratas," published serially in the B o le tim d o I n s titu te V asco d a G am a, Nova Goa, 1926 -19 3 2 ; R. H. van Gulik, "Kakkaraon. A Japanese echo of the Opium War,’* M o n u m e n ta Serica, IV, Peking, 1940, 478-545. * C f. van Gulik, toe. c it . p. 483, n. 4. "Knowledge of Japanese is almost indispensable for every Sinologue, not only because of the vast mass of sinological materials that has been pre­ served in Japan, but also because of the excellent work done by contemporary Japanese sinologues." This is also applicable to studies by K. Akiyama, Y. Okamoto, and other Japanese historians, on the Ming records concerning the early contacts of Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese along the China coast in the sixteenth century. • C f. the Bibliographical Note on pp. 283-288 of my F idalgos in th e Far-East, 1230-1770, The Hague, 1948, and the valuable synthesis of Chinese and Portuguese sources in J.M. Braga’s, "The Western pioneers and their discovery of Macao," B o le tim d o In s titu te P o rtu g u is d e H o n g k o n g , Macau, 1949, II, 60 -16 0 . 10 An interesting summary and discussion of van Leur’s theories will be found in W . F. Wertheim’s essay, "Een nieuwe visie op het oude Oosten. Leven en werken van wijlen Dr. van Leur," D e N ie u w e S te m , November, 1948, pp. 577-595. 11 C f. G. W. F. Stripling, T h e O tto m a n T u r k s a n d th e A rabs, 1311-1314, Urbana, 1942; Jo u rn a l o f th e R o ya l A sia tic S o ciety, London, Parts III & IV, 1948, 119. 12 For the importance of Bocarro’s work, cf. Armando Cortesao, Cartografia e C artdgrafos P ortugueses d o s seculos X V e X V I , Lisboa, 19 35 , II, 95-104. 18 In this connection, we await with interest the results of the researches now being under­ taken by the newer generation of scholars in Portugal, including D. Virginia Rau, V. Magalhaes Godinho and Francisco Mendes da Luz.

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HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — are available,14 the Regimentes or standing orders for such key figures as the Vedor da Fazenda and Provedor Mor dos Contes, together with their official correspondence and accounts.15 Little is known about the organization and functioning of the Relaçao, or High Court, at Goa and the judicial system of Portuguese Asia, although a great deal of manuscript material must be available.16 Armando Cortesao’s valu­ able edition of the Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires should be followed by the publication of an equally scholarly edition of Gabriel Rebelo’s Informaçam das cousas de Malucok of which we have at present only an inadequate early nineteenth-century Portuguese text.17 Publication of the minutes of the meetings of the Municipal Council (Senado da Camara) of Goa and other Asiatic colonies, on the lines of those already printed in the Arquivos de Macau, would be of great value. Comparison of these Actas da Camara with those (already published) of Säo Paulo, Salvador, and Minas Gerais in Brazil would be particularly interesting,18* as showing the extent to which Portuguese municipal institutions were adapted to the different regions whither they were transplanted overseas. Suggestive comparisons could also then be made with the Spanish cabildos in the Philippines, Mexico, and Peru .18 Another fruitful field is represented by the archives of that admirable Portuguese institution, the Santa Casa da Misericòrdia. J. F. Ferreira Martins' Histeria da Misericordia de Goa, 1520-1910 (3 vols., Nova Goa, 1910-1914), shows what a wealth of material awaits the investi­ gator in the records of the other colonial branches of the Holy House of Mercy. In this connection, Dr. José Caetano Soares’ recently published work on the Miseri­ còrdia of Macau, Macau e a As sistenda. Panorama médico-social (Lisboa, 1950 ), contains much new and interesting material, although its use is not facilitated by the somewhat haphazard arrangement and the lack of an index. Here again, interesting comparisons with colonial Brazil and Spanish America suggest themselves. 14 Dr. P. E. Pieris of Ceylon is now working on an edition of the T o m b o s relating to that island which have escaped destruction. 15 Virginia Rau, R e g im e n tó da Casa dos C ontos d e G oa d e 1589, (reprinted from No. 9 of the R evista d o C en tro de E sta d o s E conóm icos, 107-177, Lisboa, 1949) ; Damiáo Peres, R e g im e n tó das Cazas das In d ia s e M in a , Coimbra, 1947; Francisco Mendes da Luz [Francisco Carneiro], R elaçao d e todas as rendas da C oroa d este reyno d e P ortugal, 1593, Coimbra, 1949. 16 A limited selection of legal documents from the seventeenth-century High Court at Goa was published by José Ignacio de Abranches Garcia, A rc h iv o da R elaçao d e G oa, conten d o varios d o cu m en to s d o s sécalos X V I I , X V I I I , X I X . S eca lo X V I I , 1601-1 7 0 0 , 2 parts in 1 voi., Nova Goa, 1872-74, but I am not aware that this work was ever continued. It would also be very useful to have more publications of the kind typified by A. E. d’Almeida Azevedo, A s co m m u n i d ades d e G oa, H isto r ia d a s in stitu iç ô e s antigas, Lisboa, 1890 . Works such as these are worth volumes of discu rso s and conferencias. 17 For a survey of the various contemporary copies of the In fo rm a ç a m das cousas d e M aluco, available in Portuguese archives, cf. G. Schurhammer, S. J., Z eitg e n ö ssisc h e n Q u ellen , 462, to which should be added a fine contemporary copy in my own collection. R. S. Whiteway had completed an annotated English translation of this valuable work before his death, but I cannot say what became of this unpublished MS. subsequently* C f. R e v ista d e H isto ria , II, 53-4, Lisboa, 1913. 18 A ta s da C ám ara M u n ic ip a l d e Sâo P aulo, 23 vols., Säo Paulo, 1914-1923; Prefeitura Mu­ nicipal do Salvador (ed.), A ta s da Cámara, 1625-1659, 3 vols., Salvador, Bahia, 1944-1949; "Atas da Cámara de Villa Rica, 17 11-17 15 ,” A n a is d a B ib lio teca N a c io n a l, Rio de Janeiro, XLIX, 199-392. 18 A c u e rd o s d e l e x tin g u id o C a bildo d e B u en o s A ire s, Vols. I-IX, Buenos Aires, 1907-1911, for example.

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INVESTIGATING AND UNDERSTANDING PRESENCES Military and political history are both better represented in existing publications than are either economic or institutional history, but even so, there are serious gaps in the first two categories. There is no published history of the long wars against the Dutch (1600-1663) and against the Arabs of Oman in the Persian Gulf and East Africa (1648-1730). The Documentos remettidos da India ou Livros das Monçoes (5 vols., Lisbon, 1880-193$) series is very valuable in so far as it goes, but it goes no farther than 16 19 . Its continuation is an urgent requirement, and is certainly feasible, as MS. copies for the remainder of the century exist both at Lisbon and Goa. Con­ tinuation of this series is all the more important as we have the complementary English and Dutch records for the 17th century published in the English Factories in India series, so ably edited by Sir William Foster, and the Dagh-Register gehouden irit Casteel Bataviat respectively.20 The eighteenth-century Mahratta campaigns have been adequately recorded from both Portuguese and Indian sources,21 but the Portuguese struggles with the Angria pirates still await their historian. Ecclesiastical and missionary history is surprisingly poorly represented, considering that, as Diogo do Couto wrote in 1599, "the Kings of Portugal always aimed in this conquest of the East at so uniting the two powers, spiritual and temporal, that the one should never be exercised without the other.” 2223 The old Jesuit chroniclers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have found no modern successors amongst their own countrymen, although foreign writers, of whom the most notable is Father Georg Schurhammer, S.J., have been very busy in this field.28 A well-documented study on the Portuguese priests of Peking is long overdue; and it is time that someone did for the Portug • Tesuit missions of the Orient what Father Serafim Leite has done for Brazil, or Father Francisco Rodrigues is doing for Portugal proper.24* The stormy history of the Portuguese Padroado in the Far East also awaits an impartial historian, the hostile work of Fr. A. Jann, O.F.M. Cap., Die katholischen Missionen in Indien, China und Japan. Ihre Organisation und das portugiesische Patronat vom 15. bis ins 18. Jahrhundert (Paderborn, 1915), still holding the field against Father Antonio de Silva Rego’s much shorter O Padroado Portugais do Oriente, Lisboa, 1940. This same author’s works on the history of the Padroado in India proper are models of their kind, and although those published so far carry the story down to only 1542, 20 W. Foster (ed.), T h e E n g lish Factories in In dia. A Calendar o f D ocu m en ts in th e In d ia Office, B ritish M u se u m a n d P u b lic R ecord Office, 1618-1677, 14 vols., Oxford, 1906 -19 36 , the Jast volume being edited by Sir Charles Fawcett; D agh-R egister g e houden in ’t C asteel B atavia vant passerende daer ter p la etse als over g eh eel N e d e rla n d ts-ln d ia , 1624-1682, 23 vols., Batavia,

1887-1932. 21 By Ismael Gracias in the O rie n te P ortugues, II-V, Nova Goa, 1905-1908, and by Panduronga Pissurlencar in his articles quoted in n. 7 supra. 22 D a A sia . D écoda V I, L iv ro I V , C a pitulo 7, Lisboa, 16 12 — “Porque os Reys de Portugal sempre pretenderio nesta conquista do Oriente unir tanto os dous poderes, espiritual, e temporal, que em nenhum tempo se exercitasse um sem o outro." The H istâria da E xpansâo P ortuguesa no M u n d o is most inadequate in this sphere. 23 There is no space here for a bibliography of the voluminous and erudite works of Padre Schurhammer in this field, but a representative selection will be found on pp. xxx-xxxii of his E pistolae S. Francisci X a v e r ii a liq u e eius scripta, 1, Romae, 1944. Other well-known workers in the ecclesiastical history of the Portuguese in Asia are C. Wessels, S. J., Fr. D. Schilling, O.F.M., I. Wicki, S.J., and Father Henri Bernard-Maître, S.J. 24 Serafim Leite, S.J., H istô ria da C om p a n h ia de Jesus no B rasil, 8 vols., Rio de Janeiro, 1938-1950; Francisco Rodrigues, S.J., H istô ria da C om panhia d e Jesus na A ssisfência d e P ortugal, 8 vols., Porto, 1931-1950.

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they show what can be done. There is nothing on the Portuguese side to correspond to the Spanish Franciscan records printed in Sinica Frandscana (4 vols., QuarrachiFirenze, 1933-1942) or to the revealing documents printed in the Archivo lheroAmericano (Madrid, 1914-1948), although material for the publication of such volumes from Portuguese Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian sources must exist in plenty. As a start, selections from the Ajuda Library MS. series, "Jesuitas na Asia,” would be well worth printing, as can be seen from the catalogues of that priceless collection.25 East Africa, having been for so long included in the Estado da India, comes within our purview of Portuguese Asia, as do Abyssinia, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. As regards East Africa proper, apart from studies of special periods and episodes, such as those by Cunha Rivara, McCall Theal, S. Welch and E. Axelson,26 there is only one good "obra de conjunto,” that by J. L. Strandes, Die Portugiesenzeit von Deutsch und Englisch Ost Afrika (Berlin, 1898 ). This work, a model of its kind, has long been out of print and is now unobtainable, as I know to my cost, having been looking for a copy for twenty years. It is well worth reprinting as it stands, or trans­ lating into English or Portuguese. The few later workers in this field have added precious little to what Strandes found in the archives at Lisbon and elsewhere, so that it would be a very simple matter to bring it up to date. The history of the Portuguese in Abyssinia and the Persian Gulf has been fairly adequately recorded in print down to the loss of Muscat in 1 6 5 0 ;27 and further research in this field can well wait on the more urgent and more important tasks which I have indicated above. A "tour of the bibliographical horizon" in West Africa is more promising. Start­ ing from the south, we find excellent work being done by the editors of the Arquivos de Angola (9 vols., Luanda, 1933-1948). They also plan to reprint, with suitable introductions and annotations, all the rare and valuable historical works on this colony which they can find. The only (very minor) criticism which may be fairly levelled at this admirable publication is that the editors do not always state when printing a document whether it is unpublished or (as sometimes happens) has been printed elsewhere. As regards the old Portuguese colonies along the Guinea coast, the works of Dr. J. W. Blake and the forthcoming book of Mr. J. T. Furley on Mina Castle and the Gold Coast may be regarded as covering this region adequately for the time 26 G. Schurhammer, "Die Schätze,” quoted in n. 4 su p ra ; Y . Okamoto, P orutogaru w o ta zu n e ru , Tokyo, 1930, 27-223; C. R. Boxer and J. M. Braga, A lg u m a s N o ta s sobre a B ib lio g raphia d e M acau, Macau, 1939, 4-24; Antönio da Silva Rego, H isto ria das M issö e s do Padroado P o rtu g u es d o O rie n te. In d ia . 1* vo lu m e, 1500-1542, Lisboa, 1949 ; D o cum entagao para a H isto ria das M issö es do Padroado P o rtu g u is d o O rien te. In d ia . Volume I, 1499-1522, Lisboa, 1947;

Volume II, 1523-1542, Lisboa, 1949; Volume III, 1543-1547, in the press. 25 Cunha Rivara published a number of documents on Portuguese East Africa in his C hronista d e T issu a ry, Nova Goa, 1366-68; G. McCall Theal, R ecords o f South -E a st A frica , 9 vols., Cape­ town, 1898-1904, has a large selection of Portuguese documents with English translations, E. Axelson, S o u th -E a st A frica , 1 488-1530, London, 1940; S. Welch, E u ro p e 's d isc overy o f S o u th A frica , Capetown, 1935, and S o u th A fric a u n d e r K in g M a n u el, Capetown, 1946, and S o u th A fric a u n d e r K in g Jo h n 111, 1525-1551, Johannesburg, 1948, have others. 27 C f. pp. 46-53 of my article, “ Anglo-Portuguese Rivalry in the Persian Gulf, 1615-1635,” in C hapters in A n g lo -P o rtu g u e se R ela tio n s [ed. Prestage], Watford, 1935, for a survey of works on the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf area. For Abyssinia the recent works of C. Rey, E. Sanceau, A. Cortesao and the new Portuguese edition of Paes cover the ground well enough for the time being.

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INVESTIGATING AND UNDERSTANDING PRESENCES being.28 Sena Barcelos' useful compilation on the Cape Verde Islands requires supple­ menting from more archival sources, as he dealt inadequately with some outstanding events, such as the trouble between the Governor, Joâo Pereira Córte-Real, and the Crown Contractor, André da Fonseca, in 1628-32.29 The ill-starred tale of the abortive Portuguese expansion in Morocco has been told in broad outline by David Lopes, mainly from the politico-military viewpoint.*80 Economic and sociological factors are given their full weight in V. Magalhaes Godinho’s Hist ària Económica e Social da Expansao Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1947), of which only the preliminary volume has been published. The numerous documents printed, and in course of publication, by De Castries, Ricard, and other French scholars, all go to show that sufficient material for a well-documented history of the Portuguese in Morocco will soon be available in print, although the history of Mazagâo in the 18th century may require some further research work at Lisbon. For West Africa in general, the nineteenth-century studies of Luciano Cordeiro and Paiva Manso contain much available documentary material.81 The more recent publications of Alfredo de Albuquerque Lima Felner deserve special mention for the rich docu­ mentation which accompanies them, although their consultation is not facilitated by the lack of a proper index.82 Nor would it be fair to ignore the work done by Father Manuel Ruela Pombo in his historical review, Dio go Cao, and other publications, although his lack of any system or method detracts somewhat from their value. By and large, with the exception of Sao Tomé and Príncipe, it can be said that the history of the Portuguese in Morocco, Guinea, and Angola is well on the way to being adequately documented, although good, balanced histories of these regions have yet to appear. Colonial Brazil, for reasons explained at the beginning of this paper, hardly comes within my purview ; but I should like to take this opportunity of making some purely personal, tentative suggestions regarding future publications in the historical sphere. It would be very valuable to have more books of the kind represented by Joao Lucio de Azevedo’s Os Jesuítas no Grao Para ( 2nd ed., Coimbra, 1930 ). This work is partly based on the rich resources of the little-used Arquivo Público at Belém do Para, and shows what can be done by judicious use of such material. Even so, Azevedo’s classic is far from having exhausted the material in the Para archives, as 28 J. W. Blake, E uro p ea n s in W e s t A frica , 1450-1560, 2 vols., Hakluyt Society ed., London, 1941-2, and P ortu g u ese a n d E n g lis h D esc rip tio n s o f W e s t A fric a (in the press). Mr. J. T. Furley’s monumental work on Mina and the Gold Coast has been over twenty years in preparation, and scholars will hope for its early appearance. Much unpublished material from the Portuguese and Dutch archives is included. 29 C f., for instance, the numerous unpublished documents on this affair in the Consultas do Conselho da Fazenda in the Arquivo Histórico Colonial at Lisbon, and in the Ataide — Castel Melhor MSS. in the Biblioteca Nacional at Rio de Janeiro (Cod. I-1 -2-No. 43) and codex No. 49 in the Castel Melhor sale of 1879. 80 H isto ria d e P o rtu g a l. E d içà o m o n u m e n ta l, Barcelos, 1929-35, III, 385*344; IV, 78 - 1 2 9 ; V, 81-172, this last section by Prof. Queiroz Veloso. Cf. also David Lopes’ essay in H ist. E x ­ pansao P o rtu g . no M u n d o , I, 131-209. 81 Visconde de Paiva Manso, H isto ria d o C ongo, Lisboa, 1877; Luciano Cordeiro, Q uestôes H istó rico -C o lon ia is, 3 vols., Lisboa, 19 36 , of which the first 2 vols, contain W. African material. 82 Alfredo de Albuquerque Lima Felner, Urn in q u ir ito à vida a d m in istra tiva e econom ica d e A n g o la e d o B rasil em fins d o secalo X V I , Coimbra, 19 31; ib id e m , A n g o la . A p o n ta m e n to s sobre a ocupaçâo e in icio d o esta b elecim en to d o s P ortugueses no C ongo, A n g o la e B engueia,

Coimbra, 1933.

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HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — I realized after a week’s visit there in September, 1949.*84*788 The archives of Minas Gerais at Belo Horizonte, to take only one other example, contain ample material for a good history of that Captaincy in, say, the first half of the eighteenth century.84 There is no full-length and adequately documented biography of any of the leading provincial governors of colonial Brasil, such as Antônio de Albuquerque Coelho de Carvalho, and the Conde de Assumar.85 I am thinking of something to correspond to A. Scott Aiton’s Antonio de Mendoza, First Viceroy of New Spain (Durham, N.C., 1927), or R. Levillier’s Don Francisco de Toledo, Supremo Organisador del Peru. Su Vida, su Obra (1515-1572) (3 vols., Madrid-Buenos Aires, 1935-42). Yet the material for such Brazilian biographies exists, and much of it is now available in print. Sâo Paulo scholars are extremely active, as are those of Rio de Janeiro and the Pernambuco school of social historians inspired by Gilberto Freyre. Foreign scholars would like to have more works on the regions which have been neglected by comparison with Sâo Paulo and the Northeast.88 In Ceara, Dr. Raimundo Girâo bids fair to follow in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor, the Barâo de Studart, and Dr. Ernesto Cruz at Belém do Para or Snr. Arthur Cezar Ferreira Reis may emulate the work of Joâo Lûcio de Azevedo in this region. As for Maranhâo, will not some local scholar like Dr. Joaquim da Luz come forward to continue the tradition of the great Joâo Francisco de Lisboa, “the Herculano of Brazil” ? Father Serafim Leite’s admirable Histdria da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil (10 vols., Rio de Janeiro, 1938-1950), may well be followed by general histories of the other religious orders.87 A con­ nected history of the activities of the Inquisition’s emissaries in Brasil is another of the obvious desiderata, and much of the necessary material for such a study has already appeared in print. In the fields of economic and institutional history, an enormous amount of research work remains to be done before any really adequate history can be published. To take but one example, the Brasil Company founded at the instigation of Father Antônio Vieira in 1649, and which lasted in one form or another down to 1720, has as yet found no historian. Yet for good and ill (mostly 88 There is a large amount of material here for the history of the Pombaline Companhia do Maranhâo ; and a very fine example of the D escripçâo d e to d o o M a ritim o da terra d e Santa C rus cham ado v u lg a rm e n te o B ra zil P or Joâo T e y x e y ra cosm cgrapho d e Sua M a g esta d e anno 1640,

which last appears to have escaped the attention of most scholars interested in such things. 84Diogo de Vasconcellos, H isto ria A m ig a d e M in a s G erais and H isto r ia M e d ia d e M in a s G erais, Belo Horisonte, 1904-1918, excellent for their day and generation, require re-writing in the light of recent research. 88 Antônio de Albuquerque Coelho de Carvalho had a distinguished career in Maranhâo, Amazonas, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and Angola (1635-1723). The Conde de Assumar, after being responsible for the destruction of a large part of the old Villa Rica (Ouro Preto) on the Morro da Queimada, subsequently served with distinction in India, where his other title of Marqués de Castelo Novo was changed to that of Alorna to commemorate his greatest victory. Born in 1688 , he fought in the War of the Spanish Succession before going to Brasil. 88 Although some very useful work on Bahia has been done by José Wanderley de Araujo Pinho, O T e sta m e n to d e M e m d e Sa, Rio de Janeiro, 1941; H istô ria d e u m en g en b o d o R ecâncavo, 1252 -1 9 4 4 , Rio, 1946, and by other historians such as J. F. de Almeida Prado, A B ahia e as C apitanias d o C entro d o B rasil, 153 0 -1 6 2 6 , Sâo Paulo, 1945. 87 L iv ro V e lh o d o T o m b o d o M o ste iro d e Sâo B e n to da C idade d o Salvador, Bahia, 1944. It is to be hoped that Dom Clemente Maria de Silva Negra's forthcoming C on stru to res e A rtista s d o M o ste iro d e Sâo B e n to d o R io d e Janeiro will be followed in due course by a broader history of the Benedictines in Brasil and particularly in Rio de Janeiro, where their rich archive will well repay further investigation.

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INVESTIGATING AND UNDERSTANDING PRESENCES the latter), it affected the life of the colony profoundly over a long period of time.*8 Any future bibliography of Portuguese colonial history should contain foreign works which make an important contribution to the subject, particularly those of a documentary nature. As I have indicated previously, no satisfactory history of "Asia Portuguesa” can be compiled without frequent reference to modern Spanish, Dutch, and English printed collections of state papers and documentary material.89 Nor should the older printed material be neglected. Thus Nicholaas van Wassenaer’s Historisch Verhael (22 vols., 1621-1633), published in the form of newsletters at irregular intervals during those years, contains numerous references to Portuguese colonial activities from Maranháo to Macao. This source frequently provides addi­ tional or confirmatory evidence on doubtful points. Two examples will suffice. Was­ senaer’s lengthy interviews with the captive Jesuit Provincial of Brasil, Domingos Coelho, in 1624, confirm and amplify in the most striking manner the letters printed by Father Serafim Leite in Voi. V of his História.*40 Elsewhere, Wassenaer’s accounts of the loss of the East-India carrack, Nossa Senhora de Concesso, off Ericeira in October, 1621, and the subsequent fate of the captives in Algiers, give us some curious details which are not recorded in the Portuguese accounts of this tragedy.41 Spanish publications such as the Avisos de D. Jerónimo de Barrionuevo, 1654-1638 (4 vols. Madrid, 1892) also teem with interesting references to Portugal and her colo­ nies, although they are seldom or never consulted by modern Portuguese historians. I should add that a reading knowledge of Spanish and Dutch is essential, and a knowledge of English highly desirable, for anyone who, knowing Portuguese, proposes to work in the field of seventeenth-century Portuguese colonial history. Spain and Holland were the two European powers with whom Portugal was chiefly concerned, both at home and overseas, for the first seventy years of that century. Yet primary works in these languages are only too often ignored in favour of second-hand German or French works, which do not, as a rule, contain such valuable or such voluminous material. "They order these things better” in Brazil than in Portugal; for a steady stream of translated standard Dutch works on colonial Brazil comes from the presses of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, whereas nothing of the kind is published at Lisbon. In conclusion and recapitulation, I should suggest the following tentative outline programme for studies in this field. Firstly, the compilation of a bibliography of published works in all major languages on Portuguese colonial history from 1415 to 1815. This would have to be based on selective principles, as there is no point in including works of ephemeral value, but it should include articles in historical reviews 98 A passing mention in two lines (p. 174) is the only reference to this great company in Roberto Simonsen’s standard work, H istó ria E conóm ica do Brasil, 1500-1820, 2 vols., Sao Paulo, 1944. 89 C f. for example, C alendar o f S ta te Papers. C o lonial Series. East Ind ies, C hina a n d Japan, 3 vols., London, 1862-1878, which have numerous references to the doings of the Portuguese in the East. 40 C f. Leite, H istó ria , V, 30-48, and Wassenaer, H isto risch V erhael, VIII, 3 *8, 102-104. 41 C f. Wassenaer, op. c it., II, 40, and V, 142-3; J. Tavares Mascarenhas, M em o ra ve l R e la (am da perda da N à o C once gam q u e os T u rco s queym arào à vista da barra d e L isboa, & varios successos das pessoas q u e nella cativaróo, Lisboa, 1627. Wassenaer also throws fresh light on

such events as the disastrous Dutch attack on Macao in June, 1622, the Anglo-Dutch sea fights with the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf in February, 1625, the rout of the Dutch at Sao Jorge da Mina in October of the same year, and Piet Heyn’s attacks on shipping in Bahia, 1627. And Wassenaer is only one of several Dutch sources.

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HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA which make a major contribution to their subject. Guides to the choice of relevant material are not wanting. In addition to the old general bibliographies of Barbosa Machado, Inocéncio, and Pinto Matos, there is the modern Catálogo Bibliográfico of the works published by the Agencia Geral das Colónias (Lisbon, 1943), and the bibliographical surveys of W. B. Greenlee and Hedwig Kommerling-Fitzler.42 Such a work should, I feel, contain brief annotations on each entry, indicating its scope and degree of reliability. Secondly, a systematic survey should be made of the existing material in Portu­ guese and colonial archives, particularly the neglected riches of Goa. This material should be catalogued and microfilmed as soon as possible, and printed catalogues published at the earliest practical moment, in cases where they do not already exist, as they do for Evora and Porto. Students and scholars all over the world can then see what material is available and where it is located. Personally, I feel that only after the documents are catalogued should their systematic publication be begun or resumed, but this is a moot point, and one on which others are better qualified to express an opinion than I am.4* Thirdly, the publication of documents, once begun, should be carried on steadily and systematically, as exemplified in the Arquivos de Macau (1929-1941), Arquivos de Angola (1933 to date), the Anais da Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (1876 to date) and the Documentos Históricos of the same institution (1928 to date). These are the models for publications of this kind, and not those (alas, too numerous) Portuguese and Brazilian historical reviews which contain a lot of ephemeral dis­ cursos and details of social gatherings. Last but by no means least, these documents should be properly indexed. By " index’’ I mean at least an index of proper names, and if possible an índice sistemático e analítico, and not the índice or bare list of contents, which is, only too often, all that such works are supplied with, thus render­ ing their consultation tedious and slow.4445* The Arquivos de Angola have a good index system, but if perfection is sought, then the indexes to Foster’s English Factories in India ( 1618-1669) should be taken as a model.49 Finally, it is obvious that the foregoing considerations are only a fraction of what might be written on this suggestive topic. Further discussion is necessary before deciding on the relative priority of publications and the form in which they are to be printed. But two guiding principles should, I feel, inspire whomsoever undertakes 42 W. B. Greenlee, "A Descriptive Bibliography of the History of Portugal,” H isp a n ic A m e ric a n H isto ric a l R e v ie w , X X , August, 1940; Hedwig Kommerling-Fitzler, "Fiinf Jahrhunderten portugiesisch historisch Beschreibung,” D ie W e lt als G eschichte, 1940-1942. The Greenlee collection

of works on Portuguese history at the Newberry Library, Chicago, is one of the best of its kind in the world and bids fair to become the finest "working library” outside of Portugal. 48 The sort of thing I have in mind is the "Indices das Consultas do Conselho da Fazenda no Arquivo Histórico Colonial, Lisboa,” A n a is da B ib lioteca N a c io n a l, Rio de Janeiro, LVI1I, Rio, 1939, or the In v en ta rio , S e c fio X I I I — M a n u scrip tos, Colee f i o P om balina, published by the Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa in 1889. Similar catalogues should, I feel, take precedence over the publication of the documents in exten so , inevitably a long and costly business. 44 Here again, I do not wish to imply that Portuguese are the sole offenders. What excuse can there be for the publication of such work as T h e L etters o f Jo h n III, K in g o f P ortugal, 1521-1551, and the L e tters o f th e C o u rt o f J o h n 111, K in g o f P ortugal, 1524-1562, Cambridge, Mass., 193133 , without even an index of proper names? 45 If these indexes are considered to be too elaborate, those in the D o c u m e n to s R e m e ttid o s da In d ia o u L iv ro s das M o n fó e s series, published by the Academia das Ciéncias de Lisboa (18801 9 3 3 ), may be regarded as adequate.

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37

38

INVESTIGATING AND UNDERSTANDING PRESENCES this admittedly arduous task. "Light, more light” must be the unceasing desire of the research worker, and with it it must go the feeling so cogently expressed by Max Weber, "Was ich nicht mache, machen ándete ”

Retumo: O Autor sublinha a carencia de urna sintese adequada sobre a expansáo e colonizado portuguesa, dos séculos XV a XIX, motivada pela escassez de publicado das fontes documentáis. Os arquivos portugueses, quer da metrópole quer dos dominios ultramarinos, sao sobremanera ricos e torna-se essencial a organizado, catalogado e, logo que possível for, a publicado dos seus fundos afim de colocar ao alcance dos inves­ tigadores todo o material existente. Em seguida, para exemplificar, aponta as lacunas existentes na história portuguesa de 1415 a 1813, no Oriente, em África e no Brasil. Afirma a necessidade do investigador conhecer pelo menos urna das línguas asiáticas, bem como o portugués, espanhol, inglés e holandés, para poder abranger a complexidade dos problemas a tratar conforme a sua especializado. O Autor advoga aínda, e por ordem de maior urgéncia, a catalogado e publicado dos seguintes tipos de documentos: adminis­ trativos, económicos, jurídicos, científicos, militares, políticos, eclesiásticos, etc. Para terminar, propóe o seguinte programa de estudos: 1) compilado de urna bibliografía (ñas principáis línguas eruditas) de obras e estudos publicados sobre história colonial portuguesa de 1413 a 1813; 2) pesquisa sistemática da documentado existente nos arquivos portugueses, em especial no de Goa, seguida o mais breve possível da sua catalogado e microfilmagem e, finalmente, da publicado de catálogos; 3) publicado de documentos de forma ininterrupta e sistemática, e com índices adequados.

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3

Retrospect on J.C. van Leur’s Essay on the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Asian History P.J. Marshall

In an essay o f extraordinary range and depth, which it is difficult to summa­ rise without distortion, Ja c o b van Le u r is above all m aking an appeal for the autonom y o f Asian history in relation to that o f Europe. H e was reviewing volume IV by G o dée M olsbergen o f Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch Indie , which dealt with the eighteenth century. T o M olsbergen the activities o f the V.O.C. in Asia in the eighteenth century had characteristics distinct from those o f the seventeenth-century C om p an y or from what was to follow in Indonesia in the nineteenth century. T h ese characteristics essentially reflected those o f the Netherlands during the eighteenth century.1 Assum ing that eighteenth-century Eu ropean history has unifying characteristics (an as­ sumption that he was inclined to question), Van L eu r asked: ‘ Is it possible to write the history o f Indonesia in the eighteenth century as the history o f the Company?* His answer was a resounding ‘ no*. In giving his answer he widened the issue from Indonesia to Asia as a whole. ‘A general view o f the whole can only lead to the conclusion that any talk o f a Eu ropean Asia in the eighteenth century is out o f the question, that a few European centres o f power had been consolidated on a very limited scale, that in general - and here the em phasis should lie - the oriental lands continued to form active factors in the course o f events as valid entities, militarily, econom ically and politically.* H e con cluded that there was an ‘ unbroken unity’ o f Asian history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Until well into the nineteenth century Eu rop e and Asia were ‘ two equal civilisations developing separately o f each o th er’ .2 Over the past fifty years few scholars have significantly dissented from that very cogent appeal against a Eurocen tric interpretation o f Asian history in the eighteenth century. It seems to have lost none o f its force in the present day. Assum ing, as V an L e u r evidently did, that the histories o f two distinct entities, ‘ E u ro p e ’ and ‘A sia’ , m oved on fundam entally separate trajectories, then there can be no real question o f the one dom inating the other during the eighteenth century in the terms he identifies: militarily,

INVESTIGATING AND UNDERSTANDING PRESENCES

40 46

P.J. MARSHALL

econom ically or politically. W here recent historiography does, however, suggest some reconsideration o f Van L e u r’s conclusions is in its assessment o f the extent o f European influence in Asia towards the end o f the eighteenth century. C hanges o f a more dramatic kind than Van Leu r per­ haps recognised were to take place at about the turn o f the century. Such changes are likely to have had roots reaching well back into the eighteenth century. For K.N. Chaudhuri the battle o f Plassey in 1757 makes a ‘formal, symbolic terminal point’ to a great cycle o f Asian history which began at the time o f the Prophet.1' In assessing overall trends in the maritime history o f the Indian O cean region Ashin Das Gupta has argued that ‘ the relative im portance o f the European factor grew significantly during the eighteenth century and it is a characteristic o f the century that at its end the Indian O cean was dom inated by the Eu ro p ean ’ / A ccording to the most Eu ro cen ­ tric o f m odern theories o f world history, that o f Immanuel Wallerstein, large parts o f Asia began to be ‘ incorporated’ into a European-dom inated world econom y from the middle o f the eighteenth century.5 Yet if recent stress on the growth o f European influence in the later eighteenth century offers an interpretation differing in some degree to that o f Van Leur, the difference is still a narrow one. No one is suggesting that relations between Europe and C hina, Jap an or the mainland states o f Southeast Asia were to be fundam entally altered at the end o f the eighteenth century. W hat is at issue is the weight that is to be placed on developm ents in India as opposed to those in the Indonesian archipelago. In stressing continuity until well into the nineteenth century, Van Leu r seems primarily to have focused his attention on Indonesia. H ere his case seems to be irrefutable. Given the ultimately limited impact o f both Daendels and Raffles, it is hard to identify a major turning point until the final Dutch victory o f 1830 that ended the Java War. On the other hand, Chaudhuri, Das G upta and, it would seem, Wallerstein (who is also concerned with the O ttom an em pire) emphasise India. T h ere the rise o f the British to power in Bengal was perhaps som ething more than the coup in a peripheral province that Van Leu r considered it to be. Fo r the most part this paper will try to test van L e u r’s propositions about the autonom y o f eighteenth-century Asian history and its continuities with the Asian past in the light o f recent historical writing. Such m odifications as will be proposed are not intended seriously to subvert Van L e u r’s conclu­ sions within the terms o f reference that he set himself. His terms o f reference and those o f the great mass o f historians who like him treat ‘ E u ro p e ’ and ‘Asia* as distinct and separate entities to be com pared and opposed have, however, begun to be subjected to criticism. Europe and Asia, it is argued, essentially share a com m on history in this period. Propositions about the autonom y o f one or the other may be misconceived. I shall consider the im plications o f such argum ents for Van L e u r’s essay at the end o f the paper. Assum ing that generalised com parisons o f eighteenth879. Deaths each year averaged approximately forty-eight, with a high of 140 in 1721 and a low of eighteen in 1757 (Table 1). If observed on a decade basis, this data shows a decline, as did the population, until the last decade of the sample: 1719-29 72 5 deaths per year I 73° ^ S9 *° deaths per year 1740-9 28 7 deaths per year 1750-60 37-0 deaths per year. On a percentage basis: 1719-29 24-2 per cent or 242 per thousand per year I 73°~9 21 Per cent or 2°9 Per thousand per year 1740-9 13 per cent or 128 per thousand per year 1750-60 19 per cent or 188 per thousand per year. t0 Up to 17 5 0 , the number of Africans employed by the West India Company in their forts was about ten a year; during the decade 17 5 0 - 60 , this figure rose from x6 to 75 ; and in 1 7 7 3 , 146 out of 326 employees were African or mulattoes bom on the Gold Coast. Tweede West Indische Compagnie (WIC) 490 , 4 9 1 , 9 3 1 , 3 1 Dec. 17 7 3 , fol. 15 4 . See also West Indische Comité 1 0 1 , B, C, G, 17 9 5 , 179 6 , 1800 .

75

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76 364

H. M. FEINBERG

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — EUROPEAN M O R T A L I T Y I N WE S T A F R I C A

36 5

The most significant decrease was during the period 1740-9, and it was this decrease which contributed to reducing the overall death rate below 20 per cent. No precise explanation can be suggested for the reversal of the declining death rate during 1750-60. Perhaps the explanation relates to the point of the ‘seasoning time*, that early period of contact with a new disease environment, when most deaths are said to have occurred, so that those who survive are likely to live for a substantial period in the area. Curtin states: After a few years on the Coast, Europeans too acquired an apparent immu­ nity, . . . sufficient to establish a pattern for newcomers—either a speedy death, or else a reasonable chance of survival over years or decades.*1 A major new inflow of Europeans between 1750 and 1760 may have upset the immunity pattern built up by old-timers, but no evidence on this point is currently available. The records of the West India Company do not provide an indication of the number of persons entering or leaving the Gold Coast during a given year. However, since the number of persons living at the beginning and end of the year is known, as well as the dead for a particular year, the net T

Year

Population

1718 1719 1720 1721 1722 17^3 1724 1725 1726 1727 1728 x729

*73

158 192 354 267 262 251 NA 356 335 377 330

1730 1731 1732 1733 1734 1735 1736 1737 1738 1739

279 252 261 276 286 249 235 248 282 221

a b le i

Deaths —

Rate% —

75 35

36.9 l8*2 40*8 25-1 166 NA NA NA 18*6 21*3 14.9

47 74 50 57

I4*3 24*5

140 89 48 NA NA 53 71 85 57

66 60 65 56 NA 58 M Curtin, Im a g e , 74 .

178 19*2 21-0 20*2 23*7 20*8 NA 20*7

77

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78 366

H. M. PEINBERG T able i contd.

Year

Population (December 31)

Deaths

Rate%

1740 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749

232 253 227 215 214 213 i8S 180 l80 206

34 43 33

14-0 16-3 12*9 12*3 12-7 I 3*5 9-1 10*9 14-0 10-3

55 25

24-1 NA NA 12-6

175° I 751 1752 *753 1754

1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 I7 6 0

I9 6

NA 225 221 261 203 147 138 167 219 216

29 29 31 19 27 27 21

31 30 25 40 57 18 46 43 36 Total 1,879

9 .9

15.9 28-0 11-9 26.2 20-0 I 5,3 Mean: 18-458 Standard deviation: 2-19 Standard error: -365

Sources. Population: Archief van de tweede West Indische Compagnie, Monster Rollen, 1719-60. Deaths: Archief van de tweede West Indische Compagnie, Lijsten van Overlijden, 1719-60. Method. The mathematical method chosen to determine death rates was the following: Net inflow was determined by finding the difference between popu­ lation on the Gold Coast December 31 of the previous year and December 31 of the particular year and adding this number to the number of deaths. Then the number of deaths was divided by the population total at the beginning of the particular year plus one-half of the net inflow.22 Deaths = rate net inflow Popul.-f 2 11 Other mathematical processes were attempted, but no significant difference resulted in the mean figures. The rates published here are believed to reflect most accurately the true statistical situation.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 367

EUROPEAN M O R T A L I T Y I N W E S T A F R I C A

inflow of Europeans can be determined: approximately 1,656 persons be­ tween 1719 and 1760, with an average of forty-six persons per year.28 Mortality figures obtained from West India Company records show that on the average, less than one European out of five men in the employ of the Company died annually on the Gold Coast between 1719 and 1760. The range on a per year basis varies from a high of 40*8 per cent in 1720 to a low of 9*1 per cent in 1746. In other words, an average of 185 men per thousand per year died during this time, ranging from as many as 408 per thousand per year to as low as 91 per thousand per year. Generally speaking, 185 deaths per thousand per year is a low number in comparison with other published data on mortality in West Africa. IV To my knowledge, the data published here represent the first long list of statistics for the eighteenth century, a list which includes both the popu­ lation and the number who died on an annual basis.24 The Dutch death rates are substantially lower than most of Tulloch’s, as presented in the Parliamentary Papers. Let us examine the differences: the Dutch sample is larger, longer, and more regular than Tulloch’s. Tulloch’s sample for Sierra Leone includes very small numbers for thirteen of the eighteen years. In addition, only non-commissioned officers were stationed there during the years 1820-4, 1830-1. Also, as Tulloch himself pointed out, the troops sent to Sierra Leone (1825-9) and the Gold Coast (1823-6) were recommissioned soldiers from South Africa and commuted punishment men recruited from the prisons of Great Britain and sent to West Africa. And, during 1824 and 1825 on the Gold Coast, these men were subjected ** K. G. Davies does have data for those leaving England (this being one of the main differences between his paper and mine), though he is unable to determine if all who embarked landed on the Gold Coast. He cites 1,489 enrolments for the Gold Coast between 1694 and 1 7 3 2 , an average of 38 per year. However, he states that this was an unprofitable time in the Royal Africa Company’s history, which suggests that more may have been coming in profitable years. ‘The Living and the Dead*, Table x. u Davies deals with the period 1684 - 17 3 2 , but the data do not exist for 1698 - 17 0 2 , 1 7 1 3 - 16 , and 17 2 7 . Our data, therefore, overlap for fourteen years (but are comparable for only ten of these years). He will publish his data in five year averages only, so that it is unclear if his mean would be higher or lower if the data were compared on an annual basis. His average death rate for the English serving the Royal Africa Company on the Gold Coast is 27 per cent, approximately 8-5 per cent higher than for the Europeans serving the Netherlands West India Company between 1 7 1 9 and 176 0 . The highest rate for a single year is 57 per cent, in 16 9 4 ; the lowest, 13 per cent in 1 6 9 1 . Was the English experience in fact so much worse than that of the Dutch? Davies him­ self admits that his average death rate estimate is ‘extremely crude, owing to fluctuations in the size of the establishment at different times of the year . . . [and to] a good deal of variation both from quinquennial period to period and from year to year*. Davies also quotes Bosman, who believed: *. . . if the State of Health in G u in ea be computed by the number of the E n g lish which die here, certainly this Country must have a much more unhealthful Name in E n g la n d than with us*. ‘The Living and the Dead*, conclusion. Perhaps, then, the English case was exceptional and the Dutch more representative.

AH3f.

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H. M . F E I N B E R G

to the rigors and hardships of battle, circumstances which soldiers serving the Dutch West India Company rarely had to undergo, and not for any length of time. One might also raise the question as to whether or not some members of these large groups of men may have been carriers of disease; in addition, some may have been debilitated as a result of their stay in prison or the long voyage from England or South Africa to West Africa; some may have arrived during the rainy season, often more dangerous to health.26Most important, I believe that Tulloch’s conclusions are incorrect, inflated as a result of an error in determining averages. Tulloch reached his overall rates by dividing the total number of deaths by the average strength for the full period (Columns A and B), eighteen years at the Sierra Leone and four years at Cape Coast. He does not consider the men remaining each year, inflow or outflow, nor time. A truer figure is the mean of the rates (annual percentage of deaths) for each command. If one divides the total of the rates as shown on pages 358and 359 (Column D) by the number of years, more accurate results develop: Sierra Leone Command—35*3 per cent 0^53 per thousand (instead of 48 per cent or 483 per thousand); Cape Coast Com­ mand—56*2 per cent or 562 per thousand (instead of 66*8 per cent or 668 per thousand).26 The method I have used is more correct: in addition, applying a similar method to Tulloch’s figures allows for better comparison of Tulloch’s data and the Dutch data. What is the best way to estimate mortality: on the basis of the number who died among the total group exposed (or among a certain class of persons), without taking time into consideration, as Curtin has done; or on the basis of long term data where annual statistics are available? Use of long term data eliminates consideration of the different types of people present, some of whom may be hardier. Certain groups might survive a longer or a shorter time as a result of their background, upbringing, or ex­ perience. Without considering time, total group mortality rates will always be higher. While Tulloch cites a 60*5 per cent death rate for C.M.S. missionaries in Sierra Leone, 1804-25, he estimates an attrition of only 17 per cent per year.27 While overall European deaths at Sierra Leone prior to 1819 were over 40 per cent, Tulloch estimates only about a 25 per cent annual death rate.28 At the same time (1719-60) that approximately 20 per cent of West India Company employees were dying each year, the Director Generals and Presidents, as a class of persons, showed a 33-3 per cent death rate (five of fifteen, March 1718-October 1760). For the full eighteenth century, of the Director Generals and Presidents serving the Second West India Company, sixteen of thirty-four died in office, 47 per cent, and three more died shortly after leaving office (a total of 56 per cent). On the other hand, thirteen of the same thirty-four men (38 2 per cent) were on the u Davies found that June and July were the deadliest months for Europeans on the Gold Coast. M If one used Tulloch’s rates only for Sierra Leone (Tulloch’s last column, C, on pp. 358 - 359 ) the rate would be 32*3 per cent or 323 per thousand. tT Tulloch, PP, 1840 , p. 8. •• Ibid. 7 .

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — EUROPEAN M O R T A L I T Y I N WE S T A F R I C A

369

coast for lengthy periods, the range being nine to forty years (one man), with an average residence of 16.3 years.29 Greater caution must be exer­ cised before using the overall group death rate as an indicator of the rate of mortality. The above data brings this into better focus, and suggests the need for more knowledge about the particular class of persons, e.g. social status, age, country of origin, etc., before broad generalizations are offered. It might be useful to compare death rates in Europe and the New World so that West African mortality might be seen in perspective. This com­ parison is based on published data only, with the understanding that the collection of quality statistics for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is at best difficult, with possibility of a high level of error.80 Tulloch estimates the death rate among civilian males of military age in the United Kingdom at 11*5 per thousand per year. For British soldiers serving in the United Kingdom, between 1820 and 1836, the rate is placed at 15-3 per thousand per year.81 Two studies on the eighteenth century in France and England suggest somewhat higher figures: Mortality rates in successive age groups (males) per 1,000 persons: *5-24 25-34 45~54 about 1770 11-8 14*5 194 Mean: 152 Crude death rates in France, per 1,000 population: 1771-1775—34.4 1796-1800—29*8 In an English provincial town, Nottingham, statistics for 1700-60 show a general death rate of about 37 per thousand per year.82 In the new world, we find that a high death rate prevailed. In Virginia, approximately three-fifths of the original settlers to Jamestown died within less than one year, and approximately 80 per cent of those migrating to Jamestown died between 1607 and 1625.33 During the first winter at *• See H. M. Feinberg, ‘Director Generals of the Netherlands West India Company: An Accurate List for the Eighteenth Century’, B ijd ra g e n to t T o o l-, L a n d -, en V o lk e n k u n d e (forthcoming). *• This problem, in reference to Colonial America, is discussed by: James H. Cassedy, D e m o g ra p h y in E a r ly A m e ric a (Cambridge, Mass., 1969 ), especially chapter 2 ; Philip J. Greven, F o u r G en era tio n s: P o p u la tio n , L a n d , a n d F a m ily in C o lo n ia l A n d o v e r , M a ss a c h u ­ setts (Ithaca, 19 70 ), 7 ; and Kenneth Lockridge ,'The Population of Dedham, Massachu­ setts, 1636 - 17 3 6 *, E conom ic H is to r y R e v ie w , 2 nd ser., xix ( 19 6 1 ), 3 1 9 , 3 3 2 . I would like to thank Max M. Mintz of Southern Connecticut State College for calling these to my attention. 31 Curtin, ‘Epidemiology*, 202 . ** J. Bourgeoise-Pichot, ‘The General Development of the Population of France Since the Eighteenth Century*, D. V. Glass and D. E. C. Eversley, eds., P o p u la tio n in H is to r y (Chicago, 19 6 5 ), 495 , 5 0 6 ; J. D. Chambers, ‘Population C h a n g e in a Provincial Town, Nottingham*, Ibid. 3 5 1 . M Cassedy, D em o g ra p h y in E a r ly A m e r ic a , 1 3 - 1 4 ; Alexander Brown, T h e F ir s t R e p u b lic in A m e ric a (Boston and New York, 1898 ), 464 , 467 , 6 x2 . Between December 1606 and May 1 6 1 8 , 1,800 persons sailed for Virginia. Approximately 1,10 0 died en route or in Virginia. Between 16 19 and 16 2 5 , 4*749 immigrants arrived there. However, in 16 2 5 , the population was only 1 ,0 25 . Ibid. 285 , 6 x2 .

81

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H. M . F E I N B E R G

Plymouth, one half of the Pilgrims died.34 These estimates are not quite comparable to West Africa, since starvation, malnutrition, inadequate housing, and Indians contributed to deaths there as well as diseases.86 In the American tropics, between 1803 and 1836, deaths among British military personnel ranged between 85 and 138 per thousand mean strength per annum.86 In conclusion, the thirty-nine years of population and death statistics presented here (for the first time) represent a beginning towards a more systematic effort at determining mortality rates on the Gold Coast and in West Africa. It is very clear that the mortality rates for Europeans serving the Netherlands West India Company on the Gold Coast between 1719 and 1760 were around 20 per cent per year, the unusual decade 1740-9 not­ withstanding. Were these Europeans unusual? Was the Gold Coast at this time unusual? Did the fact of established settlements make a difference? Or, as a part of the West African context, perhaps overall European death rates were lower than has been previously thought, in which case it may be necessary to consider revising estimates downward. The use of these stat­ istics points to a potentially valuable source for demographic research, the records of the various European companies operating in West Africa. A renewed effort in this direction may prove to be the most productive source of accurate information as opposed to broad generalizations based on very limited samples. Finally, the death toll was in fact high everywhere outside Europe, especially in the tropics: ‘Europeans discovered at a very early date that they experienced high mortality rates overseas*,87 probably five to ten times higher or more, than if they stayed at home. Why men travelled abroad is beyond the scope of this paper. West Africa was not, however, the only ‘white man’s grave*. Many Europeans did die in West Africa, apparently at a greater rate than elsewhere in the world, but in West Africa Europeans may not have died at the spectacularly high rates that have been previously detailed by historians. M Oscar Handiin, 'The Significance of the Seventeenth Century', James M. Smith, ed., S e v e n te e n th C e n tu r y A m e ric a (Chapel Hill, 1959 ), 8 . However, there are some recent

suggestions that life quickly improved, with mortality declining to a rate lower than or comparable to those of England and France: Greven, F o u r G enerations , 196 n.; Lockridge, 'Population of Dedham', 332 - 3 . See also John Blake, P ublic H e a lth in th e T o w n o f B o sto n , 1630-1822 (Cambridge, Mass., 19 59 ). M John Duffy cites the views of two contemporaries on the dietary problems of eigh­ teenth-century New England: William Douglas, ‘ In New England. . . the general sub­ sistence of the poorer people . . . is salt pork and Indian beans, with bread of Indian com meal, and pottage of this meal with milk for breakfast and supper*; Cadwallader Colden observed that ‘scurvy is exceedingly] common in North America and hardly anybody [is] free of i t . . . ' , E p id em ics in C o lo n ia l A m e ric a (Baton Rouge, 19 5 3 ), 1 2 . Diseases in North America included malaria, dysentry, yellow fever, smallpox, measles, and influenza. Yellow fever was a completely new disease to Englishmen arriving in the New World. Ibid. 1 3 , 14 . *• Curtin, 'Epidemiology', 2 03 . Disease problems in India are discussed in Mark Naidis, "Ants, Muskeetoes, Flies and Stinking Chints": The British Battle Against Disease in India', W estern H u m a n itie s R e v ie w , xviii ( 1964 ), 39 - 48 . 97 Ibid. 19 3 - 4 .

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371

SUMMARY

West Africa, prior to the twentieth century, has generally been considered a ‘white man's grave*. However, very few statistics have been published to support the generalization. New data on the problem of European mortality in West Africa are published here for the first time. The data, compiled from the records of the Netherlands Second West India Company, include population and death statistics for Europeans employed by the Company on the Gold Coast. Between 17 19 and 1760, the mortality rate was just under 20 per cent per year. This number is low in comparison with previously published estimates of mortality in West Africa. The data presented here may be the most extensive for the period of maritime contact which preceded the partition of Africa. The author suggests, on the basis of these statistics, that it may be necessary to consider revising European mortality estimates downward.

83

6

Prince Henry and the Origins o f European Expansion Malyn Newitt

Introduction It may seem superfluous to write yet another article about the origins of the Portuguese overseas empire. This is one of the most frequently discussed historical topics and, after so much controversy, it might seem that there is nothing new that can possibly be said about it. Yet although scarcely a year passes without some publication in English dealing with this subject, many of the roost important ideas relating to it are either inaccessibly hidden away in minor publications or have never been made comprehensibly available in English. The object of this article, therefore, is to look at some of the Issues that have preoccupied historians of this period but which have not been fully discussed in English publications. ’Tramping in its own footsteps, without ever leaving the closed circle, the ox tirelessly turns the waterwheel ... so with the history of the discoveries, the same problems posed and reposed, the same theses lndefatigably re-examined from the same point of view'.(l) In this way Vitorino MagalhaCs Godinho started his survey of the literature of the discoveries. He was referring to the seemingly endless publications of the school of historians which has concerned itself almost exclusively with the "facts" of the period. These historians have painstakingly sought to establish the chronology of the voyages and have often seemed to confine the study of their history to answering the apparently fascinating question, 'who discovered what f i r s t ? 1. The intriguing nature of the detective work clearly lies in the fact that the record of early European expansion is very meagre indeed and clues are often tantalisingly inconclusive. Nevertheless over the years the work of this school has led to basic agreement on the chronology of Portuguese expansion and it seems sensible to begin by sumnarising this as it is more or less the only point of real agreement among opposing factions of historians.

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BEGINNINGS 10 The Aviz dynasty acquired the Portuguese throne in 1385 with English help. In 1415 a successful attack was made on the Moroccan port of Ceuta which was garrisoned thereafter by the Portuguese. Portuguese settlement of Madeira began in 1424 and in the same year an attempt was made to conquer the Canary Islands. The Azores group of islands was regularly visited from 1427 and its settlement began in the 1430s. In 1437 an unsuccessful attack was launched against Tangier which left one of the royal princes a prisoner in Moroccan hands. In 1434 Portuguese ships sailed south of Cape Bojador and between 1441 and 1448 the whole African coast as far south as the modern Guinea-Bissau was visited and explored. From 1443 regular stops were made at Arguim island on the Mauretanian coast and by 1455 a permanent factory existed there. In 1449 the former regent, Dorn Pedro, was defeated and killed at the battle of Alfarrobeira and the Braganza faction came to dominate the court of the young Afonso V. Between 1452 and 1456 Portugal secured papal bulls granting her sovereignty on the African coast and in 1458 a successful attack was launched against the Moroccan town of Alcacer. Prince Henry died in 1460. During the 1450s it does not appear that the Portuguese explored any further down the coast of Africa but the Cape Verde Islands were discovered and their settlement was begun in 1462, while in 1461 a trading voyage appears to have got as far as the coast of Sierre Leone. Thereafter no further progress was recorded until 1469 when the Lisbon merchant, Fernao Gomes, leased the Guinea trade and in the space of five years opened up the African coast as far as the modern Cameroons. Although there is some argument about the minutiae of this chronology and about the exact role of certain individual navigators, this general outline of the period is widely accepted and is meticulously set out in Bailey Diffie's chapters in Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, published in 1977. There is, however, less agreement about the causes and the exact significance of these events. The problem arises partly from the fact that the Portuguese ’’discoveries” have always been seen as the beginning of the modern expansion of Europe overseas with all that that has entailed for the development of the m o d e m world. Not surprisingly, ideological knives have been sharpened over developments so decisive in the mainstream of world history. However, disagreement arises also from the nature of the sources which record the origins of Portuguese expansion. Of the royal chroniclers who recorded Portuguese history up to 1450, Fernao Lopes and Gomes Eannes de Azurara were contemporaries of the events they described and had access to royal archives and other documents. As medieval chroniclers go, they were remarkably well-informed and wrote either at first hand or after direct communication with the participants. Azurara deliberately set out to give a complete account of the exploits in Morocco and, in the Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea (hereafter Chronicle), to give a full description of the

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exploration of the West African coast. Azurara1s chronicles can be supplemented by the accounts of Diogo Gomes and Alvise da Cadamosto, who themselves sailed to Guinea but who wrote some time after the events they described, and by the writings of the historians of the next generation, notably Duarte Pacheco Pereira and JoiO de Barros. They can also be supplemented by numerous charters, letters and commercial documents that bear on the discoveries, by maps and the writings of non-Portuguese who knew something of the events. Nevertheless Azurara*s chronicles are of overriding importance, such that if one were to take them away it would prove next to impossible to give any coherent account of the period at all. Yet historians need to be very wary as they approach Azurara*s writings. The richness of the detail and the coherence of the narrative have almost always proved irresistibly seductive, but it has been the allurement of the Sirens and historians who follow Azurara too closely find their history transformed into the image that the chronicler planned for them five centuries ago. Many historians have been aware of the problems posed by Azurara1s chronicles, and none more so than P. E. Russell who, with an interval of 23 years between them, wrote two important articles on Prince Henry and his chronicler - neither of them, unfortunately, very accessible for the general reader. The problems may be summarised as follows. First, Azurara completed his Chronicle sometime in the early 1450s, probably 1453, and tells the story of the ’‘discoveries” up to 1448.He wrote in the immediate aftermath of the short civil war that led to the death of the Infante Dorn Pedro in 1449 and the establishment of Braganza ascendancy at court. Azurara admits that he made use of the writings of Afonso Cerveira when compiling his chronicles, and it seems likely that Cerveira1s work may have been a chronicle of the life of Dorn Pedro which, after the l a t t e r s ’s fall, was conveniently ’’lost”. The Chronicle w a s , then, written at a highly sensitive period of Portuguese politics and it is clear that it had a political objective. Second, it is quite obvious to even the most casual reader that the Chronicle was intended to be a panegyric of Prince Henry and that it must have been written with the connivance, or even under the direct instructions, of the Prince and the court. Azurara was a dependent of Prince Henry as he was a commander of the Order of Christ of which Henry was governor. His writings are one of the clearest cases of image-building and propaganda that one can find and they were written, unlike so many other panegyrics, during the lifetime of their principal subject when they could have the maximum political significance. The third problem associated with the Chronicle is that it was written according to a formula. The events described have been made to reflect a series of chivalrous values that were quite clearly predetermined by the author. However, it is difficult to

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imagine any set of ideological garments that are so ill-fitting. The details of the events described, and the chivalrous gloss placed on them, are sometimes almost ludicrously out of phase. As P. E. Russell wrote in 1960, ’Like Froissart, Zurara usually seems incapable of seeing the contradiction between his general concepts and the facts he has to narrate.’(2) Yet even Russell ends up by accepting much of the chivalrous language of the Chronicle at face value. He closed his 1983 article with the words *lt looks as if ... it was in fifteenth-century Portugal that chivalry was more enthusiastically used as a guide to political action, and had more far reaching practical historical results, than anywhere else*(3) To put it succinctly, the Chronicle was Intended to be a public relations exercise and political propaganda, but because it is so detailed, and because it appears to provide historians with so much that they want to know, the propaganda has, over a period of five centuries, been readily accepted and easily assimilated into the critical bloodstream. Azurara’s portrait of Henry and his interpretation of events has, therefore, been largely accepted by generations of historians, each of whom has added his own gloss to events and reinterpreted the story to suit the ideological needs of his own day but, all the time, dancing to the strings that the old puppet-master tied back in the fifteenth century. Azurara portrayed Henry as a paragon of chivalry and as a model of the virtues most admired in the fifteenth century. He combined in his own person the bravery and devotion of a knight and the chastity, self-denial and sanctity of a religious. It was he, virtually singlehanded, who organised the voyages and encouraged the sailors and captains, and Azurara sets out his motives neatly under six headings: (i) to find out what lay beyond Cape Bojador; (ii) to open trade with Christian peoples; (iii) to find out how far the power of the Moors extended; (iv) to find a Christian people to aid him against the Moors; (v) ’to make increase in the faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to bring to him all the souls that should be saved’; (vi) his horoscope prediction.(A) This image of Henry has had a unique appeal. It flattered the Portuguese people by giving them a man of heroic dimensions in world history; it appealed to the church which wanted to represent the overseas expansion as a religious crusade; it appealed to the Crown because it justified the royal monopoly, and to the nobility because it provided an assertion of their values; and, finally, it has always appealed to historians because it gives a simple, clear and personalised explanation of a major historical development. The durability of Azurara*s creation, as P. E. Russell has pointed out, is due to the fact that a mythical figure or ‘'culture hero** can take on whatever form a particular epoch may wish. When men of science were highly respected, Henry became a man of science, a pioneer of geography, navigational science and cartography; when the ideal of the Renaissance was in fashion

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following Burckhardt, Henry became a perfect example of the ’’Renaissance Man” - soldier, saint, scholar, scientist, patron of things intellectual. This particular image of Henry has proved remarkably persistent in England. One of the most excessively sycophantic biographies of Henry, that of Raymond Beazley which was published in 1895, was reissued as recently as 1968. However, Prince Henry reached his greatest achievraent as a “culture hero” during the Salazar regime in Portugal. He became the historical figure on whom the regime sought to hang its entire ideology - its Christian, catholic principles, its civilising mission and its respect for the divine guidance of its rulers. During the Second World War it was popular to portray Henry as the last of the crusaders and in his well-known book, A Cruzada do Infante D. Henrique, published in 1943, Joaquim Bensaude took the worship of Henry to extreme lengths. In the Infante Dorn Henrique we meet the religious vision of a Dante ... [but) ... neither the sufferings of Dante, nor those of Milton or Beethoven, nor the sixty years of artistic anguish of Michelangelo have the tragic grandeur of the martyrdom of the Infante, responsible for the death of his four brothers and for the devastation of the House of Aviz*.(5) Henry appeared in stone at the head of a procession of navigators and conquistadores on the monument erected to the discoverers at Belem near Lisbon, and the celebrations to mark the quincentenary of his death in 1960 saw whole industries being created to perpetuate the memory of the hero of the New State. The output of publications on Henrician topics became a veritable avalanche, some of them like the Portugaliae Monuments Cartographies being of truly monumental proportions. Academic historians have, on the whole, accepted the close relationship which Azurara established between the events of the life of Prince Henry and the origin of modern European expansion. The classic statement of Portuguese academic opinion is probably that of Jaime Cortesao, who was chosen to write the chapter on the discoveries in Damiao Peres nine volume Histofria de Portugal.(6) In his chapter Cortesao brought together all the theories he had spent his life elaborating and in these can clearly be seen a deep schizophrenia which is typical not only of Portuguese but of many non-Portuguese historians. While admitting that the expansion was primarily an economic enterprise he then set out to explore a variety of non-economic theories about its origins. He claimed that the Portuguese discoveries were the result of a well-thought out plan to reach India, originating with Prince Henry and carried on faithfully after his death by Afonso V and Joao II. Every aspect of Henry’s life fitted the plan: the attack on Ceuta was to gain knowledge of the African interior; Madeira and the Canaries were to be settled as supply bases and

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way-stations; nothing was allowed to stand in the way of the steady realisation of the grand strategy of reaching India. When there are periods in which it appears that nothing much is happening, this is because of the "policy of secrecy" which led to the systematic suppression of details about the voyages and the full range of Portuguese activities. Cortesao’s theories about the origins of the discoveries were, of course, irrefutable. They had infallibility built into them. Once the existence of a "policy of secrecy" had been accepted then the less information about voyages that survived, the firmer became the proof of the existence of a great national plan. On the whole the primacy of Prince Henry in initiating and masterminding Portuguese, and hence European, overseas expansion has been accepted by the leading English-speaking historians. It is virtually unquestioned by Edgar Prestage whose Portuguese Pioneers, published in 1933, was reissued in 1966 and remained the standard work until 1977. Bailey Diffie and P. E. Russell have done very important work in de-mythologising Henry, but they too end by accepting the view that a Henrician plan of some sort existed. A fundamentally different view of the origins of the discoveries was developed by the Portuguese historian Vitorino Magalhaes Godinho in a series of publications after the Second World War. (7) Godinho did much of his work in Paris where his doctoral thesis was published in 1958. He was very much part of the annaliste school and never belonged to the Portuguese academic establishment. His views were profoundly unacceptable to the Salazar regime and, on the whole surprisingly, they have proved unacceptable to most non-Portuguese historians as well. None of Godinho*s major works have appeared in English and there is no clear statement of his views in any English publication, though the reader can get a fair picture from the few pages of Oliveira Marques* History of Portugal that deal with the discoveries and from Pierre Chaunu’s European Expansion in the later Middle Ages. Godinho placed the Portuguese "discoveries" firmly in the context of the fifteenth century Mediterranean economy and the political and economic history of Portugal. He stressed the evolution of Portuguese society, the bullion crisis of late fourteenth century Europe, the rise of sugar cultivation, the decline of wheat farming and the close commercial links with North Africa. He stressed also the role of the bourgeoisie in establishing the Aviz dynasty and their backing of Joao I and Dorn Pedro. Finally he elaborated the theory that the exploration of Africa was really the work of Dorn Pedro and his followers, although Henry became the main beneficiary of the expansion.

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This article seeks to present English readers with a coherent picture of the origin and nature of Portuguese expansion making full use of Godinho's ideas.

The Discoveries in their setting During the fourteenth century Portugal and Castile had been drawn into the Hundred Years War. English and French armies intervened in the peninsula, battles were fought at sea, and John of Gaunt had tried to establish his claim to the Castilian throne. Attempts to unite the Portuguese and Castilian crowns through royal marriages continued to be made and proved attractive to sections of the Portuguese nobility who themselves often had marriage connections with Castilian nobility or who belonged to one of the military orders - Calatrava or Santiago - that were Castilian in origin. For the Portuguese nobility, as for their English and French contemporaries, war was a form of honourable employment, a way of maintaining one's status and a means of enrichment through plunder, ransoms, the acquisition of lands, commanderies in the military orders or offices. The importance of military employment for the Portuguese nobility was enhanced by their economic situation. During the fourteenth century the problem of the concentration of land in the hands of the church and of the great nobles was beginning to occupy peoples' minds. Rents were ceasing to keep up with the profits of trade and the long emphyteutic leases on which land was held meant that rent adjustments were infrequent and the land market could not adapt to changing conditions. Large tracts of land went out of cultivation and minor nobles who had no patrimony sought maintenance in the entourage of the great. The system of conthias had existed since the thirteenth century by which nobles were paid a retainer by the Crown or by some other great man and in return served him in a military capacity.(8) Although the independent Moorish kingdom of the Algarve had been extinguished in the thirteenth century, the Hundred Years War had revived the expectations and patterns of behaviour of the reconquista. Wars in pursuit of shadowy dynastic claims ravaged the frontier regions and Castilian galleys attacked shipping and the coastal communities. These wars coincided with and clearly contributed to the demographic decline of the fourteenth century and helped create a deep economic crisis. The Portuguese historian, Verissimo Serrao, has written, 'It is an accepted fact that the countryside was largely deserted in the time of Dorn Joao I'. That there was extensive rural depopulation due to war and plague is also the conclusion of H. B. Johnson who has studied the returns of the royal inquiry of 1395 into agricultural production and tax paying capacity.(8) Gold and silver coinage almost disappeared and only Moroccan coins sometimes circulated, exchanged for the fruit sent across the straits of Gibraltar from

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the Algarve. This shortage of bullion was a problem affecting the whole of western Europe and its root cause lay in the adverse flow of silver via Venice and the other Italian cities to the East. The converging problems of the spread of wastelands, the growth of vagrancy, the drift of population to the towns and periodic food shortages, were particularly difficult to comprehend as they appeared to be contradictory trends. However, they were problems which deeply concerned the rulers of fourteenth century Portugal and the Lei das Sesmarias of 1375 was passed to try to bring some of the wasteland back, into cultivation by allowing tax-free occupation on short term leases. The chronic insecurity of the wars, however, defeated all attempts to legislate people back onto the land. On the death of King Fernando in 1383 civil war broke out with factions of the nobility backing the Castilian claimant and supporting a Castilian invasion of the country. The rival faction of the nobility gathered round the figures of the Master of the Order of Aviz and the Constable, Nun'Alvares Pereira, himself the object of a chivalrous legend as exaggerated as Henry's owr These men successfully mobilised popular support in the capita ich they happened to control, and called urgently for English intervention. A combined English and Portuguese army then won the battle of Aljubarrota which enabled the Master of Aviz to claim the throne. Historians have always seen Aljubarrota as the decisive moment in the history of Portugal when merger with Castile was finally defeated and the country's independent destiny was secured. With the long view of hindsight this is no doubt true, but the battle did not immediately resolve all the important issues, nor did it prevent the Castilian orientation of much of the Portuguese nobility from reasserting itself on subsequent occasions in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The war with Castile, indeed, dragged on until 1411 with Portugal lending half-hearted support to John of Gaunt's wars in Castile. The merchant classes had a powerful influence on the new regime and enjoyed a voice at court in the person of the vedor da f a z e n d a , Joao Afonso, and later the Infante Dom Pedro. Although they had suffered badly in the wars since 1369, it is clear that, since the thirteenth century, there had been a very considerable growth in the wealth and influence of the Portuguese merchant and shipowning class. Portugal had commercial treaties with England and the Netherlands and there was a Portuguese factory at Bruges. Shipowners had negotiated privileges from the Portuguese kings and a system of marine insurance had been initiated. For the merchants further Castilian wars were wholly unprofitable as they laid Portuguese trade under the constant threat of attack by Castilian galleys. Joao of Aviz found himself in much the same position as his Lancastrian contemporaries in England. His possession of the throne was due to a coup d'etat and not to a just title. He was

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faced with the problem of ending a continental war and of providing for a quarrelsome class of nobles who would be made unemployed by the outbreak of peace. At the same time he had to pursue policies which would maintain the support of the urban classes. It was in this context that in 1412 the royal court first began to discuss a policy of overseas expansion.

The North African Policy It is likely that a number of policy options for overseas expansion were fairly widely debated. Granada was the most obvious field for further expansion as it would reawaken the ideologically acceptable traditions of the reconquista. Gibraltar was suggested at various times as a limited objective, as were other targets in the Mediterranean, but all of these ran the risk of awakening the hostility of Castile. Eventually the decision was taken to launch an attack on Ceuta on the Moroccan side of the straits of Gibraltar. In 1415, the year of Henry V's invasion of Normandy, the city fell into Portuguese hands. The attack on Ceuta was to be the beginning of a century and a half of Portuguese wars in Morocco, wars which gradually led to roost of the Moorish towns on the Atlantic coast being captured by the Portuguese. In 1458 Alcacer was taken and in 1471 Arzila, Larache and Tangier. Agadir was taken in 1505, Safi in 1508, Azamor in 1513 and Mazagabin 1514. Initially the idea of expansion in Morocco had very wide support in Portugal. Morocco was known to be rich agriculturally (Godinho claims that it was especially famous for its corn lands and sugar production though C. R. Boxer is sceptical of this) and to be a centre for the production of fine cloths and the breeding of horses. It was also known that the West African caravan routes terminated on the Moroccan coast and these brought gold, slaves and other exotic products. In the fourteenth century the Genoese had established factories in many North African cities (including Fez and Arzila) in order to tap the African caravan trade. Through their agents a reasonably accurate picture of the Niger region had been acquired. The Portuguese policy of expansion in North Africa, therefore, initially had the support of the merchant community which was keen to establish itself in the Moroccan port cities to the exclusion of the Genoese. Godinho has shown that their expectations were not entirely false, for Ceuta proved a profitable area for Portuguese commerce at least until the 1440s, and the trade in gold enabled Portugal to begin the revision of its currency in the 1430s. However, the North African policy had an appeal also to the nobility (it was this dual appeal to merchants and nobility that so commended the attack on Ceuta in 1415) and it was an appeal that was to prove lasting. North Africa was close at hand

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and relatively easy of access. It provided opportunities for the nobility to hold commands and to perform feats of arms which would establish their reputation and help maintain their status. Service in Africa could also earn them rewards from a grateful sovereign* The Duke of Braganza, for example, secured the status of a city for the town of Braganza in reward for the services he had rendered in Africa.(10) However, many of them also believed that North Africa could be conquered in the same way as the Iberian peninsula had been and that lands, seigneuries and servile populations could be acquired. Many of them did indeed acquire lands and titles to land in the neighbourhood of the fortified towns in Morocco. However, in the long term the expansion of Iberian settlement acrossthe straits did not materialise. It proved impossible to revive the sustained military effort of the reconquista and it is significant that the military orders, which had originally been founded to carry on the war against the Moors, objected to a papal plan put forward in 145b to establish houses in North Africa and to concentrate their efforts in the new field of endeavour.(11) Among the reasons why the new reconquista failed was the fact that the nobility found it much more attractive to use the fortress towns as bases for piracy. Their piratical activity took place both on land and at sea. On land they mounted raids into the Moroccan heartland to obtain plunder and to make captives, who could be sold as slaves if they were poor or who could, much more profitably, be ransomed if they were men of substance. Such raids could equally well be mounted at sea and the capture of Moorish ships and raids on the Moroccan coast became a favourite pastime for Portuguese fidalgos. It is clear that, in the long run, this type of raiding and piracy would not lead to permanent conquest and was inimical to the establishment of peaceful settlements. The practice of harrying the countryside round the fortress towns destroyed any possibility that it might provide food for the garrisons. Instead food had to be imported and the supply of the fortresses became a major preoccupation of Portuguese policy. Agreements had to be made with Castile and Brittany to secure adequate imports of grain. All his life Henry was a keen advocate of the Moroccan policy and it was with the Moorish wars that his contemporaries chiefly associated him. The carefully constructed panegyrics of Azurara make Henry the key figure in the capture of Ceuta, in the defence of the city in 1419 and in the disastrous expedition to Tangier in 1437 which he commanded. Even if Henry was not, in fact, the mastermind behind these policies, it is significant that his chronicler wished it to be thought that he was. For the early 1450s, when Azurara was writing, was a period when fresh Moroccan expeditions were being planned.

represent

Soon after 1415, however, the Moroccan policy ceased to a national consensus, and the rival interest groups

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seeking to control Portuguese policy expressed their hostility in an increasingly ideological way. It has been pointed out that the chronicler, Fernao Lopes, who recorded the rise to power of the Aviz dynasty, was no lover of the old nobility nor a believer in their chivalrous pretensions. (12) The same appears to have been true of the Infantes Pedro and Jo£b. When the expedition to Tangier was under discussion, these two opposed the whole idea on the grounds that the country was too poor and depopulated, that it was not in the national interest and that to kill Moors, in what would be an unjust war, was not doing the will of God. Pedro and Joao were clearly articulating the views of the merchant classes who were their supporters and who were opposed to pursuing a policy of conquest of which the nobles would be the main beneficiaries. Henry and the youngest of the five brothers, the Infante Fernando, on the other hand, became the chief spokesmen of the noble class. (One of the reasons used to justify the Tangier expedition, we are told, was that the Infante Fernando was discontented with the small size of his patrimony and wanted to increase his wealth and powers of patronage.) They represented their interest in terms of chivalrous and crusading ideals. In 1436 Henry submitted a memorial to the king on the matter in which he argued strongly for the traditional view that an attack on the Moors would serve God and be to the honour of the participants (although Godinho thinks the most significant aspect of this “Estremoz memorandum” is the fact that Henry actually mentions bodily pleasure and temporal gain as among the legitimate objectives of life).(13) So deeply committed was Henry to the Moroccan policy and to the ideology that had been employed to justify it that, after the disastrous defeat at Tangier, he found himself in the position of having to argue against the ransom of his captured brother for whom the Moors demanded the surrender of Ceuta. The exaggerated use of the language of chivalry in Azurara's chronicle is not, therefore, to be explained by the fact that this represented values universally acknowledged in his day, but by the very opposite - the fact that these values were being challenged by powerful interest groups opposed to the pretensions of the nobility. Chivalry was used by Azurara as the manifeStp of a party at court and it is not therefore surprising that the naked interest of this party shows so clearly through the rather thin chivalrous veneer on almost every page.

The Origins of the African Voyages At the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, the Portuguese fidalgos and escudeiros (squires) became increasingly involved in piracy to earn a living and maintain their status. Vessels would be commissioned by one of the great nobles and captained by a fidalgo of his household. These would then cruise in the straits or off the Moroccan coast

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in search of prizes. Plunder, slaves and ransoms were the objective of these cruises and the great Portuguese nobles maintained their own alfaqueques to arrange the ransoming of prisoners. Like his contemporaries Henry commissioned fldalgos of his household to cruise for prizes. Gon^alo de Sintra, for example, was a man 'who had ofttimes sailed in the ships of the armada by his lord’s command and had taken part in very great actions, both on the coast of Granada and Ceuta*. Gonjalo Pacheco, one of the prince's retainers, 'always kept ships at sea against the enemies of the kingdom'. Jo5h Goncalves Zarco and Tristao Teixeira were sent on a 'warlike enterprise against the Moors' instead of which they went to explore Madeira. Others were busy cruising as well. Mafaldo, who accompanied Goncalo Pacheco, was described as a man 'who had been many times in the Moorish traffic' and was owner of his own boat, while Zarco and Teixeira were accompanied by Bartholomew Perestrello (the future father-in-law of Columbus) who was a member of the household of the Infante Joao. In 1463 Rui Valente described as cavaleiro da casa real and provedor da fazenda do Algarve (which suggests he had been one of Henry's retainers) armed a caravel to cruise against the Moors in the straits receiving from the king a fifth of the proceeds of the prisoners ransomed.(14) It is the activities of Henry's privateers that have been seized on by historians as the first "voyages of discovery”. In chapter VIII of the Chronicle, Azurara explains how Henry's captains year after year failed to round Cape Bojador because of their fears of what lay beyond, but he then naively goes on to say that 'they did not return wholly without honour for ... some made descents upon the coasts of Granada and others voyaged along the Levant seas where they took great booty of the Infidels with which they returned to the kingdom very honourably*. Godinho expressed it succinctly when he wrote, 'Almost all, if not all, the voyages promoted by the Infante up to 1434 must have been corsair expeditions which Zurara subsequently transformed into attempts to round Bojador'.(15) It should be emphasised at this stage that there was no mystic Cape Bojador round which mariners dared not sail. From the late thirteenth century there had been regular voyages down the Atlantic coast by Genoese, French, Catalan, Castilian and Portuguese vessels, and no doubt Moorish vessels as well. The Canary islands were frequently raided for slaves and ships almost certainly traded as far south as the kingdoms of the Senegal region - or so P. E. Russell interprets a crucial passage in the French chronicle of the Canaries. Even Jaime Cortesao admits that when the Portuguese drew maps they made use of the names already well established for the various geographical landmarks.

nor was region.

So Henry's privateers were not sailing into new waters, Henry the first nobleman to interest himself in this In 1344 Don Luis de España had been invested by the pope

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with the sovereignty of the Canary islands and had every intention of conquering and settling them. In 1402 a concession to conquer the Canaries was granted to Jean de Bethencourt, a nobleman of the court of the due de Turenne. In 1418 Bethencourt sold his rights to the Castilian Count of Niebla. All these men organised, or tried to organise, expeditions to the islands and Bethencourt sent slave-raiding expeditions to the African coast in 1405 in the same way that Henry was later to do. Godinho has pointed out how similar Bethencourt*s motives, as reported by his chronicler, are to those ascribed by Azurara to Prince Henry. Bethencourt is supposed to have sought the honour of God and the holy faith; his own profit and honour; the discovery of the lands south of Bojador; and the extension of his conquest. He is also supposed to have wanted to contact Prester John via the Rio do Ouro. It looks as though motives such as these constituted a standard ideological justification for fairly routine enterprises in piracy, slaving, trade and settlement.(16) The early Portuguese ‘’voyages of discovery” therefore were a natural offshoot from the seizure of Ceuta, and the development of the latter as a base for privateering attacks of Moorish shipping. Many noblemen were sponsoring corsairs, but only Jean de Bethencourt and Prince Henry were fortunate enough to have any one to chronicle their piratical activities and only H e n r y ’s chronicle succeeded in catching the imagination of historians.

The Royal Princes and the New Nobility The reason why the great nobles of Portugal needed to find outlets for the energies and enterprise of their retainers in privateering and wars in Morocco needs to be placed in a context. The wars with Castile had seen a major blood-letting among the old nobility. Many of them lost their lives in the fighting or threw in their lot permanently with Castile and were dispossessed after the battle of Aljubarrota. The supporters of the new regime stepped into their shoes, received their confiscated estates and gradually formed themselves into a new nobility closely linked to the fortunes of the new dynasty. To meet the expectations of his supporters for rewards, Joao I (of Aviz) found himself forced to make major gifts of lands, revenues and jurisdictions and to alienate much of the Crown’s resources. Alienation of royal lands merely exacerbated the serious decline in royal revenues that derived from other sources. In 1395 an inquiry was carried out into the taxable capacity of rural Portugal and the full extent of the depopulation and the loss of taxpayers was revealed. In order to save the royal patrimony from being wholly wasted a decree of 1403 had stipulated that all merces (grants) by the Crown should only pass in primogeniture and this was confirmed in the Lei Mental of 1433 by which King Duarte tried to repossess some of the alienated lands.

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The chief beneficiary of these grants was, without doubt, the Constable, Nun'Alvares Pereira, who acquired extensive lands and revenues for himself and grants also for his wife and mother. Others to benefit were the king's immediate relatives. His bastard, Afonso, married the Constable's daughter and later became Duke of Braganza. His sons were endowed with titles and lands and the Braganza inheritance was specifically excepted from the Lei Mental. In 1408 the Cortes voted a large establishment for the Infantes Pedro and Henry who thereafter assumed an important role in the government of the country. Although the major towns had their own form of self-government, the unsettled nature of the Castilian frontier and the sparseness of the population in many rural areas made the responsibility for government the affair of the local nobility. In practice the country became divided between the royal princes. The Infante Pedro was made Duke of Coimbra and was entrusted with the great fortified stronghold of Montemor. He effectively dominated the north of the country. Henry, in addition to his lordships of Viseu and Covilham, was made governor of the Algarve and controlled the south. The Braganzas were strong in the frontier regions. The king also endowed his sons with the properties of the military orders. He himself was Master of Aviz. He made the Infante Joao head of the Order of Santiago whose lands lay in the Alentejo, and Henry was made administrator of the Order of Christ, the inheritors of the possessions of the Templars. These included the fortress town of Tomar near Lisbon and extensive lands in the north. These governorships and endowments gave the princes enormous resources and powers of patronage, enabling them to provide for the sons of the nobility who became their retainers. Throughout their towns and jurisdictions they could appoint to judicial and fiscal offices; they made military appointments in their fortresses and maintained private armies; and they had at their disposal the commanderies of the military orders. At the end of the sixteenth century there were 600 commanderies enjoying an income of 150 contos. These commanderies conferred honour and status, brought with them revenues from the property of the orders and, most important of all, they granted immunity from the ordinary courts of law. At the centre of these great baronial establishments was a princely household or court in which it was still the custom for young fidalgos and escudeiros to receive their education and be provided with career opportunities. Under Joao II and Manuel retaining on this scale was to be concentrated at the royal court but in the early fifteenth century it was still a function of the great lay and ecclesiastical nobles. Azurara, for example, recounts that

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 23

it was the custom for the Infante [HenryJ not to give the position of a squire to any youth of his court till he had exercised himself in some feat of arms: and according to their merit he granted them in the future such dignity as he though they deserved.(17) Finding employment and opportunities for their young retainers to to prove their skills and abilities was a constant problem and was a major reason why the overseas enterprises in Morocco, in the islands, and at sea were welcomed by the nobility. In an often quoted passage, Diogo Gomes specifically makes this point when he says that Henry was interested in the gold trade of Guinea 'to sustain the nobles of his household1.(18) It is remarkable that, with so much potential for civil strife between the rival princely houses, there should have been only two serious incidents in the course of the fifteenth century - in 1449 when Pedro was overthrown by the Braganzas and in 1482 when the king himself personally humbled the Braganza family and asserted his dominance in the state. The overseas expansion of Portugal provided for the retainers of the nobility and so contributed to maintaining the stability of the state, in much the same way as did the exploits of the Lancastrians in Normandy. Henry can be seen systematically increasing the extent of his network of lands, jurisdictions and patronage. To his great lordships of Viseu and Covilham, he added the governorships of the Algarve and Ceuta. The latter responsibility led to his being endowed with the resources of the Order of Christ so that he could devote the income of the order to the defence of the city. In addition to offices he continued throughout his life to acquire a huge variety of monopolies, privileges and concessions. He obtained a monopoly of soap production in Portugal. He obtained a tithe for the Order of Christ on sardine fishing and a monopoly of tunny and coral fishing. He also obtained a monopoly on the import of dyes and sugar. To these were added extensive concessions in the field of Atlantic trade. Throughout his life Henry saw to it that he became the principal beneficiary of trade and settlement in the Atlantic. In 1431 he had been granted the right to settle the Azores and in 1433 was granted seigneurial jurisdiction in Madeira. In 1439 his trade from Madeira was granted exemption from customs. Once the slave trade was established on the coast of Africa Henry negotiated a monopoly of the whole trade for himself in 1442 and in 1446 this was extended to include a right to collect the royal fifth on slaves and bullion. In 1446 Henry apparently tried unsuccessfully to negotiate seigneurial rights for himself in the Canary islands from the King of Castile. After Pedro’s fall Henry hastened to obtain confirmation of his previous grants early in 1449. Undoubtedly his greatest coup, however, was to secure from

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the papacy the ecclesiastical rights in the islands and other conquests for the Order of Christ. P. E. Russell has pointed out that together these privileges gave Henry virtually the position of a monarch in the islands and on the Guinea coast. It is probably no coincidence that these grants were frequently obtained at sensitive moments in Portuguese politics. The accession of Duarte in 1433, the struggle for the regency in 1439 and the accession of Afonso V to personal rule in 1448 were all closely followed by grants made to Henry - no doubt to secure his political support. It was very likely that the rapid confirmation of all his privileges by Afonso early in 1449 was enough to persuade Henry to remain neutral in the short, but for his brother Pedro fatal, civil war in 1449. Throughout his life Henry was a successful politician who systematically acquired vast wealth, patronage and power for himself, who maintained a large body of retainers and who sought to exercise quasi-regal powers in the whole North Atlantic region. Of course, all these aspects of Henry*s career were grist to the chronicler*s mill. The Moroccan policy was an inspired crusade; the extension of the rights of the Order of Christ was a sign of evangelical fervour; the pirate raids were disinterested discovery; Henry*s political balancing acts, which allowed him to survive the swings of the political pendulum, became an otherworldly abstention from politics; his blunders at Tangier and his determination to stick to his Moroccan policy became evidence that he put God*s service above all other considerations. However, these claims should be seen for what they are, the ideological exposition of a career which is perfectly comprehensible in terms of fifteenth century society and which is comparable to the career of many of the great nobles in western Europe at this time.

The Development of Overseas Expansion While Ceuta and Henry's port at Lagos in the Algarve were being used to mount piratical raids on the Moors, Portuguese expeditions visited and tried to establish settlements in each of the three island groups of the North East Atlantic. Of greatest interest to the Portuguese were the Canary islands. The European connection with the Canaries has been well documented by recent historians. The original attraction of sailing to the islands in the fourteenth century had been slave raiding and regular raids on the Canaries over a period of a century led to the virtual depopulation of four of the islands. The other islands, Teneriffe, Palma and Grand Canary, remained targets for slavers well into the fifteenth century and Azurara records details of a number of such raids. Throughout the fifteenth century French, Castilian and Portuguese noblemen quarrelled and fought over the seigneurial rights in the islands but the Castilian sovereignty of

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them increasingly went uncontested and was eventually confirmed by the treaty of Alcaqovas in 1479. The first Portuguese nobleman to have tried to establish his claim was not Prince Henry but Fernando de Castro who sent a large expedition in 1424. Prince Henry tried his luck in 1430 and in 1448 sent an expedition to enforce his seigneurial rights in Lanzarote. From then until about 1454 a desultory war took place between Portuguese and Castilians with Henry’s privateers raiding Castilian settlements and taking Castilian prizes in the waters around the Canaries. Judging by the number of vessels involved, Prince Henry and his fidalgos seem to have been much more interested in this corsair war than in African voyages, and this fits closely the pattern of Henry’s career that has been already noted. The rivalry of Portugal with Castile is an important motif underlying the events of the fifteenth century. Godinho has suggested that the seizure of Ceuta was, at least in part, a pre-emptive strike against the Castilians establishing a foothold in North Africa and the same reasons have been used to explain the other Moroccan expeditions. Castilian ships fished and traded down the Moroccan coast and rivalry in the Canary islands was endemic. The fact that the native Canary islanders put up determined opposition meant that the three largest of the islands were not occupied till the last years of the century and the political uncertainty about who would eventually conquer them served only to stimulate the rivalry of Portugal and Castile. Portugal's interest in the islands, however, stemmed from causes other than her participation in slaving, strong economic pressures were at work. Already at the end of the fourteenth century the marked economic and social differences between northern and southern Portugal were making themselves felt. In the north the long period of Christian settlement and the mountainous terrain favoured the emergence of smallholdings and tenures which were divided and subdivided between families. This fact was graphically brought out by H. B. Johnson in his study of the village of Povoa del Rey in the fourteenth century when two thirds of the peasant population had sub-subsistence holdings. Land hunger and overpopulation were keenly felt, impoverishing the nobility and driving peasants from the land to the coastal cities or onto the roads. From the north has always come the pressure to emigrate - a fact that appears to have been as true of the fifteenth as of the twentieth centuries. In the south the reconquest from the Moors led to the formation of great estates in the hands of the nobility, the church and the military orders. The south became a region with a low population density where fluctuations in the conditions of agriculture reduced much of the population to the status of impoverished estate serfs and labourers. Figures from the early sixteenth century show this situation graphically. While the two northern provinces of Entre-Douro-e-Minho and Tras-os-Montes had population densities of 33 and 12.6 persons per square kilometre, the two provinces south

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26

of the Tagus (Alentejo and Algarve) had 6 and 6.9 persons respectively.(19) A situation of labour shortage often existed in the south and it was there, in the fourteenth century, that much land vent out of cultivation and food shortages began to be felt. Early in the fifteenth century the growing of sugar cane is recorded in Portugal in the Algarve and in the valley of the Mondego. Sugar production, which had been known in Moorish times, was probably reintroduced by the Genoese who provided the technology and the finance. Sugar, however, required rich soils and abundant labour and there is evidence that the sugar masters were always looking for new areas in which to expand production. Thus in the early 1400s there was pressure for new land on which to settle coming from many different quarters - from fidalgos seeking estates, from peasants and from sugar growers while increased grain production was recognised to be a national necessity. As it became clear that the conquest of Ceuta was not going to lead to the easy acquisition of new land, interest was increasingly shown in the Atlantic islands whose volcanic soils and abundant rainfall made them exceptionally fertile. The settlement of the Canaries had begun in 1402 but proceeded slowly. Madeira and Porto Santo were settled after 1424 and the Azores from 1439. Henry did not pioneer the settlements but, once they were established, he acquired rights from the Crown which enabled him to claim seigneurial dues and fiscal privileges of various kinds over them. The actual settlement was carried out by "captains” who were granted the islands on condition that they brought in settlers, made allocations of lands and saw to the administration and defence of their captaincies. Settlers were not difficult to find and, once the supply of labour was secured, Italian capital began the production of sugar, though the islands were not given over to monoculture and wheat, wine, cattle and other commodities were of equal importance in the early days.

The Discovery of Guinea Before the 1440s Portuguese expansionist activity was confined to the North East Atlantic and to regions that were well known and where other peoples beside themselves had been active in piracy, settlement and slave raiding. In 1441, however, a period began in which not only was there rapid development of contacts with West African peoples but the Portuguese for the first time opened up regions that had not been visited before. The political circumstances in Portugual had changed radically in 1439. The attempt to take Tangier in 1437 had failed miserably and the Infante Fernando had been left as a hostage with the Moors. The following year the king had died and after a brief struggle Pedro became regent. Almost at once the pace of commercial expansion down the coast of Africa quickened. Between 1441 and 1447 there

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were some twenty recorded voyages and Portuguese ships sailed as far as Cape Verde. The fact that vigourous commercial expansion and the first real exploration took place during the regency of Pedro may be just a coincidence, but it has been strongly argued that it was the regent himself who gave the impetus for these developments. Godinho has pointed out that Pedro owed his position to the support of the cities and the merchant classes whose interests were no longer served by the heroics of Prince Henry’s Moroccan exploits. Once in power he did everything possible to encourage commerce and maritime expansion. The evidence for this view is circumstantial rather than direct. It is known that Pedro sponsored some of the voyages and that he took an active interest in the settlement of the Azores. Azurara also recounts that he offered a prize, in conjunction with Henry, for the captain who sailed furthest along the coast in a given year. Apart from this, there is little direct evidence of his involvement. On the other hand it is undoubtedly the case that once Pedro was removed from the political scene in 1448 little further interest was taken in the African voyages and Henry and the court nobles once again began to pursue their ambitions in Morocco. It must surely be concluded that the circumstances of Pedro's regency were exceptionally favourable for those who wished to invest in African voyages and that the opposition of the regent to North African adventures ruled these out as a practical alternative. However, even if prominence is given to Pedro's backing, some further explanation is required for the truly revolutionary enterprises of these six or seven years. The answer lies quite clearly in the pages of Azurara's Chronicle. It has been pointed out that the early Portuguese voyages to the African coast were the voyages of corsairs who, if they failed to make a rich prize of a Moorish vessel compensated themselves with catching seals or raiding the Canary islands. Successful raids on the African mainland seem to have been rare, but in 1441 a captain returned with a saleable cargo of slaves which he had captured on land and from that time onwards raids on the coastal settlements became increasingly lucrative. It is sometimes implied that the return of Antao Gonsalves and Nuno Tristao to Portugual with a cargo of slaves in 1441 was a singular event which opened a new era in international relations. However, slaves had been bought and sold throughout the Mediterranean region since Roman times and were a highly valued commodity. The main source of slaves was the Black Sea region and North Africa where they were either obtained by raids and piracy or, more expensively, by trade. As has already been shown, the Canary islands were also regularly raided for slaves. Slaves had been imported into Portugal prior to 1441 and the demand was particularly strong in the south of the country, which no doubt explains the public interest which, according to

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Azurara's account, greeted the landing of the slave cargoes at Lagos. The news that slave hunting could be profitably carried on along the southern Sahara coast led to a flood of applications for licenses to cruise in those waters. The granting of these licenses suddenly became a profitable activity and Henry petitioned his brother, the regent, for the exclusive right to grant them. In 1442 Henry was given his monopoly of trade and in 1443 added a papal bull in confirmation of the grant. In 1446 he was granted the right to collect the royal fifth on imported slaves. Through Azurara's Chronicle quite a lot is known of the people who sought and obtained licenses to go slaving. Although some of the captains were men in Henry’s service, and although a few of the ships were Henry’s, it is quite clear that most of the vessels belonged to other noblemen, to churchmen, to the military orders, to the captains of Madeira, to individual ship owners and to the other Infantes. There was Goncalo Pacheco, high treasurer of Ceuta, ’who always kept ships at sea against the enemies of the kingdom*; Alvaro Gil ’an assayer of the mint*; Mafaldo, a ship owner who had ’been many times in the Moorish traffic*; Soeiro da Costa, alcaide of Lagos, a professional soldier who had fought at Agincourt; Alvaro de Freitas, commandant of Aljazur which belonged to the Order of Santiago, 'who had made very great prizes among the Moors of Granada’; there was a commander of the king’s galleys, servants of the Infantes Pedro and Joib and captains in the service of Joao Goncalves Zarco, captain of Madeira; Diniz Dias commanded a caravel belonging to Dorn Alvaro de Castro and another captain commanded one belonging to the Bishop of the Algarve.(20) The crude and nasty business of slaving is clearly described by Azurara though with the exploits gilded over with the trappings of chivalry. Ships' captains and aspiring squires were knighted for deeds such as capturing an old woman after a chase in the sand, and words are put into the mouths of the participants in these raids by which they continually urge one another to greater deeds in the service of God and the Infante. The term 'honour and profit’ become a sort of slogan by which actions of all kinds were weighed and judged. The nature of fifteenth century ideas about chivalry are clearly revealed in these passages. Virtually any activity can be considered chivalrous if it is carried on by force of arms. However, ’’honour" by itself is not sufficient as an objective. As Nuno Tristao is reported to have said, 'I should receive disgrace, holding the order of knighthood as I do, if I gained here no booty richer than this.' The successful knight was the one who achieved wealth and made his fortune by the use of arms rather than by peaceful activity. It was the process of slave hunting that was directly responsible for the exploration of new stretches of coast. After a few successful raids, the Portuguese found that the local

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Inhabitants deserted their villages and were on the alert for attacks. It was necessary to sail ever further south to find communities that had not already been raided, and which were unprepared for attack from the sea. As Azurara said, ’they now saw it would be necessary to seek other parts, in which there was no knowledge of their arrival*. In this way every expedition had to descend on a fresh section of coast and this speedily took the captains down the thinly populated Sahara shoreline to the Senegal and the Guinea rivers. Here, however, a different situation prevailed. The Mandinga and Woloff peoples of the coastlands of Upper Guinea proved to be formidable fighters and the Portuguese were worsted in a number of encounters. Capturing slaves now became an extremely dangerous occupation and the enthusiasm for valourous deeds of arms rapidly waned among the Portuguese fidalgos. As Azurara himself said, ’their terrible manner of fighting was such as to strike many men of understanding with great terror.* Raiding for slaves ceased altogether and with it the drive to discover new stretches of coastline. With the end of slave raiding, Azurara *s interest in the '‘valorous deeds” of the Portuguese also ceased. He ends his account with these words, *The affairs of these parts werehenceforth treated more by trafficking of merchants than by bravery and toil in arms*.(21) The coming of age of Afonso V in 1448 and the displacement of Pedro from the regency left the Portuguese court dominated by the Braganza faction. Afonso V*s reign has always been seen as one in which the nobility plundered the royal patrimony, extorting lands, offices and titles from the weak king. Fifty-six titles of nobility were created during his reign in contrast to only two which were conferred by his successor. In 1472 the Cortes complained about the granting of titles to those who could not maintain their status. Afonso’s reign also saw a revival of the Moroccan enterprises. Soon after Pedro’s death at Alfarrobeira in 1449 preparations were made for another major expedition to Morocco. This was delayed somewhat by the European crisis which resulted from the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 and from the papal attempt to organise a crusade to retake the city. The Portuguese espoused the cause of this crusade not least because it enabled the Crown to raise extraordinary taxation and, incidentally, to issue the famous gold coin, the cruzado. The crusade, however, never sailed and in 1458 the Portuguese expedition was eventually dispatched against Alcacer. Henry, as one might expect, played a large part in the organisation and planning of this expedition. He died soon afterwards in 1460, when already plans were under way for yet another war in Morocco. In 1463 and 1464 three attempts to attack Tangier failed but in 1471 Portuguese luck turned and both Tangier and Arzila fell into their hands giving Portugal virtual control of the whole Tangier peninsula. Shortly after this, war broke out with Castile as Afonso was persuaded to pursue hopeless ambitions for a union of his crown with that of Castile. The war lasted till 1479. Thirty years of dominance by the Braganzas and their noble followers had,

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therefore, diverted the thrust of Portuguese expansionism back to regions nearer home and returned it to objectives traditional to the ambitions of the military nobility. The African voyages did not come to a halt after the death of Pedro but for twenty years after his death relatively few of them even attempted to explore new stretches of coastline. Instead the increasingly prosperous trade in gold and slaves was leased out to shipowners, foreign entrepreneurs and syndicates. A factory was established at Arguim and leased to a syndicate of merchants* Trading voyages to the Guinea rivers were licensed by Henry on a basis that is described by Cadamosto. If the trader provided his own ship and trading capital Henry took a quarter of the profits. If Henry supplied the ship, he took half. However, for the most part Henry seems to have employed his own ships in the kind of activities which had always been his prime interest raiding the Canaries, ransoming moorish prisoners and seal hunting. Italians from Genoa and Venice increasingly appear as entrepreneurs in the trade and it was probably Italians who explored and charted the Cape Verde islands sometime between 1455 and 1460. Castilians also sailed in increasing numbers to Guinea. Henry meanwhile never lost interest in extending his fiscal privileges and as late as 1458 he obtained the grant of a "twentieth” on slaves, gold, fish and other merchandise to be paid to the Order of Christ, following the papal bull of 1456 which granted the spiritualities in the region to the Order. After Henry's death in 1460 his vast lands, jurisdictions and privileges were inherited by the king's brother Fernando. The latter appears to have taken no significant part in the African trade and continued the policy of leasing it to individual merchants. A few of the nobility maintained a desultory Interest but this mostly took the form of sending out speculative voyages to search for new groups of islands in the Atlantic. A contract would be obtained to search for islands with the understanding that the holder of the contract would have selgneurial rights in any that were found. It was a contract of this kind that Columbus wanted to obtain when he came to the Portuguese court in 1483. It was to one Lisbon merchant that Portugal owed the really revolutionary voyages of discovery. In 1469 Fernao Gomes contracted for the Guinea trade. By the time his contract ran out in 1474 his ships had explored as far as the Cameroons and had opened up the highly lucrative trade with the "Mine" - the Gold Coast. This trade proved so rich that it was to attract the Portuguese crown - in the person of the heir to the throne, the Infante JoSo - to take a wholly new interest in the possibilities of Africa.

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The Legacy of the First Half Century of the Discoveries The first half century of Portuguese expansion was to leave a legacy and impose certain patterns of behaviour on subsequent developments. First, it was the involvement of the nobility in the Moroccan ventures and the piratical cruises and slave raids that had given the non-commercial drive to the expansion. The fidjilgos had been willing to undertake operations of a quasi-military nature with a different expectation from merchants. Where merchants could not see that profits were certain enough for them to risk their meagre capital, a fidalgo would be prepared to undertake a much higher level of risk, seeking his reward as much in plunder, ransoms and slaves as in honest merchandise. Moreover many of the fidalgos had the backing of the military orders or of the great nobles who had resources far superior to those of merchants of the period. Fidalgos might also undertake some risk in return for honour and reputation with a view to establishing their standing among their own peers. Portuguese expansion was to be at its most dynamic when the fidalgo interest was combined with strong mercantile incentives. Warfare, plunder, piracy and trade formed a spectrum of activities which could all be undertaken by the same ship’s company in different circumstances, and different sections of Portuguese society were attracted to different ends of the spectrum. However, all these activities formed a continuum and Portuguese expansion could never have taken place without the full range of this spectrum being brought into play. The role played by the Portuguese crown and royal family in the empire is another legacy of the early period. The Portuguese crown had a tradition of active involvement in trade, as Bailey Diffie has made clear. The kings of Portugal owned ships, traded on their own account and actively participated in maritime matters at all levels. It was a natural transition from this to their role in financing and planning overseas expansion. This has often been contrasted with the role of the Castilian monarchs who tended to take a back seat and to limit their involvement to the granting of contracts to the conquistadores and subsequently to trying to impose royal government on them once they had succeeded in the conquest. This distinction certainly has some validity and the later Portuguese kings, Joao II and Manuel, certainly tried to direct the financing and planning of the empire. However, as Godinho has shown, the earliest phase of Portuguese expansion is somewhat more complex. The crown was certainly involved in planning and promoting the Moroccan expeditions but much of the rest of the expansion seems to have depended on initiatives taken by merchants and individual noblemen seeking profitable investments and enterprises. The role of the royal family was much more like that of Castile and was often confined to the

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granting of licenses and the drawing up of contracts, making sure that it received the fiscal benefits from the new discoveries and securing diplomatic recognition of Portuguese claims. It has also been claimed that, from the end of the 1440s, the Portuguese empire developed firmly as one of trade rather than conquest and that the pattern of trading fort and factory had its origins in the sixteenth century foundations of Arguim and Elmina. The idea of the trading factory on foreign territory was, of course, not new and had been widely used by the Genoese andothers in the Middle Ages. Portugalfs adoption of the trading factory in Africa, however, was determined rather by the strength of African resistance to slave raiding. The peoples of West Africa were too well-armed and well-organised to be conquered by tiny parties of Portuguese for all their mobility and firepower at sea. The Portuguese early realised that trade would be a more successful way of making their fortune than war. As "trade” replaced "raid” after the 1440s the fidalgos initially lost interest and it was only the spectacular profits of the Mina gold trade and thesudden prospect of reaching India by sea, which the discovery of the eastward trend of the African coast seemed to promise, that attracted the direct participation of the the crown and the nobility once again in the 1480s and 1490s. One characteristic of later Portuguese imperialism which is clearly visible in the early stages of expansion was the tendency for the empire to feed off itself. If the original impulse for expansion came from fidalgos and ship owners based in Portugal, its continuation was often generated by the new settlements themselves. By the 1440s shipowners from Madeira were already sailing directly to West Africa and it was Madeirans who first established a successful settlement on Sao Miguel in the Azores. Later the exploration of the Atlantic was to be undertaken at the initiative of the Azorean communities. It is well-known that Columbus married into a Madeiran family and derived much of his training and knowledge from the Madeiran seafaring communitiy. The North African markets provided the cloths needed for the expansion of commerce in West Africa and Madeira supplied the grain that was also in demand. Slaves from West Africa found their most ready market in Madeira and sugar masters spread their production from island group to island group becoming the true pioneers of colonisation in the Atlantic with little specific reference to metropolitan Portugal. Madeiran sugar growers established their industry in the Cape Verde islands and then in the Castilian Canaries where Portuguese settlers formed a significant proportion of the early inhabitants. Later sugar was introduced into the Guinea islands, the Spanish Caribbean and Brazil. The capital was locally generated or came from Italy, the labour came from West Africa and the sugar was sold in various European markets. Already there was a tendency for Portugal herself to be cut out of the economic processes of her own empire, deriving profits from the licenses and the leasing

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 109 33

of royal monopolies and only occasionally exploitation of these monopolies herself.

from

the

direct

Requiem for Henry the Navigator After the searching analyses of Godinho and other recent historians little survives of C. R. Beazley's "culture hero" Henry the Navigator. Henry the scientist and scholar of the Renaissance, the founder of the School of Navigation at Sagres, has been blown away finally on the winds of critical scholarship. Bailey Diffie has provided a definitive epitaph: No contemporary mentions Henry as an inventor of astronomical instruments, nor as improver of the astrolabe, quadrant or compass, all known before his time. Nor does any contemporary praise his knowledge of astronomy ... Henry was not learned in geography nor was he a mathematician. Those who knew him confirmed that he introduced no new navigational skills. If he passed long nights in scientific reading and quiet meditation, or if he was of a contemplative nature, the records do not tell us so.(22) Henry the planner of the discovery of India has also gone as the records reveal little or no evidence that he ever thought about India or knew anything about it; Henry the planner of the African voyages, if he survives at all, is very much subordinate to Henry the patron of Moroccan expeditions and pirate cruises. Henry the crusader, religious devotee and paragon of chivalry is still there in the pages of Azurara’s chronicle but those who still want to believe that this stilted portraiture is real history must first persuade themselves that the chronicle is not just an elaborate and stylised exercise in an increasingly archaic kind of biography and they must convince themselves that the brutal details of slave raiding which Azurara unblushingly recounts were really the noble deeds of chivalry that he, equally unblushingly, makes them out to be. Henry, of course, remains a key figure in fifteenth century Portugal. He was a great baron and for forty years one of the two or three most powerful men in Portugal; he was the wielder of great patronage and the lord of numerous towns, castles and jurisdictions; he was governor of the rich and influential Order of Christ; he was a great monopolist controlling industries and fisheries; he was a political survivor whose smart footwork enabled him to keep his balance in the turbulent politics of the 1440s and to emerge from each crisis with enhanced privileges for himself and for the Order of Christ, privileges that enabled him to monopolise the trade with Guinea, the collection of royal taxation and the levying of ecclesiastical dues throughout the

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Atlantic settlements. He was the representative of the faction of the nobility which was firmly set on expansion in the Iberian peninsula, the Mediterranean and North Africa and who, through his chronicler, was prepared to give this faction strong ideological backing as well as practical support. Finally he was a man who clearly had no interest in women but who enjoyed power and who assiduously cultivated his own legend in his own lifetime.

Notes 1.

Vitorino Magalhaes Godinho, A Economia dos Descobrimentos Henriquinos, (Lisbon, 1962), p.l.

2.

P.E.Russell, p. 13.

3.

P.E.Russell, Prince Henry the Navigator: the rise and fall of a Culture Hero, Taylorian Lecture, (Oxford, 1984), p.26.

4.

Gomes Eannes de Azurara, The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of G u i n e a , eds. C.R.Beazley and E.Prestage, 2 v o l s , Hakluyt Society, 1896, 1899, vol 1, chapter 7.

3.

Joaquim Bensaude, A Cruzada do Infante D.Henrique, (Lisbon,

6.

Jaime Cortesao, 'A Genese da Expansdb Portuguesa' and '0 Designio do Infante e as ExploraçSes Atlanticas', in D.Peres ed. Histftria de Portugal, (Oporto, 1931), vol 3, pp.333-384.

7.

Godinho appended lists of his publications to each of his major works. His mature opinions can best be studied in A Economia dos Descobrimentos H e n r i q u i n o s , op. cit.; Os Descobrimentos e a Economia M u n d i a l , 2 vols, (Lisbon, 1965-71); L TEconomie de" l'Empire Portuguais au XVe et XVIe siècles (Paris, 1969). He also published Documentos sobre a ExpansSo Portuguesa, 3 vols, (Lisbon, 1943-36). ---------------------- ------------ -----

8.

For the history of the Portuguese mobility and military orders see Henrique da Gama Barros, Historia da Administraçao Publica em Portugal nos seculos XII a XV, 11 vols, (Lisbon, 1945-34), vol 2.

9.

Joaquim Verissimo Serrao, Historia de Portugal, vols, (Lisbon, 1978), vol 2, p.236.1 0

10.

Ibid, p.238.

'Prince

Henry

the

Navigator',

Diamante,

2nd

XI,

1960,

1943).

edition,

6

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 111 35

11.

Gama Barros, Historia da A d m i n i s t r a d o , op. cit. p.338.

12.

Antonio Jose* Saraiva, pp.42-7.

13.

Godinho, A Economia, op. cit. pp.105,140.

14.

Azurara, Chronicle, op. cit., pp.56-7, 94, 116, 119, 244, 277; V.M.Godinho, A Estrutura da Antiga Sociedade Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1971), pp.73. -------------------- ------------------- -----

15.

Ibid, p.32; Godinho,

16.

Godinho, A Economia, op. cit. p.97.

17.

Azurara, Chronicle, op. cit., p.169.

18.

’ad nutriendum suos nobiles * in Diogo Gomes, De la Première Decouverte de la ¿uinefe, T . M o n o d , R.Mauny, and (Î.Duval e d s ., (Bissau, 1959), p.15.1 0 2 9

19.

A.C.de C.M.Saunders, A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal 1441-1555 (Cambridge, 1982), p.42. R.C.Hoffman and H.B.Johnson, ’}Jn village portugais en mutation: Povoa del Rey h la fin du XlVe s i e d e ’, Annales, 26, 1971, pp. 917-940.

20.

Azurara, Chronicle, op. cit., pp.116,

21.

Ibid, pp. 45, 88, 124, 265, 289.

22.

Bailey W.Diffie and George D.Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire 1415-1580 (Oxford, 1977), pp.114-5.

Fernao Lopes, 2nd edition,

(Lisbon,

1965),

Os Descobrimentos, op. cit., voi 2, p.522.

152, 214, 262.

7

Early Ming Images o f the Portuguese K.C. Fok

The Portuguese were the first seafaring Europeans encountered by the Chinese. The manner and timing of their appearance in the Chinese experience shaped Chi­ na's attitude and policy not only toward them but also toward the West in subse­ quent times. The first Portuguese to visit the China coast were recorded to have arrived in 1513. Three years later the Portuguese under Captain Femáo Peres de Andrade went up to Canton and in 1520, their envoy, Tomé Pires, arrived in Peking with the intention of establishing formal trading relations with China. But Pires failed in his mission partly because of the misconduct of his countrymen, partly because of the intrigues caused by an envoy of Malacca .1 In 1521-22 attempts were again made by the Portuguese to renew trade. This time they failed even more miserably because their attempts resulted in an imperial edict banning

1

For early Portuguese contacts with China, see, for example: Chang T'ien-tsè, Sino-Por­ tuguese trade from 1514-1644 (Leyden 1934); J. M. Braga, Western pioneers and the dis­ covery of Macao (Hong Kong 1949); Chang Wei-hua, Ming-shih Fo-lang-chi Lü-sung Ho-ian J-ta-ii-ya ssu chuan chu-shih (Peking 1934); Paul Pelliot, 'L e Uöja et le Sayyid Husain de ('histoire des Ming', Toung Pao, 38 (1948), pp. 81 et seq.\ various entries in L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang (eds.), Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1 3 6 8 -1 6 4 4 (New York 1976), esp. I, pp. 372-75, 679-83, 1003-05; II, pp. 11 13 -1 6 ,

1123-25; A.

Kämmerer, La découverte de la Chine par les Portugais au XVle siècle et la cartographie des portulans, suppl. vol. to Toung Pao, 39 (1944); C. R. Boxer, South China in the sixteenth century (London 1953); Rodcrich Ptak, Portugal in China (Bad Boll 1980); Austin Coates, A Macao Narrative (Hong Kong 1978); Luis Gonzaga Gomes, 'Os primeiros contactos entre Portugueses e Chineses', Boletim do Instituto Luis de Camòes, I: 2 (1966), pp. 159-74; the same, 'Chegam os Portugueses, pela primeira vez, à China', in ibid., I: 3 (1966), pp. 267-85.

114

BEGINNINGS all trade to foreigners.2 As a result of a series of incidents, the Portuguese arrival in China, after all, did not turn out to be propitious. And China's initial impressions of them did little to change their immediate fate. China's earliest recorders of the fust group of Westerners seldom had long enough time to obtain more than super­ ficial verbal and visual impressions. As untrained observers, these recorders were so enmeshed in their own society that it was difficult for them to accurately view and comprehend the living designs of other peoples. Accordingly, two factors above all others have served to inhibit the Ming observer from assembling an unbiased image of the Portuguese: these are the casual nature of the exposure to the foreign strangers and the assumptions that one's own ways are the most human. These early inaccuracies and misinterpretations have given rise to China's understanding of the Westerners through their misgivings. A good example would be the early images of the Portuguese that identified them as a special variety of goblin, bearing only a superficial resemblance to a normal human being and coming from canni­ balistic ancestry .3 They accordingly appeared in grotesque forms and strange shapes and were clad in bizarre clothes. And "the height of their body measures up to seven feet. They have high noses, fair complexion, the mouth of an oriole and cat's eyes. Their beards are curled while their hair is close to red. But there are also many of them whose heads are bald and have their beards shaved ."4 Not only in matter of personel appearance were the early Portuguese considered very strange; the fact that they were unacquainted with traditional Chinese teachings caused China's educated scholars to liken these foreigners to animals in their behavior. The dominant theme of the description in circulation at the time was the Por­ tuguese could be considered as behaving like human beings only when they were in a happy mood and that their beastly nature would prevail when they lost con­ trol of their temper .5

2

Chang T'ien-tse, pp. 54-60.

3

Yen Ts'ung-chien,

4

Mao Jui-cheng,

5

Shu-yü chou-izu-lu (Ku-kung po-wu-kuan edition, 1930), ch. 9, p. 17.

Huang-Ming hsiang-hsü-lu (reprint, 1968), ch. 5, p. 5a.

Pai-k'o-ting che-kao, in Kuang-tung wen-hsien%ed. by Lo Hsüehch. 14, p. 9b.

P'ang Shang-p'cng, p'eng (1864),

144

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 115 It is important to point out that the Portuguese actions did not help to dispel these Ming impressions. The violent and murderous acts of which the early Por­ tuguese were accused included the kidnapping of women and children for the slave trade, the seizing of children for food and defiance of Chinese laws and official interference. The origin of the charge that Portuguese roasted and ate the flesh of Chinese children remains obscure. But such accounts of Portuguese relishing chil­ dren's flesh were logical* deductions of the misleading belief that they came from cannibalistic ancestry. The Yiieh-shan ts'ung-t'an seems to have been the first Chi­ nese work to propagate this misconception. The Portuguese were said to be lovers of children's flesh for food and since in their country, this rarity was only available to their king, when they arrived in China the Portuguese bought a large number of children for the purpose .6 The Yiieh-shan ts'ung-t'an also gives a vivid description of how Chinese children were bought at 100 cash each and how they were being prepared for food. So they (Portuguese) secretly sought to purchase children of above ten years old to eat. Each child was purchased at 100 cash. This caused the evil youths in Kwangiung to hasten to kidnap children and the number of children eaten was uncountable. The method [of preparing the child) was to first boil up some soup in a huge iron pan and place the child, who was locked up inside an iron cage, into the pan. After being steamed to sweat, the child was then taken out and his skin peeled with an iron sreubbing-brush. The child, still alive, would now be killed and having been disembowelled, steamed to eat 78

According to Chang T'ien-tse a similar description appears in the Shu-yii choutzu-lu (preface 1574) by Yen Ts'ung-chien and although the author did not men­ tion his source specifically he must have consulted the Yiieh-shan ts'ung-t'an.* The Shu-yii chou-tzu-lu is, however, possibly the earliest extant work to identify the Portuguese with cannibalistic ancestry. Whether the Yiieh-shan ts'ung-t'an derives its source from the Shu-yii chou-tzu-lu or vice versa or whether both in fact based their accounts on the same source, is of minor importance. What is important is

6

Ku Yen-wu, T ie n - h s ia c h iin - k u o li-p in g s h u (1901 edition), c h . 119 , p. 54a.

7

I b id .

8

Yen Ts'ung-chien, c h . 9, p. 19; Chang T'ien-tse, pp. 48-49, n. 5.

145

116

BEGINNINGS the fact that these accounts of the purported diabolical habits of the Portuguese gained audiences among Chinese literati, who boosted the image of notoriety of the first European arrivals even further. For example, in his famous and generally sober work Tien-hsia chun-kuo li-ping shu (preface 1662), the very influential scholar Ku Yen-wu quoted from both Yueh-short tsung-t'an and Shu-yu chou-tzulu in describing the habits of the Portuguese eating Chinese children.9 Both the Ming-short-1sang compiled by Ho Ch'iao-yuan (after 1632) and the Kuang-chou fu chih compiled by Shih Ching recorded the same accounts of Portuguese slaughter­ ing Chinese children .10 The earliest Chinese images of Portuguese being kidnappers and slave-traders of women went hand-in-hand with the accounts of their seizing children for food. Whereas the stories of Portuguese eating Chinese need not be taken seriously, the stories of the Portuguese kidnapping activities were substantially documented in more reliable sources.11 In connection with such adhorrent behavior, the Por­ tuguese were also noted for their "barbarian unmanageability" and defiance of both Chinese laws and bureaucratic regulations, and were thus considered objection­ able .12 These images of alleged notoriety were soon fortified by the Portuguese's actual show of military threat. Meanwhile the envoy of the fugitive Malaccan king had arrived in Peking to report the "atrocities" committed by the Portuguese in Malacca.13 Charges were soon brought against the Portuguese by highly placed Chinese officials for having conquered China's vassal state. Among these charges the ones sent by Censors Ch'iu Tao-lung and Ho Ao carried the greatest weight. Ch'iu remonstrated with the emperor in this manner:

9

10

Ku Yen-wu,

ch, 119 , pp. 53a-54b.

Chou Ching-lien,

Chung-Fu wai-chiao shih (Shanghai 1936), p. 26; Chang Wei-hua, p.

17.

11

12 13

Kuo chi-chien shu-kao, in Ling-nan i-shu, ed. by Wu Tsung-yao ch. l,p p . I3a-15b; P'ang Shang-p'eng, ch. 14, pp. lOb-lla.

Kuo Shang-pin, (1831-63),

Ibid. Ming shih-lu, Wu-tsung shih-lu (Chung-yang yen-chiu yuan edition, 1965), ch. 194, p. 2 b.

146

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 117 Malacca was a vassal state which had been granted the right of self-govern­ ment, yet the Feringis (Portuguese] dared to annex its territory, and, moreover, to lure us with the hope of gain so as to grant them the request of conferring upon them the right to rule it and to bring us tribute. We must never grant them this request We must not receive their envoy, and must let them know plainly whether we consider them obedient or recalcitrant We must order them to restore the [occupied) territory to Malacca; only after this is done shall we consent to their bringing tribute. Should they remain reluctant to let go of such delusions, we must issue manifestoes to all other foreign [vassal] states to make known their crimes, and punitive expeditions must be sent against them. 14

Shortly afterwards Ho Ao followed up with this: The Feringis are most cruel and crafty ... Some years ago they came suddenly to the city of Canton, and the noise of their cannon shook the earth. Those who remained at the post-station disobeyed the law and had contact with oth­ ers. Those who came to the Capital were haughty and competed among them­ selves to become head. Now if we allow them to come freely and to carry on their trade, it will inevitably lead to fighting and bloodshed, and the misfortune of South China may be boundless.15

It is notable that most of the charges against the Portuguese came from cen­ sors like Ch'iu and Ho and other officials in the capital, that is, men more directly involved in the policy of the court rather than local affairs. Moreover, they were, as a rule, more concerned about Confucian ideals and the ideological need for a fixed order. To them, the Portuguese had obviously jeopardized that order by undermining the highly regulated system of "tributary trade". In their minds, this could not be tolerated. Almost at the same time the misdeeds the Portuguese committed in the Can­ ton areas and as epitomized by Simao de Andrade also reached the throne. Simao de Andrade was the brother of Femao Peres and had come to take over the com­ mand of the Portuguese in 1518 at the departure of his brother. As one work based on contemporary sources put it:

14

Ku Yen-wu, c h . 119 , pp. 43a-b.

is

Ib id .

147

BEGINNINGS

118

His character was marked by covetousness, partiality and despotism. With such temper, he willingly#countenanced robbers, kidnappers and all sorts of wickedness. He built a fort [near to Tun-men of Tung-kuan district), and ended by arrogating to himself the prerogatives of a sovereign, venturing to condemn a sailor to death, and to have the sentence executed. This act of open hostility and the refusal to withdraw from the island, filled the measure of his iniquity. 16

Such outrageous acts of Simao, needless to say, imrnediatly brought forth a tirade of inflammatory official memorials against the presence of Portuguese in China. The impressions given to the Ming government by the Malaccan envoy of the Portuguese being conquerors and warriors were substantially proved by two show­ downs between the Portuguese and the Ming navy in 1522. For the Portuguese were recorded to have engaged the Ming naval forces in two fierce confrontations. One took place in 1521 near the port of T un-m en. Wang Hung, then the Hai-tao or commander of the fleet at Canton, was given chief credit for defeating the Por­ tuguese because Wang was able to enlist in his service two Chinese, Yang San and Tai Ming, who had been with the Portuguese for many years and knew how to cast cannon and make gunpowder, and Wang owed much of his victory to the cannon made by them .17 The second battle was fought a year later when the Portuguese, according to Ming official accounts, raided Hsi-ts'ao-wan in the district of Hsin-hui.18 T ie Chi­ nese forces under the command of the Pei-Wo chih-hui (Provincial Commander of Forces Against Japanese Pirates), K'o Jung, and the Pai-hu (Centurion), Wang Ying-en, were able to parry this raid and, following up their success, pursued the Portuguese to Shao-chou where fierce fighting took place. In this battle both sides seemed to have suffered heavy losses.19 The Aling shih-lu account stated that the

16

Sir Andrew Ljungstedl,

Historical sketch of the Portuguese settlement in China (Boston

1836), p. 6.

17

18

Yen Ts'ung-chien, ch. 9, p. 19.

Chang Ting-yü,

Ming-shih (Jen shou pen erh-shih-Iiu shih, vols. 55-60, 1971), ch. 325, MS); Chang Wei-hua, pp. 23-26.

pp. 20a*b (hereafter cited as

19

Ibid.; Ming shih-lu, Shih-tsung shih-lu (1965), ch. 24, pp. 8a-b. 148

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 119 Chinese succeeded in capturing two ships and forty-two prisoners including the brave Captain Pedro I Iomen. But the Chinese also lost the life of the Pai-hu Wang Ying-en among others .20 As a result of such confrontations the Portuguese were forbidden to visit Canton and local officials were ordered to resort to force, and if necessary, to drive them away. Minister of Rites, Huo T'ao, for example, consid­ ered that tight security measures had to be taken against the Portuguese. The Feringis jPortuguese] are the most cruel among foreign bandits. They sim­ ply must be warded o(T... The best policy to be taken now is ... to reprimand the Portuguese when they come (for trade). Should this fail to curb the Por­ tuguese, troops must be mobilized for defense while declarations have to be made of our determination to exterminate them if needed.21

In the meantime, frustated with their attempts to establish legitimate trade relations with China, the Portuguese also began participating in the illicit trade between the Japanese and their Chinese collaborators after 1523 along the Fukien and Chekiang coasts. Thus the Portuguese became inextricably interwoven with the pirate and smuggling activities which were rampant throughout the Chia-ching period. Contemporary sources have left for us a well-documented account of the collaboration of Portuguese with the Chinese and Japanese smugglers in the Fukien and Chekiang areas. For example, in one memorial submitted by Chu Wan, there were words of utter bitterness in lamenting the openness with which the Portuguese were being harbored by the treacherous, but influential and power­ ful, local gentry in the Fukien coast. Under the salutary neglect of the local offi­ cials, Chu Wan recorded, that some Portuguese had their two ships repaired in the locality after having completed their illegal transactions .22 Another example was the Tsou-ma-ch'i incident of March 19, 1549, in which Chu Wan successfully pounced upon the smugglers. Under the capable leadership of Chu Wan's military commanders, Lu T'ang and K'o Ch'iao, the government troops caught the smug­ glers by surprise and captured and killed two hundred and thirty-nine of them off

20

Ibid.

21

Huo T'ao, H u o T d o w e n -m in - k u n g c h 'iia n -c h i , in K u a n g -tu n g w e n -h s ie n , ed. by Lo Hsùeh-p'eng (1864), c h . 10, p. 10a.

22

Ch'en Tzu-lung et al., M in g c h in g -sh ih w e n -p ie n , 6 vols. (1962), c h . 205, p. 2158.

149

120

BEGINNINGS the coast of Chao-an, Fukien, at Tsou-ma-ch'i .23 Of these, sixteen were identified to be white foreigners, forty-six black foreigners, twenty-nine foreign women, and over one hundred Chinese pirates .24 In fact, even before this incident occured, Chu Wan had sent many memorials to the throne in which he reported in detail the smuggling activities of the Por­ tuguese with the help of their Japanese and Chinese collaborators. In a lengthy memorial pushing for capital punishment to be given to captured smugglers, Chu, with reference to different events, listed the results of his investigations. In the words of So Kwan-wai: Of the three dark-skinned barbarians, two had been bought by the Portuguese, one was hired as navigator and they had been aboard ship with ten Portuguese and the natives of Chang-chou and Ningpo - altogether there were more than seventy aboard. Before their capture, they had plied between Chang-chou and Ningpo on the one hand and Japan on the other. They had come with pepper and silver in exchange for rice, cloth, and silk goods. They also related how they had been cheated by some Chinese traders or peddlers.25

After the Tsou-m a-chl incident, the Portuguese were completely forced out of Chekiang and Fukien. Having thus been driven out of these provinces, the Por­ tuguese returned to the Canton area to carry on their clandestine trade. There are many records testifying to the vigorous trade carried on between Portuguese, Japanese and the Chinese inhabitants in the waters outside of Canton during the 1550s. The following account in Jih-pen i-chien is a good example: In the year i-m o u [1555] the Portuguese induced the Japanese to come and trade in Kwangtung waters. Chou Luan and others had the Japanese dress themselves as Portuguese and together they traded in Mai-ma street of Canton. And it was not after quite a while that they left Henceforth, year after year the Portuguese induced the Japanese to come and trade in Canton ...

23

So Kwan-wai, J a p a n e s e p ir a c y in M in g C h in a d u r in g th e 1 6 th c e n tu r y (East Lansing 1975), pp. 66-67.

24

I b id .

25

I b id ,, p.57.

150

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 121 In the year chi-wei |1559) of Chia-ching, the Censor Overseeing the Kwangtung Province, Pan Kuei-hsun, forbade the Portuguese to land and come to Canton but suffered them to trade at sea.26 This new activity of the Portuguese in Canton waters was closely related to the thriving Portuguese trade with Japan which was started in the early 1540s. The strong desire of the Portuguese to exploit further the Japan trade was soon to compel them to come to terms on a temporary basis with the Canton officials. But before going into this new era of Sino-Portuguese relations in detail, it is important to portray the background against which the whole Ming problem over the Por­ tuguese originated. The Portuguese arrived in China in the midst of a highly alerted Ming to defend the coastal areas, especially the Chekiang and Fukien provinces, as a result of havoc brought by numerous Wo-k'ou raids. The central government was trying to enforce stricter standards to the then permissible and highly-regulated 'tributary* system of trade with foreigners coming from the sea. Fortunately, the Portuguese had arrived at Canton where there were previous records of local officials relaxing the 'tributary trade' regulations in order to accommodate the trading needs of the foreigners. The Portuguese were, however, not satisfied with carrying out trade at the discretion of the local officials. The purpose of the visit of Femáo Peres de Andrade and Tomé Pires was to secure trading rights from the Chinese emperor. The Portuguese were soon to realize that insurmountable difficulties were awaiting them. Unlike the vassal states of the Ming, the Portuguese were interested in trade rather than in paying tribute to the Chinese emperor. Besides, the established code governing 'tributary trade' would not permit any participant whose name had not been listed. It was clear to the Portuguese envoy after consultations with the Can­ ton officials that the Portuguese, who could not claim any precedent of having tribute missions to China in the past, simply could not be accepted into the Chi­ nese order of diplomacy and trade. These basic differences in both their concepts and attitudes towards trade and contact soon led to frontal clashes between the Portuguese and the Ming govern­ ment. Tomé Pires gallantly tried to do the impossible. Nevertheless, his daring plan to reach the emperor failed. The case of the Portuguese being conquerors and warriors was brought to the throne in person by the envoy of the fugitive Malac­ can king. The hope of the Portuguese to achieve recognized status in the Chinese

26

Cheng Shun-kung, Jih-pen i-chien (lithoprint 1939), ch. 6, pp. 4b, 5b. 151

BEGINNINGS

122

world order was doomed. Reports that the Portuguese had repeatedly committed outrageous acts in the Canton areas barred any compromising attitude towards the foreigners. Even worse, these images of alleged notoriety were soon fortified by the Portuguese's actual show of military threat to the coastal areas as news arrived that the Portuguese were engaged in two confrontations with the Ming naval forces. To crown all these, the collusion between the Portuguese and the Japanese in carrying out smuggling along the Fukien and Chekiang coasts and later into Canton waters made it difficult for the mid-sixteenth century Ming government to erase the Wo­ le'ou images from these foreigners. Thus, with the unsavory images of being children-eaters, kidnappers, slavetraders, smugglers and marauders, the Portuguese fell into the category of bad peo­ ple who were unruly and predatory, tending to cause trouble and to disrupt the established order. The Portuguese thus constituted not only a worry for the authorities but a menace to the security of their fellow inhabitants. Accordingly, they needed to be kept under constant surveillance by the local officials. What dis­ tinguished them, however, from any other unruly and predatory tribal group on the land frontier menacing the government, was the formidability of their weaponry which was readily noted by the Ming observers from the beginning. This recognition of their superiority in weaponry had greatly enhanced Chinese official wariness over the first batch of Europeans. For they were found to be even more invincible in battle than the ferocious Japanese pirates who had been raiding the Ming coastal areas. As early as 1520 Censor Ho Ao noted that the Portuguese were "most fero­ cious and crafty-' and that their skill in the use of armaments was unequalled among other foreigners. The reference was brief. But even though Ho Ao did not specify what the fearful armaments were he left little doubt in his remark following the reference that these were their battle ships and huge cannons .27 This awareness of Portuguese superiority in armaments was more spelled out in the memorial sub­ mitted to the emperor in 1523 by Wang Hung who was then Hai-tao fu-shih in Kwangtung. The Feringis (Portuguese) assumed to be so ferocious and rude in behavior simply because they possessed cannons and ships of such kind. Their cannons were unsurpassed by any weapons that we could come to know of from ancient ages.28

27

M S f ch. 325, p. 19a.

152

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 123 In fact, it took the Ming officials a considerable long time to develop this awareness into an urgent sense of fear.28229 Censor Ch'en Wu-te was one of the earli­ est to sound out this note of warning in his memorial to the emperor in 1569. In fact Ch'en was pressing for contingency measures to deal with the rebel-stricken Kwangtung province. He drew from his rich experiences in the area with the activ­ ities of the Portuguese and considered it vital to establish bureaucratic regulations to keep the foreigners under control. This proposal was made in connection with the search for workable methods to put down the rebel groups that had brought great havoc to Canton city and its vicinity. Ch'en had been eye-witness to the predatory behavior of some Portuguese that included kidnapping, the resistance against Chinese official jurisprudence and intriguing with local renegades. All these convinced Ch'en of the urgent need for prompt action to defend Canton. But what in fact alarmed him most was the military prowess of the Portuguese.30 Ch'en was the only Ming observer to leave us with a detailed account of his impressions which left an indelible imprint on the minds of Chinese officials: ... the Feringis ... were more ferocious in nature and more ingenious in the use of armaments than even the W o -k 'o u . Last year bandit Tsang (I-pen), with his full force, attacked them [Feringis) who numbered less than a thousand but Tsang had to withdraw to a distant place having suffered heavy casualties in the encounter. We ought to learn about their [the Portuguese) strength from this.31

Tsang I-pen was a most feared rebel-leader in the Canton area around that time. He laid siege to the city in 1568 for about ten days and even though he failed to take over the city at the end he had brought great destruction to the Kwangtung water forces and a nightmare to both officials and residents in the city.32 It was

28

Yen Ts'ung-chien, c h . 9 , pp. 19-20 .

29

Ch'en Wu-te, H s ie h -s h a n c h 'u a n - k a o (1870 edition), eh . 1, pp. 31a- 32 b.

30

I b id ., p.

31

Ib id .

32

31a.

Tai Yu-hsuan, 'Kuan yu Ao-men li-shih shang so wei kan-chou hai-tao wen-t'i',

153

124

BEGINNINGS while retreating from Canton that Tsang and his forces possibly made an attempt to attack the Portuguese settlement in Macao on their way out to the seas. And it was precisely basing on the outcome of this encounter between Tsang's forces and the Portuguese that Ch'en Wu-te drew his conclusions on the military prowess of the foreigners. Ch'en's wanness appeared the more oppressive when linked to the anti-rebel phobia of the people in Canton and its surrounding areas and certainly did not fall on deaf ears in this rebel-bandit-pirate-stricken region. In fact Ch'en Wu-te's wariness over the military prowess of the Portuguese had been foretold by the military commander in the Canton area, Yu Ta-yu, a few years back in 1564. Yu at the time harbored a grave dislike for the unruly behavior of the Portuguese following his successful suppression of the mutiny of the mar­ itime defense unit at Che-lin in Chao-chou prefecture. This was shortly after Yu had enlisted the services of foreign ships from Macao to help in the suppression but then found the behavior of the Portuguese intolerable since they "had pre­ sumed upon their meritorious services to behave perversely".33 Yu even urged the use of force to subdue the Portuguese and in his estimation of their strength did show respect for the Portuguese armaments: "Their firearms are quite well-made and their cannons formidable ."34 As a military commander Yu certainly would not consider the Portuguese unbreakable since the Chinese supreme strategem would count at the very end but he did warn that "if we fail to make the move now we will not be able to defeat them later".35 The images of Portuguese as children-eaters, kidnappers and slave-traders and above all, defying Chinese bureaucratic regulations and interference and also as possessors of superior weaponry, could not have branded the foreigners a more subversive label. But provincial officials in Canton were still trying hard to find means whereby the Portuguese could be permitted to trade without posing any formidable threat to the dynasty or nation. These officials certainly had good rea­ sons for such pursuits. Following the expulsion of the Portuguese from Canton,

C h u n g -s h a n ta -h s u e h h s u c h -p a o , 3 (1975), pp. 153-4.

33

Yii Ta-yu, C h e n g -c h 'i- t'a n g c h i (fascimile reproduction of Ming edition, 1934), ch . 15, pp. 40-41.

34

Ib id .

35

Ib id .

154

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 125 restrictions on trade were once more being re-enforced in the area. These were applied to all foreigners. This meant that trade with the Southeast Asian states was permissible only on the basis of the highly-regulated Tributary system". As a result, the trading activities in Canton greatly diminished and the local economy suffered. This brought a heated debate between provincial officials and the policy­ making central officials on an old issue - whether restrictions should be relaxed in the midst of very pressing needs. Two dominant themes emerged as a result of this great debate in 1530 between supporters for a prohibitive policy for maritime trade and the abolition­ ists, who favoured regular but controlled trade. The first was a well-founded fear that the Portuguese and their like might disrupt the peace and therefore threaten security along the coast. This was shared by both parties. The abolitionists speci­ fied that the Deputy Commissioner of Maritime Defense and the Commander of Coastal Defense Against Wako in places like Tung-kuan district and Nan-t'ou should examine all ships approaching the ports with greater vigilance. Foreigners like the Portuguese who failed to present credentials for participation in tributary trade should be barred from the coastal areas and subdued by military force should they choose to resist. The prohibitionists stressed, however, the effectiveness of putting severe penalities on those who tried to trade with foreign ships in order to discourage foreign ships from coming. The second theme was the value of mar­ itime trade. Here, there was a sharp rift between the two groups. The supporters of a prohibitive policy considered trade with maritime states merely as a means to pacify them so that the security of the coastal areas could be maintained. There was little substantial profit to be gained from such trade which ought to be prohib­ ited when its continuation became a menace to coastal security. The abolitionists, on the other hand, were quite convinced of the vital contribution of maritime trade to the economic well-being of the coastal provinces. They therefore advised resum­ ing regulated trade even at the risk of possible pillages by the Portuguese which they thought could be warded off by tightening maritime defensive measures. These two themes were to determine, to a large degree, the attitude of Ming offi­ cials toward the presence of Portuguese in China, be it hostile or sympathetic.

155

8

Early English Trade and Settlement in Asia, 1602-1690 D.K. Bassett

T H E English colonies of the seventeenth century were founded by a variety of agencies and assumed many forms. There was, however, a basic distinction between the plantation colonies of the North American seaboard and those of the West Indies, on the one hand, whether deriving from proprietary grants to noble­ men or from company charters, and on the other hand, the system of forts and factories adopted by the London merchant companies which enjoyed the national monopoly o f trade with West Africa and Asia. The scale of settlement was totally different, and so was the economic function. The white population of Barbados, for example, was about 37,000 by 1643, although it fell to 20,000 later in the century as land came to be concentrated in the hands of a planter oligarchy.1 The Royal African Company’s merchants and soldiers in West Africa did not exceed 330 at any time during the century,2 while the East India Company’s establishment in Asia was probably about one thousand men in 1668-90. The difference was not only numerical. The presence of Englishmen in Barbados, Maryland or Virginia was proof per se o f local English sovereignty and colonisation. The opening of simple factories or trading posts in Asia did not confer local sovereignty upon the East India Company, nor were the factors who resided there colonists. English colonisation in Asia can be equated only with the acquisi­ tion of forts wholly under English control. Madras, acquired by the Company in 1639, only partially met these requirements, because the Indian state of Golconda retained certain rights over the revenue as late as 1680-1. In this sense a proper English colony existed in Asia only after Portuguese Bombay was transferred to 1 V. T. Harlow, A History of Barbados (Oxford, 1926) 338- 40. 2 K. G. Davies, The Royal African Company (1957) 241- 52.

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Charles II in 1665. The slow transition of the Company from a commercial to a limited imperial role is examined in this paper. The East India Company’s monopoly of English trade with Asia, with only minor exceptions,1 was of paramount importance throughout the seventeenth century. English ambitions in Asia rarely transcended those of the Company. Since the Company’s possessions in Asia were limited to a few city-ports with a predominantly alien population, there was neither scope nor incentive for the Crown to assert its own authority as it did in the white settler colonies of North America and the West Indies. The Commonwealth’s expedition against pro-royalist Barbados in 1652, the capture of Spanish Jamaica in 1655 and the resumption of royal rights in Barbados and the Leeward Islands by Charles II in 1663 were the prelude to stronger metropolitan control in America, through royal governors subordinate to the Committee of Plantations.2 The only parallel in Asia was the brief royal administration of Bombay in 1665-8, but this did not infringe the Company’s privileges. The Company was already well suited to the imperial trade system. Its imports and exports were carried to and from London on English ships with English crews, so that the Navigation Acts, which imposed similar restrictions on the trade of the North American and Caribbean colonies, were irrelevant. The development of royal government in the North American and Caribbean colonies, together with their acknowledged importance in the imperial trade system, won them a certain measure ofnational protection, admittedly inadequate, in European wars.3 Even the Royal Adventurers trading to Africa (1663) and the Royal African Company (1672) enjoyed occasional support 1 The Company's monopoly was broken by Courteen's Association in 16 3 5- 49 , with Charles I’s connivance, and by individual interlopers in 1654 - 7 , before Cromwell granted a new charter to the Company. Interlopers were active again after 1680 , and a rival East India Company existed from 1698 to 170 8 . But the newcomers added little to the old Company’s existing establishment in Asia, unless one includes two short-lived colonies in Madagascar in 16 4 5-6 and

164SH50.

* A. P. Thornton, West-lndia Policy under the Restoration (Oxford, 1956 ) passim; Harlow, 6 1 if. * Thornton, 94- 5 , 12 6 , 12 9 , 238 - 5 2 ; A. P. Newton, The European Nations in the West Indies, 1 4 9 3 - 1 688 (19 3 3 ) 237 »247 - 50.

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from the Royal Navy against rival European states and domestic interlopers, because o f the repercussions of Stuart foreign policy, the importance of slaves to tne West Indian sugar economy, and the personal connection of James, Duke of York, with the Royal African Company.1 The only occasion before 1683 on which Royal Navy ships appeared in Asian waters was in 1662-3, when the Earl of Marlborough was sent to Bombay to effect the formal transfer o f the island to the English Crown.2 Because o f the differ­ ent pattern of English settlement in Asia, there was also no local counterpart o f the buccaneers o f Jamaica, who were a semi­ official substitute for the Royal Navy in the Caribbean until the Anglo-Spanish treaty of Madrid in 1670.3 Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-Portuguese controversies in Asia were certainly matters for European diplomacy, but the East India Company was ex­ pected to fend for itself in Asia. The primary function of the East India Company was to obtain Asian commodities and sell English manufactures,4 not to promote colonisation, but in terms o f policy the two roles need not have been mutually exclusive. The Portuguese, who establish­ ed a chain of forts around the Arabian Sea, in Ceylon, Malacca and the Spice Islands early in the sixteenth century, regarded trade and political power as complementary. The Dutch, who had forts in the Spice Islands by 1605 and a headquarters in Batavia by 1619, soon reached the same conclusion. The English company, however, was not motivated by the crusading tradition of early Portuguese expansion or by Dutch belligerency against Spain and Portugal; nor did it aspire to that monopoly o f valuable Asian commodities which underlay Portuguese and Dutch actions, and which ultimately led the Dutch to extend their warlike methods to specific Asian states. English restraint was dictated by circum­ stances rather than by any superior morality. The factory system 1 Davies, 42 , 10 3 , 10 6 , 1 0 7 1 1 . 5 , 1 1 4 - 1 5 . 15 6 . * The Portuguese governor of Goa evaded delivery of Bombay until February 16 6 5 : S. A. Khan, ‘The Anglo-Portuguese Negotiations Relating to Bombay, 1660 - 16 7 7 *,J . In dian H isto r y , I (1 9 2 1 - 2 ) 442 - 66 . » Thornton, 76 - 1 2 3 ; Newton, 2 32 - 3 , 256 - 7 7 . ♦ K .N . Chaudhuri, T h e E n g lish E ast In d ia C o m p a n y (1965 ) 1 3 , argues that imports from Asia were far more important to the Company than exports of English cloth. This was so in practice, but the Company’s anxiety to sell English cloth in Japan in 1 6 1 3 - 2 3 and 16 7 3 , in Siam in 1674 - 84 , and even at a loss in Indonesia in the 1660 s, certainly influenced policy.

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was the cheapest method of carrying on overseas trade: in the early days shareholders even in the Dutch company deplored the drain on dividends involved in maintaining forts and warships.1 The English company, with inferior organisation and capital, was unlikely to favour the building o f forts unless the factory system was palpably unsuitable and unless it had the resources and opportunity for building forts. A highly complex international commerce already existed in Asia in which, with minor exceptions, the English could partici­ pate freely. They were not denied access to the important traditional coastal entrepots, so long as these remained under indigenous government. The accessibility of inland production areas o f calicoes, indigo, silk or pepper varied, but the method of purchase adopted by the English was determined as much by convenience as by restrictions on movement imposed by an Asian government. The direct buying o f calicoes and indigo in Ahmadabad, Broach, Burhanpur or Lahore for transport to Surat, for example, was much easier than boating a hundred miles up a Sumatran river to buy pepper in the hills - for which Chinese middlemen were usually employed. In any case, after a period of scarcity, the supply o f most of the commodities sought by the English and Dutch responded to the increased demand. Initially, therefore, the factory system was well suited to English needs. It was unnecessary to foster a new plantation economy like the West Indian, based ultimately on sugar and imported slave labour; nor was it necessary, as in West Africa, to build forts for protection against rival Europeans and as stable markets in a more primitive economy. Unlike the fragmented coastal tribes of West Africa, the mainland Asian governments, and even the major Indonesian sultanates until 1660, could guarantee the safety of English factories against Dutch or Portuguese attack. The pattern of English settlement in Asia was not only deter­ mined oy existing opportunities for free trade and the Company’s antipathy to expensive fortresses; an Asian government which could ensure English immunity vis-^-vis other Europeans could also thwart an English attempt to acquire a local fort by force. Few Asian governments welcomed European encroachments upon their territory or sovereignty. Indeed, the reputed Indonesian 1 K. Glamann, D u tc h -A s ia tic T rade , 1620-1740 (Copenhagen-The Hague, 19 5 8 ) 7-S. 86

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insistence upon English factories being built of easily destruc­ tible timber and palm leaves was ascribed by contemporaries to the conversion o f the Dutch stone factory at Jakarta into the fort o f Batavia in 1618-19. h* West Africa the choice between building forts or factories seems to have lain with the European companies, perhaps because the African coastal chiefs welcomed a stable market in either form. African attacks upon the forts were usually provoked by the occupants or instigated by rival Europeans, and the struggle for possession o f the forts was predominantly interEuropean, especially during national wars.1Admittedly in Asia the Dutch conquests in Malabar, Ceylon and Malacca were wrested in similar fashion from the declining Portuguese, but the Dutch attitude to indigenous states was more aggressive than in Africa, because their subjects flouted Dutch restrictions on Asian mari­ time trade. During the seventeenth century the Dutch imposed unprecedented restraints upon the expansionist plans of Achin in Sumatra and Mataram in Java. They also conquered the sultanate o f Gowa-Tallo’ (Macassar) in Celebes in 1667-9 and of Bantam in west Java in 1682. N ot even the Dutch, however, could challenge the powerful mainland governments of Persia or Mogul India, except indirectly by naval blockade. The English com­ pany, which was much weaker than its Dutch counterpart in capital and shipping, could hope to acquire its own political base in Asia only by peaceful negotiation, either directly from an Asian government, or indirectly from the hard-pressed Portu­ guese through Anglo-Portuguese national diplomacy. It was the latter arrangement which finally secured Bombay for the Company. The Company’s activities in Asia in the first thirty years o f the seventeenth century had two main aspects: the creation of an extensive system of factories and a reluctant trial of strength with the Dutch and Portuguese. In both respects the Company was hampered by its weak organisation and capital. Until 1613, when it adopted the joint-stock system, the Company sent out a series o f separate voyages, so that the opening of factories was slow and sporadic. The Company’s first factory was opened at Bantam in west Java in 1602, but no additions were made for a decade. Masulipatam in Golconda, on the east coast of India, was opened in 1611 and Surat, on the western seaboard of the Mogul 1 Davies, 263 - 4 , 266 - 8, 272 , 2 8 1 - 4 , 286 .

87

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Dutch and English

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 133

in the Far East, ca. 1680

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FORMAL PRESENCES BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS IN BUROPB AND ASIA

empire, in 1612. The first Far Eastern factories were established in Patani and Ayuthia (the capital of Siam) in 1612, and at Hirado in Japan in 1613, Macassar in Celebes and Jambi in east Sumatra were added to the Company’s Indonesian factories in 1613 and 1615. The Company’s trade in Persia began at Jask in 1616 and was subsequently moved to Gombroon. In broad terms, the Indian factories supplied textiles for Indonesia, calicoes and indigo for London; the Persian trade was mainly in silk for London; the Indonesian factories sent pepper and spices to England; Patani and Ayuthia marketed textiles for local products; and Japan was mistakenly treated as a promising market for English broadcloth and woollens. After the reorganisation of 1613, presidencies were created at Bantam and Surat, which supervised the factories in eastern and western Asia respectively. A contemporary development was Anglo-Dutch rivalry in the Spice Islands, the only source of cloves, mace and nutmegs. Realising Dutch monopolistic intentions there belatedly, the English wrested a precarious foothold in the Banda Islands in 1615-16, but suffered heavy naval losses at Dutch hands in 16181619, when local officials resorted to war. The Company was saved from further disasters by the Treaty of Defence of July 1619, by which it joined the Dutch in an antd-Catholic naval offensive in Asia and assumed a third o f the cost of the Dutch forts in the Spice Islands in return for a third o f the spices.1 In practice, mutual suspicion was too strong and the English company lacked the means to meet its political obligations without neglecting its many factories. In February 1623 Anglo-Dutch recrimination culmin­ ated in the Dutch execution o f the English merchants in the Spice Island of Amboina, on a charge of conspiracy to overthrow the Dutch government. This episode, known in England as ‘the Amboyna Massacre’, is sometimes claimed to have caused a drastic retrenchment o f the English factories in Indonesia and the Far East. In fact, the English president at Batavia had already decided to withdraw his agents in the Spice Islands as an economy measure. He had also recalled the Company’s factors in Patani, Ayuthia and Japan because the trade was unprofitable. The Amboina Massacre was a dramatic epilogue, which simply confirmed the English decision to vacate the Spice Islands, ended 1 Sir W. Foster, England*s Quest ofEastern Trade (1933) 165-9,198-207, 253-75 '» EFI, 1618-1621, pp. xxxviii-xliii.

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HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 135 EARLY ENGLISH TRADE AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA

Anglo-Dutch collaboration in Indonesia, and provided antiDutch propaganda as late as the Anglo-Dutch war o f 1672-4.1 In western Asia, English free trade was opposed by the Portuguese, who held fortresses at Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, Muscat on the Arabian coast, and Goa on the west coast of India. Unlike the Dutch in the Spice Islands, the Portuguese could not compel the Mogul and Persian governments to exclude the English, but they could destroy English shipping and reputation. In fact, the English ships at Swally, the anchorage near Surat, defeated the Portuguese galleons in 1612 and 1615. Captain Shilling was equally triumphant off Jask in the Persian Gulf in 1620, although he was mortally wounded.2 In 1622 the English fleet helped the Persians to capture the Portuguese fortress of Ormuz. This, incidentally, was the only aggressive action o f the English company in Asia until 1686 and was undertaken by the local merchants and sea-captains under pain of Persian reprisals on their silk trade.3 Swally was raided by the Portuguese as late as 1630, and until 1634 the English president at Surat sent ships to Madagascar or the Comoro Islands to protect merchant ships coming from London. Anglo-Dutch collaboration in western Asia survived the Amboina Massacre in consequence. The Anglo-Dutch fleet which blockaded Goa and Mozambique in 1621-3 was created by the Treaty o f Defence, but the joint Anglo-Dutch voyages to Persia in 1625, 1626, 1628 and 1629 were arranged spontaneously for mutual protection against the Portuguese. The raid on Portuguese Bombay in 1626 was an Anglo-Dutch venture. Fortunately for the English, the Portuguese were principally concerned to defend their over-extended empire against the Dutch. One of their best commanders, Ñuño Alvares Botelho, was killed in Sumatra in 1630. In January 1635, the hard-pressed Portuguese viceroy, the Conde de Linhares, and Methwola, the president at Surat, thankfully signed a local truce, the Convention of Goa. The peace be1D. K. Bassett, The “Amboyna Massacre** of 1623*, Journal of Southeast Asian History, 1(2) (i960) 4-5,7-19. * The Voyage of Thomas Best, 1612-1614, ed. Sir W. Foster (Hakluyt Society, 1934) PP* xxvii-xxxi, passim; The Voyage of Nicholas Downton, 1614-1615, ed. Sir W. Foster (Hakluyt Society, 1939) pp. xxiii-xxv, passim; EFT, 1616-1621, pp. xxviii-xxix, 220-5. * EFI, 1622-1625 (1908) pp. vii-xii, 13-16,31-8, 56,64, 82.

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came official after the Anglo-Portuguese treaty o f May 1642.1 Anglo-Duteh and Anglo-Portuguese hostilities did not weaken the Company’s preference for factory trade. The issue between the English and Dutch before 1623 was that of English access to the Spice Islands, and it was only this which was denied to them after the Amboina Massacre. Elsewhere in Indonesia the major sultanates were still independent, and the English factory system could still function. Indeed, there was no other possibility unless the Company was willing and able to conquer them, as the Dutch had conquered Jakarta. Similarly, the Anglo-Portuguese struggle had been fought at sea and die status of the English merchants ashore was involved only indirectly. In the heat of the war, the Company had considered acquiring its own base on the west coast of India. Bombay was mentioned in this connection by the Company’s merchants at Surat in 1626 and 1628, but the outlay to make it defensible was too great. The other English project, also raised in 1628, was the acquisition by negotiation o f Danda Rajpuri or Jaitapur on the coast of Bijapur, but the Indian refusal to cede these ports was not contested by the Company.2 Once Anglo-Portuguese hostilities ceased, Bombay could be acquired only by negotiation. The Company’s factors in Persia and Surat raised this possibility in 1640 and 1653-4,3 and even the directors hoped that Cromwell would obtain Bombay or Bassein for them in the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of July 1654.4 The Dutch company had resumed its attacks on Portuguese Asia in 1652, but it was not until 1661 that Charles II agreed to help, if need be, in its defence. It was this political commitment, which the Company itself would never have incurred, that induced the Portuguese to transfer Bombay. English trade in Indonesia after 1623 was much larger than is usually realised. The factories at Jambi and Macassar were retained and the presidency was re-established at Bantam in 1628. The factories at Bantam and Jambi normally supplied all the l EFI, 1630-1633 (1910) pp. xxxv-xxxvii; EFI, 1634-1636 (1911) pp. vii-xi, 8 O—I,

88-9(S.

1 Khan, 423-6; EFI, 1624-1629 (1909) pp. rxi, xxvi-xxviii, 159, 197-9, 242-3, 250-61. 3EFIt 1637-1641 (1912) 228; EFI, 1631-1634 (1915) pp. xv, 169-70, 272. British losses in the Persian Gulf in the Second Anglo-Dutch War influenced the factors on the latter occasion. 4 Ibid., p. xxiv; Khan, 429-30.

92

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 137 EARLY BNGLISH TRADE AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA

pepper which the Company could conveniently sell, while efforts to open other factories in Borneo and Sumatra were sporadic and half-hearted. Until 1643 the Company supplemented its annual pepper investment (about one million lb.) with cloves smuggled to Macassar from Amboina, but the Dutch then subdued the Ambonese rebels. The Company still had no difficulty in obtain­ ing Indonesian pepper, but its exports were determined by a very competitive and relatively inelastic European market. A heavy over-supply o f seven million pounds in 1648-50, coupled with the loss o f the Company’s national privileges after the Civil War, led to a drastic cut in the Company’s Indonesian trade in 1651-7. After the Company’s charter was renewed by Cromwell in 1657 and Charles II in 1661, English purchases o f pepper were unprecedented, averaging 3.4 million pounds annually in 1669-82. Because o f heavy Dutch, French and Danish competition, Bantamese pepper became unprofitable in London by 1682 and the Company had to reduce its purchases again.1 Although the Company’s trade in Indonesia continued, its trade in India became more important. The Surat presidency extended English trade to Sind (1635), Rajapur (1637), Basra (1640-1) and the Red Sea ports o f Mocha and Suakin in the 1640s. The Anglo-Portuguese truce o f 1635 permitted occasional English voyages from Surat to the Malabar pepper-ports of Cochin and Calicut in the 1640s, although the Portuguese con­ ceded this grudgingly after their truce with the Dutch in Asia in November 1644. On the eastern side of India, English trade expanded from the original factory o f Masulipatam to Armagon in 1626 and to Viravasaram, Motupalli, Golconda and Petapoli in 1630. The first factories in Orissa were opened at Hariharpur and Balasore in 1633. The Bengal factory o f Hugh was added in 1651. These developments in mainland Asia were the English response to the natural commercial opportunities of the region, not a reaction to English retrenchment in Indonesia. The Indian and Indonesian markets were complementary, not mutually exclusive. Many o f the new factories in eastern India were opened in the 1630s to obtain cloth for Indonesia and for England during the great famine affecting Surat. On the other hand, some o f the commodities available in the mainland factories - such as calicoes, indigo, silk, saltpetre and sugar - found an expanding market in 1Bassett,

‘Amboyna Massacre', 8-18.

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England,1 •which contrasted with the relatively static and pre­ cariously profitable demand for Indonesian pepper. Thus the superior attractions of the Indian markets probably ensured a pre­ ponderance o f English investment there, even though the actual English investment in Indonesia was greater in the 1660s and 1670s than it had ever been. It has already been suggested that the English company was unlikely to modify its exclusively commercial style of establish­ ment in Asia unless it was convinced o f the political instability of the indigenous governments which admitted its factories. It might also do so if it became seriously dissatisfied with the conditions under which an Asian government permitted it to trade. In the Indonesian sultanates the English factors were pre­ pared to overlook the pre-emption o f commodities by the rulers and aristocracy, give them arms and presents, and transport their subjects on the Company’s ships to Mecca. They were never prepared, however, to become involved in Indonesian political rivalries. Like their countrymen in Surat during Prince Murad’s attack on the town in 1657, they preferred ‘to bee newtors. . . endevouring to doc our business, with a great deale o f submission and not much charge’.2The Dutch sometimes mistakenly ascribed to the English Company territorial ambitions similar to their own. They interpreted an English mission in 1643 to the Susuhunan of Mataram, die most powerful ruler in Java, as an attempt to obtain Bangka. In fact Cartwright, the English envoy, was simply seek­ ing minor commercial adjustments in Japara.3 The English company was offered Bangka by the ruler of Jambi in 1643 and Billiton by die Susuhunan in 1651, but neither offer was accepted. The English also avoided political commitments to the Indonesian sultanates against the Dutch company. The English factors at Macassar, in the sultanate of Gowa, certainly gave financial encouragement to the Malays andJavanese who smuggled cloves from Dutch Amboina and they probably influenced Sultan 1 Chaudhuri, 144-$, 171-2, 173-206, esp. 190-203; Bal Krishna, Commercial Relations between India and England, 1601 to 1737 (1924) 139-30. * E F I, 16 5 5 -16 6 0 (1921) 124.

1H. J. de Graai) 'De Regering van Sultan Agung, Vorst van Mataram, 16131643’, V K I, x x m (1958) 266-7; IOL, Original Correspondence, no. 1790, fos 6-7, Bantam presidency to Surat, 23 July 1642. 94

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Hassan Udin o f Gowa to begin his last catastrophic war with the Dutch in 1666-9 by claiming fictitious English victories in the Second Anglo-Dutch war. Yet there was never any question o f official English support for Gowa, even though the defeat o f the sultanate inevitably led to the expulsion o f all non-Dutch Europeans.1 The Company also ignored an appeal from Sultan Abdul Fatah to break the three-year Dutch blockade of Bantam in 1659, preferring to claim damages in Europe for the temporary interruption o f its trade.12 In 1663 the Queen of Achin in north Sumatra demanded English protection in return for commercial privileges in the west Sumatran pepper trade, which the Dutch and Achin had shared since 1641. The Dutch had already begun to oust the Achmesc panglimas (governors) from the west coast ports, but the English president at Surat could not assist Achin and admitted subsequently that English access to the ex-Achinese dependencies could only be secured by an Anglo-Dutch agreement in Europe.3 Experienced English factors had no illusions about Dutch naval supremacy in Asia, exemplified in all the AngloDutch wars of the period. The English trust in factories under Indonesian protection was finally shattered in the 1680s. By then they had already been expelled from Macassar. The Company’s factory at Jambi was destroyed in a Malay raid in 1679. As the profit margin on Bantamese pepper in London dwindled in the 1670s, the Company made repeated appeals to Sultan Abdul Fatah to reduce his ex­ cessive export duty. He refused and also connived at the murder of the leading English merchants in Bantam in 1677. This tragedy evoked from the new English agent at Bantam the first known suggestion that the Company should conquer Bantam or seize an alternative site for a fort in Bangka Strait.4 The directors 1D. K. Bassett, ‘English Trade in Celebes, 1613-1667*, Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society9xxxi (1) (1958) 5-7, 9-10, 14-15, 35, 37. Apparently the British factors at Macassar fired cannons at the invading Dutch in 1667, but they were belligerents at the time and remained prisoners of war at Batavia until 1668; see *Sja*ir Perang Mengkasar: the Rhymed Chronicle of the Macassar War*, e d . C. Skinner, VKI, XL (1963) 145,267-8. *IOL, Original Correspondence, no. 2680, Sultan Abdul Fatah to EIC, 21 February 1659. 3 EFT, 1661-1 664 (1923) 316,322-3; EFJ, 1663-1667 (1925) 21,34. 4IOL, Original Correspondence, no. 4285, ‘Propositions* of Abel Payne, May(?) 1677.

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preferred to press the sultan to bring the murderers to justice, but when the Dutch expelled the English from this last Indonesian factory in April 1682, after intervening in a Bantamese dynastic struggle, the Company’s attitude changed. The reappraisal o f policy which followed is best examined against the background o f similar changes in mainland Asia. In India and Persia, as in Indonesia, the Company relied ini­ tially upon the goodwill of the indigenous governments. Their independence from European control was never in question. If local conditions became intolerable, the only remedies open to the Company were to withdraw its factors and impose a naval blockade. In practice, the English factors at Surat were hampered, as in 1621-2, by their failure to withdraw before Indian ships were pillaged or, as in 1623-4, by the need to return ashore eventually in order to resume their trade. In every case they were forced ultimately to pay compensation for their depredations and some of them, including President Rastell in 1624, were imprisoned temporarily.1 The Company then abandoned the idea of naval reprisals for over thirty years, even paying compensation in 1632 and 1636 for the depredations of privateers, with which it had nothing in common except nationality.2 Thus there was no English parallel with the Dutch attack on Kishm in the Persian Gulf in April 1645, their blockade of Gombroon in 1648, or their seizure 01 Mogul imperial ships in 1649. The English captain, Allison, might be tempted, after some of his crew were killed at the Gombroon customs post in 1642,‘to beate theire durty brittle town & castle about theire eares’, but English goods and merchants ashore were too vulnerable.3 The same restraint was usually observed on the eastern side o f India. The English factors withdrew from Masulipatamin 1628-30 and seized a few coastal ships because of the abuses of the local Golcondan governor, but returned without gaining new privileges after a stalemate. The Dutch naval blockade of 1629 was much 1EF/, 1618-1621, pp. xnrii, xxxvi; EFI, 1622-1623, pp. xv-xix, xxii-xxiii, xxix-xxxiv; EFI, 1624-1629, pp. v-viii. * EFI, 1630-1633, pp. xvi-xvii; EFI, 1634-1636, pp. xix-xxv. The privateers Quail in 1631-2, Cobb and Ayres in 1635-6 - held commissions from Charles I. In a sense they resembled the buccaneers of Jamaica, but their actions were wholly detrimental to the Company, whereas the buccaneers helped to protect English interests in the Caribbean. » EFI, 1642-1643 (1913) 1. 96

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 141 EARLY BNGLISH TRADB AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA

more effective.1 Aaron Baker, the English factor at Viravasaram in Golconda, was imprisoned in 1637, allegedly for beating a brahmin, but the Company simply recalled and replaced him. The factors at Masulipatam contemplated blockading the port in 1638, but were restrained by the detention o f their colleague at the Golcondan capital.2 In 1656 the agent at Madras seized Mir Jumla’s ship, confident that the ex-general of Golconda faced disgrace at the Mogul court. In fact Mir Jumla’s subordinates closed the landward approaches to Madras in 1657-8 and stopped the Company’s trade at Masulipatam.3 When Mir Jumla became Aurangzeb’s commander-in-chief in Bengal, he hampered English trade there in 1659-60 and the Company’s directors, who deplored the seizure of 1656, immediately offered him com­ pensation.4 The acquisition of Madras in 1639 and the subsequent building of Fort St George did not mark a new belligerent English policy or a change in the Company’s subordinate standing in the Indian states. Madras was obtained as a promising locale for cloth manufacture from a minor Hindu nyak (feudatory chief), Darmala Venkatappa, by Francis Day of the Masulipatam factory.5 The understanding, later repudiated, was that the nyak would bear the initial cost of building the fort and be reimbursed. The presidencies at Bantam and Surat took no part in the decision, and the latter, which feared that the nyak would appropriate the fort for himself, was particularly anxious to dissociate itself.6 By 1652 Madras had prospered sufficiently to replace Bantam as the seat of the Company’s eastern presidency, but the Company’s status in Madras was wholly different from that o f the Portuguese in Goa or the Dutch in Batavia. The Company administered Madras as the diwan7 of various Indian governments, not in full sovereignty. As Hindu-Muslim warfare raged in the hinterland of Madras, the 'EFI, 1624-1629, pp. xlvi-xlvii, 278, 280-4, 315-18. 339. 341» 357-8; EFI, 1630-1 634, pp. xi, 78. * EFI, 1637-1641, 28-9, 52-3,65,67-70,14a. * EFI, 1653-1660,92-7,137,174-6,186-7. * Ibid., 263-6, 275, 280-2, 286-8, 294-7, 389-94; EFI, 1661-1664, 40-2, 48-9, 148-9,157,164,290. * EFI, 1637-1641, pp. xxxvi-xliii, 154-8,166,183-5. 6 Ibid., 284-6. 7 The officer to whom the collection of revenue and the administration of civil justice were delegated. G

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Company negotiated new leases o f the town with Sri Ranga Rayalu, the Hindu rajah of Chandragiri, in 1645 and with Mir Jumla, the victorious general of Muslim Golconda, in 1647.1 Initially half the revenue of Madras from native trade had been paid to Darmala Venkatappa, but this was commuted to a fixed payment to Golconda in April 1658.2 In January 1672 the English responded to the repeated demands o f Neknam Khan, the nawab o f Golconda, that they admit his agent to Madras to collect half the revenue, by agreeing to pay arrears of 11,000 pagodas and increasing the annual payment to Golconda from 380 to 1,200 pagodas.3 Renewed pressure to admit a Golcondan official in 1680-1 was averted by further payments.4 The determination o f Sir William Langhom, the agent at Madras (1670-8), to maintain English neutrality at the expense ofhis nominal French allies during the Dutch-Golcondan siege o f S. Tomé in 1673-4 reflected English unwillingness to alienate Golconda.^ The only occasion before 1683 when the Company con­ templated war with an Asian state was in 1658-63, immediately after the Company’s domestic position had been immeasurably strengthened by Cromwell’s new charter of 1657. The Company feared a prolonged civil war in the Mogul empire because o f Aurangzeb’s deposition o f the emperor, Shah Jahan, and his subsequent struggle for power with his brothers in 1658-9. Recent Dutch successes against the Portuguese in Ceylon, the Dutch threat to the Portuguese possessions in western India, and the fear that the Dutch might then blockade Surat, as they had Bantam in 1656-9, also modified the Company’s pacific tradition.6 An English base on the west coast of India seemed an immediate necessity. The directors still hoped to buy Danda Rajpuri or Portuguese Bombay and Bassein, but their anxiety to have ‘some place that wee might call our owne’ led them to suggest in March 1659 that an incident in 1621 with Bijapur might provide the 1EFI, 1642-1645, pp. xxxiv, 305-6; EFI, 1645-1650 (1914) pp. xxviii, 166-7, 213-4. By the qaul or grant of 1645 the Company was allowed to administer justice in Madras. * EFI, 1655-1660,174. * EFI, 1661-1664, 277-8, 283, 285; EFI, new ser., n, ed. Sir C. Fawcett (1952), 8-15,23-6,32-40. 4 EFI, new ser., iv, ed. Sir C. Fawcett and P. Cadell (1955) 22-4,35-7,40-1. 1EFI, new ser., n 58-69,73-83,96-108. * CCM, pp. xxiv-xxv; EFI, 1655-1660,115-17,143-4,157,199,207,208 n. 2. 98

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 143 EARLY ENGLISH TRADE AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA

casus belli to conquer Danda Rajpuri.1 Since helping the Persians to capture Ormuz in 1622, the Company had been promised but never received a half-share o f the Gombroon customs revenue. As late as August 1655 the directors refused to blockade Gombroon to obtain it,2 but in April 1660 they changed their minds.2 Encouraged by the restoration o f Charles II, they planned to use the fleet later to seize Danda Rajpuri and blockade Surat to obtain better treatment.4 These aggressive proposals were welcomed in Surat by President Wyche ana Matthew Andrews, who tried unsuccessfully in 1659 to obtain Muscat on the Arabian coast from the Imam of Oman.5 The directors rejected the Muscat scheme in any case because they wanted the new base to be the depot of the Company’s trade in western India.6 Andrews, who succeeded Wyche as president in May 1659, failed to negotiate the peaceful cession of Bombay, Bassein or Danda Rajpuri, and he pressed again for naval attacks on the latter port, as well as on Gombroon and Surat.7 Fortunately, Andrews’s council at Surat rejected his suggestions in September 1660, referring specifically to the disastrous outcome of Rastell’s seizure of Indian ships in 1623-4.8 Andrews still hoped to begin the Gombroon blockade in April-May 1662, but the council again dissented, pleading insufficient ships, possible Dutch intervention to nullify the blockade, the risk ot repercussions in Surat, and the lack of an alternative base to which they could withdraw before­ hand.9 Sir George Oxenden, who replaced Andrews as president in September 1662, agreed with the council. He referred the decision to blockade Gombroon back to London in January 1663 and opposed the idea firmly a year later.10 The directors finally accepted his advice, influenced perhaps by better treatment of their employees at Surat11and by new developments in Europe and India. The Anglo-Portuguese treaty of June 1661 ceded Bombay to 1655-1660,151,207-8,208 n. 2. * Ibid., 25; cf. ibid., 172-3. »Ibid., 325-9,337-40. 4 Ibid., 335-45.337-40. • Ibid., 230-3. * Ibid., 320-1. f Ibid., 213-14,299-302,306,310-11,330-3. • Ibid., 315-17. • Ibid., 340-1; EFJ, 1661-1664,16-17. 10 Ibid., 97,100-3,121,192,203-5,213-14* 11 Oxenden achieved this soon after his arrival at Surat simply by giving the impression of being about to close the factory; ibid., 100-3. 1 EFJ,

99

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Charles II as part of the dowry of Catherine o f Braganza and bound Charles to defend the remaining Portuguese possessions in Asia against the Dutch if he failed to arrange a peace between them.1 In fact, the Dutch negotiated their own peace treaty in August 1661, but they had captured Portuguese Quilon, Cranganore, Cannanore and Cochin on the Malabar Coast before it became effective in Asia in March 1663.2 Thus Charles TVs military obligations to the Portuguese were never invoked in Asia, while the Company’s plans to counter Dutch gains in western India by wresting concessions from the Asian states were deferred by the Surat presidency until they lost their purpose. Dutch gains from the Portuguese in western India ceased and the English company’s complementary fear of civil war in the Mogul empire was stilled by the triumph of Aurangzeb. Thus in the pepper ports o f western India north o f Dutch Cochin the English company once again staked its commercial position, as in Indonesia, upon the resistance of the indigenous rulers to Dutch pressure. In Porokad, where an English factory had bee-nea in 1662, this trust was unjustified. The Dutch claimed a monopoly of pepper in Porokad as a dependency o f Cochin. The English factors ignored the demands of the intimi­ dated ruler that they leave, but their pepper investment dwindled, and they were captured by the Dutch in July 1665 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The English factories at Karwar (1659), in Bijapur, and at Calicut (1664), in the lands of the Hindu Zamorin,3 survived, despite a brief closure in 1666-8 because o f adverse internal conditions. By 1669 the president at Surat assumed, apparently righdy, that the Dutch had no intention o f trying to control pepper supplies north of Cochin.4 A new factory was opened at Tellicherry in 1682, and news of the loss of Bantam led the Company to increase its demand for pepper at Karwar and Calicut from about 600 tons in 1681 and 1682 to 2,100 tons in 1683.* This expectation was probably disappointed, but the pre• C C M , 1660-1663 (1922), p. sod; E F I, 16 6 1-16 6 4 , 123. * C C M , 1660-1663, p. xl; EFI, 16 6 1-16 6 4 , 125-6; M. A. P. Roelofsz, ‘De Vestiging der Nederlanders ter Kuste Malabar', V K I, IV (1943) 252-60, 262-70, 272-89,297-340,344-7,374* This term is a European corruption of Samudri Raja, meaning ‘King of the Seas’. ♦ E F I, 1668-1669 (1927) 260-1,268,271-3. • E F I, new ser., m, ed. Sir C. Fawcett (1954) 402,406. For Calicut's independent

100

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 145 EARLY ENGLISH TRADE AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA

eminent Dutch position in the pepper trade o f Malabar was partially offset throughout the eighteenth century by moderate English competition to the north. The reversion o f the English to wholly commercial objectives after the aggressive impulse of 1658-63 is apparent both in the Company’s policy at Karwar and Calicut and in its attitude to Bombay. The directors declined to take over the prospective colony when sounded on the subject by the Earl of Clarendon in the autumn of 1661 and did so only with reluctance in 1668.1 *1 The presence of a crown colony at Bombay in 1665-8 embarrassed rather than helped the Company in western India. Humphrey Cook, the royal lieutenant governor of Bombay, seized an Indian ship from Surat and hinted at forcing others to frequent Bombay. Both he and his successors, Sir Gervase Lucas ana Henry Gary, claimed the exclusive right to issue English passes to Indian ships, which the Mogul governor of Surat insisted should remain the prerogative of the Company’s president.2 Oxenden actually escorted Indian ships returning from the Red Sea to Surat in August 1668, in order to safeguard the Company’s commercial interests at Surat.3 Charles II hoped to restore unprofitable Bombay to the Portuguese for a cash payment in 1664-6, but finally transferred the island to the Company in 1668 for a loan o f £50,000 and an annual quit-rent of £10. Although the president at Surat then became nominally governor of Bombay, his infrequent visits to the island were made with the prior approval o f the Mogul governor o f Surat, and he returned to Surat when the latter pressed him to do so.4 Surat remained the Company’s trade centre; cloth production at Bombay was negligible and was actively discouraged in 1681, and the Company’s revenue there was inadequate. Bombay soon acquired many features of English rule, including a mint and civil and admiralty courts, but it was a precarious island sanctuary, not a platform for territorial expansion. The role in the pepper trade in the later eighteenth century, see A. Das Gupta, Malabar in Asian Trade, 1740-1800 (Cambridge, 1967) passim. 1CCM, 1660-1663 , pp. xxi-xxii, 137-8; CCAf, 1664-1667 (1925) pp. xxivxxv, 300-2,401,406,408-$; EFI, 16 6 1-16 6 4 ,124. 1EFI, 1663-1667 (1925) 70,181— 6,272-4,295; EFJt 166&-1669 (1927)7-11. * Ibid., 11-13. «Ibid., 190,205,207-8. IOI

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FORMAL PRESENCES BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS IN BUROPB AND ASIA

garrison, as in Madras, consisted of 150 to 200 English soldiers with an equal number o f Portuguese Eurasian militia. The directors insisted on retrenchment in 1679-82 and so provoked Keigwin’s rebellion in 1683-4, when the garrison defied them for eleven months, hoping to transfer Bombay again to the crown.1 The Bombay Marine took shape in the 1670s, but was largely an antipiratical force. The Mogul fleet under Sidi Kasim and Sidi Sambal wintered at Bombay almost every year from 1672 to 1684 in its contest with the Maratha leaders, Sivaji and Sambhaji. The English tolerated this under protest rather than jeopardise their investments at Surat. The Bombay government was also unable to prevent Sivaji’s seizure o f the nearby island o f Kenery in August 1679 or Sidi Kasim’s retaliatory occupation o f Hcnery Island in January 1680. That Bombay was not overrun by the resentful Marathas in 1678 and 1684 was because of Anglo-Mogul naval collaboration and the defence o f the overland approaches by the Portuguese, who were at war with the Marathas.2 The subsequent Anglo-Maratha entente o f 1684 was only possible because the rebellious Keigwin handled the Mogul fleet with unprecedented firmness, and it never came again to Bombay. The remarkable revision of the Company’s attitude to Bombay, indeed o f the whole basis o f its Asian trade, in 1683-90, merits closer analysis than is possible from the available published material. The new conviction that the Company’s investments should be concentrated in its own fortified settlements, that these should be increased in number and yield an adequate revenue, and 1EFI, new ser., in, pp. x ii-m i, 139 ff.; Dictionary of National Biography, X 1196-7. Richard Keigwin, formerly of the Royal Navy, served in Bombay in 1676-9, firstly as captain of the local cavalry troop and later as temporary commander of the naval squadron. In the latter capacity, he fought bravely against the Maratha fleet threatening Bombay in October 1679. He left for England at the turn of the year, because no further employment was available, but returned to Bombay in August x68x as commander of all military forces and third member of the council. Keigwin shared the garrison’s resentment at the Company's military economies and weak handling of the Mogul fleets which wintered at Bombay at this time. He joined and led, rather than instigated, the rebellion which bears his name. He showed restraint during the rebellion from December 1683 to November 1684, and was instrumental in persuading his soldiers to accept Sir Thomas Grantham's offer of a general pardon. He sailed to England on Grantham's ship in January 1685, rejoined the Royal Navy, and was killed leading a naval assault on St Christopher's in theWest Indies in June 1690. 2 EFI, new ser., m, pp. xxiii-xxiv, 7-8. 102

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 147 BARLY ENGLISH TRADB AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA

that the Company’s privileges should be maintained vigorously against English interlopers and Asian governments alike, is usually ascribed to Sir Josiah Child.1 Child certainly dominated the court of directors in London in the 1680s: he was governor o f the Company in 1681-3 and 1686-8 and deputy governor in 1684-6 and 1688-90.2 But his role is difficult to aefine, and his convictions may not have been unique. During his first governorship the directors still looked askance at Bombay and only resolved definitely to develop the island as the Company’s principal entrepot in India late in 1683.3SirJohnBanks had begun his year as governor in April 1683 and it was he, not Child, who also faced the problem o f the Dutch invasion of Bantam. The Company had arranged to send the 60-gun warship Charles II, under Sir Thomas Grantham, to Surat and Persia in order to enforce the king’s proclamation against the English interlopers who had flouted the Company’s monopoly since 1680. Grantham was also instructed to attack Persian ships unless the Company’s moiety of the Gombroon customs revenue was forthcoming. W hen he sailed in August 1683, he was sent first to Bantam to assist Sultan Abdul Fatah against his Dutch-backed son and to demand the fort and town in return. Grantham was to be followed by a large fleet under Sir John Wetwang or Captain John Nicholson,4 but in October 1683, under pressure from Charles II to avoid war with the Dutch, this reinforcement was cancelled, and Grantham was again ordered to sail directly to Persia.* Before he received the amended instructions in June 1684, Grantham had occupied Princes’ Island off the western point of Java, but he withdrew his men and sailed to Persia.6 He found seven Dutch ships attacking Kishm and the Persian army fully mobilised, and so he did nothing. After 1Sir W. Hunter, A History of British India, n (1900) 279 ff.; S. A. Khan, *The East India Company’s War with Aurangzeb’, Journal of Indian History, 1 (1921-2) 70-8; S. A. Khan, The East India Trade in the 17th Century (Oxford, 1923) 203 ff. * For details of Child’s standing in the directorate and domestic politics, see W. Letwin, Sir Josiah Child, Merchant Economist (Boston, Mass., 1959) 12-24. Letwin is concerned primarily, however, with Child’s theories on interest rates. There is no study of him comparable to that of his colleague in O. C. Coleman, SirJohn Banks, Baronet andBusinessman (Oxford, 1963). *EFI, new ser., m 155— 6. 4IOL, Letter Book vn, fos 199-203, 206-7: EIC to Grantham, 27 July and 1 August 1683, and EIC to Sultan Abdul Fatah of same dates. *Ibid., fos 223a, 223d: EIC to Grantham, 9 and 19 October 1683. 6 BM, Harl. MS. 4753, fos 2-10: Grantham’sjournal, May-June 1684.

103

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resolving Keigwin’s mutiny at Bombay, he sailed for England in January 1685. Since the recovery of Bantam was now unlikely, the Company sought an alternative site for a fort outside Dutch control in Sumatra and Malaya. Instructions to this effect were sent to Madras in October 1683, preference being given then to Achin in north Sumatra,1 although Silebar in south-west Sumatra, Kedah in north-west Malaya, and Johore on Singapore Strait were also recommended in the next three years.2 The objectives sought by Banks and his colleagues in Achin in 1683-4 also applied to the other places. They hoped to buy enough Indonesian pepper to deny the Dutch a monopoly, raise an adequate revenue, and promote Chinese immigration as at Batavia. Benkulen in south­ west Sumatra, where the agents from Madras finally settled in 1685, was badly placed in all respects. The directors deplored the choice,3 but the Company was to retain Benkulen, known successively as Fort York and Fort Marlborough, until 1825, rather than yield its share of Indonesian pepper. The decisions made in London before Child became deputy governor in April 1684 and governor in April 1686 suggest that his advocacy of fort-based trade was shared by his fellowdirectors. It may be significant, however, that after Grantham’s dispatch to Bantam the Company’s plans in South-East Asia did not involve force; even at Gombroon a peaceful setdement was preferred to war.4 Child’s mistake was to combine the general enthusiasm for self-supporting fortified entrepôts with a show of strength against Siam and the Mogul empire, which might yield additional forts incidentally. Anglo-Mogul relations at Surat had been remarkably amicable in the 1670s, but Aurangzeb’s raising o f the Surat customs duty from 2 to 3^ per cent in 1680 evoked hints o f force by 1684 mom the president, John Child, Josiah’s reputed kinsman. Sir George Oxenden was wiser in his day. In Bengal, the English factors suffered continuously after 1678 from 1IOL, Letter Book vn, fos 223e-223fj : EIC to Madras, 19 October 1683. * Ibid., fos 254, 326-7; Letter Book vm, fos 37,67: EIC to Madras, 29 February and 2 July 1684,14 January 1686. * The British in West Sumatra, 168.5-1825, ed. J. Bastin (Kuala Lumpur, 1965) pp. xi-xiiL The directors favoured Priaman, further north on the Sumatran coast, but their factors pleaded prior Dutch occupation. * IOL, Letter Book vn, fo 223a : EIC to Grantham, 9 October 1683.

104

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 149 EARLY ENGLISH TRADB AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA

a bewildering succession o f Mogul officials who extorted large bribes by impeding the Company’s trade, imprisoning factors and threatening to impose the 3^ per cent duty tor the first time.1 In Siam, the Company’s ten-year-old factory failed in 1684, so the directors believed, because o f the machinations o f Phaulkon, the Greek deputy foreign minister of Siam.2 English interlopers were welcomed in Surat and Bengal, while many former employees of the Company entered Siamese service, notably Samuel White, who became governor of Mergui, the chief Siamese port on the Indian Ocean. White and his English subordinates in the Siamese navy seized a number of ships registered in Madras, nominally as official Siamese reprisals against Golconda.3 Child was prepared to use force to recall these adventurers to their allegiance, suppress the interlopers and claim redress for other abuses from their Asian hosts.4 The directors authorised naval reprisals against Siamese ships in January 1686, but urged the capture and fortification of Mergui in October, after Child had become governor.5 In the latter month, while Captain Nicholson’s troops and warships were outward bound from London to demand redress from the Mogul emperor and seize Chittagong - under the impression it lay on the Ganges, - war broke out in Bengal. Two frigates were sent from Madras to Mergui in June 1687 to recall the local English community and issue an ultimatum to Siam, but in August there followed some slender reinforcements to help capture Mergui in keeping with Child’s latest instructions. The English ashore at Mergui had already been massacred in July 1687, as soon as the Siamese suspected Samuel White’s intention to surrender the port, and the Company lost heavily in ships and men before 1EFI, new ser., m, p. xxix; ibid., iv, passim. * D. K. Bassett, ‘English Relations with Siam in the Seventeenth Century*, Journal of the Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society, xxxiv (2) (1961) 98-104. For more sympathetic views of Phaulkon, seeJ. Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century (1890) and E. W. Hutchinson, Adventurers in Siam m the Seventeenth Century (1940). *White’s career and final predicament at Mergui are discussed most ably in M. Collis, Siamese White (1936). My references arc to the 1965 reprint. 4 See above, p. 103, n. 1. * Records of the Relations between Siam and Foreign Countries in the 17th Century, nr (Bangkok, 1920) 6, 37-9. The Siamese were claimed to be ‘a sheepish, cowardly people, like your Gentoos [Hindus], who will not fight*!

IO5

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FORMAL PRESENCES BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS IN EUROPE AND ASIA

withdrawing.1 The French company, with the support o f Louis XIV and the connivance of Pnaulkon, installed garrisons at Bangkok and Mergui in 1687-8, but they were expelled in the wave of Siamese resentment which overthrew Phaulkon in May 1688. In India, the English factories in the Surat area were destroyed, Bombay was besieged from February 1689 to June 1690, and in Bengal Job Chamock and his men found a tenuous refuge lower down the Ganges at Sutanati (Calcutta) and at Hijili. Had the Mogul government treated the affair as anything more than a minor irritant, the English would have been over­ whelmed. Suitably penitent, they accepted Aurangzeb’s peace terms in February 1690 and resumed trade on the old footing, except that their Bengal investment was based henceforth on Calcutta rather than Hugli. A month earlier the directors advised the Bombay government to make peace with Siam.2 If its political illusions were shattered, the commercial oppor­ tunities open to the Company in India and China were en­ couraging. English trade with China had developed almost fortuitously after the Company’s failure to gain readmission to Tokugawa Japan in 1673.3 By the end of the century, the ‘old’ Company and the New East India Company, which challenged its monopoly from 1698 to the amalgamation of 1708, had begun an intermittent but profitable trade with the Manchu régime at Amoy, Chusan and Canton.4 Trade was later confined to Canton. The closing of the Old Company’s extraneous factories in Siam (1684), Taiwan (1685) and Tongking (1697), all of which had been expected to supply the Japanese market, intensified English concentration in the Far East upon China. The New Company was similarly impelled by the destruction of its prospective Far Eastern entrepot at Pulo Condore, off the mouth of the Mekong, in 1705. The united East India Company ultimately benefitted from the expanding British demand for Indian and Chinese 1Ibid., 151-6, 169-77; Collis, 226-38, 262-4. White escaped the massacre and was a vocal critic of the Company after his arrival in England. * Records of the Relations between Siam and Foreign Countries, v (Bangkok, 1921) 106: *Pha[u)lkon is killed, and the French being gone our war is at an end with those people.* * D. K. Bassett, ‘The Trade of the English East India Company in the Far East, 1623-1684*,Journal ofthe Royal Asiatic Society (i960) 47,150-7. 4 H. B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, 16352834,1 (Oxford, 1926) 52-65,78-98,109-10.

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HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 151 EARLY ENGLISH TRADE AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA

commodities, while Indonesian spices and pepper, upon which the Dutch had expended so much effort, declined in relative importance. The Company’s political expansion in India, under wholly different circumstances later in the eighteenth century, and its domination of the Canton market helped to consolidate British ascendancy in Asia.

FURTHER READING i . Collections of Documents Letters received by the East India Companyfrom its Servants in the East, ed. F. C. D anvers and W . Foster, 6 vols (1896-1902), brings together the extant letters from the various Asian factories in 1602-17, drawn primarily from the Original Correspondence series at the India Office Library, London. The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies, 1513-1634, ed. W. N oel Sainsbury, 6 vols (1862-92), summarises the Court Minutes of the Company, the letters of the factors in Asia, and diplo­ matic papers relating to the Company until 1634. A Calendar of the Court Minutes etc. of the East India Company, 1635-1679, ed. E. B. Sainsbury, i i vols (Oxford, 1907-38) [CCM], carries the publication of the Court Minutes to its present limit. They include occasional policy decisions, as well as routine sales, price lists, the dispatch of ships and goods, the raising of capital and the election of officers. Vol 1 of the Court Minutes has been published verbatim as The Dau/n of British Trade to the East Indies, 1599-1603, ed. H. Stevens (1886) and vol ia as The First Letter Book of the East India Company, 1600-1619, ed. Sir G. B irdwood and W . Foster (1893; reprint 1965). The English Factories in India, 1618-1669, ed. W . Foster, 13 vols (Oxford, 1906-27) and The English Factories in India (New Series), 1670-1684, ed. Sir C. Fawcett, 4 vols (Oxford, 1936-54) [EH], are a magnificent collection of almost all the documentary material originating in the Indian factories in this period. Considerable attention is also paid to Persia, although this declines after c. 1660. All references to Indonesia and the Far East after 1623 have been omitted unless the Indian factories are directly involved. Each volume has a masterly introduction and commentary. Records of the Relations between Siam and Foreign Countries in the 17th Century (1607-1700), published by the Council of the Vajiranana National Library, 5 vols (Bangkok, 1915-21). These volumes have 107

FORMAL PRESENCES

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BRITAIN AND THB NETHERLANDS IN EUROPE AND ASIA

no introduction or commentary, but the documents of the second half of the century are particularly valuable, A better source for English activities in Siam in 1612-23 is Letters Received by the East India Company [above, p. 107] or W. H. M oreland, Peter Floris, his Voyage to the East Indies, 1611-1615 (1934). The British in West Sumatra, 1685-1825, eÁ J. B astin (Kuala Lumpur, 1965) includes documents describing early English settlement at Benkulen. There is an excellent general introduction. A more extensive collection can be found in P. W ink, ‘Eenige Archiefstukken betreffende de Vestiging van de Engelsche factory te Benkoelen in 1685*, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, lxtv (1924) 461-520. 2. Secondary Works A lexandrowicz, C. H .: An Introduction to the History of the Law of

Nations in the East Indies - 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries (Oxford, 1967). A scholarly survey of the interaction of Asian and European concepts of diplomatic and political relations before the assertion of complete European dominance in Asia. A nderson, J.: English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century (1890). Extensive quotations from documents but inclined to mis­ interpret them, especially in 1660-88. B al K rishna : Commercial Relations between India and England, 1601 to 1757 (1924)- A useful pioneer analysis of English import-export trade with Asia. C haudhuri, K. N .: The English East India Company: the Study of an Early Joint-Stock Company 1600-1640 (1965). An excellent descrip­ tion of the Company's internal financing, imports, exports and sales, with consequent repercussions on policy. C ollis, M.: Siamese White (1936). An impartial and perceptive study of Samuel White's career in Siamese government service. Foster, Sir W.: England's Quest of Eastern Trade (1933). Still the best account of early English travellers and merchants in Asia by the greatest historian of the East India Company. The book is devoted mainly to events before 1623. G lamann, K.: Dutch-Asiatic Trade, 1620-1740 (Copenhagen-The Hague, 1958). Some useful analogies between the Dutch and English East India Companies9 difficulties in buying and selling particular commodities. H utchinson, E. W .: Adventurers in Siam in the Seventeenth Century (1940). Very knowledgeable about the French connection with Siam until 1688, but has misunderstood the English company's attitude to some extent. 108

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 153 EARLY BNGLISH TRADE AND SETTLEMENT IN ASIA K han , S. A.: ‘The East India Company's War with Aurangzeb',

Journal of Indian History, i (1921-2) 70-91. A scries of extracts from the Company's letters to India in 1685-9 which casts indirect light on Sir Josiah Child’s policy. Khan also discusses Child's role in The East India Trade in the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1923), but there seems to be no adequate study of the development of policy in London at this time. M orse, H. B.: The Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, 1633-1834, 5 vols (Oxford, 1926-9). Vol. I has the best account of Anglo-Chinese negotiations and trade in Portuguese Macao and the Chinese ports, but is less concerned with the Company’s general policy. P ritchard, E. H.: Anglo-Chinese Relations during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Urbana, 111., 1929) discusses the general cir­ cumstances which hindered the development of the Company's China trade, but some of his conclusions arc debatable. W ilson, C. R.: The Early Annals of the English in Bengal, 1 (1895) contains a detailed account of the development of the Company’s trade in Bengal in the seventeenth century and of the Anglo-Mogul War there in 1686-90. Some of Wilson's value-judgements arc debatable today, but he used his sources well.

10 9

9 The Portuguese on the Zambesi: An Historical Interpretation o f the Prazo System Malyn Newitt T h e Portuguese colony of Mo9ambique is divided almost exactly in half by the Zambezi. Until a century ago, settlements along the banks of this river represented the greatest part of Portuguese activity in eastern Africa. Although nominally under Portuguese rule from the sixteenth century, the inhabitants of the lower Zambezi valley have found themselves continually between the hammer and the anvil of the powerful states to the north and south of them. The social and political systems forged in this way, and their history over three or four centuries, are of considerable interest. Historians are familiar with seeing African societies break up under the influence of prolonged contact with Europeans. On the Zambezi it was the European society which dissolved, while the African, which was made up initially of fragments of other tribal organizations and language groups, developed new institutions and a new type of organization which proved better able than almost any other African society to resist European imperialism. Europeans and Indians came to the Zambezi in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in search of land and gold. Their descendants, the prazo holders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, became absorbed in the African population and provided dynasties of chiefs for new tribal groupings. In the nineteenth century, by developing the aringa system, they found a means of resisting fresh European infiltration. The final victories of the Portuguese were won, not by European arms, but by the fratricidal quarrels which broke the military strength of the different prazo dynasties. Just as the Norman conquerors of Ireland founded dynasties of Irish chiefs who led resistance against renewed onslaughts from England, so the Portuguese and Indian settlers in one century became the leaders of African resistance in another. The origin of Portuguese land-ownership in the Zambezi area, and hence the origin of the social and political influence of the Portuguese and Africans on one another, goes back to the trading fairs which flourished in what is today the Mashonaland area of Rhodesia. The fairs were probably established by Swahili traders in the fifteenth century, and the gold dust so laboriously collected throughout the country was concentrated at them for sale and for taxation by the paramount chief of the Karanga— the Mwene Mutapa (Monomotapa).1 The Portuguese established them1 Jo3o dos Santos,1Ethiopia Oriental*, in vn, 2 7 1 .

G. M. Theal, Records of South Eastern Africa,

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selves on a permanent basis at these fairs sometime after 1530, when the supply of gold reaching their factories on the coast had shown unmistakable signs of drying up.* By the time of Francisco Barreto’s expedition to 4conquer’ the gold mines in 1572, the Portuguese had the controlling interest at the fairs, though they were far from enjoying a monopoly of the trade. The fairs were situated throughout the gold-bearing regions of Mashonaland, and stretched from the Angwa River to Manica. The sites of the fairs of Luanze, Ongoe and Dambarari, which were three of the most important fairs in the seventeenth century, have been surveyed and partially excavated. These show that a fair usually consisted of one or more walled enclosures made of mud or sun-dried brick. Probably they once had a stockade of wooden posts planted in such a way as to take root. Outside, there was a ditch, and there were comer bastions which may have been intended for cannon. Within the fairs there was usually a house which served both as the residence of the captain and a storehouse. At Luanze the remains of a chapel have been identified. The Portuguese traders did not live within the stockade, but in settlements scattered in the neighbourhood. This rendered the Portuguese community very vulnerable to attack.3 The existence of the fairs posed severe problems in race relations and social adjustment. The solution to these bears ample witness to the goodwill and ingenuity of the parties involved. The chief fair was at Masapa— probably near Mount Darwin—and all Portuguese entering the country had to pass through it. The Dominican friar, Jo2o dos Santos, described the role played by the captain of Masapa at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The captain was elected by the Portuguese residents, and the appointment was confirmed by both the Mwene Mutapa and the viceroy in Goa. At the fair the captain had jurisdiction over both Portuguese and Africans and conducted all official business between the two. The captain also collected the dues which all merchants had to pay on goods brought into the country.4 This example of a Portuguese exercising jurisdiction delegated to him by an African authority is not an isolated example. Father Monclaros, who accompanied Francisco Barreto’s * Letter of Pedro Vaz Soares, factor of Sofala, to King Manuel, 30 June 1 5 1 3 (R . S . E . A .

vol. 1).

9 Information on the fairs is contained in the major Portuguese chroniclers of the sixteenth and seventeenth century: Father Monclaros, S. J., R e la fa o d a V ia g e m Q .

F iz e r a m os P a d res d a C a m p a n h a de J e s u s co F rancisco B a rre to na C onquista de M o n o m o ta p a no a n n o de 15 6 9 , published by Theal in R . S . E . A . , vol. in; Father Joio dos Santos, O.P., 4Ethiopia Oriental’, R . S . E . A . , vol. vii; Antonio Bocarro, D ecadas da In d ia in R . S . E . A . ,

vols. ill and iv, under the name of Pedro Barretto de Rezende; Antonio da Concei^o, 4Tratado dos Rios da Cuama’, in O C h ro n ista d e T issu a ry f ed. Cunha Rivara (Goa, 1867 - 9 ). The archaeological reports on the fairs are contained in P. S. Garlake, 4Ancient Portuguese church at Jumbo', T h e R h o d esia n S cien ce N e w s , 1 , no. 4 (Aug. 1967 ). Also 'Seventeenth-

century Portuguese earthworks in Rhodesia', S o u th A fr ic a n A rchaeological B u lle tin , xxi, no. 84 , pt. iv (Jan. 1967 ). 4 J. dos Santos, loc. cit. vii, 2 7 1 .

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expedition to the Zambezi in 1572 and acted as its chronicler, writes: Portuguese who have been there relate to me that they have been often chosen as judges in quarrels which had arisen amongst them and even though they gave sentence against one, he who was condemned was quite satisfied because he thought they had acted according to reason and justice and this did not prevent him from choosing him as a judge again in any other difference he might have.8 The Government forts at Tete and Sena also acquired jurisdiction over the Africans in their neighbourhood, but this appears to have been the result of a cession of the land itself. According to Francisco de Sousa, Barreto had demanded land from the Mwene Mutapa in recompense for the murder of Silveira,6 and a document quoted by Abraham (without name or date) appears to confirm that land near Sena was ceded to Vasco Homem, Barreto’s successor, in 1573.7 Joáo dos Santos makes it clear that the captain of the forts had to fulfil certain of the judicial and even ceremonial functions of chieftainship. Eleven headmen remained in charge of the Tete communities, but the captain heard appeals from their judgements, could summon all the in­ habitants to war, and could remove any of the headmen at will. The inhabitants always used to consult him before sowing or gathering their harvest. In Dos Santos’s words, 'the kaffirs show the same obedience to the captain of Tete as if he were their king*.8 These early examples of land-holding and jurisdiction cannot be asso­ ciated with any particular man; they were attached to an office. Almost at the same time, however, individual Portuguese were acquiring titles to land in their own right. Private land-holding soon outstripped the holdings attached to the forts in extent and importance, and the latter virtually disappeared with the expulsion of the Portuguese from Mashonaland in 1693. Individual Portuguese acquired land and mining concessions from the chiefs in the later sixteenth century and equipped themselves with extensive slave retinues. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, much of the land along the Zambezi between Sena and Tete, as well as some round the fort of Sofala, was already in the hands of individual Portuguese. It is important to form some idea of how this land was acquired and under what terms it was held. Lobato has suggested that these early land concessions were obtained peacefully and with the full consent of the African chiefs.9 As I have said with regard to the fairs, it was clearly possible for Portuguese and Africans1 1 Mondaros, op. c it ., R . S . E . A . Hi, 228 . * Francisco de Sousa, O O rie n te C o n quistado (Lisbon, 1 7 1 0 ), 605 . 7 D. P. Abraham, *The early political history of the empire of Mwene Mutapa (850 1589 )*, note 79 (the M S is Ajuda 5 1 -ÍV-45 ), in H isto ria n s in T ro p ic a l A fr ic a (Salisbury, 1962 ). • J. dos Santos, op. cit., R . S . E . A . vn, 290 . 9 A. Lobato, Colom zapH o Senatorial d a Z a m b e si (Lisbon, 1962 ), 98- 99 .

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F ig .j

158

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to live together with a minimum amount of friction, but even as early as 1572 there are indications of Portuguese involvement in ‘rebellions’ within the Mwene Mutapa’s empire. Monclaros hints that the military power of the Mongas in the Lupata Mountains owed something to the warlike activities of a Portuguese adventurer.10 By the end of the century hints give way to certainties. The political power of the Mwene Mutapa was fast declining, and this made him increasingly dependent on the aid given to him by the Portuguese and their slave armies. This Portuguese involvement in the internal con­ flicts of the Karanga kingdoms became increasingly frequent after the turn of the seventeenth century. Although their intervention was usually on the side of the Mwene Mutapa, the overall effect of their action was to weaken his authority. There was an increasing tendency to withhold the gifts and taxes which the captains of the fairs had traditionally offered him, and this fatally weakened his hold over the gold regions of Mashonaland. Moreover, whenever the Portuguese won a victory, they required recompense, which would take the form of land or mineral concessions. In this way Diogo Simoes Madeira acquired his lands near Tete and Chicoa. In this way the Portuguese obtained a cession of mineral rights over the whole land in 1607, and in this way Mwene Mutapa Mavura was forced to cede sovereignty over his whole kingdom to the Portuguese in 1629.11 Thereafter the acquisition of land by individual Portuguese proceeded almost unchecked, and the various kingdoms which had seceded from the former empire of Mwene Mutapa were attacked as well. The most success­ ful of the conquistadores after Madeira was Sisnando Dias Bay5o. He attacked the kingdom of Butua and defeated it, though it was lost after his death. He also obtained rights to land in the kingdom of Quiteve, which later came to form the great prazo of Cheringoma, and which stayed in his family until the nineteenth century.12 Father Manuel Barreto, writing in 1667, draws a vivid picture of a land dominated by great clans of con­ quistadores whose control extended south of the river as far as the modem Hartley, and who held their land by means of vast slave armies. The only threat to their position appeared to come from their own internecine quarrels. Acquisition of new land by the Portuguese went on unchecked until the later nineteenth century. Purchase, blackmail, inheritance, conquest— all methods were used. Sometimes the settlers would band together to 19 Monclaros, op.

cit., R .S .E ~ A . in, 238 . 11 The events of these years are described in Antonio Bocarro, op. cit., and in the treaty of cession, R . S . E . A . v, 287 . 11 For Bay3o’s career see Manuel Barreto, In fo r m a fd o do E sta d o e C onquista dos R io s d e C u a m a ( 1667 ), in R . S . E . A . vol. Ill; C. R. Boxer, *Sisnando Dias Bay2o: conquistador of the Mae d’ouro’, P rim eiro Congresso d a H isto r ia d a E x p a n sa o P o rtu g u ese no M u n d o , vol. in (Lisbon, 19 38 ); *Viagem que fez Antonio Gomes*, ed. Axelson, S tu d ia , no. 3 ; H. von Sicard, *A Proposito Sisnando Dias Bayfo*, S tu d ia , no. 1 6 ; document in A.H.U. Mozambique Mapo 1 , dated 10 Sept. 18 30 , discussing the perpetual tenure of Cheringoma by Bay3o*s descendants; M 09. Cx. 14 , docs dated 16 /8/74 .

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attack a chief, as in the case of the successful raid on the Bive in 1756. Sometimes land would be acquired by a process of infiltration, as happened in the gold fields of Maravi in the eighteenth century. At no period, how­ ever, can one seriously claim that the Portuguese acquired their land with­ out the forceful and serious disruption of existing African polities. No matter how they had acquired their lands, the conquistadores were anxious that their titles should be recognized in Portuguese law. This recognition was essential for the defence of their lands against jealous rivals who might go behind their backs for a royal title. This Madeira found when, in 1618, a cabal headed by the judge Fonseca Pinto deprived him of his lands of Inhabanzo. His title being secure, he was able to appeal and recover possession.18 Apart from the granting of titles, the royal ad­ ministration had favours to bestow in the form of offices, honours and vacant land. Even in the darkest days of the nineteenth century, these considerations were to preserve a vestige of authority for the administration. Titles were being given as early as 1596, but the first detailed land titles that survive are dated 1612 and 1613. The first was a title granted to Madeira for his estate of Inhabanzo. This recognized that he had acquired jurisdiction over the Africans on the land as well as the land itself. Madeira was granted full administrative rights over the property pending complete conquest of the area by the crown. Mineral rights were reserved for the crown. The second grant was a confirmation of land titles for the Domini­ cans. Regular titles were not granted until after 1629, when the crown acquired nominal sovereignty throughout the empire of Mwene Mutapa. These land titles were emphyteutic tenures similar to those used in Portugal. Use of the land was to last for three lives on condition of the payment of a quit-rent. In the Zambezi this tenure also implied the supplying of soldiers from among the inhabitants in case of need. The holder had the right to exploit the territory economically, and by implica­ tion had judicial rights over the inhabitants. According to Barreto, he had ‘the same rights as the kaffir fumos from whom they [the lands] were conquered1. The lands thus held were called prazos da coroa.14 In 1677 the prazo system was modified by the government. In that year an expedition sailed from Portugal to colonize the Zambezi valley. By increasing the numbers of white settlers, the crown hoped to end the un­ stable and lawless existence of the colony under the dominance of a few powerful clans who monopolized the land. Experience in India and Ceylon 19 Antonio Bocarro, op. cit. The depositions of the witnesses in the appeal are printed in A rq u iv o das C olonias, v, no. 3 (May 1930 ). 14 Emphyteusis is a type of land tenure in Roman law which recognizes the dual rights of the owner of land and the user. The latter has possession often for a number of lives or for perpetuity, but owes a quit-rent to the former, who retains certain rights in case of the sale of the land or in case it is in any way ruined. The term p r a z o was in use in the Middle Ages in Portugal to describe the land leased by this sort of tenure. See M. J. B. de Almeida Costa, O rigem da E q fiteu se no D ire ito P ortugues (Coimbra, 19 57 ). For further discussion see M. Newitt, 'The Zambezi p ra z o s in the eighteenth century\ chaps. 1 , 2 (London Ph.D. thesis, 1967 ).

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was drawn upon to develop a system of dowries whereby vacant prazos would be used to endow deserving orphan girls, or the daughters of crown servants, who would thereby attract worthy husbands. These lands would be inherited by the eldest daughter of the union, who likewise would find herself endowed and able to make a suitable match. After the third life the crown resumed the land and regranted it.14*16 It is difficult at this stage to say in what positive way the Portuguese crown thought that the prazos would develop. From the very first the crown had been merely giving recognition to established fact—it had not been in a position to shape the development of land ownership. From the beginning of its colonial empire, Portugal had experimented with the delegation of many of the crown’s judicial, administrative and fiscal functions to private enterprise. This policy had been forced on it by its shortage of manpower and resources, while the fact that this policy was initiated at the beginning of the fifteenth century meant that it was coloured by the social and economic ideals of a feudal rather than a capitalistic age. This policy performed a score of different local functions, and was regulated by hundreds of different and often conflicting regulations. It might take the form of a great territorial captaincy with almost sovereign powers, as in Brazil or Angola. It might relate to a small island, as in the Atlantic archipelagos. It might take the form of a coastal trading fort or a group of Indian villages (ra#o-holders must not be a b s e n te e sprazos must not exceed 17 A. N. dc Barbosa dc Vilas Boas TruSo, E sta tistica dos R io s de S e n n a do anno de 1806. u This debate is best set out in Pedro Alvares, * O Regime dos Prazos da Zambesia *, B o le tim d a S o cied a d e de G eografia de Lisb o a ( 19 16 ).

“ Writing in 179 0 , J. J. Nogueira de Andrade said that the Zambezi donnas used to despise a marriage with an Indian or man of colour, but this has long ceased to be the case and these marriages are common. *DescripcSo cm qe ficaram os negocios de capitania de Mo9ambique em fins de 1789 e considera^Ses sobre a decadencia do seu commercio', A r q u iv o d a s C olonias ( 19 17 - 18 ), 1 1 8 . *° A.H.U. M 09. Cx. Av. 4 , F. de Mello e Castro to Viceroy, 28 Dec. 17 5 7 . ,l A.H.U. M 09 . Cx. Av. 7 , Letter Patent dated 30 Aug. 1759 of B. C. de Sa Botelho creating the office of T a n a d o r-m o r with the duty of seeing the p r a z o s were cultivated and their rent paid up. ** Orders to this effect are dated 1759 and 177 9 . In 1825 the C onselho U ltra m a rin o

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three square leagues in size j23all grants must be confirmed in Lisbon within four years;28 slaves must stay on theprazos on the death of their owner;24 the Tenente-Gerae must not award prazos to himself;24 no prazos should be given to the church j23 owners of prazos must allow other Portuguese to settle on their land to cultivate it;26prazo owners must contribute to the maintenance of government forts, roads, and essential river passages in the dry season; praso-holders must supply men for military expeditions. All these provisions and more were made to rectify the system. They tell one, not how the system worked, but how it did not work. They reveal the immense gap between government policy and social and political reality in the Zambezi. This body of administrative custom grew during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century without ever being incorporated in a single code, or finding clear expression in the terms of the land grants themselves.26 It may well be asked why Portuguese governments made no attempt to end the system once its failure became apparent. The answer lies in the fact that they were powerless to do so. A perpetual shortage of men and supplies meant that the power wielded by the Tenentes-Gerais was simply the power which the settlers put into their hands. The government was dependent on the prazo-holders for all the functions of government, from the repair of a building to the sending of an embassy. Moreover many of the Tenentes-Gerais were drawn from the prazo clans or had married into one or other of them. It was also reluctantly admitted by observers of the situation in the Zambezi that, without the existence of the great prazosy Portugal would not be able to retain any of its possessions. The government was thus absolutely dependent on the system and powerless to alter it.27 There were other reasons why the prazos never became the well-run ordered that no confirmation for titles would be granted unless the holder was a resident (A.H.U. M 09, Ma?o 1 ). In D ocum entap& o A v u ls a M o fa m b ie a n a , ed. F. Santana (Lisbon, 1964 ), Ma?o x, doc. 20 . “ Decree of 3 April 176 0 (A.H.U. M 09 , Cx. Av. 8). The actual terms said that if the land had a river or sea frontage or had minerals on it, it was not to exceed half a square league. M Report of Marc Antonio Montaury on the petition of Antonio Correa Monteiro de Mattos (A.H.U. M 09, Cx. Av. 9 , 15 July 17 6 1 ). u F. de Lacerda e Almeida, ‘ Diario da Viagem de Mo9ambique para os Rios de Senna * (Lisbon, 1889 ), printed in T ra ve ssia de A fr ic a , ed. M. Murías (Lisbon, 19 36 ). M The terms of the grants usually only specify that the land may not be alienated to the church and that a certain rent shall be paid. The lack of codification of the laws re* garding the p r a z o s is made clear in a memorandum of the C oncelho U ltra m a rin o dated 18 3 0 , in which the council complains that it has no record of some of the regulations cited in a certain case (Doc. Av. M 09. Ma$o 1 , docs. 10 7/1 to 10 7 / 1 1 ). *7 In the early part of the eighteenth century Sena had an official garrison. This certainly never exceeded 100 men. In 1778 the complement was two companies of fifty men each—one of infantry and one of artillery. This garrison had to supply officers and men for the other two official garrisons in the Rivers, at Manica and Zimbabwe. There can seldom have been twenty regular troops ready to take the field at any one time. Later Tete became the garrison town. These troops were badly supplied and paid and their role was to act as a stiffening for the African auxiliaries without whom no campaign was ever launched.

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plantations hoped for by the government. One of these was the peculiar relationship which existed between the prazo-holdtr and the Africans on his land. Most of the prazos had at one time been chieftaincies or sub­ chieftaincies of some kind. This is made clear in many sources. Mwene Mutapa Gatse Rusere, for instance, gave Madeira land at Inhabanzo, which had once been the land of a chief.28 During the seventeenth century some of the land which subsequently became prazos was still in the hands of the original chief, who paid tribute and performed services to the Portuguese government.29 Naturally the prazos did not in every case correspond very exactly in extent to the old chieftaincies, but the relationship was there nevertheless. When a chieftaincy or any other unit of African society passed into Portuguese hands and became zprazot the indigenous inhabitants remained on their land under the charge of their traditional headmen. These free inhabitants of the prazos were called colonos, and their headmen fumos or nhacuavas. The prazo-holder stood to the colonos in the place of chief. He dispensed justice; he collected tribute in the form of a percentage of produce of the land;30 he could dismiss a fumo and appoint his successor; he could call on the colono for aid as guide, carrier and sometimes soldier; he could claim certain customary rights over game. The colono for his part initiated the prazo-ho\dtr into his office with what appears to be some traditional ceremonial. It is possible that the prazo-\\o\dtr was expected to perform some of the ritual functions of chieftaincy. Many pra^ro-holders abused their position, and they were particularly prone to forcing the colonos to trade with them at other than market rates. There was, however, no attempt to alter the traditional economy, to im­ pose plantation labour, or the system of paying tribute in cash which would have to be earned. The dependence of the prazo-ho\dtx on tribute, and the ease with which the colono could avoid this by migrating, imposed severe limitations on the capacity of the prazo-holder to effect changes in the traditional economic and political relationships. Perhaps the greatest source of security for the colono, however, was the lack of any crop which could be grown for export. The only considerable exports were gold, ivory and slaves, and the acquisition of these did not require new economic techniques or organization. The prazo-ovmtx depended for his power far more on his slave retinue than on the support of the colonos. These retinues are recorded from the late sixteenth centuries onwards. The slaves* main function was to serve in the private armies of the prazo-holder, but they also did all the immediate " Bocarro, op. cit., R . S . E . A . in, 356 , 37 3 . *• D o E sta d o d a I n d ia , Rezende's M S of Bocarro, printed in R . S . E . A . 11 , 408 . *° There are lists of the tribute obtained from the p ra x o s of Cheringoma and Gorongosa which include payments in ivory, wax, fowls, oil, honey, meat, dried fish, cloth, gold dust, salt, sugar, wood, mealies. These documents are extracted from the archives of the Minis­ ters do Reino in Lisbon and are printed in Carvalho Dias, F ontes p a ra a H ts to r ia , G eografia e C om m ercio de M o za m b iq u e, A n a is , vol. ix (Lisbon, 1954 ).

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menial tasks concerned with his household. Their specialized tasks included those of boatman, fisherman, trader, hunter, carpenter, basket-maker, gold­ smith, musician, iron-worker, barber, cook, and other occupations.31 The slaves were not only organized in this way, according to function, but also in a hierarchy. The household slaves were organized separately from the personal slaves, and the male slaves from the female. At the top of the hierarchy there were the c h u a n g a s , m u c a z a m b o s and m t v a n a m a m b o s ,32 The first of these was detailed to safeguard the financial rights of the p r a z o owner and to keep a check on all the J u n to s .™ The other two commanded the slaves, and came to occupy important positions of trust on the p r a z o . Some p r a z o - holders claimed to have tens of thousands of slaves, but these figures are grossly exaggerated, and an establishment of 1,000 slaves in all would be large.34 Less than 100 was probably normal. A total slave population of 30,000 is possible for the eighteenth century. Some of these slaves were obtained on raids, bought at auctions or re­ ceived as presents from the chiefs. The majority, however, were clients who attached themselves to a protector who would offer them maintenance and opportunities for enrichment and advancement. Famine and war caused great accretions to the slave retinues, but in time of peace it became more difficult for a p r a z o - holder to control his men. They tended to desert him if he failed to supply their needs, and to regroup with a stronger man or with one of the independent chiefs.35 A clientship institution of this kind was capable of evolution towards a more traditional type of African chieftaincy, for other chieftaincies in Africa have emerged in just this manner. Livingstone met an African on the Zambezi who had recently sold himself to a Portuguese master because he was ‘all alone in the world*. With his own purchase price he had begun to set himself up in the world.36 The slave was by no means the passive partner in this marriage of Europe and Africa. For a full tribal system to emerge on the p r a z o s , however, it was necessary for the c o lo n o s and the 91 Sec Dias, op. cit., inventories of Gorongosa and Cheringoma. ** For a description of this system see Antonio Pinto Miranda, *Memoria sobre a costa de Africa', in A. A. de Andrade, R e l a t e s de M o za m b iq u e S e te c e n tista (Lisbon, 19 5 5 ). ” The position of the chuanga is described in Monteiro and Gamitto, K in g K a z e m b e , ed. Cunnison, 11 (Lisbon, i 960), 186 - 7 . The ch u a nga was an official post borrowed from the Maravi tribes. Bive kept a chuanga at the Portuguese mining camps to see that his rights were protected. 94 An anonymous prazo-holder who wrote an account of his very active life in the first half of the eighteenth century says: *in this operation I took fifteen thousand Africans, most of them being my ow n.. . ' (see note 38 below). Miranda's figures for slave numbers give the following result: x with 6,000 slaves, 9 with 1,000 or more, 10 with 500 - 1,000 slaves, 13 with 10 0-500 and 6 with 100 or less. See Miranda, op. cit. 255 - 7 . Although detailed, these figures are almost certainly exaggerated by at least a half. The owner of Cheringoma is quoted by him to own 6,000 slaves, but the detailed inventory printed in A n a is , vol. ix, shows Cheringoma had only 942 slaves. Cheringoma was the largest of the p ra z o s. M J n v e n ta r io do F u n d o do S e c u lo x v iii, ed. Montes (Louren90 Marques, 1958 ), doc. 16 2 , report of Manuel da Costa to Ignacio de Mello Alvim, Zumbo, 2 Mar. 176 9 . *• David and Charles Livingstone, T h e Z a m b e si a n d I ts T rib u ta rie s (London, 186 5 ), 49 - 50 .

166

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slaves to lose their separate identities, and to merge their institutions and their functions in prazo society. This change took place as a result of events in the nineteenth century. Affairs on the Zambezi in the eighteenth century were run by the great prazo owners in their own interests. After 1 7 6 3 , when the Zambezi settle­ ments were divided into municipalities, the most important of the prazo owners sat on the town councils, and there existed a body, referred to simply as the adjunto, which appears to have been an informal assembly of all the chief settlers, to consider important matters of general interest.37 An attempt was made to regain some of the territories in Mashonaland lost in 1 6 9 3 ; the fair at Manica was re-established;38 land was obtained from the king of Barue; and a plan was set on foot to reoccupy the fair of Dambarari. More success, however, greeted their ambitions north of the river. The discovery of gold in Maravi country in the eighteenth century led to a series of minor gold rushes, and the establishment of bares—or mining camps—in the heart of the territory of independent chiefs.39 The friction created by the annual expeditions of diggers to the mines led to sporadic raids and the gradual acquisition by the Portuguese of new prazos north of Tete. The revival of gold mining, however, was not on a scale large enough to bring about a transformation of the Zambezi world or a significant influx of settlers or capital. The great prazo clans remained in undisturbed possession throughout the century, while the economy of the country remained tied to a subsistence agriculture which was supplemented by a small trade in ivory, gold and slaves. The early years of the new century might very well have seen the end of Portuguese rule in the Zambezi valley. Towards the end of the previous century, slaves had been exported in increasing numbers from Quelimane to meet the rising demand from Brazil and the French islands of the Mauritius group. The great prazo-ho\dtrs contributed greatly to the car­ goes, and came to dominate the trade entirely. There is evidence that even if they did not directly depopulate their own prazos, they were not above selling the inhabitants of their neighbours*•lands.40 The slave-trade intro­ duced violence on an unprecedented scale into the Zambezi world, violence • 7 For instance, a d ju n to s met to discuss war preparations against Changamire in 16 9 3 , to meet ambassadors from chiefs, to discuss important policy decisions like those con­ cerned with moving the town of Sena to Mount Morumbala and the re-establishment of the fair at Dambarari, to decide on allocation of duties in the restoration of the forts or the capture of a criminal, to choose an interim governor when the letters of succession were lost, etc. •• See the anonymous report of a p r a z o -holder in A.H.U. M 09. Cx. 3 , reproduced in translation in M. Newitt, *The Zambesi p r a z o s in the eighteenth century*. *• There is no good description of the Maravi gold-rush, but see ‘ A Dominican account of the Zambesi in 17 4 4 * (ed. Boxer), B o le tim d a S ociedade de E stu d o s de M o za m b iq u e , xxix ( i 960); Manuel Galvio de Silva, D ia rio ou R e ld fa o das V iagens P h ilo so p h ica s . . . in A rm a es do C oncelho U ltra m a rin o , ( 1859 - 60) and in Dias, op. cit., A n a is , ix; Monteiro and Gamitto, K in g K a z e m b e ; Anon., Memorias da Costa da Africa Oriental.. . ', ( 176 2 , per­ haps by Francisco Raimundo Moraes Pereira) in Andrade, op. cit. ** Lacerda, D ia rio d a V ia g em .

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within the Portuguese community itself, and increasing violence between the Portuguese and neighbouring tribes. Paradoxically the slave retinues of the prazo owners were best placed for survival. No Portuguese would risk his standing and security in the Rivers by shipping his private army abroad. Lacerda records that the African clients themselves made sure of this, and the prazo-holder had to guarantee that a client who joined his following should not be sent abroad.40 The slaves were increasingly employed in raids into the interior led by their own mucazambos, and it was one of these forces belonging to the governor of Tete which was met by Livingstone on the Shire.41 Other slaving bands penetrated beyond the confluence of the Kafue in search of human booty. Not all slaves captured were sent abroad, for there was a good market, for female slaves especially, among the Matabele and Barotse.42 Livingstone claimed that the Portuguese used his discoveries to extend their slave routes, but this extension is just as likely to be the result of increased demand and a growing scarcity of supply near the coast. In this way warfare on the Zambezi was intensified in the nineteenth century. It was intensified still more by the Ngoni invasions. The Ngoni led by Soshangane occupied the land behind Inhambane and Louren90 Marques from the 1820s. By the 1840s their power had reached as far north as the Sena prazos, and these were paying a danegeld in order to avoid total devastation.43 Zwangendaba’s Ngoni crossed the Zambezi above Tete in 1835, and for a short time settled north of the river within the Portuguese sphere of influence. The immediate effect of this incursion was the swamping of the north bank prazos and the destruction of the re­ maining Maravi chieftaincies. Zwangendaba, however, moved northward, and when, after the split following his death, sections of his horde returned under the leadership of Mpeseni, it was found that the Portuguese had filled the vacuum and had pushed their sphere of influence farther north of the river than ever.44 The Ngoni invasions for a short time threatened the prazos with total extinction. Many men left the river, and large numbers of the prazos were deserted and overrun by local tribes. It was this state of affairs which led the crown to modify the whole social and political structure of the Zambezi settlements. The legislation on the prazos of 1832 was only the first of a stream of decrees intended to effect the reform of the Portuguese colonies along liberal lines, and to encourage the economic development and general progress of the settlements. There were decrees to change the land tenure 41 D. and C. Livingstone, op. cit. 4* Ibid. 406 . 4> Richard Thornton, T h e Z a m b e z i P a p ers o f R ic h a r d T h o rn to n , ed. Tabler, 1 (London, 19 6 3 ), 52 , 5 5 ; John Kirk, T h e Z a m b e z i J o u r n a l a n d L e tte rs o f D o cto r J o h n K i r k , ed. Foskett, I (London, 1965 ), 64 . 44 J. D. Omer-Cooper, T h e Z u lu A fte r m a th (London, 1966 ), 64- 86 , and Carlos Wiese, ‘ Expedido Portuguesa a M ’Peseni’, B o le tim d a S o cied a d e d a G eografía de L isb o a , X ( 18 9 1 ), xi ( 1892 ).

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to allodial estates under direct government control.45 There were decrees according equal status to all freemen in the colony.46 Other decrees dealt with slavery, and tried to end this institution without endangering the labour supply needed for economic development.47 A decree put an end to the use of the Zambezi as a penal settlement. The well-known reorganiza­ tion of the settlements by Ennes and Mousinho de Albuquerque in the 1890s was simply a continuation of a paper reconstruction already half a century old. The only area of the Zambezi which responded at all to this treatment was the coastal strip round Quelimane and through the delta. Here the flat, alluvial land to which there was direct access from the sea was more amenable to Portuguese control than the upper reaches of the river. The land was developed as coconut plantations, whose products could be ex­ ported and which attracted a certain amount of capital. Here also grew up an extensive internal demand for spirit distilled from coconut wine, which added to the economic incentives for immigrants. Here the laws changing the emphyteutic tenure of the prazos to allodial tenure could be enforced, and here the Moçambique Company, which was incorporated in 1888, and also the Zambezi Company, acquired extensive concessions which they could lease profitably to subsidiaries or turn into plantations. Beyond the delta, however, the decrees of the Portuguese government remained for long ineffective. The wars and invasions had caused a drastic change in the nature of the prazo system. The African element in the racial composition of the prazo owners came to dominate at the expense of the European. Fewer and fewer Europeans could be found to take up the interior prazos, and the smaller and weaker ones were unable to survive at all. The monopoly of the great clans grew. They extended their protec­ tion over wider and wider areas, a process which tended to accentuate the tribal character of their relationship with the African inhabitants. By the 1850s the Zambezi was effectively controlled by four great family groupings. Between the Lupata gorge, Barue and Tete, the da Cruz family reigned supreme: their headquarters were at Massangano at the junction of the Zambezi and Luenha rivers. The ramifications of the family were to be found, however, on the north bank, up the Luenha, and below the Lupata mountains in an important outpost at Guengue. Here Luiza da Cruz and her successive husbands (one of whom, Belchior do Nascimento, had been a recipient of Kirk’s medical attentions), played a double game with Massangano and the Portuguese authorities.48 44 Decrees dated 13 Aug. 1832 and 22 Dec. 1854 . 49 Decree of 1 Dec. 1869 . See Mousinho d’Albuquerque, M o çam bique (Lisbon, 1899 ), 171 - 3 -

47 An account of this legislation is contained in Duffy, P ortuguese A fr ic a (London, 19 6 1 ), chap. 6 . 49 The standard account of the da Cruz family is F. Almeida D ’Eça, H is to r ic das G u erra s no Z a m b esi , 2 vols. (Lisbon, 19 53 - 4 ). This contains an extensive bibliography. For Belchior do Nascimento see Kirk, op. cit. 442 , 450 . Also Paul Guyot, ‘ Voyage au Zambèse*, S o c ié té de G éographie de l*Est B u lle tin , nos. 1882 - 6 .

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8l

Between Tete and Ngoni territory to the north lay the territory of the Caetano Pereiras. Their headquarters were on the Revubwe river, and their lands were already known as Macanga—a name which was also used as a tribal name to describe their followers.49 The left bank of the Shire, just above its confluence with the Zambezi, was in the hands of the Vas do Anjos family. Their headquarters were at Shamo, which was much visited and described by the members of Living­ stone’s Zambezi expedition. Their followers became known as Massinjire, and later in the century they became a considerable threat to the survival of Quelimane as well as to the missionary route to Lake Nyasa.65 Between Sofala, the Zambezi and Barue was the fourth great prazo domain. This was controlled by Manuel Antonio da Sousa, who had originally undertaken to defend the Sena prazos from the raids of the Gaza. By 1880 he had partly achieved this task and was seeking fresh fields to conquer. He was incomparably the most skilful politician and most ruthless soldier of all the great prazo chiefs of the nineteenth century.61 The territories of these great chiefs no longer even approximated to the old prazos, neither did their inhabitants any longer retain the old distinction between colono and slave. All were alike the clients and warriors of the chief. The territories were ruled through the aringa system. The aringa was a vast stockade, which might be as much as a mile in circumference. This contained the huts of the warriors, and in the middle there was an inner enclosure which was the residence of the ruler of that particular aringa. In addition to the chief aringa, where the head of the clan resided, there would be outlying aringas, often forming a string of fortified posts along a strategic river, or placed in such a way as to dominate a particular locality. These would be occupied by relatives of the head of the clan, who would be more or less loyal to the chief according to circum­ stances. Massangano was protected by a string of such aringas along the Luenha and the Muira rivers. Sousa used the aringa system to keep the Gaza Ngoni from invading his territory, and eventually, in the 1880s, built a system to confront the da Cruz. Lacking a large family of his own, Sousa appears to have planted his numerous wives in the aringas as his representatives. The aringas were by no means merely defensive in nature. They were centres for raiding, and bases from which to extend the influence of the clan. Both Sousa and the da Cruz used the aringas for their expansion into Barue and Mashonaland in the late nineteenth century. When Sousa was 0 There is no history of the Pereiras. The origins of the family are given in F. de Lacerda e Almeida, report dated 22 Mar. 1798 from Tete and printed in T ra ve ssia d a A fr ic a , 384 - 95 . The traditional history of the Pereiras was written down by Victor Courtois, S.J., in 1885 and can be found in ‘ Terras de Macanga’, B o le tim da So cied a d e d a G eografia d a L isboa ( 188 5 ). Also E. Foa, D u C a p a u L a e N y a s a (Paris, 19 0 1 ). *° See D. and C. Livingstone, op. cit. 24 - 8 , 402 - 3 ; Kirk, op. cit. 106 - 7 ; Thornton, op. cit. 70 - 1 , T h e Z a m b esi J o u r n a ls o f J a m e s S te w a r t (London, 19 52 ), ix, 15 4 . S1 Jo So de Azevedo Coutinho, M a n u e l A n to n io de S o u sa (Lisbon, 19 36 ).

6

170

FORMAL PRESENCES 82

M. D. D. NEWITT

defeated and killed in 1892, there is evidence that his empire split into segments based each on one of the aringas,62 Both the Pereiras and the da Cruz had been assiduous in maintaining their status as Portuguese. They retained Portuguese names and intrigued to obtain titles and honours from the Portuguese authorities. They con­ tinued to speak and, in some cases, to write Portuguese. They sent their children to be baptized in Tete, and they were buried with Christian ceremonial.63 Their power, however, rested on their role as chiefs. They held councils of grandes who helped decide policy and even had a say in the succession to the chieftaincy. These grandes are sometimes particularized as the nhacuavas, mucazambos, mwanamarnbos and capitaes.MIn other words they were the headmen of the colonos and the slaves, whose different roles had now become virtually merged into that of members of the chief’s council of elders. The dead members of the ruling clan were buried in the chiefs burial house. At Massangano, this existed beside the residence of the clan head within the aringa (perhaps as a sort of memento mon).66 The rulers of Macanga had their burial house away in the hills, where it was guarded by a keeper of the royal graves, who was also a repository of the oral history of the clan.66 The chiefs practised a form of distributive socialism, and one Portuguese observer, Delfim d’Oliveira, thought that the chiefs themselves were quite poor, as all their wealth and booty were given away.67 The da Cruz are reputed to have had a favourite pondoro— which may mean that there were spirit mediums for the dead chiefs. Witchcraft was widely practised in all the Zambezi settlements, and the muavi poison test was the most common form of trial. The strength of the prazo chieftaincies was endangered only by their rivalry. The Portuguese tried to use these built-in rivalries to remove the control which the da Cruz had over all trade passing from Sena to Tete. This struggle was the central feature of the Zambezi wars, which lasted from 1853 to 1888. The da Cruz had to withstand nine organized govern­ ment expeditions and five sieges before Massangano finally fell to Augusto de Castilho in 1888.68 M For a description of the a rin g a of the da Cruz, see M. Newitt and P. S. Garlake, ‘ The a rin g a at Massangano’, J . A p r. H is t . vm, no. 1 ( 1967 ). ** Good personal descriptions of the leading Pereiras and da Cruz are contained in Courtois, ‘ Terras da Macanga’ and *Uma Viagem do Missionario Courtois', A rq u iv o das C olonias, 11 , no. 12 (June 19 18 ). M ‘ Territorio de Machingire’, Term os d a V assalagem , nos T e rrito ries de M a c h o n a , Z a m b e si e N y a s a (Lisbon, 1890 ), no. 16 . M Newitt and Garlake, op. cit. •• Courtois, ‘ Terras de Macanga*. The Pereiras described themselves as c h e f es superiores in T erm o s D a V assalagem , no. 1 2 . •7 Delfim José de Oliveira, A P ro v in c ia d e M o ça m b iq u e e O B o n g a (Coimbra, 1879 ), 9 . M For a brief account of the Zambesi wars in English see Newitt and Garlake, op. cit. Almeida De Eça gives a detailed history which does not include the campaigns of 1887 - 8 . The best account of these is contained in Augusto de Castilho, R e la to rio das G u erra s no Z a m b e si (Lisbon, 18 9 1 ), and in B o le tim d a S o c ied a d e de G eografia de L isb o a ( 1887 ), Paiva de Andrade, ‘ Campanhas da Zambezia ( 1888 - 9), Relatorio do Major Paiva de Andrade'. These two accounts best bring out the feud between Sousa and die da Cruz.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 171 TH E PO RTU G U ESE ON TH E ZA M B E ZI

83

The destruction of Massangano only accentuated the power of Sousa in the Zambezi area. In 1884 his men had crushed the Massinjire,69 now the da Cruz also had fallen. He had received the commission of colonel in the Portuguese army, but with the removal of his rivals his power on the lower Zambezi was unchallenged. Certainly the Portuguese government were in no position to challenge it, and they were as far as ever from estab­ lishing effective occupation. Sousa’s ambitions had already shown them­ selves. He had married one of the daughters of Macombe, chief of Barue, and when the Macombeship fell vacant in 1880, Sousa had had himself declared chief by virtue of force majeure. Barue he used as a base to attack the Mashona. He raided into Inyanga, and in 1886 turned against Mtoko. Mtoko sought an alliance from the da Cruz, and successfully repulsed Sousa’s invasion. This was the beginning of the final war against Massan­ gano. When it was over Sousa lent his sword to the Mosambique Company. He invaded Manica with Paiva d*Andrade, where he was surprised and captured by the British South Africa Company’s police.60 The defeat of Sousa brought his empire to the ground. He himself was killed trying to reconquer Barue in 1892. Thus providentially the greatest of the prazo chiefs was removed, and it can safely be said that Major Forbes and his police did more to give the Portuguese control of the lower Zambezi than any of their own military efforts. The reconquest of the Zambezi thus proceeded only gradually inland. Behind the armies came the land companies. The Zambezi and Mo9ambique Companies with their subsidiaries took over the prazos, and leased them to anyone who would pay the rent required. Farther up the river the remnants of the old prazo families still held out. Zumbo was the last centre of their activities, and the wars of the Zumbo muzungos are described by Carlos Wiese, who himself had an aringa and a considerable following there. Their overthrow was encompassed as much by the establishment of administration in the Chartered Company’s territories as by any direct Portuguese action. With their slave and ivory trading opportunities cur­ tailed, they could no longer hold together their followings, and without their warriors they were little to be feared.61 Any interpretation of the resistance of the great prazo-holders to the Portuguese administration will be very subjective, and will depend on much wider questions of interpretation in the field of African history. It would be easy to point out that the Zambezi wars were caused primarily by the rivalries of the prazo clans, and that African levies fought on both sides under their own leaders. Montagu Kerr, who witnessed the final phases of the suppression of the Massinjire in 1884, makes it clear that the bulk of the fighting had been entrusted to Sousa, and that there were M Azevedo Coutinho, op. dt., and W. Montagu Kerr, T h e F a r In te r io r , 2 vols. (London, 1886 ).

•# The best general account of this incident is still P. R. Warhurst, A n g lo -P o rtu g u e se R e la tio n s in S o u th C e n tr a l A fr ic a (London, 1962 ).

•x Carlos Wiese, op. cit. Wiese was German, and his first name more properly Karl.

FORMAL PRESENCES

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M. D. D. N E W IT T

only two white officers and no white troops involved.64 On the other hand there are indications that other issues were at stake. It would be quite inapposite to talk about proto-nationalism on the Zambezi. However, some of the incidents in the Zambezi wars show the extent of the conflict of cultures and interests that was arising towards the end of the century. The Portuguese made a number of agreements at different times with the leading prazo chiefs, in which the rights of the people in their territory were specified. The Macanga, the Massinjire and the da Cruz all made agreements of this kind.63 Towards the end of the century these were being violated. Kerr says that the occasion of the Massinjire rising was the interference by a Portuguese officer in the suc­ cession customs to the chieftaincy.64 A more interesting case of this sort occurred after the death of Sousa in 1892. Among the claimants to succeed to his honours and lands was one of his daughters, Donna Victoria. She rallied a number of followers in Gorongosa and was reputed to have told them that it was necessary to exterminate the whites and to keep their land for themselves alone.65 Other of Sousa’s successors in Gorongosa formed an alliance with Macombe at the time of his war against the Portuguese in 1902, clearly identifying their survival with that of the independent Barue chieftaincy.66 These are perhaps merely straws in the wind, but they show that the prazo chiefs and their followers were clear in their own minds that they were defending a way of life and a particular social and political order which was seriously endangered by the coming of the land companies and a more active Portuguese administration. The Zambezi wars should therefore be seen in the same context as other cases of resistance by traditional African states to the innovation, change, and loss of independence which colonial rule brought with it. The defeat of the prazo clans was a slow process, but the death of Sousa was, in the long run, decisive. It was then that the prazos went through the final transformation of their long history, and in a remarkable way history was to repeat itself. Portugal’s colonial revival at the end of the nineteenth century met with the same problems as had her first colonial expansion—lack of capital and man-power. The prazos were a unique sur­ vival from the first age to the second. After the defeat of the da Cruz, a change came over Portuguese thinking about the prazos. They were no longer seen as a cause of colonial decay and of the destruction of Portuguese armed expeditions. They appeared to have great possibilities for the de­ velopment of the colony. This change in opinion and policy has been well described by R. J. Hammond in his recent book, Portugal and Africa*1 •* Montagu Kerr, op. cit., II, 272 - 7 . •• See T erm o s d a V assalagem , noa. 1 1 , 1 3 , 16 . ** Montagu Kerr, op. cit. 11 , 275 . •• C om pagrde d C h a rte de M o za m b iq u e (Paris, 1899 ), Anon., 38 - 9 , quoting the report of Xavier Hoffer. M See J. de Azevedo Coutinho, A C a m p a n h a do B a ru e em 1902 (Lisbon, 1904 ). •7 Stanford, 1966 .

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 173 TH E PO RTUGUESE ON THE ZA M B E ZI

85

The prazo would now be leased for thirty years, and the lessee would have the right to tax the African inhabitants. This revenue he could either receive in labour, up to one half, or in money. Either way the African would be forced to work, and the greatest single problem of colonial development would be solved. Furthermore the money obtained from taxation would provide the capital for development that Portugal so signally lacked. In addition the lessees were to police and develop the prazos, and these obligations were made specific. Altogether it was a remarkable case of the wheel of history turning full circle. The new factor in the situation, however, was the existence of land companies who gradually extended the sphere of their operations and took effective control of more and more prazos. Another new factor was the existence of an adequate garrison of regular troops, although, until the disastrous Barue rising of 1917, the government had held to the opinion that defence was the duty of the companies. In the end the prazos survived in their essence—the delegation of certain adminis­ trative and judicial functions of the government—until Salazar’s reforms of the 1930s set up a regular administration on the Zambezi.

10

Freehold Farmers and Frontier Settlers, 1657-1780 Leonard Guelke

In 1652 the Dutch East India Company founded a refreshment station on the shores of Table Bay for the scurvy-ridden crews of its fleets plying between Europe and Asia. A few years later, in 1657, the Company gave out land at Rondebosch to former employees and encouraged them to settle. These settlers formed the nucleus of a permanent white population which grew slowly during the next two decades. In 1679 there were only 259 free people, of w'hom 55 were women and 117 were children,1 and permanent settlement remained confined to the Cape Peninsula. From 1679 to 1717 the VOC attempted to stimulate agricultural production by granting land to settlers in fertile areas beyond the Cape Flats. When in 1717 this land granting polity was terminated, the free population numbered just about 2,000, including about 350 women.2This population was largely engaged in cultivation of wheat and grapes and in the raising of sheep and cattle. After 1717 a growing number of settlers moved inland to join the few freeburghers who, since 1703, had established themselves as pastoralists or trekboers on land leased from the Company. From 1703 to 1780 the trekboers increased the area of white occupation almost tenfold as the Cape Colony grew from a compact settlement in the southwestern Cape to a vast, ill-defined area stretching almost to the Orange River in the north and to the Great Fish River in the east (Fig. 2 . 1, p. 68). During the same period there was a steady increase in the free population, which numbered 5,000 in 1751 and i 0,500 in 1780.3 In this population men consistently outnumbered women in a ratio of about 3:2 and children composed just over half the total. Most settlers lived on the land, and by 1780 a large majority of them were pastoralists. Cape Town was the only * This chapter includes material from the author’s ‘Frontier Settlement in Earlv Dutch South Africa*, reproduced with permission from the A n n a ls o f the Association o f A m e ric a n Geographers L X vI (1976), and TThe Making of Two Frontier Communities’ reproduced with permission of H istorical R efU a to n s/R éfU xto n s Historiques, XII (1985).

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 175 Freehold farm ers a n d frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

67

town of significance and accounted for about one fifth of the free population, which included a number of free blacks. This chapter deals with a period when settler expansion into the interior was largely unimpeded. Grazing land was generally available for those settlers who had the resources and desire for it with little opposition from the original inhabitants. This situation of an ‘open5 frontier was beginning to break down by 1780. In the north and northeast ‘Bushman5 hostility and arid conditions combined to check the settlers5 expansion. In the east the numerous and well-organised Xhosa people proved a formidable barrier to further white expansion in that direction. The Cape settlers were drawn from many sources. In the early years most of them were former VOC employees of Dutch or German origin. In the 1680s the original settlers were joined by more Company employees, including a number on their way home after working in the East.4 Also among the settlers of this time were a number of former African and Asian slaves, some of whom became landholders. A few white colonists married former slave women, and their children were assimilated into the otherwise white community (sec ch. 4 , pp. 197 - 99 ). In 1685 the VOC offered free passages to immigrants from Europe, but few' availed themselves of the offer.5The Company did, however, send a handful of women from Dutch orphanages as wives for established bachelor settlers.6 It also arranged for 156 Huguenot refugees to be settled in South Africa, most of whom arrived in 1688.7 A few' immigrants intending to become freeburghers continued to arrive directly from Europe until 1707, when the scheme of free passages was terminated. Thereafter the growth in the free population was largely due to natural increase; but many Company employees, often after working for freeburghers, continued to take their discharges at the Cape and reinforced the rapidly growing white population.8 The settler population was largely of Dutch, German and, to a lesser degree, French extraction.9 The Cape settlers came from widely different social and economic backgrounds. Most of them came as individuals or in families, not in groups. Among each of the major national groups (Dutch, German and French) were farmers, skilled artisans and labourers. Some were reasonably affluent, but many more were poverty-stricken immigrants from the lower rungs of European society. The VOC - with its low pay and high death rate - employed many down-at-heel adventurers, some of whom eventually became freeburghers.10 There were also some welleducated and many talented individuals, especially among the

Figure 2 .1 Trckboer expansion, 17 0 3 -17 8 0

176 FORMAL PRESENCES

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 177 Freehold farm ers an d frontier settlors, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

69

Huguenots and the German-speakers. Many of the latter had been unable to get ahead in the rigidly stratified and economically depressed societies of Central Europe recovering from the devastation of the Thirty Years War.11 Almost all of them had been exposed to the individualistic and commercial values that were gradually spreading through Europe with the decline of feudalism, and could understand such values and survive in the colonial society at the Cape.

The failure of intensive agriculture, 1652-1679 The directors of the VOC were unprepared for the many difficulties encountered by the first Cape commander, Jan van Riebeeck, in establishing agriculture at the Cape. The memorandum of Janssen and Proot, which had prompted the VOC to establish a settlement on the African mainland, maintained that the agricultural potential of the Cape, with its fresh water, fertile soil and temperature climate, was outstanding.12 Van Riebeeck, who had spent a few weeks at the Cape in 1648, concurred w'ith this appraisal and suggested that there was nothing to prevent the Cape from rivalling Japan and northern China in the variety and abundance of its produce.13This view was reinforced when, shortly after his arrival at the Cape, Van Riebeeck inspected the land on the eastern side of Table Mountain. This land, he wrote, wfas so extensive that it would take a whole day to cover it by foot. According to our estimate it is a good 10 miles wide, traversed by the loveliest fresh rivers one could desire; even if there were thousands of Chinese or other tillers they could not take up or cultivate a tenth part of this land. It is moreover so fertile and rich that neither Formosa, which I have seen, nor New Netherlands, which I have heard of, can be compared with it.14

These appraisals of the resources of the Cape clearly assumed that intensive forms of agriculture would be adopted. The first attempts to cultivate the Cape soil fell short of expectations. Unacclimatiscd wheat seed, poor tools, a shortage of draft animals, severe south-east winds and unenthusiastic labour were all problems in the early years.15 Some of these difficulties were due to bad luck, others to lack of foresight and a lack of awareness that a considerable investment of capital and labour was needed to develop profitable agriculture on new land. As a result of this initial failure, Van Riebeeck suggested to the Hercn XVII that they place agricultural operations in the hands of freemen or freeburghers who would, he felt, work harder on their own

178

FORMAL PRESENCES 70

The Cape population

than they had as Company employees. Van Riebeeck received prompt authorisation from the Heren XVII to settle freeburghers, but he considered it advisable in the light of previous experience to make some preliminary trials on the land designated for their use east of Table Mountain (Fig. 2 .2 , p. 72).16 Early in May 1656 Van Riebeeck had five fields prepared at Rondebosch on which rice, oats, tobacco, beans and clover were sown.17 All these crops, with the exception of rice, did well. Van Riebeeck was well satisfied when he visited Rondebosch in October: The haymakers. . . had gathered a large quantity of hay into heaps and were still busy mowing. The clover was especially fine, being knee high and standing very thick. It will be very useful for the horses during the dry season when there is hardly any grazing for them. As in the fatherland, hay will be collected annually for that purpose.18

The importance Van Riebeeck attached to clover is noteworthy. Clover was a key crop in Dutch rotation systems because it restored worked-out land and provided feed for additional livestock. The extra manure obtained from the livestock in turn permitted the intensive cultivation of land and high crop yields. In February 1657 Van Riebeeck allocated land near the trial fields to the First freeburghers,19 who remained subjects, though not employees, of the VOC; they acquired certain economic freedoms, most importantly the right to own land.20 Obviously expecting them to employ intensive Dutch agricultural methods, Van Riebeeck granted the early freeburghers only 11.3 ha (28 acres) each. He recognised that freeburghers would need Financial assistance, but did not succeed in convincing the Heren XVII, who placed tight restrictions on the credit that could be extended to them. Moreover, the Heren XVII set prices at which the Company would purchase the freeburghers5wheat, and these were low, because they were based on the prices in Europe.21 Van Riebeeck sought to alleviate the labour shortage by importing slaves, who were made available to the freeburghers on credit. The early slaves were not efficient workers; many deserted while others were so intractable that their owners returned them to the Company. Economic conditions at the Cape were not conducive to the system of intensive mixed farming on which Van Riebeeck had based his plans. Both the capital and labour for such a system were lacking and so the freeburghers concentrated on reducing their investment in both to a minimum. As a result they did not cultivate clover or other fodder crops, and instead pastured their livestock on the veld near their freehold land.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 179 Freehold farm ers a n dfron tier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

71

The purebred Dutch sheep, which did not do well on the natural pasture, were allowed to mingle with stock obtained from the Khoikhoi, and consequently disappeared as a distinctive breed.22 Oxen, which could find their own food, replaced more efficient horses as plough animals, although most farmers retained a few horses for riding. The freeburghers - even when dispensing with such labour-intensive practices as crop rotation, fallows, careful weeding and manuring found the cultivation of wheat barely profitable, and turned elsewhere to make a living. The raising of livestock, which were purchased from the VOC and bartered or robbed from the Khoikhoi, became a mainstay of most farms. The freeburghers’ reliance on pasturing their animals in the open veld weakened the link commonly found in Europe between cultivation and livestock farming. Although sheep and cattle were able to survive in the open throughout the year, they needed large areas of land, especially in the dry summer months. The dispersal of livestock made the collection of manure impractical, and longer fallow periods were required for the rejuvenation of soils. Freeburghers also took even' opportunity to obtain extra income from non-farming activities. In 1660 a plakkaat prohibited freeburghers from collecting wood for foreign ships instead of using their oxen to plough fields.23 When Van Riebeeck left the Cape in 1662 he clearly recognised the extent to which his plans for the settlement had failed. In a memorandum to his successor he maintained that no more land for cultivation could be provided west of the Liesbeek River without reducing the already inadequate amounts of pasture available for livestock.24 A large portion of an area which Van Riebeeck had expected to support thousands of families was now considered to be fully occupied with only about fifteen operating farms. This re-evaluation of the Cape’s resources clearly stemmed from Van Riebeeck’s recognition that intensive mixed farming had failed and that future development would have to be based on extensive methods. For many years after Van Riebeeck’s departure little was done to reinvigorate Cape agriculture, and the settlement remained dependent on imported rice to meet its cereal needs. The adoption of extensive methods of wheat farming on small farms made it imperative that the area under cultivation be expanded if the colony was ever to become selfsufficient in grain. Those freeburghers who survived on the land (and many did not) did so on the basis of extensive livestock farming and by taking advantage of non-farming opportunities such as wood hauling, hunting and fishing.25 The Heren XVII, however, were loath to expend additional funds on the Cape, which had already proved to be something of a financial burden.

180

FORMAL PRESENCES Figure 2.2 The southwestern Cape, c. 1710

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 181 Freehold farm ers an d fron tier settlers , 1652 - 1 7 8 0

73

The occupation of Hottentots-Holland by Company soldiers in 1672 would probably have been followed by the permanent settlement of freeburghers beyond the Cape Flats had not the Second KhoikhoiDutch war ( 1673- 77 ) postponed ideas of expansion; the settlement remained confined to the Cape Peninsula for another seven years. When in 1679 the VOC finally adopted a policy of expansion, fewer than half the 142 adult freeburghers had a stake in farming; the rest made a living as artisans and traders near the small village growing up on the shores of Table Bay.26 The adoption of extensive agriculture was a reversal of the agricultural intensification process of Western Europe and hence a development of major significance. It took place before the freeburghers had cultivated enough land either to keep themselves or to meet the cereal requirements of the VOC. Had the Heren XVIT invested the capital needed to establish intensive agriculture firmly, or had they set wheat prices high enough to encourage the freeburghers themselves to make these investments, expansion beyond the Cape Peninsula would have been unnecessary, and a settlement such as the Heren XVII originally envisaged, confined to a defensible portion of the Cape Peninsula, might have emerged.

The southwestern Cape, 1679-1780 In 1679 Simon van der Stel arrived at the Cape with orders from the Heren XVII to begin new expansion. Under his policy, land in the new settlement of Stellenbosch was made available on a first come, first served basis.27 No legal limits were placed on the size of an individual’s claim, but it all had to be cultivated within three years or be forfeited. The freehold land grants which were finally authorised at Stellenbosch were usually smaller than initial claims, but they were three to six times larger than those of earlier times, ranging in size from 32 to 64 ha (80 to 160 acres).28 Only between a fifth and a tenth of the land suitable for cultivation had been given out by 1687 when Simon van der Stel closed the Stellenbosch area to further settlement, although a few individual grants were made thereafter. The decision to limit the growth of settlement at Stellenbosch was probably taken on the urging of established farmers, who needed large areas of unallocated land as rough grazing for their livestock.29 In allowing settlers to claim their own land, Van dcr Stel avoided the mistake of imposing an unsuitable framework of landholding in advance

182

FORMAL PRESENCES 74 The Cape population

of settlement. However, for Commissioner Hendrik Adriaan van Reede, who visited Stellenbosch in 1685, the disadvantages of Van der Stefs policy were more apparent than the advantages. Van Reede complained that all the good arable land next to rivers and streams had been given out (Fig. 2 .3, p. 76), a situation which he predicted would give rise to many ‘disputes, quarrels and unpleasantness5, because future settlers would find themselves cut off from water.30 In Van Rcede’s eyes the problem could have been avoided had land grants been rectangular and aligned at right angles to the streams. The disputes anticipated by Van Reede did not arise, however, because the land beyond the rivers was not allocated to settlers and remained in VOC hands. It would not have occurred to Van Reede, who assessed the situation in European terms, that Stellenbosch was close to being considered fully settled with about sixty land grants that comprised only about 5 per cent of the total area, including mountainous areas unsuitable for cultivation.31 As new lands were given out in Drakenstein, Paarl, Franschhoek, Tijgerberg, Wagenmakers Valley, the Land of Waveren and the Paardeberg, the general land policy adopted in Stellenbosch remained in force. Large areas of potentially cultivable land were not allocated and became available to freeburghers as rough grazing for their livestock. In the upper Berg River Valley, however, the policy of allowing freeburghers to stake out the boundaries of their own farms was replaced by one in which authorities allocated standard rectangular grants of 50.5 ha (125 acres),*2 a policy modification almost certainly stemming from Van Reede5s criticism of Stellenbosch landholding (Fig. 2 .3 ). In 171^ when the granting of new land ceased, there were about 400 freehold farms in the colony, covering in all 194 km2 (75 square miles) (Table 2 . 1, p. 77 ).33 This figure was remarkably low - even when one takes account of the vast areas unsuitable for cultivation - and represented only a small fraction of the area actually exploited by the colonists. The land policy of Simon van der Stel helped early settlers to establish viable farms without much capital. Land, a factor in abundant supply; was substituted for scarce capital and labour. Yet, low as capital requirements were, most colonists could not meet them. Van der Stel described the measures he adopted to encourage agriculture: The poor and needy farmers who are in distressing circumstances were provided with enough land, animals and wheat seed to be repaid to the Company after the harvest; as without this measure the projected goal [of colonial self-sufficiency] could never have been reached; . . . it would be an absolutely impossible thing for a poor destitute people to have accomplished anything with empty hands, except with our encouragement.34

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 183 Freehold farm ers a n d frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

75

These measures would nor have succeeded if settlers had not been able to use extensive methods of agriculture, giving a quick return on small amounts of invested capital. The extensive methods of farming, under which each settler received a de facto land allocation equivalent to about 8 km2 (3 square miles) including both an individual’s freehold land and his or her ‘share’ of VOC pasture land, and the nature of the country with its large areas of mountains and sand flats, combined to scatter the population over a considerable area (Fig. 2 .2 , p. 72 and Table 2 . 1, p. 77 ). In the more closely settled areas of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein there were about two free people per 2.6 km2 (1 square mile), and in Tijgerberg and Zwartland even lower densities. Sparse settlement meant that relatively few' people could share the costs of providing transportation, which in the absence of navigable rivers had to be over land. Roads were supposed to be provided by local authorities (landdrost and heemraden) and supported by taxes and labour provided by settlers.35 But the freeburghers evaded local taxes and delegated old slaves to do their corvee. In consequence Cape farmers were obliged to put up with rough tracks instead of roads, and the oxwagon became the most popular vehicle for transporting farm produce and supplies. Although oxen are slow-moving and cumbersome animals, they were well suited to haul hea\y wagons over the Cape’s sandy tracks and were able to thrive on rough forage along the route. The poor transportation system worked against the exchange of goods and services between farm and village. In the vast area beyond the Cape Flats there was only one village, Stellenbosch, although a few' artisans were scattered throughout the countryside (see ch. 6, p. 300 ). The lack of service centres meant that most Cape farmers had to be much more self-reliant than their European counterparts, and lost some of the advantages associated w'ith specialisation and the division of labour. Yet, in spite of its drawbacks, dispersed settlement had obvious short-term economic advantages for settlers without capital. These advantages w'ere most attractive in the early days of settlement. The first freeburghers benefitted from game and timber on or near their farms, and from nearby Khoikhoi labour. But as the game was destroyed and the timber used up, the disadvantages of dispersed settlement became more severe. However, an extensive agricultural system is not easily given up, once adopted. The problem is that the substantial benefits of close settlement are realised only gradually. Its disadvantages, however, appear immediately in the form of the longer and harder working hours necessary to maintain or increase the productivity of a fixed quantity of land.36

184

FORMAL PRESENCES Figure 2.3 Patterns of landholdings in Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, 1680-1700

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 185 Freehold farm ers a n d fron tier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0 Tabic 2 .1

77

Freehold land grants, 1 6 5 7 - 1 7 1 7

Area of grants km2 (square miles)

Total area settledt km2 (square miles)

District

Number of grants

Cape Stellenbosch Drakenstein

107 108 189

45.6(176) 53.3(20.6) 94.0(36.3)

1,300 ( 500) 1,300 ( 500) 3,900(1,500)

Total

404

192.9(74.5)

6,500(2,500)

Source : DO, Old Cape Freeholds Vols. 1 and 2; Old Stellenbosch Freeholds Vols. 1 and 2.

t Approximate total of areas of more or less continuous settlement. The expansion of the settlement created a demand for more labourers, largely met by importing African and Asian slaves sold to settlers on credit by the Company. More affluent settlers employed white servants in supervisory positions. Poorer settlers could not afford slaves and generally worked their own land, employing extra workers when needed.37 The Khoikhoi, their traditional communities slowly disintegrating under the impact of European settlement, were particularly useful as casual labourers for settlers without slaves. But they also worked on large estates, especially at harvest time (see ch. 1, p. 17). In 1713 the Khoikhoi near the Cape were decimated by a smallpox epidemic, and their importance as labour declined sharply in the arable areas. The Cape administration found it increasingly difficult to control the freeburghers seeking opportunities on the expanding frontiers of the settlement. In the 1690s a group of frontier traders was caught illicitly trading cattle between the Khoikhoi of the interior and the farmers of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein.38 Although freeburghers were occasionally apprehended in illicit trading, the frontier was now too vast and the number of Company officials too few to stop it. The decrees or plakkaten issued and reissued against trade with the Khoikhoi bear testimony to the inability of the Company to control frontier activity.39 The situation demanded more effective policing of the frontier rather than the promulgation of plakkaten with heavy penalties every trader was confident he could avoid. As their flocks and herds increased, the freeburghers did not hesitate to use the pasture lands beyond the settled areas. In the dry summer months they commonly sent their livestock inland under the care of a son, trusted slave, or Khoikhoi. This incipient system of transhumance received a setback in 1692 when Simon van der Stel, anxious to reassert

FORMAL PRESENCES

186 78

The Cape population

Company control on the frontier, ordered freeburghers to keep their livestock within a day’s journey of their freehold properties.40 This measure appears to have been reasonably effective, perhaps because freeburghers were unwilling to risk heavy sentences merely for seeking good pasture for their stock. In 1703, however, the administration of Willem Adriaan van der Stel reversed this policy and began issuing free grazing permits to all applicants, granting the exclusive use of a designated area for three to four months. The standard period of a grant was soon extended to six months, and rules were established to define its geographical limits. No grazing permit would be issued to a new applicant if his or her pasture would be within an hour’s walk from the centre of an existing one. In practice this meant that each permit holder had exclusive control of a mimimum of 2,420 ha (6,000 acres). Theoretically these holdings were circular, though this meant little to the trekboers. As long as they did not infringe on their neighbours they had defacto control of all the land they could use, often twice or four times the theoretical minimum. After 1713 a small fee was charged for a grazing permit or permit for a loan farm (lenutgplaats) as these entities came to be known.41 In the same year, permission to cultivate wheat on loan farms, heretofore granted only on an individual basis, was made a standard concession.42 In addition to trade and pasture, the remote regions of the colony offered incomparable hunting opportunities of which freeburghers had availed themselves from the earliest times. Small hunting parties were constantly setting out for a week or two in search of game, particularly hippopotamus and eland. A few freeburghers became professional elephant hunters and penetrated deep into the country’.43 Hunting expeditions provided colonists with cheap meat for themselves and their slaves, and more important, with knowledge of the resources of the interior. As agricultural opportunities in the settled areas declined, this knowledge was to be of value to many colonists who began to set themselves up as stock farmers. In 1717 the Heren XVII decided not to encourage further European migration to the Cape but rather to continue reliance on slave labour for the development of the colony. Consequently they ordered the local authorities not to give out any more land in freehold,44 though land was still available on loan as in earlier times. Many cultivators had commenced farming on a loan farm, a portion of which was later converted into a freehold farm. The latter possibility was now closed, but was reintroduced in 1743, when the holder of a loan farm was given the option of converting a portion of it (50.6 ha or 125 acres) into freehold

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 187 Freehold farm ers an d frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

79

Figure 2.4 Average prices of freehold farms. 1700 -1780

tenure on payment of a lump sum based on the value of the property. The occupant of such a property still had to pay the annual rent he or she had formerly paid on the loan farm. Only a handful of cultivators took advantage of this option. After 1717 an individual could acquire land for his own use through inheritance, by purchase, or by leasing a loan farm. In practice there was little distinction between freehold land and loan farms, whose leases became so secure that the fixed improvements (which could be sold) came to include the value of the land on which they stood.45 The VOC no longer desired a growing population of cultivators largely because it was experiencing difficulty in marketing Cape produce. In the absence of a large home population, Cape farmers were heavily dependent on passing ships for a market. The business generated by ships calling at Table Bay included sales to free-spending crews on shore leave and delivery of supplies directly to the ships. In times of war in Europe or Asia, troops were frequently stationed at the Cape and provided an additional market for Cape produce. From 1717 to 1780, except in the final decade, the number of ships calling at the Cape did not increase. The stagnation of this vitally important market had a detrimental effect on demand for arable produce, and freeburghers

188

FORMAL PRESENCES 80 The Cape papulation generally had to be content with selling to the VOC at low official prices. The VOC found a market for some of the surplus wheat by exporting about 5,000 muiden ( 15,500 bushels) annually to the East.46 Wine farmers had more difficulty developing an export market, because Cape wine travelled badly and acquired a poor reputation abroad. Nonetheless, after 1743 some wine was exported annually to Batavia.47 The markets for meat and other pastoral products were also largely tied to the volume of shipping in Table Bay. The Company did not control the market for livestock as tightly as it controlled that for wheat and wine, and the price of meat and live animals tended to reflect supply and demand. Demand for livestock was reasonably stable, but drought and diseases occasionally reduced the supply and forced prices up. A particularly serious rash of diseases decimated Cape flocks and herds in the period 1714 to 1718.48 Meat prices were high for a few years thereafter, but began a steady decline in the mid-1720s as the supply of animals increased. Live sheep, which fetched over 7 guilders in the early 1720s, usually sold for from 2 to 3 guilders after 1730.49 The effects of low prices for wheat and wine were not felt evenly by all cultivators, but varied according to the size of their operations. In general, large estates were more efficient than small ones, whose production costs tended to increase with time. The lack of a group of reliable and inexpensive artisans was one barrier to efficient production that was keenly felt by small and medium producers. Baron van Imhoff, who inspected the Cape in 1743, remarked: It seems incredible that a mason and a carpenter each earns from eight to nine schellingen [twenty schellingen equalled one guilder] a day and in addition receives food and drink and withal does not do as much as a half trained artisan in Europe. It is a burden this colony cannot bear and it certainly has a prejudicial effect on agriculture.50

The larger producers avoided the cost of hiring independent artisans by establishing their own specialised estate workshops which were staffed by skilled slaves.51 Small cultivators were also hard hit by the catastrophic decline in the number of Khoikhoi workers (see ch. 1, pp. 22 - 23 ). Unable to afford more than a few costly slaves of their own, they had to hire slaves from other freeburghers at busy times in the agricultural year.52 More affluent farmers were also increasingly dependent on slave labour (Table 2 .2 , p. 82 ), but were able to achieve some economics by dividing farm tasks among a dozen or so slaves, each of whom might have a special skill. In addition to gaining economic advantages from the size of their

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 189 Freehold farm ers and frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

81

operations, wealthy farmers were often able to procure monopoly leases from the VOC. The holders of such leases, which were regularly auctioned by the Company, obtained the sole right of supplying the VOC or Cape public with a specific commodity such as meat, wine or beer. A monopoly lease provided an attractive investment opportunity for well-established freeburghers, and assured them a market for their own produce covered by the lease. During the period 1720 to 1780 large fluctuations in land prices reflected the changing demand for agricultural products.53 Although a sustained trend in land prices developed about 1755 and strengthened in the 1770s, an average farm of 60 morgen which sold for 4,200 guilders in 1721, would have fetched only /2 0 0 more in 1768 (Fig. 2 .4 , p. 79 ). The generally low land prices, however, did not make things much easier for a newcomer to get started in arable farming. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries a new settler was able to commence farming on unimproved land which was obtained for nothing from the VOC. After 1717 a new cultivator was obliged to purchase a farm with its fixed improvements, which added little to the productive potential of the land. Indeed, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the productivity of cultivated land generally declined with use.54 In addition to having to purchase land, which in spite of the trends referred to above still demanded a substantial capital outlay, a new arable farmer had also to acquire slaves, stock and equipment. The average cost of a working farm before 1770 was about 15,000 guilders, comprising 6,000 guilders for land, 2,000 guilders for slaves, and the rest for stock and equipment.55 A new cultivator would have needed at least 5,000 to 10,000 guilders as a down payment for the purchase of such a working farm, depending on how much additional capital was available on loan. The ability of a young person to take up arable farming was largely determined by the amount of capital able to be commanded. A number of sources of capital, both public and private, were available to freeburghers in the eighteenth century, but the most important was inheritance. Under the Cape system of partible inheritance the estate of a freeburger was normally divided equally between the surviving spouse and the children.56 Each child, regardless of sex, was entitled to an equal portion of the children’s half of the estate. These inheritance portions could be altered in a will, but no spouse or child could be disinherited of more than half of his or her standard portion. The standard inheritance portions, however, were seldom much altered even when a will was prepared. The young adult children of the established freeburghers were in a

190

FORMAL PRESENCES 82 The Cape Population good position to establish careers for themselves, but many young people were destined to inherit virtually nothing and consequently had limited access to loans. The German immigrant Mentzel noted that the difficulty of obtaining a loan was a major grievance of colonists.57 The amount of capital an individual might assemble could also be affected by marriage, by the extent of the financial support of parents before their deaths, by the number of brothers and sisters with whom an inheritance had to be shared, and by many other factors. Poor but enterprising colonists were able to acquire capital through their own efforts. Elephant hunting, for example, offered good returns for a small investment. Nevertheless, only the children of the more affluent families were generally in a position to assemble the considerable amount of capital needed to become successful cultivators. The size and gross value of working arable farms tended to increase from 1715 to 1780 while the inequalities among farmers also increased. This tendency was clearly revealed in the increasing number and the changing distribution of slaves employed by arable farmers (Table 2 .2 , p. 82 ). The number of male slaves in arable farming increased from 1,500 in 1716 to 2,800 in 1770; the number of cultivators who owned one or w o slaves declined, but an increasing number of farmers owned ten or more.58 Estate records reveal that many small farmers were deeply in debt and left no assets at all.59 In the period 1731 to 1742 the average debt of estates with a gross value of less than 10,000 guilders was 4,170 guilders, which comprised fully 78.6 per cent of the average gross assets of these estates (Table 2 .3, p. 82 ). \Vhile small cultivators found it increasing­ ly difficult to secure a reasonable return on their invested capital, many large producers became exceptionally wealthy. In the period 1771-80 several colonists left estates with a net value of over 30,000 guil­ ders; the largest, that of Martin Melck in 1776, was valued at 225,000 guilders.60 The white population was mainly native bom by 1731 and exhibited great stability.61The majority of landowning whites had been born, lived and died in the same region. The white population was also highly stratified. Mentzel identified three classes of rural cultivator: the very wealthy plantation owner, the well-off gentry, and the hard-working ‘yoeman’ farmer.62 In addition to this group of landed free people were a large number of landless white colonists, who made a living working for others, usually in supervisory roles. The white society, although it was divided on the basis of wealth, was a close-knit community. The wealthy and poor participated together in community activities. The small farmers were also often tied to the wealthier ones by debts.

40 19 11

1716 1746 1770

90 108 108

No. of cultivators 39.8 37.8 35.1

% of all cultivators

1-5

53 85 98

No. of cultivators 23.5 29.7 31.8

% of all cultivators

6 - 10

Number of slaves held (adult males)

43 74 91

No. of cultivators 19.0 25.9 29.5

% of all cultivators

Over 10

226 286 308

Total No. of cultivators

Source: KA 4053, 4144 and 4240 (Opgaaf Rolls).

14 8 5

1 7 3 1 -1 7 4 2 1 7 5 1-1 7 6 2 17 70 -178 0

4,170 3,120 3,850

Avg. debt 78.6 52.8 64.1

12 6 6

No. of estates

7,620 3,530 7,680

Avg. debt

53.2 2 1.3 54.4

7 4 9

No. of estates

Source: Invenrarissen, MOOC (Weeskamer), vols. 8/5 - 8/17 and Stel., 18 /3 0 - 18/34.

No. of estates

Avg. debt as a per cent of avg. assets

Average gross value of estate (Cape guilders) 10,000 to 20,000

Avg. debt as a per cent of avg. assets

Under 10,000

Estates of cultivators: Debts as a proportion of all assets, 17 31 -17 8 0

Period

Tabic 2.3

11,000 10,450 27,450

Avg. debt

26.7 38.2 36.2

Avg. debt as a per cent of avg. assets

Over 20,000

t This table is concerned with adult slaves held by cultivators. Table 3.7 in the next chapter includes all slaves - men, women and children - and is not restricted to slave holders involved in arable farming.

17 .7 6.6 3.6

No. of % of all cultivators cultivators

0

Distribution of slaves among cultivators}:

Year

Table 2.2

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 191

192

FORMAL PRESENCES 84 The Cape population The average hard-working farmers eked out an independent living for themselves, squeezed from above by large well-capitalized planters and spurred from the bottom by the examples of widespread poverty among landless whites who had difficulty finding reasonably well-paid employment in a slave society. The position of these small farmers was made even more uncomfortable by the presence of an administration that ruled in the interests of the wealthy burghers.63 No matter how hard the small farmers tried they could not compete with the planters, and yet they needed to work reasonably hard simply to maintain their position as respectable farmers. Their weak economic position provided them with few opportunities of evading the VOCs marketing laws, which must have seemed especially oppressive to them as they struggled to survive as independent landholders. At the pinnacle of white society was a small landed gentry, who lived well off large farms or plantations worked by scores of slaves.64There was some mobility in the social system, but only a few small farmers succeeded in becoming members of the landed gentry, usually by marriage. The rest of the white farmers by dint of steady hard work and with the help of slave and family labour kept themselves in the middle of free settler society at the Cape. Their values of hard work, order, discipline, and religious orthodoxy would have been inculcated in their children, who would have expected little help in their efforts to make a living for themselves. This group provided the majority of frontier family settlers, who began to move over the mountains in the early eighteenth century.

Frontier settlement, 1703-1780 From the earliest days of Dutch settlement at the Cape, Europeans had found attractive opportunities in the frontier regions.65There was good hunting, trade and prospects of pasture in abundance. A variety of inhabitants had availed themselves of these opportunities alone and in groups for shorter and longer periods.66 In the eighteenth centurv, as the white population increased, so did the number of people active on the frontier. More and more loan farms were taken out at ever-increasing distances from Cape Town. The number of independent stockholders* § I define an independent stockholder as someone who is nor engaged in commerciaJ arable farming and who owns at least fifty sheep and twenty cattle. Almost all cultivators also possessed stock. Some of these rook our loan farms on which their animals could graze during the dry summer months, bur usually the}' pasaired their sheep and cattle on the open veld near their cultivated lands.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 193 Freehold farm ers an d fron tier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

85

numbered about 25 (one tenth of the 260 agricultural producers) in 1716, 225 in 1746 and 600 in 1770.67 In 1770 they represented two thirds of all independent farmers. In other words, a rapid increase in the number of pastoralists took place while the number of arable farmers grew very slowflv. The rate and direction of settler expansion were largely a function of the nature of the terrain, the availability of permanent surface water, and the quality of pasture. The main areas settled before 1720 included the country to the north of the Berg River (Piketberg) and to the east of the Hottentots-Holland Mountains. In the 1720s the trekboers settled the Oliphants River Valley, the upper Breede River Valley and adjacent valleys and basins, and pushed eastwards in the coastal area to the area south of the Langeberg Mountains. The 1730s saw them entering the Little Karoo which, with the expanding area of settlement south of the Langeberg Mountains, became the district of Swellendam in 1745. In the north a group of trekboers crossed the arid plain between the Cape mountains and the Roggeveld escarpment in 1745 and occupied the most accessible portions of the interior plateau. The initial settlement expanded northwards and eastwards; the Hantam w'as occupied in the 1750s and the Nieuwa'eld in the 1760s. Settlement spread into the summer rainfall area in the late 1760s, and into the Camdebo (GraaffReinet area) and the Sneeuwberg Mountains. In the 1770s trekboers occupied the areas to the north and east of the Sneeuw'berg Mountains, and to the southeast the country behind Bruintjes Hoogte. Meanwhile, in the south, Sw'ellendam colonists pushed eastwards in the Little Karoo and the Langkloof. When, in 1770, the government made an abortive attempt to check further expansion at the Gamtoos River, a number of trekboers had already taken out loan farms beyond it. The eastward expansion continued, and by the late 1770s settlers had occupied the Zuurveld (see Fig. 2 . 1, p. 68). Population densities w'ere extraordinarily low' everywhere in stock farming areas. The extremely dispersed settlement pattern was fostered in part by the arid and mountainous nature of much of the country, but more importantly by the system of land granting, which entitled each landholder to at least 2,420 ha (6,000 acres). Even the more fertile and better watered areas w'ere sparsely inhabited. The country had almost certainly supported more nomadic Khoikhoi per square kilometer in the seventeenth century than it did trekboers, retainers and remnant Khoikhoi in the eighteenth. A w'ell-endowed portion of the south coast, for instance, had 142 loan farms in an area of about 11,500 km2 (4,450 square miles) (Fig. 2 .5 ). Assuming that the average number of free

194

FORMAL PRESENCES 86 The Cape population persons in a household was seven and doubling this figure to include slaves and remnant Khoikhoi, the mean population density of the region would have been approximately one person per 5 km2 (two square miles). In the arid regions the population density figures would have been lower; perhaps one person per 15 km2 (sue square miles).

Figure 2.5 Distribution of loan farms: Southcentral Swellendam After map A 2 3 1, Van de Graaff collection

A major factor promoting the expansion of white settlement of the interior was the availability of land and the low capital requirement of stock farming. Land was available on the edge of the areas settled by whites for a small annual rent, and elsewhere in the older regions of white settlement by purchase of the opstal (as the house or other fixed improvements on a loan farm were designated) at a cost usually considerably lower than the cost of an arable freehold farm in the southwestern Cape. The average value of an opstal in stock farming areas ranged from 300 to 500 guilders compared with 6,000 to 10,000 guilders for an arable freehold farm.68 In fact, in some areas an opstal could be purchased for as little as 100 guilders while a good arable farm could cost as much as 20,000 guilders. Moreover, the stock farmers did

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 195 Freehold farm ers a n d frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

87

not have to purchase many slaves or expensive equipment. Their heaviest investment was for livestock. Assuming they could start with one horse, twenty cattle, fifty sheep, a wagon and a little equipment, their capital needs would amount to about 1,000 guilders.1I Those lacking any capital resources whatsoever could become bijwoners (tenant farmers) on the properties of established settlers, looking after their patrons5stock on a system of shares. Many young men began their farming careers this way, and some ended them without ever achieving financial independence. On the farms and cattle posts of the interior, colonists born in Africa and also a few European immigrants, learned to know and love the African veld. They became inured to the hardships of an isolated but independent way of life and mastered the skills and techniques necessary to survive in it. In the process sons lost the skills of their fathers, many of whom had been skilled artisans. The farming backgrounds of most colonists made them ill prepared for other kinds of work, but, more important, there was little non-farming employment in the arable farming areas and virtually none in the stock farming areas. There were a few opportunities for artisans near Cape Town, but they were not sufficiently attractive to encourage young colonists to become apprenticed in blacksmithing, carpentry or some other trade. The low level of business activity and the prospects of competition from slaves were the two main obstacles. When a need arose for more artisans, the positions were filled by slaves or ex-VOC employees born in Europe. The gradual disintegration of the Khoikhoi communities in the interior provided trekboers with cheap labour. The Khoikhoi were excellent stockmen who were intimately acquainted with the local grazing and water resources. Moreover, they were particularly valuable to trekboers, often hard pressed for cash, as they were paid in kind - usually their keep and sometimes a small proportion of the increase of the stock they tended (see ch. 1, p. 30 ). The availability of Khoikhoi made it unnecessary for a trekboer to invest much capital in slaves. Occasionally Khoikhoi who were still adherents of surviving Khoikhoi communities would work for a trekboer for a year or two before returning to their people.69 In the 1760s and 1770s the Khoikhoi workers were joined by captured ‘Bushmen5women and children (see ch. 1, pp. 2 6 - 28 ). Trekboers were not subsistence farmers, as has sometimes been argued. Throughout the years of colonial expansion they maintained HIt would have been broken down as follows: horse, 50; cattle, 150; sheep, 350; wagon, 300; rent on loan farm, 72; other equipment, 78. All figures arc in Cape guilders.

FORMAL PRESENCES

196

88 The Cape papulation economic links with the Cape, where there was a reasonably good demand for inland produce. Their expansion could not have taken place without guns, gunpowder, wagons and other manufactured items, obtainable only in exchange for the produce of the interior. Apart from essential goods and commodities, trekboers also needed some cash to pay district taxes and rents on their loan farms, although these could also be paid in kind. Though not subsistence farmers, neither were the trekboers profit-seekers who settled the frontier for commerical gain. Their movement was not sensitive to marketing opportunities for frontier produce. The marked increase in the number of loan farms in the early 1760s, for example, preceded, by a decade, the rapid build-up in the number of foreign ships calling at the Cape (Fig. 2 .6 , p. 88). One cannot argue that the trekboers moved inland in anticipation of the improved market of the 1770s, because this development was the result of complex international events beyond their competence to forecast. The picture is the same when settlement expansion is compared with meat prices. In the early 1740s applications for loan farms continued to be received by the Cape authorities when the meat market was flooded and prices were

Figure 2.6 Foreign ships calling and loan farms issued, 1716-1780 Coenraad Beyers, D ie K a a p seP a trio tic , 2 nd ed. (Pretoria, 1967), pp. 333 - 35 , and Oude Wildschutteboeken, R.L.R., vols 3 -2 6

Source:

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89

exceptionally low. Had commericial considerations been foremost in the trekboer’s mind, a marked decline in the number of new loan farms issued would have been expected.70 The trekboers were apparently moved by prospects other than those of commercial gain in settling the interior. The alternatives open to trekboers were few and unappealing. As we have seen, the high cost of an arable farm effectively excluded a large number of moderately well-off to poor persons from becoming cultivators. When such persons (worth, perhaps, 1,000 guilders) decided to put their capital into stock farms, they were taking the only action that offered them a reasonable chance of earning a living while preserving their independence. The applications for loan farms continued at all times, partly because there were no viable alternatives. Well-established cultivators did not sell their freehold farms to take up stock farming in the interior.71 The impressive estates of some of the cultivators confirm that arable farming could be profitable. The wealthier colonists of the Cape, who had a clear choice of where to invest their money, showed little interest in investing in the interior. The rich arable farmers often held loan farms for their stock, but these were not major assets. Rather than looking to the north or east for investment opportunities, the rich freeburghers looked west to Cape Town, where they competed with each other and with townsmen for the monopoly leases that were annually auctioned by theVOC. The inland movement of trekboers, if not geared to market conditions, was economic in the sense that abundant land and resources provided the wherewithal for poorer white settlers to live in rough comfort despite their isolation. The general rule that a subsistence economy is undesirable because it inhibits effective deployment of human resources or regional specialisation broke down under the special conditions of Cape frontier settlement. Here a few settlers amidst abundant resources managed to achieve a modest standard of living with little participation in the exchange economy. Access to the exchange economy was inhibited, particularly in the more remote sections of the colony, by excessively high transportation costs. True, slaughter stock could walk to market, but driving them hundreds of kilometres added considerably to their cost. The trekboers themselves did not normally accompany their animals to market, but turned them over to the employees of the meat contractors, who travelled the country districts buying up stock. Many inland farmers also produced butter, tallow, gum aloe and other produce on which heavy transportation costs could not be avoided. The difficulties of transport

FORMAL PRESENCES

198 90

The Cape population

are clearly described in the following account of Anders Sparrman, a Swedish scientist who visited the Cape in the 1770s: Every peasant for such a journey as this [from just cast of Mossel Bay to Cape Town] has two or three Hottentots, one to lead the oxen, and either one or two to drive the spare team; besides which his wife often goes with him, either for the purpose of having her children baptized at the Cape, or else for fear of being attacked by the Hottentots in her husband’s absence. Thus, taking it at the lowest, and reckoning only three persons and twenty oxen for thirty days, it stands a great many farmers in ninety days of work of themselves and men, and six hundred of their cattle, in order to make one turn with their butter to the market, and so in proportion for such as are less distant. Hence it is evident, that many thousand days work are unnecessarily lost and thrown away every year/ 2

Sparrman was of the opinion that the days ‘unnecessarily lost and thrown away5in transporting goods could be overcome if ships called at Mossel Bay or elsewhere along the eastern coast. The VOC, however, did not consider that the volume of trade merited the construction of the harbour and storage facilities, and the trekboers remained dependent on overland routes to Cape Town. For the remoter inhabitants of the colony, such as those in the Sneeuwberg Mountains, Agter Bruintjes Hoogte or the Zuurveld, the journey» to Cape Town and back might take three months or more. Travel was always demanding and often dangerous. The Scottish plant collector, Francis Masson, described the descent from the Roggeveld: Wc were furnished with fresh oxen, and several Hottentots, who, with long thongs of leather fixed to the upper pan of our wagons, kept them from overturning, while we were obliged to make both the hind wheels fast with an iron chain to retard their motion. After two hours and a half employed in hard labour, sometimes pulling on one side, sometimes on the other, and sometimes all obliged to hang on with our whole strength behind the wagon, to keep it from running over the oxen, we arrived at the foot of the mountain, where we found the heat more troublesome than the cold had been at the top .73

The improvements made to a few» of the passes closest to Cape Town barely shortened the enormous time many trekboers were obliged to spend on the road. The high cost of transportation was also reflected in the prices of all items imported to the interior. The trekboers were under enormous economic pressure to reduce such items to a bare minimum. Imported items generally considered essential were guns, gunpowder, coffee, tea, tobacco, sugar, and (in the early days) soap. Guns and gunpowder were absolutely indispensable, but the teeming herds of game provided the

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trekboers with raw materials to make local substitutes for a number of manufactured items. For instance, the Swedish botanist, Carl Peter Thunberg, who visited the frontier in the 1770s, noted that ‘thongs made of the hides of animals were everywhere used by the farmers instead of cords and ropes, both for the tackling of wagons and other purposes.’74 Skins were also used for making saddle blankets, sacks, and even, among the poorest, for clothes.75 Trekboers in remote areas appeared poverty-stricken to Europeans. Hendrick Swellengrebel Jr., a VOC official who made an inspection of the stock farming areas in 1776, attributed the appalling conditions in the Camdebo to the distance separating that region from Cape Town.76Thunberg observed that ‘the farmers who live up-country, have generally the misfortune to be poorer, and to be subjected to greater expenses than others’.77 The poorly developed transportation system and low population densities also combined to prevent any significant labour specialisation. This situation was reflected in the complete absence of urban development. The administrative centre of Swellendam illustrates the point nicely. In 1745 a drostdy was established for the new district of Swellendam on the site of the present village of that name.78 In 1750 the landdrost and heemraden of the new district discussed plans for controlling the growth of the village as artisans and others set up businesses to serve the farmers of the area.79The expected development never occurred. In 1774 no artisans were available to repair official buildings.80 In 177^ over thirty' years after the founding of the drostdy, Swellendam comprised but four houses, one of them used by the landdrost.81 In the absence of artisans and other specialists, the inhabitants of the frontier forfeited many of the economic advantages and social amenities derived from the division of labour. For the most part they did without physicians, blacksmiths, carpenters, wagonmakers, masons, teachers and the like. The early trekboers and their descendants had to be far more self-reliant than had hitherto been necessary for anyone at the Cape. In fact, the trekboers had no choice but to become jacks-of-all-trades, and probably masters of none. Trekboers would make use of artisans if business took them to Cape Town, but for everyday construction and maintenance work they were entirelv dependent on their own resources. In the absence of frontier churches, religious services were often conducted on the loan farm by the trekboer, occasionally by a visiting preacher. Wealthier trekboers hired ill-qualified itinerant teachers, usually ex-Company servants, to instruct their children. Children of poorer people grew up without formal education.82

FORMAL PRESENCES

200 92

The Cape population

Although a pastoralist could get started with little capital, further investment brought limited returns. Unimproved pasture was the basic resource of the frontier regions, and the expansion of stock farming involved enlarging the area of activity rather than using the area already occupied more intensively. Such expansion was not conducive to dynamic regional development. In fact the trekboers, far from improving their resource base, generally over-used it. There are numerous references to declining resources from the second half of the eighteenth century. In a petition to the Cape authorities in 1758, Swellendam officials partly blamed the deterioration of the veld for the poverty-stricken condition of the inhabitants of their district, and asked that rents on loan farms be lowered.83 Similar complaints were made in later decades by district officials in Swellendam and Stellenbosch.84 These officials, who were themselves frontier farmers, no doubt exaggerated the extent of resource deterioration to bolster claims for low rents or more land, but the truth of their contentions was confirmed by independent observers. In 1776 Hendrick Swellengrebel Jr. was appalled at the extent to which the pasture of the newly settled Camdebo had been destroyed, and anticipated that the region would have to be abandoned in a few years.85 In the same year Robert Gordon reported that areas of Swellendam, which had once been rich in grasses, were covered with bushes which cattle refused to eat.86 In the Bokkeveld he noted the spread of the unpalatable renosterbos.87 Unlike their arable counterparts, the stock farms, including the opstal, slaves, stock and equipment, tended to decline in value with time. In the period 1731-42 the average value of estates left by trekboers was 3,760 guilders; this figure had declined to 2,850 guilders by the period 177080.88 The position of stock farming relative to arable farming was much less favourable toward the end of the period than it had been at the beginning (Table 2 .4 , p. 94 ). Wealth was fairly evenly distributed among stock farmers and tended to become even more so. Few stock farmers were wealthy. In the final period ( 1771- 80 ) over two thirds of them left estates worth less than 2,500 guilders. These figures suggest that the conditions which had allowed a small number of trekboers to obtain a modest livelihood as near-subsistence pastoralists were already beginning to break down before 1780. The advantages of a near-subsistence economy based upon extensive exploitation of resources had begun to disappear. The decline in the average value of trekboer estates from 1731 to 1780 suggests that the number of people that could comfortably be supported on a near­

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subsistence basis had been exceeded. The general economic rule that exchange economies are more efficient than subsistence ones was beginning to catch up with the trekboers as their population grew, as the resource value of the land declined, and as the average distance separating them from essential supplies and services increased. Stock farming had brought good returns on the investment of small amounts of capital, but further investments produced rapidly diminishing returns. Unlike the arable areas, where wealth became even more unevenly distributed and a small class of very rich farmers emerged, in the stock farming regions of the open frontier most people were rather poor, although they lived in rough comfort and were free of large debts. 9

Frontiers of exclusion and inclusion The frontier offered opportunities for a variety of people in different situations and with different objectives. Single men were able to use the frontier for hunting, trading and tending livestock for others, but these activities did not constitute settlement. Settlement occurred when whites occupied the frontier permanently, and this almost always involved family units. White men usually found wives from among the white inhabitants, but a few eenlopendes (single men) took Khoikhoi wives. Two distinct frontier communities emerged: one, which I will call the ‘orthodox5or trekboer community, dedicated to the maintenance of an exclusivist ‘European5way of life; the other or ‘pluralist5community involved the blending of cultures and peoples within an informal social framework. Although white women at the Cape were expected to marry (marriage was the only career for women), they or their fathers would have demanded some means of support from a prospective husband. This demand would have ruled out many adult males, who were barely able to support themselves, let alone wives and families. The frontier settlers who did acquire white wives were largely drawn from among the more sober and steady colonists, 90 many of whom had demonstrated their reliability by years of regular service for others on frontier loan farms.91 In such service prospective settlers could acquaint themselves with frontier regions and assemble the capital they would need to set themselves up as independent graziers. Most settlers of the frontier comprised remarkably stable communities, notwithstanding their isolated existence. The frontier couple, having settled on a suitable loan farm, typically occupied it for

202

FORMAL PRESENCES 94

The Cape population

Tabic 2.4

Cultivators and pastoralists: Net value of estates** (Cape guilders), 1731-

1780 Period

1731-1742

1751-1762

1771-1780

Estates of cultivators

No. Total value Average value

33 307,650 9,300

18 187,700 10,430

486,640 24,330

Estates of pastoralists

No. Total value Average value

24 90,220 3,760

36 126,230 3,500

27 77,000 2,850

40.4

33.6

11.7

Average value of a pastoral estate as a per cent of an arable estate

20

Source: Inventarissen, MOOC (Weeskamer), vols.

8/5- 8/17 and Stel., vols. 18/30 - 18/34 . * * An estate inventor)* included stock, slaves, land, equipment, and all monetary assets and liabilities.

the rest of their lives. The evidence on which some historians, including P.J. van der Merwe, have concluded that most trekboers were nomads constantly on the move in search of game and pasture needs to be reassessed.92 In analysing loan farm records, historians must distinguish between permanently occupied principal loan farms and temporarily occupied or unoccupied loan farms used to supplement the principal farms. For example, in 1731 principal loan farms had been occupied on average for twenty years by the same families.93 In addition to certain economic hardships, the frontier trekboers had to put up with severe social isolation. The day-to-day life on a loan farm was often monotonous, and was probably harder on women than on men. Men spent much time in the saddle supervising their workers or hunting with their sons. The sporting life, however, was not a substitute for a fuller social life, and isolation from the outside world tended to blunt the trekboers5 intellectual development. The wives of the trekboers were responsible for running the home and rearing their numerous children. Much of the actual work about the house was done by Khoikhoi servants and slaves, and frontier women found themselves with time on their hands. But although frontier life was generally rather dull, there were times of excitement and even danger as violent clashes arose with the ‘Bushmen5, displaced from their hunting grounds by the trekboers. European visitors were impressed by the egalitarianism and independent spirit of the trekboers. These characteristics were largely

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related to their economic circumstances. On their isolated farms, trekboers produced almost everything they needed and acquired other items directly from Cape Town. Trekboers were, therefore, largely independent of their neighbours for their economic well-being. If neighbouring trekboers quarrelled - and in an unsurveyed land there was much to quarrel about - there was little economic incentive for them to patch things up, neither side being likely to need the other's co-operation to maintain its economic position. Extreme individualism was further fostered by the absence of a non-farm rural population dependent on the farming community. Because artisans, retailers and innkeepers in rural areas are dependent on the goodwill of the entire farming community, people in such occupations typically manifest tolerance and flexibility, and actively promote these values within the whole society. Trekboer society lacked the cement that a communityminded, non-farm rural population could have provided and became, in consequence, even more atomised.94 The trekboers did, however, set some limits to their independent behaviour. They were noted for their hospitality to travellers. In a country without any stores, inns or guest houses, all travellers were dependent on farmers living along the road for refreshments and supplies. As all inland farmers were obliged to make occasional journeys to die Cape, everyone stood to benefit from an informal system of reciprocal help to travellers.9* Another area in which inland inhabitants co-operated with each other was in the defence of their property against the ‘Bushmen’, whose attacks threatened the very existence of the settler community. In their isolation the frontier settlers assumed many of the responsibilities of government. Though the VOC did not formally delegate any of its authority to the inhabitants, it failed to provide the personnel to administer the frontier, whose sparse numbers did not justify the expense needed to maintain Company authority. Not surprisingly, many frontier inhabitants came to regard the VOC as irrelevant to their survival. A resident of Swellendam probably spoke for the majority of frontier whites when he exclaimed that the entire Cape government was not worth a ‘pipeful of tobacco’.96 The frontiersmen were in many respects the government, and they used what power they had to protect their interests as they saw them. Though the VOC was generally absent from the frontier, the orthodox inhabitants were unable to escape its influence. In assuming the government of their isolated estates with their mixed population of whites, slaves, Khokhoi and ‘Bushmen’, the family settlers based their

204

FORMAL PRESENCES 96

The Cape population

actions on previous experience of VOC rule, from which they acquired their concepts of order and control. Although it was not possible to replicate the life of the southwestern Cape, the frontierspeople could adapt basic VOC concepts to the circumstances of their own lives. They accepted the notion that power was its own justification and that their subjects had to be awed and terrified into submission. In frontier conditions they could not awe the Khoikhoi and slaves with fanfare and fine dress, but they could emphasise their superiority as white Christians and insist on being addressed as ‘baas5or ‘master5. Khoikhoi and slave dependents were constantly reminded that they were inferior ‘heathens5 who had no rights other than those granted to them by their employers and overlords. The orthodox frontier settlers also bolstered their authority by fear. Although lacking the sophisticated apparatus of torture available to the VOC, many would inflict severe physical punishment on those who dared to cb^enge their authority.97 Severe whippings were routine and occasional llted in death.98 Some farmers shot offending Khoikhoi in the legs, and occasionally resorted to outright executions. Although the VOC remained technically in control of frontier regions, de facto power was in the hands of individual white farmers, who had life-anddeath power over their Khoikhoi and slave dependents.99 The whites feared they could be overwhelmed if they did not uphold authority constantly and with savage ferocity. Though this fear was not invented on the frontier, it acquired new life there and took on an intensified racial aspect, because the orthodox frontierspeople were dealing with people who were physically distinguishable from themselves. Although the VOC was not free of racism in its own policies, it rarely distinguished as sharply between whites and dependents who were not white as did settlers on the frontier. In spite of the isolated settlement pattern which precluded regular church attendance, orthodox settlers made a deliberate effort to maintain and foster their religious heritage.100 Regular devotional services, involving Bible reading and psalm singing, were a feature of orthodox frontier life.101 These services were usually conducted by the farmer himself in the presence of his family and Khoikhoi and slave dependents.102 The importance of religion in the daily lives of the majority of settlers is evident from the fact that whites often referred to themselves as ‘Christians’ and used this word to differentiate themselves from the slaves and the ‘heathen’ inhabitants of the country.103 The significance of religion to the group solidarity of the orthodox settlers was well described bv I.D. MacCrone:

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For the frontier farmer, then, his religion was, first and foremost, a social fact and a jealously guarded group-privilege. By virtue o f his religion, he justified his right to dominate the heathen by whom he was surrounded. They fell outside the pale, and their claims, therefore, could never compete on equal terms with those o f the Christian group. The idea that Christians and nonChristians were, in any sense, equal, even before the law, or that an offence by a Christian against the person or property of a non-Christian, could be taken seriously or be dealt with as vigorously as a similar offence by a non-Christian, was entirely foreign to frontier mentality.104

Religion not only marked the boundaries of the white group but affirmed its superiority over the indigenous peoples.105 It is not clear how far notions of identity and superiority derived from specifically Calvinist doctrines. However, the lack of missionary' zeal in Cape Calvinism meant that scarcely any attempt was made by the VOC or anyone else to convert the Khokhoi to Christianity in contrast to the efforts of the Roman Catholic church in French Canada, Asia and Latin America. On the South African frontier the particularly exdusivist character of the Calvinism brought by the farmers from the southwestern Cape reinforced the idea that whites had a permanent monopoly on the Christian religion. Under this view, there was virtually no possibility of legitimate marital unions between black and white, and race relations were consequently given a sharper edge. Andre du Toit has convincingly argued that the idea of a chosen people was not part of the eighteenth-century Afrikaner consciousness, as it later was in the twentieth century.106 However, if the frontier people of the eighteenth century' were not a chosen people, they were chosen people in the sense that they considered themslves as individuals and as families to have a special relationship with God that was denied to the ‘heathens’ among whom they lived. This sense of superiority had yet to be translated into a consciousness in which God was seen as favouring white settlers as a group, and giving them a historical destiny in Africa. Although religion, as we have seen, tended to be the basis on which the orthodox frontier community differentiated itself from the Khoisan and slaves, there is evidence that race was as, if not more, important in defining the way the community conceived of its membership. The mixed-race offspring of whjfe men and Khoikhoi women, notwithstanding their close cultural ties, were rarely incorporated into the orthodox white community. Such differentiation might have been justified on religious grounds, but there are also examples of outright racial discrimination. In 1780, the burghers Willem Plooy and Fredrick

FORMAL PRESENCES

206 98

The Cape population

Zeelen refused to let their sons do commando service on the grounds ‘that they were regarded as bastards and consequently, were not judged good enough to participate in this burgher duty.’107This was so despite the fact that their parents were married and that they themselves had been baptised.108TTieir mothers, however, were non-European women, probably themselves of mixed racial ancestry.109 When Sparrman observed the endogamy of white trekboers he used racial, not religious, categories. He wrote: ‘ . . . a great many of the whites have so much pride, as to hinder, as far as lies in their power, the blacks or their offspring from mixing with their blood . . .5l10 This sense of racial identity was seen as a matter of community survival by orthodox settlers. On the frontier white men outnumbered white women about two to one for much of the eighteenth century. Settler women were regarded primarily as childbearers, and their worth on the frontier was tied to their scarcity. They had a vested interest in opposing any kind of race mixing, because if Khoikhoi women could be allowed to substitute for them, what little power they did have would have shrunk in a male-dominated social order. The orthodox settlers had, therefore, to insist on their racial ‘purity5 as a means of maintaining the social distinctions between whites and Khoikhoi, which were seen to be essential not only for frontier social order but also for survival of the white group. In 1758, a group of frontier residents submitted a request for a teacher to be sent out to them and in support of it made the point that the large number o f ‘barbarian and heathen people5threatened to ovewhelm European society.111 This sentiment was reiterated in a memorial of 1778, in which the inhabitants of the Camdebo region petitioned for a teacher and minister.112 Although they could have exaggerated their fears to make their point, their memorial is nevertheless invaluable evidence on how frontier people saw themselves. Race mingling could only have posed a threat to a society dedicated to the maintenance of racial dominance and cultural survival. There were other indications that the orthodox settler community had developed quite rigid views on the place of Khoikhoi and ‘Bushmen5in the frontier scheme of things. The brief support given to the revolt of Estienne Barbier by established settlers of the northwest Cape was due to Barbier 5s espousal of a vigorous anti-Khoisan policy (see ch. 1, p. 26 and ch. 6, pp. 308 - 09 ). The sentiments were also found in other regions. A Swellendam burgher, one M. Botha, described landdrost Horak, who had sought to ensure some degree of equitable treatment of the Khoikhoi in his region, as a ‘Hottentots5landdrost.113 Such epithets were to have a long history in South Africa.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 207 Freehold farm ers a n d frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

99

However, not all whites on the frontier conformed to the exclusivist pattern. Throughout the eighteenth century there were opportunities for eenlopende men in hunting, trading and herding. Such men were mainly temporary occupants of the frontier and would not have exerted much influence on the permanent settlers. Other single white men, however, adapted themselves to frontier life and learned to live with the Khoikhoi.114 These men frequently took Khoikhoi as wives, but they maintained their European language and much of their culture. Although few in number, such examples provided a constant reminder that the indigenous people of the frontier had the potential of absorbing white settlers. They must have heightened the fears of the exclusivist white settlers and strengthened their resolve to maintain their own racial, religious and cultural identity.115 The fact that the Dutch-speaking off­ spring of white-Khoikhoi liaisons were not absorbed by the white population is evidence of a well-developed race prejudice among the orthodox frontier inhabitants rather than evidence of general racial tolerance on the frontier. Whites who lived with Khoikhoi women were cut off from the rest of the white community. Little is yet known about the origins of those men who lived with Khoikhoi women and created pluralist frontier communities. Most were probably poor and would have had some difficulty finding white wives, but there were many poor white men who never married, yet remained within the orthodox community and accepted its values. The nonconformists were clearly intent on casting off some of the values of the VOC dominated society; the frontier allowed them not to perpetuate a way of life but to escape a social order which offered them little. In thus rejecting established values, they, unlike the orthodox settlers with their clearly defined social and religious objectives, apparently did not articulate an alternative ideology. The pluralist community of nonconformists evolved in a somewhat ad hoc manner and defined itself more in terms of what it rejected than of what it affirmed. The appearance of a community of mixed white-Khoikhoi people on the eighteenth-century frontier is proof enough that a mingling of the races occurred.116 The nature of the social and physical interaction between whites and Khoikhoi, however, is not easily reconstructed because of a paucity of evidence.117 The frontier exposed people to the possibility of a variety of social-sexual relations. Hunters, traders and stockmen would have been able to indulge in illicit sexual activity with Khoikhoi w'omen without incurring the social disapprobation of their community, provided they were sufficiently discreet. This kind of activity, could also have taken place on the frontier farms of orthodox settlers. It

FORMAL PRESENCES

208 100

The Cape population

seems likely that most offspring of such casual sexual encounters would have been assimilated within the culture of their Khoikhoi mothers. However, the fact that many of the offspring of white-Khoikhoi unions spoke Dutch and adopted new ways of living suggests that there were also reasonably stable male-dominated common law marriages between white men and Khoikhoi women. The evidence for such stable unions is comparatively indirect because they existed on the fringes of the colony, unobserved by most travellers and unrecognized by officials and bureaucrats. There are, however, scattered references to white-Khoikhoi unions. For example, in 1768 Secunde (Deputy-Governor) J.W. Cloppenburg learned that the colonists Jan Ehrenkroon, Fredrick Zeelen and Hans Dietlof in Houteniqualand, who made a living as wood cutters, were living with ‘Bastaard’ and Khoikhoi women.118 Ehrenkroon, recorded with a ‘Bastaard’ wife and children in the 1770 official census or opgaafis not among the old Cape families included in de Villiers-Pama’s genealogy.119 Frederick Zeelen married the mixed-blood mother of his children shortly after Cloppenburg’s visit, and they were both baptised about the same time. 20 Hans Dietlof was the only one of this group who was living with a full-blooded Khoikhoi woman. There is no mention of Dietlof in the de Villiers-Pama genealogy, but he is listed in the 1770 opgaaf, as a single man.121 It seems that from an official point of view Dietlofs Khoikhoi partner, and any children they might have had, did not exist. (For further evidence of white-Khoikhoi mixing sec ch. 4 pp. 200 - 02 ). It is impossible to say how many other men of European descent lived with Khoikhoi women, because many Khoikhoi wives and mixed children would not have been included in the opgaaf.122 Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the number of people of mixed EuropeanKhoikhoi descent increased steadily throughout the eighteenth century. The children of white-Khoikhoi informal marriages came to occupy an intermediate position between the orthodox settler community and the Khoikhoi people in the frontier social order. Orthodox sealers valued mixed-race people as reliable and trustworthy servants, but never accepted them as potential full members of the orthodox community. Indeed, the fact that the orthodox sealers were not prepared to accept the offspring of white-Khoikhoi unions is evidence enough of their consciousness as a distinct group identified both by race and religion.

Conclusion The initial plan of the VOC to create a small, easily defensible settlement at the Cape was based on unrealistic assumptions about the ease with

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 209 Freehold farm ers an d frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

101

which agriculture could be established there and about the prospects of obtaining a regular supply of livestock from the Khoikhoi. The early freeburghers lacked the capital and labour to develop their lands along the intensive lines envisaged by Van Riebeeck, and many of them abandoned agriculture or left the colony. The freeburghers who persevered in agriculture devised their own ways of making a living, by putting more emphasis on trading and raising livestock and less on cultivation of wheat. In 1679, the VOC allocated new lands to settlers beyond the Cape Flats with a view to stimulating agricultural production. The land grants were now much larger, and it was assumed that much grazing land would be needed by settlers for their livestock. By 1700 Cape farmers raised ever increasing amounts of wheat, wine and livestock and re-invested most of their profits in slaves and land. Wealth was unevenly distributed among the colonists of the southwestern Cape. There were wealthy planters with several farms, hard-working cultivators burdened by debt and many poor landless single men. As good arable land near the Cape became scarce and as the costs of arable farming increased, more and more settlers looked to the frontier. The opportunities on the frontier were many, and colonists took advantage of them with different objectives and in different ways. Wealthier colonists made temporary use of inland pasture to supplement the pasture near their farms. Very poor, unattached single men went to the frontier to trade, rob, hunt and herd in the employ of others or on their own account. But it was the growing number of family settlers with a little capital, who sought to make a living as independent stock farmers on loan farms rented from the VOC, that provided the main basis of a new frontier economy and society. Although the frontier was an attractive opportunity for a growing number of moderatelv-poor colonists who could not afford land in the southwestern Cape, it offered poor prospects for sustained growth. Its economy was primitive, and a large portion of its goods and services were produced and consumed at the same point. The frontier settler was largely dependent on the natural environment with, perhaps, a little home processing. Economic isolation made for a very marked degree of self-sufficiency on all frontier farms. Farm improvements waited on better transportation; improvements in transportation waited on an increase in population density; an increase in population density waited on farm improvements. As land was abundant on the open frontier, here was a vicious circle from which there was no escape. Lacking the basic requirements for sustained economic growth, the Cape interior

210

FORMAL PRESENCES 102 The Cape population remained economically stagnant for the greater part of the eighteenth century. Notwithstanding the isolation and rough living associated with a near subsistence economy, most frontier family settlers were concerned to preserve their orthodox Christian way of life with its laws and social norms, above all the nuclear family. They defined themselves as a distinct community on the basis of their culture, religion and race and were at pains to preserve this lifestyle. There was, however, a minority of single men who settled the frontier permanently without finding white wives. These men created for themselves a new way of life in which the customs of Europe and the southwestern Cape were blended with those of the Khoikhoi among whom many of them lived and found sexual partners. Although the nonconforming white frontiersmen were a significant frontier phenomenon and created a pluralist community of their own, such people had little standing with the orthodox white settlers and their effect on white South African values and social structures was slight. The orthodox settlers dominated the political, social and economic affairs of the frontier and imposed their values on all its people. In adapting firmly-held beliefs to frontier conditions, the orthodox settlers created a new community. This community was tough, individualistic and Christian white supremacist. It owed its ideology to the autocratic VOCruled slave society of the southwestern Cape, where European social values had already been substantially modified. Though none of these characteristics were new to the frontier, they were established there with particular determination. It was from the frontier regions that they were later taken further inland by the Voortrckkers, with major implications for all the peoples of southern Africa. Chapter Two Notes 1. C 499, Uitgaandc Brievcn, H. Crudop - XVII, 18 April 1679, p. 119. 2. KA 4053,OpgaafRoll (1716); C. Beyers,DieKaapscPatrioticgedurendedie Laaste Kwart van dicAgticndc Ecu cn die Voortlewing van hulDenkbeeldc, 2nd ed. (Pretoria, 1967), p. 341. The figure includes free blacks. 3. KA 4161, Opgaaf Roll (1751); Kaapsc Archicfitukkcn 1778-1783, ed. K.M. Jeffreys (Cape Town, 1926-38), IV, 1 May 1780, pp. 355-57 4. G.M. Thcal, History of South Africa before 1795 (London, 1927), II, 325. 5. C 416, Inkomcnde Brievcn, XVII - Simon van der Stel, 8 Oct. 1685, p. 213. 6 . Thcal, History of South Africa^ II, 316. 7 C.G. Botha, The French Refugees at the Cape, 3rd edn (Cape Town, 1970), p. 213.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 211 Freehold farm ers an d frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

8.

103

L. Guelke, T h e Anatomy of a Colonial Settler Population: Cape Colony 1657-17505. (forthcoming) 9. According to the research of J.A. Heese, the Afrikaner people (of 1807) were derived from the following ethnic groups: Dutch, 36.8 per cent; German, 35.0 per cent; French, 14.6 per cent; ‘non-white’, 72 per cent; other and indeterminable, 6.4 per cent: J.A. Heese, Die Herkoms van die Afrikaner (Cape Town, 1971), p. 21. 10. O.F. Mentzel, A Geographical-Topographical Description of the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town, 1924), II, 21. 11. G. Barraclough, The Origins of Modern Germany; 2nd edn (Oxford, 1947), pp. 391-96. 12. H .C. V Leibbrandt, Precis ofthe Archives ofthe Cape ofGood Hope: Letters and Documents Received, 1649-1662 (Cape Town, 1896- 99), I, 26 July 1649, p. 1 2 . 13. Ibid., 1, June 1651, pp. 18-29. 14. Journal of Jan vanRicbeeck, 1651-1662, ed. H.B. Thom (Cape Town, 1954), 28 April 1652, pp. 35-36. This is hereafter cited as VRJ. 15. A.J. du Plessis, ‘Die Geskiedenis van die Graankultuur in Suid-Afrika, 1652-1752’, Annals of the University of Stellenbosch, Series B l, II, (1933) pp. 2-5 and 113. 16. H.M. Robertson, ‘The Economic Development of the Cape under Jan van Riebeeck’, South African Journal of Economics, XIII (1945), p. 77 17 VRJ, II, 6 Mav 1656. pp. 32-33.' 18. Ibid., 24 Oct. *1656, p. 69. 19. Suid-Afrikaansc Argiefetukkc; Kaap: Resolusics van diePolitickeRoad, ed. A.J. Boeseken (Cape Town, 1957-62), I, 21 Feb. 1657 pp- 90-93. 20. Ibid. 21. C 409, Inkomende Brieven, XVII-Council of Policy, 16 April 1658, p. 1036. 22. H.B. Thom, Die Geskiedenis van die Skaapboerdcry in Suid-Afrika (Amsterdam, 1936), p. 246. 23. Kaapsc Argicfitukkc: Kaapse Plakkaatboek, 1652-1795, ed. K.M. Jeffreys and S.D. Naud£ (Cape Town, 1944-49), I, 26 Sept. 1660, p. 61. 24. Bclangrike Kaapse Dokumcnte: Mcmorien en Instruction 1657-1699, ed. A.J. Boeseken (Cape Town, 1966), p. 39. 25. C 499, Uitgaande Brieven, H. Crudop-XVII, 18 April 1679, p. 119. 26. C 499, Uitgaande Brieven, Simon van der Stel-XVlI, 27 March 1680, p. 477 27 Ibid., p. 514. 28. DO, Old Stellenbosch Freeholds, I. 29. L.T. Guelke, ‘The Early European Settlement of South Africa’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1974), p. 123. 30. H.A. van Reedc, ‘Joernaal van zijn Verblijf aan de Kaap’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van hetHistorisch Genootschap, LXII, 20 May 1685, pp. 122-23. 31. Guelke, ‘European Settlement’, pp. 119-23. 32. DO, Old Stellenbosch Freeholds, I and II. 33. Guelke, ‘European Settlement’, p. 179. 34. C 500, Uitgaande Brieven, Simon van der Stel-XVII, 23 April 1682, p. 39. 35. Mcmorien en Instruction, 16 July 1685, pp. 22 3 -2 6 ; Res, III, 5 Aug. 1686,

212

FORMAL PRESENCES 104 The Cape population

36. 37 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

pp. 140-42. E. Boserup, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth (Chicago, 1965), p. 73. Guclkc, ‘European Settlement5, p. 160. KP, I, 22 Jan. 1692, p. 282. Ibid., 1, 8 Sept. 1693, p. 263. Ibid., 22 Jan. 1692, p. 263. Res, IV, 3 July 1714, p. 412. See P.J. van der Merwe, Die Trckboer in die Gcskicdcnis van die Kaapkolonic (1657-1842), (Cape Town, 1938), pp. 63-132 for a detailed analysis of the origins and administration of the loan farm system. The best account of hunting expeditions at the Cape is hAcntz/d^Dcscription of the Cape, III, 125-26. Mentzel lived at the Cape in the early part of the eighteenth century. C 436, Inkomende Brieven, 15 July 171^ p. 604. The views of the members of the Cape Council of Policy, whose advice was sought before the Heren XVIFs decision on slavery was announced, are in Reports ofDe Chavonnes and his Council and of Van lnthoff on the Cape (Cape Town, 1918). All but one councillor argued in favour of the retention of slavery. This statement is based on an examination of the prices paid at public auctions for the fixed improvements or opstal of loan farms. MOOC series 10, Vendu Rollen, Vols. 6-14. Du Plessis, ‘Geskiedenis van die Graankultuur5, p. 67 J.I.J. van Rensburg, ‘Die Geskiedenis van die Wingerdkultuur in SuidAfrika tydens die Eerste Eeu, 1652-17525, Archives Yearbook of South African History, II (1954), pp. 1-96. Thom, Skaapboerdcry, pp. 47-48. Ibid., p. 50. Reports of dc Chavonnes ct al, p. 137 Items of equipment are listed under workshop headings in inventories of the larger estates; M OOC series 8 , Inventarissen, Vols. 1-17 A.J.H. van der Walt, Die Ausdchnung dcr Kolonic am Kap der Gutcn Hoffhung (1700-1779), (Berlin, 1928), p. 40. Data on land prices arc in DO, Transportcn en Schcpenenkennis volumes, which arc complete except for one year for the eighteenth century. A. Sparrman, A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, 1772-1776, 2nd edn (London, 1786), I, 250-52. Guelke, ‘European Settlement5, p. 277 Thcdl, History of South Africa, III, 360. Mentzel, Description of the Cape, II, 148-49. Guelke, ‘European Settlement5, pp. 293-97 Data from M OOC series 8 , Inventarissen, Vols. 5-8. St 18/31, Inventarissen, 24-26 June 1776, no. 17 Guelke, ‘A Computer Approach to Mapping the Opgaaf: The population of the Cape in 17315, South African Journal of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Cartography, XIII (1983), p. 231. Mentzel, Description of the Cape, III, 98-121. L. Guelke and R. Shell, ‘An Early Colonial Landed Gentry: Land and Wealth in the Cape Colony 1682-17315, Journal of Historical Geography, IX (1983), pp. 265-86.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 213 Freehold farm ers a n d frontier settlers, 1652

- 1780

105

64. Ibid., p. 279. The gentry comprised about 10 percent of the census households. 65. The important studies o f frontier expansion in eighteenth-century South Africa are: Van dcr WaJt, Die A usdehn u ng; Van derMerwe,£)zr Trckboer; P.J. van der Merwe, Trek: Studies oor die Mobilitcit van die Pionicrsbcvolking aan die Kaap (Cape Town, 1945); S.D. Neumark, Economic Influences on the South African Frontier: 1652-1836 (Stanford, 1957). See also H. Giliomee, ‘Processes in Development of the Southern African Frontier’ and R. Ross, ‘Capitalism, Expansion, and Incorporation on the Southern African Frontier’, The Frontier in History: North America and Southern Africa Compared, ed. H. Lamar and L. Thompson (New Haven and London: 1981) pp. 76-119 and pp. 209-33. 6 6 . Frontier activities can be traced in such primary sources as Receiver of Land Revenue, Vols. 1 -3 2 and Stellenbosch 13/31 Alphabcth van d’Ecnlopcndc Personal. 67 KA 4053, 4144, and 4240, Brieven en Papieren van de Caab Overgekomen, Opgaaf Rolls (1716, 1746, and 1770). 6 8 . These data were obtained from estate inventories covering the period 1731-80: M OOC series 8 , vols. 5 - 1 7 and Stel. series 18, vols. 30-34. 69. Jacob Koch of the Langekloof, an exceptional case, was reported to have employed as many as 100 Khoikhoi. See F. Masson ‘An account of three journeys from Cape Town into the southern parts of Africa’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, LXVII (1776), p. 29. 70. Neumark, Economic Influences, pp. 5, 17 79. 71. Ibid., p. 38. 72. Sparrman, Voyage to the Cape, I, 264. 73. Masson, ‘Southern Parts of Africa’, p. 315. 74. C.P. Thunberg, Travels in Europe, Africa and Asia made betmen the Tears 1770 and 1779, 3rd edn (London, 1795), II, 52. 75. VC 595, Gordon Journals, p. 47; J. Barrow, A n account of Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa in the Tears 1797 and 1798 (London, 1801), I, 105. 76. ACC 477, Swellengrebel Papers, p. 22. 77 Thunberg, Travels, II, 173. 78. Theal, History of South Africa, III, 71. 79. C 653, DR (Stellenbosch, Drakenstein en Swellendam), 18 March 1750, p. 815. 80. C 665, DR (Stellenbosch, Drakenstein en Swellendam), 11 Jan. 1774, pp. 344-45. 81. VC 592, Gordon Journals, p. 32. 82. C 311, Memoricn en Rapporten, 24 March 1778, p. 429. 83. SWM 1/1, Notulcn van Landdrost en Heemraden, 24 Jan. 1758, pp. 4 2 4 -4 7 . 84. C 655, DR (Stellenbosch, Drakenstein en Swellendam), 15 June 1771, p. 65; C 310, Memoricn en Rapporten, 7 May 1776, p. 78. 85. ACC 44^ Swellengrebel Papers, 31 Oct. 1776, p. 24. 8 6 . VC 592, Gordon Journals, Oct. 1771, p. 34. 87 VC 593, Gordon Journals, 4 Dec. 1778, p. 163.

FORMAL PRESENCES

214

106 The Cape population 88.

These data were obtained from estate inventories covering the period 1731-80: M OOC series 8 , Inventarissen, Vols. 5-17 and Stel. series 18, Vols. 30-34. Estate inventories included the value of a deceased person’s stockholdings. 89. Guelke, ‘European Settlement’, p. 327 90. The conservative historian G.M. Theal was not entirely off base when he wrote that only the steadier elements in the population made a success of their careers. Theal, History of South Africa, 111, 504. 91. The origins of settlers were traced using the cenlopende lists, which provided data on the employers o f single freeburghers. Stellenbosch 13/31, Alphabeth van d’Eenlopende Personen. 92. See Van der Merwe, Trek, pp. 17-20 and pp. 61-120. Van der Merwe’s image of people constantly on the move does, however, apply to many young single men and landless couples. People who had not yet found suitable affordable land were prepared to move in search of it. 93. South African Archives, RLR, Oude Wildschutteboeken, I—III. 94. Guelke, ‘European Settlement’, pp. 255-56. 95. Mentzel, Description of the Cape, 111, 119. 96. Swellcndam 3/12, Verklarings in Kriminclc Sake, p. 40. 97 Barrow, Travels into the Interior, 1 ,145-46. 98. Swellcndam 3/10, Verklarings in Kriminclc Sake, p. 80. 99. When in 1787 a Khoikhoi named Daniel Dikkop, who had been accused of murdering a slave, was asked whether he knew that the penalty for murder was death, he replied that he did not and added, ‘this sort of murder remains unpunished, and Europeans shoot Hottentots dead without anything being done about it’. Quoted by R. Ross, ‘Oppression, Sexuality and Slavery at the Cape o f Good Hope,’ Historical Reflections/ Réflexions Historiques, VI (1979), pp. 421-33. 100. Van der Merwe, Trckboer, pp. 247—49. 101. Ibid., pp. 249-54. 102. Heinrich Lichtenstein, Reisen in südlichen Africa in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805, und 1806 (Berlin edition, 1911; reprint, Stuttgart: 1967), 1,268. The orthodox trekboers in conducting religious services in the presence of Khoikhoi underlined their ‘outsider’ status, rather than providing them with an opportunity to embrace Christianity. 103. The word ‘Christian’ was routinely used in official correspondence in referring to the white inhabitants of the Cape. It was also employed by visitors such as Sparrman who wrote about the Cape. The extent to which the idea of being Christian was an integral part of the frontier inhabitants’ self-image comes out clearly in an incident related by Barrow, in which a colonist was flogged and put in irons by the British military authorities for ill-treating a non-Christian inhabitant of Graaff-Reinet. This colonist was indignant about his punishment and spent his first night in jail repeating the words ‘My God! is dat een manière om Christian mensch te handelen’ (Mv God! is that a way to treat a Christian). Barrow, Travels into the Interior, I, 398. 104. MacCrone, R/u* Attitudes, p. 256. 105. Van der Merwe, Trekboer, p. 256-57 provides a summary of contemporary

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 215 Freehold farm ers an d frontier settlers, 1652 - 1 7 8 0

107

evidence on this point. 106. Du Toit, ‘No Chosen People,5 p. 925. 107 SW 10/2: DR, n.p. (16 June 1780). 108. C.C. dc Viliiers and C. Pama, Genealogies of Old South African Families (Cape Town and Amsterdam, 1966), pp. 711,1159. 109. Ibid. 110. Significantly, this observation on race prejudice was made by Sparrman, in the Houtcniquas. Voyage to the Cape, I, 264. 111. C301, Memorien en Instruction, p. 20 (9 Jan. 1758). 112. C311, Memorien en Requesten: Versoekskrif uit Camdebo, 24 March 1778, p. 429. 113. South African Archives, SYV 3/12, Verklarings in Kriminele Sake, 16 Dec. 1767 p. 40. 114. MacCrone, Race Attitudes, p. 115. 115. Ibid., pp. 125-36. 116. See E. Fischer, Die Rchobothcr Bastards und das Bastardicrungsproblcm beim Mcnschcn (Graz, 1913) for an account of the origins of a mixed white Khoikhoi communin'. 117 The Dutch kept no detailed records on the Khoikhoi and what information on them is available comes largely from criminal records and travellers’ accounts of the interior. 118. The evidence of manv visitors and officials needs careful interpretation. The remarks of J. W. Cloppenburg, for example, have to be analysed in their context. In these remarks, Cloppenburg made it clear that he was opposed to the kind o f individual settlement occurring on the frontier. He thought that poorer settlers should work for wealthier ones rather than establish their own farms. This perspective coloured his remarks on the frontier inhabitants and their ‘deterioration’ and ‘estrangement from religion’. The twelve adult males he encountered in Sweilendam might not have been church members - the nearest church was at Tulbagh over 120 kilometres away - but one cannot conclude that they had ‘given up’ on religion. The evidence of other travellers and officials is that religion was maintained by the settlers themselves on their own farms. Cloppenburg, however, clearly encountered some individuals who had adapted their lives to the frontier situation and rejected the orthodox values of their communin'. 119. The wife of Jan Anton van Ehrenkroon is recorded in the 1770 census and an inventory of his estate was made in the usual wav. See M OOC 8/50, 85.5. 120. Johan Fredrick Zeelen married Maria Stolts in 1769. His children were baptised one month after their marriage. De Villiers-Pama, Genealogy, p. 1159. 121. KA 4240, Opgaaf, 1770. 122. Although the number of white people who mingled with the Khoikhoi is impossible to estimate with any precision, it is known that the phenomenon was sufficiently widespread to have created real concern among orthodox settlers and some officials and to have resulted in the emergence of small mixed European-Khoikhoi communities. On the basis

FORMAL PRESENCES

216 108

The Cape population of opgaaf, reports and travel accounts, it seems likely that the nonconforming frontiersmen would never have comprised more than 10 per cent of the white frontier population and probably substantially less than this figure.

11

Economie and Political Expansion: The Case o f Oudh P.J. Marshall

H i s t o r i a n s of the early phases of British conquest in India have until recent years given comparatively little attention to the economic elements in British expansion. Historians of the late nineteenth or early twentieth century generally portrayed conquest as a largely defensive reaction to French rivalry or to the instability created by the collapse of the Mughal empire. The commercial functions of the East India Company were largely ignored; if they were mentioned at all it was only to point out that the Directors of the Company believed that costly wars and conquests were incompatible with successful trade and there­ fore took a jaundiced view of the supposed ambitions of Warren Hastings and Wellesley. In 1948, however, in his John Company at Work, Professor Holden Furber both revealed a much more complex pattern of British economic interests in India, including an extremely vigorous private sector operating in the interstices of the Company’s monopoly, and suggested a number of links between ‘economic contact between India and the west’ and the rise of British ‘imperialism’.1 More recently, historians have begun to examine such links in detail in studies of specific parts of India. The extent to which the British had entrenched themselves in the economic life of Bengal long before Piassey, was noted by Dr Bhattacharya in his The East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, a book which prompts questions about the extent to which Siraj-ud-daula or Mir Kasim were victims of British economic success.2 For a later period, Dr Nightingale has suggested that British private trading interests at Bombay had a decisive role in bringing the pepperproducing areas on the Malabar Coast and the cotton of Gujarat under British rule.* This paper was originally presented at the Director’s study group on Tndia: Society in War, 1795-1808*, School of Oriental and African Studies, in 1974. 1 Holden Furber, J o h n C om pany a t W o r k : A S tu d y o f European E xpansion in In d ia in the L a te E ig h teen th C entury (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), p. 32 1. 2 Sukumar Bhattacharya, T h e E a s t In d ia C om pany a n d the Econom y o f B engal fr o m 1 7 0 4 to 1 7 4 0 (London, 1954). * Pamela Nightingale, T ra d e a n d E m p ire in W estern In d ia 1 7 8 4 - 1 8 0 6 (Cambridge, 1970).

FORMAL PRESENCES

218 466

P. J. MARSHALL

It is not difficult to suggest economic motives for conquests, carried out by the agents of a great trading company, which brought under British rule coastal provinces whose economies had for centuries been geared to producing commodities for the European market or for export to other parts of Asia. The precise degree to which the British subjugation of Bengal or their acquisition of territory on the coast of western India or on the Coromandel Coast can be described as econo­ mically motivated is matter for debate. But it seems hardly possible to deny that there was an important economic element in the process of conquest. On the other hand, when the British armies began to leave the coastal provinces and to force their way up the Ganges valley or into the Deccan, the case looks rather different. The older accounts with their emphasis on the need to counter supposed French designs or to impose stability on areas adjoining the Company’s provinces seem to have lost none of their force. As Professor Stokes has recently sug­ gested, the British ‘political frontier’ sustained by revenue collection and subsidies, seems to have moved well ahead of their ‘true economic frontier’ of trade and investment.4 This article will examine a particular example of the second stage of conquest, the British drive up the Ganges valley into Oudh, which began with the defeat of the Wazir at Buxar in 1764, and ended with Wellesley’s annexation of a large part of a later Wazir’s territory in 1So 1. It will try to show how the British acquired a major economic stake in Oudh well before 1801. Cultivators and weavers, even in districts as remote from Bengal as Rohilkhand or the upper Doab, were responding to the demands of Calcutta’s seaborne trade before they were required to respond to the demands of the Company’s Collectors or Tahsildars. In the Ganges valley, at least, both the political and the economic frontiers of British India appear to have been mobile, and it will be one of the purposes of this article to discuss the relationship between them. The story of the Company’s political penetration of Oudh is well known thanks to the work of Dr Davies5 and Dr Basu.* It followed a pattern frequently repeated in eighteenth-century India, with the Company trying on the one hand to preserve the autonomy of an Indian ruler, while on the other levying demands on him which severely restricted his freedom of action. British influence in Oudh began when 4 ‘The First Century of British Colonial Rule in India: Social Revolution or Social Stagnation*, P a s t a n d P resent , L V I I I (1973), 142-3. 3 Cuthbert Collin Davies, W arren H a s tin g s and O udh (London, 1939). 3 P. Basu, O udh and the E a s t In d ia Com pany 1 7 8 5 - 1 8 0 1 (Lucknow, 1943).

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 219 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL EXPANSION IN OUDH

467

Clive made provision for troops to be maintained there at the Wazir’s expense after he had restored him to his territory in 1765. In the 1770s the Company became more and more involved in Oudh as the number of its troops in the pay of the Wazir increased, and as ever larger subsidies were demanded from him. To ensure regular payment of the subsidies the Company’s Resident at Lucknow, first appointed in 1773, began to intervene in the running of the Wazir’s government. Assign­ ments of territory were made over to the British and for a time they were even placed under British military Collectors. To make up for the personal deficiencies of the Wazir Asaf-ud-daula, the British insisted that his government be placed under ministers who enjoyed their confi­ dence. By the early 1780s it was clear that the Company’s inroads into Oudh had reached the point where they must either destroy the Wazir’s government altogether and annex the province, or significantly reduce their demands upon it. Hastings, tentatively at the end of his adminis­ tration, and Cornwallis, decisively through the whole of his, chose the second course. The subsidy was fixed at a more moderate rate and the Company bound itself in theory to observe the Wazir’s autonomy in the internal administration of Oudh, provided that he submitted to the Company’s will in matters of defence and foreign policy. On this basis, stability of a sort was achieved in British relations with Oudh for some ten years. By 1795, however, the defects of Asaf-uddaula’s government from the British point of view began to provoke fresh intervention. The Wazir’s inability to control his armed forces was threatening to undermine the Company’s security in northern India, and his financial incapacity was placing its subsidy in jeopardy. Sir John Shore tried to bring about reforms without departing too far from ‘our established principle of non-interference*,7 but after 1798 Wellesley, who had in Saadat Ali a much more capable Wazir with which to deal, showed fewer inhibitions. In 1800 he forced the Wazir to agree to a major reduction of his own forces with a corresponding increase in the Company’s troops in Oudh and of the subsidy to pay for them. Heavy as the burden of the new subsidy was, it is possible that Saadat Ali might have achieved a new period of stability in Oudh’s connexion with the Company. But Wellesley did not give him the chance. In 1801, on somewhat tenuous pretexts, Wellesley confronted the Wazir with a demand that he either hand over the whole of Oudh or make huge territorial cessions to the Company. Eventually, Saadat Ali agreed to sign away a string of districts from Gorakhpur to Rohilkhand, 7 Holden Furber (ed.), T h e P riva te R ecord o f an In d ia n Governor•G eneralship (Cam­ bridge, Mass., 1933), p. 66.

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which left his ‘reserved dominions* encircled on three sides by British territory. There are fewer obvious landmarks in the story of British economic penetration of Oudh, but one of them is the signing of Cornwallis’s commercial treaty with the Wazir in 1788. Up to 1788 British trade in Oudh had depended to a very large extent on the political influence which certain individuals could exert on the Wazir’s government. Trade was mostly in the hands of the army officers attached to the British brigades or of the Resident at Lucknow and his entourage. The 1788 treaty was intended to create conditions in which trade could exist without the exercise of political power. The British agreed to forbid the use of special privileges or powers of coercion by European merchants, while hoping that the Wazir in return would maintain a fair legal framework within which trade could develop. Neither side of the bargain was kept with any punctiliousness, but the period after 1788 did see greatly increased British trade in Oudh, handled for the most part by ‘free’ merchants, that is, by men out of the Company’s service who had no official influence. The British army which invaded Oudh after the battle of Buxar brought a number of European traders from Bengal in its wake. They seem primarily to have been concerned with selling British or Bengal goods and with purchasing Oudh saltpetre. In a year or two there were thought to be five hundred gumashtas employed by Europeans in Oudh,1 most of them trading with ‘parwarnas which exempt the possessor from all duties or impositions’, issued by the Wazir because he was ‘afraid of offending the English’.9 The Wazir, encouraged by the army officers in Oudh who had an obvious interest in eliminating trading competitors, did his best to turn back this invasion. In 1768 Governor Verelst responded to his complaints by forbidding the issue of passes or exemp­ tions to English gumashtas in Oudh, and later by recalling all private gumashtas.10 Gumashtas were allowed back into Oudh in 1771 but they were still forbidden to claim exemptions from the Wazir’s customs or from the duties levied on trade by the amils and zam indarsAll the advantages, therefore, remained with those Europeans who were able to enforce • R. Smith’s evidence, 2nd Report, Select Committee, 1772, R eports fr o m Com m ittees o f the H ouse o f Comm ons (London, 1803-6), III, 289. * T . Rumbold’s evidence, ib id , III, 268-9. 10 H. Verelst, A V iew o f the R is e , Progress a n d Present S ta te o f the E n g lish Governm ent in B en g a l (London, 1772), appendix, pp. 183-9 1. 11 I[ndia] Offfice] Rfecords], B[engal] P[ublic] Consultations], 26 June 17 7 1, Range 1, Vol. 49, pp. 180-2.

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exemptions, that is, with the army officers (Hastings called trade in Oudh in 1772 a ‘military monopoly’)12 and the Resident and his staff. The Residents were able to establish their own saltpetre monopoly and to supply saltpetre on contract to the Company.15 Hastings’s first Resident, Nathaniel Middleton, managed the monopoly through John Scott, a free merchant who launched under Middleton’s patronage what was to be one of the biggest European enterprises in Oudh, the cotton piecegoods aurang at Tanda on the Gogra.14 Scott became the virtual ruler of the area round Tanda. Its revenue was farmed out to him,15 he built a factory house o f‘great strength’, and exercised ‘a right of preemption’ so as ‘to exclude competition’ over a large force of weavers.16 Having sold piecegoods to private traders for five years, in 1783 Scott obtained a contract to supply the Company with Tanda cloth.n In 1787 the Tanda aurang was thought to be capable of pro­ ducing cloth worth four lakhs of rupees.18 The story of John Hyde, as told in a case before the Calcutta Supreme Court, is another example of a European trader in Oudh who prospered under the Resident’s patronage. After setting up as a merchant at Lucknow under Middle­ ton’s protection, Hyde was able to use ‘his influence and interest with his friends’ to obtain ‘perwannahs, orders, permits or letters’ from the Wazir. Peons wearing Hyde’s ‘badge and livery’ escorted his goods. Without such precautions, his trade would have been ‘obstructed or delayed . . . and have had a heavy duty to pay, or been liable to great exactions from the zemindars, officers of government or others’. Moreover, it was only ‘by exertion, influence and interest’ that he could enforce payment of debts due to him.19 Cornwallis had clearly heard something of this kind of activity and he decided that any attempt to put the Company’s relations with Oudh onto a footing that gave the Wazir more effective autonomy must include reform of the abuses of European trade. As a first step he in­ structed the future Governor-General, George Barlow, to go to Oudh to report on how the Company conducted its own trade there, the 1* G. R. Gleig (ed.), M e m o irs o f the R t . H o n . W arren H a stin g s (London, 1841), I, 334. »* W. Paxton’s and N. Middleton’s evidence to Committee of Managers of Hast­ ings’s Impeachment, Add. M S. 24266, pp. 34 0 -1, 346. 14 D is tr ic t G azetteers o f the U n ite d Provinces o f A g ra and O udh , X L I I I, F y za b a d ) ed. H. R . Nevill (Allahabad, 1905), pp. 4 1-2 . ** His g u m ashta was still farming the m a h a l in 1798 (J. Lumsden to Wellesley, 13 October 1798, I.O .R ., Home Miscellaneous, 236, pp. 546-7). >• Paxton’s evidence, Add. M S. 24266, p. 342. 17 Paxton’s evidence, ib id , pp. 337-8. 11 I.O .R ., Bengal Secret and Political Consultations, 6 June 1787, IV , 336. •* Calcutta High Court Record, Supreme Court, Equity, H yd e v O jagur M u ll.

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‘investment’ in piccegoods, mostly provided by Scott at Tanda.20 Barlow’s report was an extremely radical one, shot through with the doctrinaire optimism about free trade which was so characteristic of the Bengal service at the time. Free trade, Barlow thought, would ‘diffuse prosperity amongst a multitude of people now pining in indigence and obscurity’ and ‘lay the foundation of order and good government* in Oudh.2* He pointed out that Europeans could only trade successfully in piecegoods by establishing ‘a species of monopoly* which would give them protection from interruptions and demands by the Wazir’s amils, and enable them ‘to command the labour of the weavers in preference to other competitors*. He thought this highly undesirable, and recommended that the Company’s investment be abandoned and that the piecegood trade be opened to all comers.22 Cornwallis agreed that ‘the revival of a free trade is of the utmost consequence to the prosperity of the Vizier’s dominions as well as those of the Company*. He accepted that the Company’s Oudh investment should be discontinued, but intended also to clip the wings of the private traders. The Resident was forbidden to trade on his own behalf and he was to prevent ‘all claims of exemptions from duties, all pretensions to a right to preemption, and in a word all undue influence on the part of Europeans’.23 The number of Europeans living in Oudh was to be strictly controlled.24 But free trade is a game which requires more than one player. If Europeans were to give up using political influence to support their trade, they felt that the Wazir must be persuaded to remedy the con­ ditions which, in their view, made the use of political influence necess­ ary. He must moderate his own and the amils’ and zamindars*collection of dues, maintain reasonable conditions of law and order, and adminis­ ter justice in a way which gave confidence to Europeans. The task of persuasion was entrusted to Barlow at his own suggestion. He began negotiations with the Wazir’s ministers for a commercial treaty, which would ensure that ‘trade will be carried on under the protection of the laws, and n o t . . . by dustucks and perwanahs’.25 As a later Resident admitted, the Wazir viewed Barlow’s proposals with ‘jealousy and 20 I.O .R ., Bengal Secret and Political Consultations, 23 March 1787, II, 577-82. 21 Barlow to Cornwallis, 4 June 1787, Public Record Office, PRO 30 /11/17, f. 4. 22 The report is in I.O .R ., Bengal Secret and Political Consultations, 6 June 1787, IV , 298 ff. 22 Cornwallis to E. Ives, 1 October 1 7 8 7 , 1.O.R., Home Miscellaneous, 236, p. 452. 24 Cornwallis to Wazir, 15 April 1787, ib id , 235, p. 415. 22 Barlow to Cornwallis, 4 June 1787, Public Record Office, PRO 30 /11/17,

f 3.

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alarm9 (clearly regarding them as no more than a stalking horse for greater British intervention in Oudh)20 and his ministers bargained tenaciously.22 The treaty was finally ratified on 25 July 1788. Even supposing that its terms could have been enforced, which, given the Wazir’s lack of control over his administration, was an un­ likely supposition, the treaty of 1788 can hardly be said to have in­ stituted ‘free trade9.2* The treaty did not apply at all to certain parts of Oudh, notably to Rohilkhand, and it only applied to certain types of trade elsewhere. Barlow had concentrated most of his efforts on creating a larger market for Bengal goods by ensuring that duties would be reduced on Bengal’s exports to Oudh, most of which were to pay no more than 2$ per cent. In return, the Company reduced its duties on Oudh exports to Bengal. What Barlow did not apparently foresee was that the major flow of trade between the two territories in the near future would be exports from Oudh to Bengal, mostly provided by British merchants living in Oudh, and that the main impediment to this trade would be the export duties levied by the Wazir. In the treaty the Wazir was permitted to charge export duties at any rate he chose, except on raw cotton in transit through Oudh which was to pay no more than 5 per cent. Within Oudh, local dues were to be regulated and the Wazir’s customs officials rather than the amils or the zemindars were to collect them. Much as the Company might wish to see European trade protected by equitable laws rather than by the use of political power, Europeans could still appeal to the Resident for help. A Euro­ pean involved in a commercial dispute with one of the Wazir’s subjects could have his case presented to the Wazir’s ministers by the Resident, a provision which the Wazir’s negotiators regarded as intended to give a handle for much future interference by the Resident.29 Cornwallis seems to have believed that the only effective sanction against refractory Europeans was to invest the Resident with power to expel them from Oudh.30 Cornwallis’s new strategy for commercial relations with Oudh depended on concessions being made both by the Wazir’s government and by European traders. In practice neither side conceded very much. As he was perfectly entitled to do, the Wazir charged high rates on exports from Oudh: saltpetre paid 30 per cent, indigo 15 per cent and *« G. Cherry to J . Shore, 15 February 1796, Add. M S. 13522, f. 96. ‘State of the Treaty*, I.O .R ., Home Miscellaneous, 634, pp. 165 ff. *■ C. U. Aitcheson, A C ollection o f T re a tie s , E ngagem ents an d Sanads (4th ed. Calcutta, 1909), I, 1 1 2 - 1 7 . ** ‘State of the Treaty*, I.O .R ., Home Miscellaneous, 634, p. 177. *• Letter to E. Ives, 16 June 1788, Public Record Office, PRO 30/11/170, f. 69.

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sugar 10 per cent.31 Not only were the rates high, but there were bitter complaints from Europeans about corruption in the Permit Office set up to administer the customs after the treaty.32 Local dues were supposed to be regulated by the Permit Office, but the amils and zamindars continued to collect them on their own account in what was alleged to be a highly arbitrary manner.33 In Gorakhpur goods were required to pay duties in every pargana through which they passed, and there were 173 separate ckaukis or collection posts; in the neighbouring district of Azamgarh there were 106.34 On a five-day journey from Fatehpur to Allahabad a bullock driver had to pay dues four times.33 ‘There was no imposition’ which ‘the people calling themselves Zemindars and landholders* in the Doab ‘did not practice on persons travelling, indigo merchants and persons in trade’.3« In 1802, fourteen years after the treaty, European traders were still complaining of the ‘vast variety’ of duties, ‘which in the aggregate form a sum far too great to be borne by the trade and consequently ruinous to the mer­ chants’.37 Faced by what they regarded as at best a capricious and at worst an openly extortionate government, European merchants showed little inclination to trust in ‘the protection of the laws’, as Cornwallis had intended that they should. Their tactics may have changed, but they still relied on political influence. The great trading monopolies run by the Residents or by the army officers seem to have been replaced by a whole series of local grants and exemptions, negotiated by individual merchants with the amils of the districts where they wished to trade. In January 1796 the Wazir complained that Europeans ‘farm districts from the aumils without my knowledge or consent’ and hinted at ‘great dangers’ from the ‘residence of English gentlemen in such parts of my country as they select*.38 This accusation came as no surprise to the Resident, who was 31 Cornwallis to Wazir, 12 August 1793, P [arliam entary\ P [apers ], 1806, X V , 2 23; G. Cherry’s Memorandum, c. 21 January 1796, Add. M S. 13522, f. i n . 33 Cornwallis to Wazir, 29 January 1793, C. Ross (ed.), Correspondence o f Charles, F ir s t M a r q u is C ornw allis (London, 1859), II, 555. 33 G. Cherry to J . Shore, 15 February 1796, Add. M S. 13522, ff. 98-9. 34 J . Routledge to G. Mercer, 25 Ju ly 1802, G. N. Saletore (ed.), H en ry W ellesley's Correspondence (Allahabad, 1955), p. 33. A . Seton to H. Wellesley, 22 December 1801, India Office Library, M S Eur. E. 173, p. 87. 34 G. Ousley’s evidence, 20 June 1806, ’ Committee on Oude Charge*, P.P., 1806, X V I I , 787. 33 D. Robertson, e t a l to Ceded Provinces Commission, 3 October 1802, Add. M S. *356 i , f. 77* 34 Letter to G. Cherry, rec’d 21 January 1796, Add. M S. 13522, f. 106.

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disposed to coincide in opinion with many in these provinces on the im­ practicability of carrying on trade, particularly in indigo, unless they hold land in farm for cultivation of the plant. Cloths and every other article of trade, where advances are made, are subject nearly to the same inconvenience, for in every article the merchant requires a share in the patronage of govern­ ment . . . and can expect no fair dealing but by means of a power to enforce it. Scott had long farmed the revenue of Tanda, Colonel Claud Martin had a valuable farm to protect his indigo works in Kora,40 and another European had a revenue farm for the same purpose in Rohilkhand.41 The kind of episode that made Europeans cynical about the effective­ ness of the Wazir’s laws or of the Resident’s good offices is illustrated by the case of Robert Orr, some of whose indigo was pilfered by the formidable Raja Pahup Singh of Sasni on the frontier of the Doab. Having failed to get redress from the Europeans’ normal patron, the great amil Almas Ali Khan, Orr appealed without effect to Lucknow. Only the strong right arm of General Perron, applied on the Maratha side of the border, restored some of his indigo to him.4* Apart from breaking the stranglehold which the Resident and the army officers had previously exercised over European trade in Oudh, Cornwallis’s new commercial policy probably had little practical effect. A treaty so laxly applied by both sides can hardly have contributed very much. Nevertheless, from about the year of the treaty trade between Oudh and Bengal, and the European share in it in particular, began to grow very rapidly. A survey of the customs records at Banaras for the year 1785-6 indicated that goods from Benga md for ‘the western provinces’ had been valued at Rs 17,92,326.4i in 1795-6 Rs 31,70,000 worth of goods passed through the customs post at Manjhi on the frontier of Bihar for Lucknow alone, with a further two lakhs consigned to other destinations in Oudh.44 While Bengal’s exports to Oudh doubled in ten years, the growth of Oudh’s exports to Bengal was even more spectacular. In 1771 it was assumed that the ‘returns’ on the sale in Oudh of Bengal and British goods would largely be made in specie.45 In 1785-6 goods going from ‘the western provinces’ to Bengal » G. Cherry to J . Shore, 15 February 1796, ibid, f. 102. 40J . Queiros to G. Mercer, 30 January 1802 and to H. Wellesley, 23 September 1802, Add. M S. 1356 1, ff. 7-8, 76. 41 R. Becher’s Memorial, 11 April 1809, I.O .R ., Home Miscellaneous, 237, pp. 149- 51 42 See Orr’s letters to J . Lumsden and W. Scott, 26 January 1797, 24 September 1800, Add. M S. 1356 1, ff. 24-8. 421.O.R., B.P.C., 26 December 1787, Range 3, Vol. 30, p. 742. 44 I.O .R., Bfengal] C[ommercial] R[eports], 1795-180 2, Range 174, Vol. 13. 42 I.O .R., B.P.C., 26 June 17 7 1, Range 1, Vol. 49, p. 179.

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were valued at Rs 9,27,412.4« Ten years later Bengal’s imports recorded at Manjhi were worth Rs 1,12,93,453. Allowing for very large quantities of raw cotton and indigo originating from Maratha territory and for goods from Banaras, it still seems reasonable to assume that some fifty lakhs of the total were Oudh goods;47 Oudh piecegoods alone worth thirty lakhs were exported from Calcutta that year.48 In 1802-3, the first full year after the annexations, Bengal’s imports from the Wazir’s territory and from the Company’s Ceded Provinces came to Rs 1,34,14,792.49 There can be little doubt that a large part of this extraordinary growth must be attributed to European enterprise. By 1796 the Resident at Lucknow believed that ‘the greatest commerce’ of Oudh was carried on by Europeans ‘or in their names’.*» Most of the trade in piecegoods was said by 1802-3 to be in European handsel After the annexations, it was thought that the expulsion of Europeans from so-called Reserved Dominions would be ‘ruinous to the industry and commercial interests of his country’.» James Pauli, who ran a large business from Lucknow, thought that his own exports alone from Oudh in 1802 would be worth ‘at least fifteen lacks of rupees’.53 How many European merchants were trading in Oudh before Wellesley’s annexations is hard to estimate. Repeated efforts were made to restrict their numbers and to ensure no one took up residence in Oudh without the Wazir’s or the Governor-General’s permission. But effective control of European settlement was no easier to apply in Oudh than it was in other parts of India. In 1796 the Resident complained that Europeans entered Oudh by attaching themselves to the Company’s troops at a military station, but ‘after a short residence there, fix themselves by connection with the aumil in various parts of the country unknown to the Vizier and myself’.34 Wellesley believed their numbers to be ‘a mischief which requires no comment’ and was still trying to obtain a list of them in 1798.33 The increase in European merchants in Oudh and in the volume of business which they transacted seems to have owed much more to the great expansion of Calcutta’s seaborne trade than to the effects of ««Ibid, 26 December 1787, Range 3, Vol. 30, pp. 744-50. 47 1.O.R., B.C.R ., 1795-1802, Range 174, Vol. 13. «• See below, p. 475. I.O .R., B.C.R ., 1803, Range 174, Vol. 14, f. 59. so G. Cherry to j. Shore, 15 February 1796, Add. MS. 13522, f. 104. s» I.O .R., B.C.R ., 1803, Range 174, Vol. 14, f. 60. ss W. Scott to Wellesley, 22 October 1802, Add. MS. 13530, f. 30. ss Letter to Wellesley, 5 December 1802, P.P., 1806, X V I , 149. s« G. Cherry to j. Shore, 15 February 1796, Add. MS. 13522, f. 104. ss Letter t o j. Lumsden, 23 December 1798, Add. M S. 13526, ff. 35-6.

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Cornwallis’s commercial treaty. With the ending of the War of the American Revolution the Company’s ‘investment’ of Bengal goods for Europe began to grow again and continued at a high level into the late 1790s. In the decade of peace after 1784 there was also an impressive growth in trade between Bengal and continental Europe, much of it financed by the fortunes of Englishmen. After the outbreak of war in 1793, French and later Dutch trade was virtually eliminated, but American and Danish shipments increased. Calcutta was also exporting on a greatly increased scale in this period to Asian ports, especially to Canton and to Malaya and Indonesia. Increased trade meant that new sources of supply were needed for the cotton piecegoods, indigo, saltpetre, opium, sugar and raw cotton, which were major staples of Bengal’s exports. The search for new sources was a particularly urgent one for private merchants who shipped goods on their own account or who supplied the continental Europeans or the Americans. By the 1780s the British East India Company had brought many of Bengal’s resources under its direct control. Saltpetre produced in Bengal and Bihar had been a Company monopoly since 1758 and opium since 1773. To protect money which it advanced to weavers of piecegoods, the Company claimed a right to prevent their working for private merchants while they were in its debt. Merchants complained that there were few weavers in the more important aurangs who did not owe money to the Company.56 For items which were in short supply in Bengal, Oudh, where goods were generally reckoned to be substantially cheaper than in Bengal and where the Company under Cornwallis’s new policy had largely abandoned their ‘investment’, was a most welcome alternative. At the very end of the eighteenth century the sale of Bengal piecegoods in Europe and America was still maintaining a high level. In years in which purchases were especially large, part of the demand spilled over into Oudh, where weaving for local needs and to supply Delhi, Agra and Jaipur was very widely practised.5? Oudh piecegoods were in general thought to be of inferior quality by comparison with those of the most famous Bengal aurangs, but to be considerably cheaper. In 1785-6, 366,178 pieces of Oudh cotton cloth valued at under five lakhs were recorded at the Banaras customs posts.58 Ten years later, 667,309 pieces worth nearly thirty lakhs were shipped from Calcutta. In the following years Oudh cloth exports through Calcutta were worth: « Eg. N. K . Sinha, T h e Econom ic H isto r y o f B en g a l (Calcutta, 1956-62), I, 9 1-6 . *7 I.O .R., Bengal Secret and Political Consultations, 6 June 1787, IV , 346-52. 51 I.O .R ., B.P.C., 26 December 1787, Range 3, Vol. 30, pp. 744-6.

228

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R$ Rs Rs Rs

22,73,145 in 17,28,009 in 17,67,585 in 57,79,872 in

1796-7 1797-8 1798-9 1800-159

‘Every foreign ship importing bullion into Calcutta’, it was said, ‘brings this bullion’ principally for Oudh piecegoods.60 In 1802-3, the first season after the annexations, ‘Such were the accounts from home . . ., and in such estimation were Oude cloths said to be, that every piece of cloth manufactured in the Vizier’s dominions and in the districts lately ceded to us by His Highness, was purchased in­ discriminately’.61 In the 1780s only a comparatively small amount of Oudh cloth manufactured at Tanda had been exported from Calcutta; by the later 1790s on an average a little under a third of all the piecegoods exported from Calcutta came from Oudh. With the exception of purchases made by the Company’s Commercial Resident at Banaras in the neighbouring Oudh districts of Azamgarh, Mau and Allahabad,62 the European share of the Oudh piecegoods trade before 1801 was entirely in the hands of private merchants. They were particularly active at Tanda and Nawabganj near Fyzabad,63 in the Lower Doab around Allahabad,64 in Mau and Azamgarh, and in Rohilkhand, especially at Moradabad, where European merchants were said to have brought most of the weavers under their ‘influence’.65 Europeans began manufacturing indigo in Bengal and Bihar in the late 1770s, the first shipments being sent to London in 1779. In the 1790s exports of Bengal indigo underwent a massive expansion. By 1792 total consignments had risen to 581,827 lbs; but in 1796, 1797 and 1798, the peak years of the boom, just under four million pounds were dispatched to London each year.66 A very large proportion of the indigo came from Oudh or from even further afield, two-thirds or threefifths were the usual estimates.67 In 1795 Bengal planters publicly n I.O .R., B.C.R., 1795-180 2, Range 174, Vol. 13.

I.O .R., Bengal Revenue Consultations (Ceded Provinces), 10 March 1803, Range 90, Vol. 9. «1 I.O .R., B.C.R., 1803-4, Range 174, Vol. 15, f. 99. M Report on the Commerce of Mau and Azeemgurh, I.O .R., Home Miscellan­ eous, 583, pp. 187-20 1. •3 I.O .R., Bengal Revenue Consultations (Ceded Provinces), 9 June 1803, Range 90, Vol. 10. •4 H. Wellesley to S. Swinton, 14 September 1802, I.O.R., Home Miscellaneous, 583 , P- 254R. Becher to H. Wellesley, 18 December 1802, Add. MS. 1356 1, f. 170. •• W. Milbum, O riental Commerce (London, 1813), II, 215. •7 I.O .R., B.P.C., 17 April 1797, Range 4 Vol. 49, p. 6 8 1; B.C.R., 17 9 5-18 0 1, Range 174, Vol. 13.

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complained about what they called a flood of cheap, coarse indigo from Oudh.6*The Governor-General agreed that such imports had ‘gradually increased to a degree that proves materially injurious’ to Bengal, and for a brief period in 1797 laid an extra duty of 15 per cent on them.«* A very large part of the indigo from ‘the western provinces’ was manu­ factured by Indians and imported into Bengal by Indian or European merchants, but Europeans began to make indigo for themselves in many parts of Oudh and even to set up their factories outside the Wazir’s territory altogether. For centuries the area around Agra and Aligarh had been producing indigo which was carried to Surat for shipment to Europe or the Middle East. From the 1790s, however, Calcutta’s needs began to draw the indigo of Agra and Aligarh down the Ganges. Europeans who ventured into these remote areas found that they could produce great quantities of indigo relatively cheaply. The traveller, Thomas Twining, was astonished to come upon a European indigo factory in a fortified village at Jalali near Aligarh capable of processing 5,000 maunds a year, a quantity which ‘greatly exceeded the produce of the most extensive works in Bengal’.70 But planters outside Oudh had to contend with highly unstable political conditions (except in the fiefs around Aligarh ruled by the Maratha Generals de Boigne and Perron where at least six English indigo planters lived under their protection),71 costly and precarious transport and shortage of water. Poppies had been cultivated and opium manufactured for many years in Gorakhpur in eastern Oudh. In 1789 a private European merchant called James Grant obtained a patent from the Wazir giving him a monopoly over Gorakhpur opium. He developed production to the point where in 1795-6 he was able to offer 1,304 chests for sale at Calcutta and to arouse fears that he was undermining the price of Bihar and Banaras opium produced under the Company’s monopoly. The Company complained to the Wazir, who agreed to prohibit the export of opium from Oudh to Bengal.72 Grant and other Europeans also made sugar in Gorakhpur, which was said to grow the best cane in In d ia .B u t comparatively little of the already large sugar output M I.O .R., B.P.C., 17 April 1797, Range 4, Vol. 49, pp. 667 ff. •* I.O .R., Bengal Salt, Opium and Customs Consultations, 19 June 1797, 5 March 1798, Range 98, Vols 33, 34. 70 W. Twining (ed.), T ra ve ls in In d ia a H u n d red Years A go (London, 1893), P* 71 U n ited Provinces G a zetteers , V I, A lig a r h , ed. Nevill (Allahabad, 1909), p. 39. 7* This episode is fully described in H .R .C . Wright, ‘James Augustus Grant and the Gorakhpur Opium, 1789-1796*, J o u r n a l o f the R o ya l A sia tic Society (1960), pp. 1-16 . 7* R. Frith to J . Law, 30 March 1802, I.O .R ., Home Miscellaneous, 235, p. 619.

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of the area around Shahjahanpur appears to have found its way to Bengal before the 1801 annexations. The manufacture of saltpetre, which had been a monopoly under the Resident in Middleton’s day, became a monopoly of the Wazir when the Residents were forbidden to trade. The Company appears to have been the main purchaser from the Wazir’s farmers.74 Both by weight and by value the largest item in Oudh’s trade with Bengal was raw cotton. Before 1801, however, most of the cotton reaching Bengal via Oudh did not in fact originate in the Wazir’s territory, and the European share in the trade was a relatively small one. For most of the eighteenth century Bengal’s piecegoods had been made from locally grown cotton or from cotton imported by sea from Gujarat. But cotton was grown extensively in the Doab and in the Maratha territory south of the Jumna, especially around Kalpi, and in Bundelkhand and Berar. In 1785-6 120,576 maunds of ‘Deccan’ cotton were imported overland into the Company’s provinces.75 From 1793-8 consignments of cotton, taken by bullock through the Oudh Doab and sent by river to Bengal via the great market at Mirzapur, were supposed to average 400,000 maunds and to reach 600,000 maunds in a good year. In 1802-3 875,000 maunds arrived in Bengal. As a result of their greatly increased exports of raw cotton, the Marathas were said to be earning favourable trade balances with Bengal of about £ \ million a year.76 Most of Oudh’s own raw cotton seems to have been used in the local manufacture of piecegoods, but after the annexa­ tion of the Ceded Provinces both private merchants and the Company began to purchase raw cotton in the Doab for export to Bengal and ultimately to China. European commercial activities in Oudh were developing at a very rapid pace indeed in the years from 1795 to 1801. These were, of course, precisely the years in which Shore felt obliged to try to reform the Wazir’s government and in which Wellesley imposed a new military and financial system on Oudh and finally carried out his annexations. But a connexion between commercial and political expansion is easier to suggest than to substantiate. The growth of British power in Oudh passed through two distinct phases. Up to 1801 Oudh was an autonomous state subject to varying degrees of British intervention. In 1801, had Wellesley been able to accomplish what he most wanted, A. Pringle to H. Wellesley, 26 February 1802, Add. M S. 13561, ff. 14 -15 . 73 I.O .R ., B.P.C., 26 December 1787, Range 3, Voi. 30, p. 666. 7* I.O .R., B.C.R., 1802-3, Range 174, Vol. 14, ff. 59 -6 3; Bengal Revenue Con­ sultations (Ceded Provinces), 10 March 1803, Range 90, Vol. 9. 7«

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Oudh would have been totally incorporated into the Company’s provinces; as it was, large parts of it were incorporated. There can be no doubt that the operations of British traders were one of several factors which turned Oudh into a satellite of the British in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. But whether these operations con­ tributed in any material degree to the annexations of 1801 is quite another question. European trade on the scale on which it was being practised in Oudh in the 1790s certainly presented a serious political challenge to the Wazirs. Even if their worst excesses had been curbed by Cornwallis, European merchants still refused to submit to the Wazir’s courts, tried to evade paying his customs, and set up local systems of monopoly and control over weavers and cultivators. By striking their own bargains with powerful amils, like Almas Ali Khan, they encouraged such men in their defiance of the Wazir. When they felt their interests threatened, European traders frequently appealed for the Company to intervene on their behalf through the Residents. But galling as their presence in large numbers must have been to successive Wazirs, and bitterly as the Wazirs might complain about them on occasions, the political im­ portance of the European traders must be kept in proportion. The realities which kept the Wazir in subjection were the Company’s troops, their subsidy and the authority which the Residents had suc­ ceeded in accumulating. European trade contributed to Oudh’s dependence on the British before 1801; it did not create it. It is hard to see that the traders had any significant role in Wellesley’s annexations. There seems to be no case for suggesting that increased trade had so undermined the Wazir’s authority that annexation had become inevitable. It is indeed arguable that in 1801, under Saadat Ali, the Wazir’s administration, marked even according to a hostile Resident by ‘parsimony and diligence’,77 was more resilient than it had been for some time. Nor does it seem at all likely that traders engineered the annexations for their own purposes. Whether they even welcomed outright British annexation, as opposed to the main­ tenance of a weak autonomous state, is open to doubt. Direct British rule would of course mean British courts, greater security for property, and the suppression of the abuses in the customs and the internal transit dues, about which merchants complained so vigorously. The first year after annexation seems to have seen an even greater increase in the volume of European trade than in any previous year. But direct British rule would undoubtedly have snags for private merchants as 77 W. Scott to Wellesley, 20 September 1799, A P ., 1806, X V , 272.

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well as benefits. In 1798 Wellesley’s resolution was ‘fixed to dislodge every European excepting the Company’s servants’.7» Europeans were not expelled in 1801, but they were obliged to accommodate themselves to an ambitious programme for establishing a Company ‘investment’ in the Ceded Provinces. The absence of competition from the Company had been one of Oudh’s attractions for private merchants in the 1790s. Immediately after the annexation, however, Commercial Residents were posted to a number of trading centres and were ordered to begin purchases. In the first season four lakhs worth of piecegoods were ordered from Rohilkhand, and five lakhs worth, together with sugar, were to be bought at Mau and Azamgarh. Raw cotton and saltpetre were ordered from the Doab.79 Out of a total Bengal investment worth over ninety lakhs in 1803-4, twelve lakhs were placed in the new Ceded Provinces.80 The Commercial Residents at Bareilly and Azamgarh immediately made it clear that they could only fulfil their indents if they could establish the Bengal system of control over weavers to the ex­ clusion of private merchants.® 1 Salt and saltpetre became Company monopolies and, to help to maintain the price of the Company’s Bihar opium, the manufacture of opium in the Ceded Provinces was forbidden. It is not perhaps surprising that James Pauli, one of the richest private merchants, whose return to Lucknow Wellesley had delayed ‘until the system of the Company’s investment should be permanently established’,82 should have done his utmost in England to discredit both Wellesley and the annexations. The balance of advantages, as far as private merchants were con­ cerned, was thus by no means overwhelmingly in favour of annexation. Even if it had been, it is hard to see how private traders could have brought the annexation about. A man so aloof and selfconfident as Wellesley did not take anyone lightly into his confidence, let alone private merchants, whom he despised. On another issue he indignantly rejected the insinuation that he had been influenced by them, by writing that he would have been unfit to have been Governor-General for an hour, ‘if any person of the description stated could presume even to approach me for the purpose either of governing or of discovering my judgm ent. . . I have not conducted this government in a spirit to 71 Letter to J . Lumsden, 23 December 1798, Add. M S. 13526, f. 36. 77 H. Wellesley to Wellesley, 10 February 1803, I.O .R., Home Miscellaneous, 5B3, P- 39 M Bengal Commercial Letter, 13 January 1804, Add. M S. 13434, f. 39. 11 R . Becher to H. Wellesley, 18 December 1802, Add. M S. 1356 1, f. 170; I.O .R ., Bengal Revenue Consultations (Ceded Provinces), 30 June 1803, Range 90, Vol. 10. « Capt. Sydenham's statement, Add. M S. 13532, f. 25.

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countenance such intrigues or intrusions’.*3 After the annexation, Henry Wellesley produced an optimistic report on the commercial resources of the Ceded Provinces,*4 but there is no evidence that commercial considerations played a part in his brother’s decision to take territory. Wellesley had secured the Company’s traditional military and financial interests in Oudh by 1801, but he was determined to go further. He believed, as most Englishmen did, that Oudh was deterior­ ating rapidly under incurably bad native administration, and that he could only remedy this situation by annexation, which had, he thought, proved so salutary in southern India. He hoped to place the whole of Oudh under British rule, but if this was unattainable, he would take as much as he could. In describing the districts to be demanded, he discussed their strategic importance and their revenue resources, but made no mention of commercial advantages.*3 Tanda, for instance, remained under the Wazir after 1801. The annexation of the Ceded Provinces reflects a new confidence in British military power in India and in the Company’s capacity to change Indian society for the better, but it can hardly be described as a triumph for an economically motivated imperialism. Events in Oudh in the last quarter of the eighteenth century suggest that British expansion, even into the hinterland of the subcontinent, has an economic dimension to it. The hunt for new sources of the commodities which were being exported in ever increasing quantities from the ports of British India to Europe or to other parts of Asia was taking merchants further and further afield: areas as remote from Bengal as Aligarh were being linked to Calcutta and new opportunities were being created at several levels. Z am^n^ars and omils were offered contracts to provide indigo for European factories,*« while Almas Ali Khan was even tempted to proclaim an indigo monopoly for the areas under his control and to enter directly into production himself.*7 The increasing affluence of merchants, brokers, delals and gumashtas, who dealt in piecegoods, cotton, indigo or sugar was probably already contributing by the 1790s to the kinds of urban development described in Dr Bayly’s article.** The bankers of Lucknow and no doubt of other « Letter to D. Scott, 25 March 1802, Add. M S. 37282, f. 407. M A copy of the Report, dated 29 M ay 1802 is in I.O .R., Home Miscellaneous, 582. 15 Wellesley to W . Scott, 22 January 1801, N. Edmonstone to Scott, 27 M ay 1801, P.P., 1806, X V , 403-4, 467-9. »« W. Scott to Wellesley, 22 October 1802, Add. MS. 13530, f. 30. •7 R. Becher*s Memorial, 11 April 1809, I.O .R., Home Miscellaneous, 237, p. 234. 11 C. A. Bayly, ‘Town Building in North India, 1790-1830*, M o d e m A sia n S tu d ies 9:4, October 1975, pp. 483-504-

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large towns were another group to profit from increased European trade, as they were also profiting from the willingness of Europeans to allow their names to be used as security for loans taken up by the Wazir.89 European merchants living in Oudh were said to ‘obtain their funds from the shroffs of Lucknow by drawing on their agents in Calcutta*.90 For the cultivators who grew indigo, cotton or sugarcane in increasing quantities, for the weavers who worked on orders of piecegoods for exports, and for labourers in certain areas, European trade might also offer some improvement in living standards. Around one European indigo factory in the 1790s local zemindars complained that its owner ‘paid labourers more than the established hire*.9* But the uncertainties of the world market meant that bounties offered one year could be taken away the next. By 1804 excessive exports of Oudh piecegoods were said to have produced a marked decline in current orders,92 while both indigo and cotton were later to be subject to sharp fluctuations in demand with serious consequences for the producers.9* It seems likely that even for some years after 1801 more people in Oudh were affected by British commercial activities than by the exercise of British political power; and economic expansion did not take place in a political vacuum. It had political consequences, and, as its volume grew, European trade was likely to erode the power of an Indian ruler bit by bit. Even so, the history of Oudh in the eighteenth century suggests that there were definite limits on the ability of trade to influence politics. In Oudh British merchants were able to take advantage of a state already weakened by a connexion with the East India Company going back to the battle of Buxar. They may have helped to weaken Oudh further, but the amputation of territory in 1801 seems to have had little to do with them. The annexations took place not so much because of developments in Oudh as because of developments in the mind of the Governor-General. See papers on Oudh debts, P .P ., 1806, X V , 733 ff; Memorial of Monohur Doss and Seetul Baho, 14 August 1 8 1 3 , 1.O.R., Home Miscellaneous, 237, pp. 80 ff. I.O .R ., B.C.R., 1802-3, Range 174, Vol. 14, f. 60. Chaund Khawn’s deposition, I.O .R., Home Miscellaneous, 237, p. 3 2 1. M I.O .R ., B.C.R., 1803-4, Range 174, Vol. 15, f. 99. *» A. Siddiqi, A g ra ria n Change in a N orthern Ind ia n S ta te (Oxford, 1973), pp. 140 ff.

12 Exiles and Renegades in Early Sixteenth Century Portuguese Asia Maria Augusta Lima Cruz

There is, so far as I am aware, no synthetic study to date on these two social categories—the convict-exile and the renegade—in Portuguese India. In order to present conclusions based on an analysis of all the documentary sources that might contain material on this subject, it would be necessary to conduct exhaustive research in diverse archives, namely, those in Portugal, Spain, and Goa, as well as those of certain religious orders. Even though much of this documentation may have already been published, one would have to devote years of research to such a study. It was felt, therefore, that in order to attempt a first approach to this theme, it might be best to limit oneself to a corpus of sources which, though it might seem limited, is in reality extremely vast, arid which has the advantage of giving us the social dimensions of the exile and the renegade in the Portuguese society of the sixteenth century, as well as of placing their actions in the context of a more general and contemporary vision of Portuguese expansion. It, therefore, appeared best to re-read the four principal chroniclers of Portuguese Asia—Correia, Castanheda, Barros and Couto—, examining at length all the references in their work relating to the object of this study. The task turns out to be fatiguing and, at times, even disheartening. The available editions do not possess adequate indices, and the information on exiles and renegades is scanty, brief, vague and highly dispersed, since— as is well-known—these writers proposed expressly to narrate the deeds of the vassals of the Portuguese Crown in Asia (I stress, of the vassals). From Acknowledgements: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the First Interdisciplinary Seminar of Portuguese Studies, held at Lisbon in November 1985. The English translation of the Portuguese original is by Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

Originally published in In d ia n E c o n o m ic a n d S o c ia l H isto r y R eview , Voi. 23, No. 3 ( 1986). Copyright © The Indian Economic and Social History Association, New Delhi. All right reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holders and the publishers, Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi.

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amongst these deeds, it was their intention to select, preferentially, such martial events as might make salient the “high chivalry” of the Portuguese in the struggle against peoples who were considered enemies of the Christian faith, more particularly the “infidel”—which is to say the “Moor” (or Muslim). Another of the factors that explains the limited information concerning the exiles and renegades that is available to us, is the social stratum from which almost all such persons came. Belonging to the group that was, in the period, commonly termed “low people” (gente babea), they belonged to those strata of the population which did not enter into history, as it was then perceived, and the official documentation of the era itself, as well as the relations and memoirs, reflects this manner of thinking. Even the two chroniclers, who have been chosen from amongst the four precisely because they were opposed to this state of things, fall into the same groove. Here, I refer, naturally, to Gaspar Correia, who affirms clearly that he used for the elaboration of his work, “a notebook that fell into my hands, which was written by an exile who came with Dom Vasco da Gama,”1and I also refer to Diogo do Couto, the man who, whenever possible, wrote so rapturously about the people . . . and the reason for the greatest amazement, and on which I would like to spend many maunds of paper, is that these people of ours—the majority of them or almost all—were soldiers from Beira, from Tras-os-Montes and from Entre Douro e Minho, unknown men, if not poor servitors, rustically ill-dressed and worse prepared (___) and thus, these persons in this particular siege [of Kotte, 1563- 64] frequently placed themselves face to face against wild elephants and made them retreat, as if tney were fleeing from other animals wilder and more ferocious than themselves, and these persons of whom I speak and others like them were the ones who in India accomplished the perilous deeds that took place in these and other great sieges, because at that time it was had as an affront for anyone of noble blood to be sent there [the island of Sri Lanka], because it then was a land where they exiled the wrong-doers . .. .2 In this passage, and in many others, Diogo do Couto puts his finger on the crux of the issue and draws one’s attention to the fundamental difficulty that he encountered (and that, even today, one confronts) when one attempts to write about such persons, and still more so in the case at hand—for these were persons wholly marginalised from their societies of origin. When it is frequently asserted that these men had no names, it is meant that they did not have a well-known or celebrated surname. They always appear in a context, the context of the unknown soldier, and when the witness 1 Gaspar Correia, L e n d a s da in d ia , (Lisbon, Academia Real das Ciéncias, 1858- 64), prologue to Volume III, p. 8. 2 Diogo do Couto, D a Á sia , D éca d a S é tim a , (Lisbon, Règia Oficina Tipográfica, 1782- 83), X - 14, pp. 553- 54; D écada O ita v a , (versáo inédita Porto/Madrid), 1- 2, fls. 6-6v.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 237 Exiles and renegades in early sixteenth century Portuguese India / 251 individualises them, it is by means of their own name and not that of their family: one Joâo, one Manuel, one António, one so-and-so, which might or might not be followed by a nickname. The use of the indefinite article is, I believe, particularly significant.3And precisely because they had no name, it was difficult to remember their prowess, as Couto observes in the following frank and bitter passage, which is a cumulative challenge to the nobility “in whom the virtues are always resplendent”: These—the men of the people—though they might perform many chivalrous acts and exploits—with death, everything ends for them, and thus their actions too are passed over, as if zeal had no merit save in the well-born.4 In the context of the documentary corpus on which this study is based, still another issue might be raised. To what extent can we trust the information contained in these chronicles, given that they are sources in which the materials have already been selected and worked on by the chroniclers, on the basis of determined preconceptions and objectives? Charles Boxer and Jean Aubin have tested the veracity of sections of these works on the basis of comparisons with other Portuguese and even Asian sources, and concluded that, in essence, after the narrative is cleansed of the exaggeration necessary to give lustre to the Portuguese motive, the diverse texts coincide.51 have attempted such a verification in the particular case of the eighth Década of Diogo do Couto. Save for minor discrepancies of a chronological and onomastic nature, the information on persons and events converges with what one gathers from the Royal Chanceries, and from other documentary sources of the period. And further, I have verified that many of the inter­ pretations or versions presented by the author in relation to a given episode reflect the current opinion of his contemporaries. Another proof of the fidelity of these four authors to the sources that they used (and these were not in Portuguese alone) is to be found in the convergence and parallelism of the four narratives. When shorn of the critical or erudite fancies that ail of them introduce to a greater or lesser degree, and when shorn too of the anecdotal content, which has more to do with the personal experience of each one of them, or of the witnesses on whom they based themselves, and, finally, when one abstracts from the position and perspective of each of the chroniclers, we conclude that there remains a single narrative skeleton, or in other words, as António Coimbra Martins writes, “In place of various 3 Even today, in the villages of the interior of Portugal, persons who are considered important are addressed by their surname (Sr. Silva, Sr. Pereira), and those with a more humble status by their given name (Sr. António, Sr. José). 4 Diogo do Couto, D éca d a S é tim a , VII1- 7 , p. 221. s See Charles R. Boxer. ‘Dom Jorge de Meneses Baroche and the Battle of Mulleriyawa, 1566/ M a re L u s o - ln d ic u m t III, 1976, pp. 85- 97; also Jean Aubin, 0 Correia. L e n d a s , Vol. I, ‘Lenda de D. Francisco de Almeida/ Chapter II, pp. 909- 10. 31 The term chatin is to be encountered in the period in such uses as the chatins de B arcelort the Saraswat merchant community resident at Basrur on the Kanara coast, but has, in modem times, developed a pejorative sense. Thus, James L. Taylor, ed., H arrap P ortuguese-E nglish D ic tio n a r y , London 1970, p. 152, defines it as a “ crooked merchant“ . The term is possibly derivative from the Tamil ch etti%a suffix of many trading castes south of the Godavari.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 245 Exiles and renegades in early sixteenth century Portuguese India 1259

Bengala to aid those kings, who are at war against one another.”32In 1565, it was stated that more than 2,000 Portuguese men had gone to China, Pegu, Bengal, Orissa and Siam, since the viceroys had not paid them their salarydues, nor their food allowances.33 Renegades, or chatins , as the chronicler puts it, were soldiers who—by working for local potentates—penetrated further into the Asian continent than those who remained in the Portuguese territories or garrisons, who, as has already been mentioned, circulated preferentially on maritime routes or “up river” ( “pelos rios acima“). We do not have information that permits us to estimate, in quantitative terms, the Portuguese or Europeans who lived in this situation in Asia, since we only know of such persons whose paths crossed those of the Portuguese of Estado da Ìndia. The Turkish fleet that was defeated by D. Francisco de Almeida in 1509 had a great diversity of peoples, according to Barros, and in the spoils were encountered books in Latin, in Italian, and even a prayer-book in Portuguese.34 In the army of Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat, at least sixty Portuguese and thirty Frenchmen were employed in the 1530s .35 Almost a century later, Joào Ribeiro, in his H istòria de Ceilào , estimated at 5,000 the number of Portuguese renegades in the service of Asian potentates between Bengal and Makassar.36 The principal reasons that caused these men to seek employ with Asian rulers are to be found in their socio-economic situation. Common soldiers, mariners and oarsmen were the first to go hungry in situations of prolonged siege or war, and it was they who, even in times of peace, had back-payments of salaries and allowances due and, hence, they were the ones who felt to a greater degree the attraction of the other side. And later, they had the examples of their companions who had actually crossed over and who, at least as long as they were needed, received good salaries and benefices, a horse, and if luck favoured them, even rose, at times, to positions of authority.37The following episodes relating to the capture of the city of Goa in 1510 and to the successive attacks that were later mounted on it by the Adii Shah are symptomatic: —When Albuquerque sent a messenger to enter into a dialogue with the 32 Couto, D éc a d a S é tim a , VII- 3 , p. 74. 33 Sec A r q u iv o N a c io n a l d a T orre d o T o m b o , Lisbon, Corpo Cronológico, 1/ 107/86, letter dated 12th December 1565. 34 Barros, D é c a d a S e g u n d a , III-6, p. 309. 35 Castanheda,>Histò ria , Voi. IV, VIII- 94, p. 355. 3* Cited in A. R. Disney, T w ilig h t o f th e P e p p e r E m p ire : P o rtuguese Trade in Southw est India in th e E a rly S e v e n te e n th C e n tu r y , Cambridge, Mass., 1978, p. 21, note 24. 37 Correia, L e u d a s , Voi. I, ‘Lenda de D. Francisco de Almeida/ Chap. XI, pp. 743- 44; Voi. II, ‘Lenda de Afonso de Albuquerque,' Chap. XV, pp. 100- 101; Chap. XVI, pp. 110-13 and Chap. XXIV, pp. 193- 95; Voi. IV, ‘Lenda de Garcia de Sá,’ Chap. VII, pp. 671- 72. Castanheda, H is to r ia , Voi. II, III- 26, p. 63, III-69 , pp. 173- 74; Voi. Ill, V - 25, p. 138 and VI- 60, p. 242. Barros, D é c a d a S e g u n d a , II- 4, pp. 151- 52, V - 7, p. 512, V l- 9 , pp. 134- 35. Also Couto, D écada S é tim a , IV - 9 , pp. 342- 46.

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enemy emissaries, he ordered that the oarsmen of the ship’s boat that took him should be Kanarese and not Portuguese, as he feared that the latter would give a hearing to the constant enticements offered from the other side, namely by the renegades.38 —Joào Machado, a famous exile to whom we have already referred, was a renegade too., as he was a captain in the army of the Adii Shah which besieged Goa. When after many desertions by Portuguese soldiers, there arrived Pero Barias, the first man of quality to turn coat, Machado exclaimed, “What is this? How bad is it there, that now cavaliers begin to desert?”39 There were many other routes by which persons could turn renegade: exile, captivity, problems with justice or with captains, but they were always related to the social and economic situation of the person in question. The very rare fidalgos or important men turned renegade that one encounters did so for reasons of a criminal nature. Gonzalo Vaz Coutinho, a good cavalier and fidalgo , and a friend of several viceroys, when imprisoned for serious crimes and misdeeds, fled with other prisoners from the central prison at Goa in the 1540s; he turned rebel so that he could practise piracy on his own account. After many adventures, he wound up entering the pay of the Adii Shah, who assigned him extensive territories with a great revenue, “where he remained as a perfect Moor with his wife and children.”40 Fundamentally, the renegade went over to another overlord to offer military services. In Asia, the Europeans and Turks were greatly appreciated for the knowledge they brought of artillery management. The first piece of evidence that appears in the Portuguese chronicles relating to renegades is in connection with two Christians, natives of Esclavonia, who left for India in 1502, and, once there, passed to the lands of the Samudri raja of Calicut, where they proved to be excellent founders of artillery, and bombardiers too.41 In 1507, in Ormuz, five men crossed over to the enemy camp, to teach them how to fight in the Portuguese style; one of them was an artillery man, and when somewhat later Albuquerque returned to this city, he had already cast various pieces of artillery: falconets, smaller pieces termed bergos, and others made of iron.42Castanheda affirms that archers and musketeers were those who were most prized by the enemy side.43 It is interesting that in situations of armed conflict, namely in sieges, some of these renegades played the role of what we would, today, term double agents. At times, making use of the contacts they still had amongst the Portuguese, they would collect information and send it to their new overlords, giving them suggestions concerning the weak points to be attacked; at other 39 Correia, L e n d a s , Voi. II, ‘Lenda de Afonso de Albuquerque,* Chap. XVI, pp. 110- 13. 3* Barros, D éca d a S e g u n d a , V I- 9 , pp. 135- 37. 40 Correia, L e n d a s , Voi. IV, 'Lenda de D. Estevào da Gama/ Chap. XI, pp. 148- 51, Chap. XII, pp. 151- 52, Chap. XXX, p. 298, and Chap. LVI, p. 540. Couto, D écada S exta , (Lisbon, Règia Oficina Tipográfica, 1781), IV - 9, pp. 341- 42. 4’ Barros, D éca d a P rim eira , V II- 1, p. 84; VII- 3, p. 100; VII- 9, p. 153. 42 Barros, D éca d a S e g u n d a , II—4, pp. 151- 52, and III—2, p. 248. Castanheda, H istó ria , Voi. II, III-69, pp. 173- 74.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 247 Exiles and renegades in early sixteenth century Portuguese India / 261 times, they would however advise Portuguese captains and soldiers about projects and strategies on the other side, through oral messages (enigmatic sentences, or with double meanings), or through written messages that were placed in lumps of wax or tied to stones.44 The renegades were even used in times of conflict to practise what we would call psychological warfare on the enemy. During the night preferably, when everything appeared still more black, they would come to the fortress ramparts or stockades of the Portuguese to incite them to turn coat; the strongest argument used was always to call attention to the contrast between the wretched life of soldiery on the Portuguese side, and the good life of those who turned renegade.45 Both in times of peace and of war, the renegades were also the ideal intermediaries between Portuguese and Asians. The chronicles abound in references to exile-renegades who were messengers to local potentates in the neighbourhood of the Portuguese Estado da India, or interpreters in the process of negotiations. To conclude, I present a unique individual case, not only to underline the possible paths and characteristics of the Portuguese who turned renegade, but also because, in contrast to the other testimonies which only speak of the renegade when he interferes in the life of the Portuguese Estado da Ìndia, it makes clear to us one of the most interesting facets in the lives of these men: their integration into the world of the other. What is also singular is the eulogising tone adopted by the chronicler Diogo do Couto in describing the person in question. Sancho Pires, a bombardier, who as a Muslim took the name of Firangi Khan (Fringuican), was a man of influence in the court of the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar. We note what Diogo do Couto writes about him: This man was so valorous of arm, that he could be counted amongst the most famous that there have been in the world, because arriving alone, and as a murderer in that Kingdom, he at once gave such demonstrations of his valour, that the King took charge of him, and made him a captain of the cavalry, in which too he gave such an account of himself, and gave such true evidence of his zeal, that he came to be general of the entire kingdom, and the principal man of those in the King's Council, and he was given so many lands and incomes, that he maintained ten to twelve thousand cavalrymen; and he was so feared by all the captains and Moors, 44 Correia, L e n d a s , Voi. I, ‘Lenda de D. Francisco de Almeida/ Chap. X, p. 876; Voi. II. ‘Lenda de D. Duarte de Meneses,' Chap. XV 1I1, pp. 840-11 ; Voi. Il, ‘Lenda de Nuno da Cunha.' Chapter CXIV, p. 860. Also sec Castanheda, H istòria , Voi. Ill, IV- 69, p. 256, V l- 114, pp. 327- 28 , V l - 116, p. 31 and V I - 118, p. 336. Further, Couto, D écada O ita va . (versao inedita, Porto/Madrid), VII- 2 , fi. 192v. or D éca d a O ita v a , (Lisbon, Règia Oficina Tipográfica, 1886), Chap. XXXVII, p. 391. 45 Correia, L e n d a s , Voi. I, ‘Lenda de D. Francisco de Almeida,' Chap. XI, pp. 743- 44; Voi. II, ‘Lenda de Afonso de Albuquerque,'Chap. XXIV, pp. 193- 95; also ‘Lenda de Lopo Soares.’ Chap. XI, p. 516. Further, see Castanheda, H istó ria , Voi. Il, 111- 32, p. 79; Barros, D écada S e g u n d a , II- 5 , p. 155; V - 5 , pp. 490- 92, 499, and VI- 9 , pp. 134- 35.

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u g u sta

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that there was none who did not do him obeisance or did not bow down to him . . . And if this man had not darkened his deeds with the negation he did of the Faith, dying as Franguican, his deeds would have been marvelled at in the world, and we would have left a memorial for him that would never end, for his deeds were such and so many, that they could well occupy the greater part of this, our seventh Década,46 IV. Conclusion It appears to me, in conclusion, that no more words are necessary to reinforce the proof of the importance of these two human groups in the mediation between Europeans and Asians. Marginalised in their own native context, they are situated on the fringes or on the margins of both societies. They were a fluctuating mass, oscillating between the one and the other. That they should have fallen to the one or the other side is not of the greatest importance; what is of interest is that through them an interpenetration of the two worlds was possible. As “discoverers of lands”, who adapt rather than impose themselves, as interpreters, messengers and even spies, they were important elements in the interaction between the Portuguese and the others, or, if one prefers, between the others and the Portuguese.

Diogo do Couto, D éca d a S é tim a , IV - 9, pp. 342- 44.

13 Indian Merchants and English Private Interests: 1659-1760 Bruce Watson

From the beginning of English commerce with Asia one of the most critical themes was the problem of private trade. In the early years of the seventeenth century private trade was viewed by the Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies as unwarranted competi­ tion. The small trading capital available to the Company, certainly by comparison with the Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie, (VOC) meant that even the slightest alterations in the buying and selling markets adversely affected the Company’s profitability. The issue was all the more important because of the desire to maintain the monopoly of East Indian trade, which it purchased from a succession of monarchs and parliaments in the seventeenth century. The substantial profits being made by the Company only increased the irritation experienced among the directors at the effrontery of their servants dabbling for themselves in the East Indian trade. The essentially profitable nature of the trade attracted people to the Company’s service. For men of commercial acumen the salaries they were paid were low, even by contemporary standards. The situation was to improve for the senior servants, but still the attractions of a fast fortune far outweighed the Company’s compensations. The problem was to assume mammoth proportions in Bengal during the second half of the eighteenth century, but its character was established early in the seventeeth century. The Company’s requirement that its servants sign bonds not to indulge in any private trade nor to invest in or in any way support the private trade of anybody else, was usually ignored on arrival in the East. In 1616 Sir Thomas Roe recognized the problem and he suggested that the Company maintain its prohibitions on private trade, confiscating all goods taken on private accounts to England, while increasing the scale of salaries for servants, so that the attractions of private trade would be diminished. Such an opinion was far too naive, and the private traders continued their efforts despite the Company’s proscriptions.

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Although the Company did attempt to reorganize its servants’ salaries during the Company’s reconstruction in 1657, the tensions between the private and corporate interests continued to develop during the seven­ teenth century. Over time the directors were forced into conceding increasing numbers of indulgences to their servants, permitting them greater amounts and varieties of commodities in private trade. At the same time, the Company attempted to exercise controls on their servants by funnelling the legal private trade to England through the Company’s warehouses, and by offering servants a variety of channels through which they could repatriate their estates. For these services the Company levied a number of charges. These charges and conditions raised the costs to which private trade was subject, while also making the activity relatively complex. Such complexity was increased by the essentially secretive nature of the activity. English­ men attempted to hide the values of their goods in order to minimize the charges to which they were liable. They attempted to send more goods to England than they were permitted, hoping to evade freight costs by bribing the ships’ commanders to declare short-tonnage. Private traders also understated their activities in order to conceal them from the Company and Indian governments. They tried to corner lucrative markets not explored by their competitors, and to prevent Indian associates from discovering the true values of commodities expressed through the differences between prices in India and England. For a historian attempting to reconstruct these activities, the quicksands are more obvious than the beach itself. Nevertheless, no matter how complex or secret, the motivation behind private trade was obvious. Englishmen went to the East to make a fortune; the quicker the better. Most of them failed or died in the enervating climate. Two aspirants in the seventeenth century were expressive in their disappointment. John Crandon, a young writer at Madras, felt that he had left an 'English Elysium for a heathenish sandhill’. Robert Elwes was of a similar opinion when he found by painful experience that although the name of India sounded marvellously exotic the reality was most disappoint­ ing. Even a relatively successful man like William Monson, in the first half of the eighteenth century, frequently had reason to lament the day that he had entered the Torrid Zone’. These men, along with many of their colleagues, discovered the truth of the old adage that all was not gold that glittered, whether one sought it at home or in the mysterious East. However, in spite of the problems, the discomforts, the hazards and frequent disillusionment, Englishmen continued to indenture themselves or their relatives to the Company. So much so that in 1681 the directors could brush aside demands for better salaries with the assertion that for every person they sent abroad they had a hundred more wanting to go and that if any servants abroad did not like the service and allowances they

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were at liberty to leave them and return to England. The reason for this desire to go to India must have been the belief that there was the opportunity for a rapid accumulation of wealth in so doing. The personnel sent to India was drawn mostly from mercantile families or the lesser gentry. Appointments were dependent on having influential patrons. The duties required men with some education-preferably more than less-so the potential for wealth would have had to have been more than a delusion. Life in the East was dangerous and fraught with hazard to life and property, so to attract relatively intelligent, educated and competent men to risk themselves, fortunes would have to be made often enough to outweigh the risks. This is the fundamental rationale for the private trade. Englishmen went to India in order to attain a fortune substantial enough to purchase and maintain a settled, landed retirement in England, and preferably gained quickly enough to escape the hazards of bankruptcy or fatal illness. Resident Englishmen were not the only group involved in private trade. Sailors on ships to India liked to augment their wages by trading at the various ports they visited. Smuggling private goods into England was a constant irritation to the directors. However, the most important aspect of this group’s activities was the provision of a mechanism through which illicit private trade was sent to England. The Company attempted to prevent smuggling by searching all the ships returning from the East. However, the costs and difficulties involved in discovering and prosecuting offenders forced the directors to change their approach to the problem. By conceding greater amounts of private trade to their employees in the East, and by permitting transfers of wealth by way of bills of exchange drawn on the Company, the directors eventually removed the necessity for smug­ gling in the Company’s shipping. Another interesting, but insignificant, group was the motley collection of English freemerchants living in the various English settlements. These people were encouraged by the Company to participate in the ‘country trade’, providing they did not infringe the Company’s regulations, and only for as long as they paid all the duties and cesses required by the Company at its settlements. While the Company did not encourage settlement in India by Englishmen as freemen, it recognized that they could play an important, if somewhat minor, role in helping to supply the Company’s factories with commodities for shipment to England. The main reason why the number of freemen remained small before the late eighteenth century was the relatively privileged position Company servants could maintain in the English settlements. The opportunities for a covenanted servant to trade under the Company’s treaties and protection were far greater than for independent individuals. This distinction was rigorously observed by the servants in order to strengthen their commercial position and social status in the settlements. English interlopers added another dimension in the developing rela-

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tionship between the corporate and private interests. From the Company’s point of view, the interloping voyages constituted an attack on its property in the monopoly of eastern trade. The arrival of an interloping vessel, during the forty years ( 1680’s-172Q’s) that interloping created the most problems, forced the Company to make a number of adjustments in its dealings with Indian merchants. In the marketplace the extra competition strained the Company’s ability to supply cash advances to its Indian suppliers. Extra credit had to be extended to merchants in order to forestall the markets and prevent interlopers from obtaining commodities. The Company commenced its dealings with the Indian artisans earlier in the seasons than was usual, having to use more cash than it was used to providing. At the same time, the Company attempted to impose bans on its merchants to prevent them supplying interlopers with goods. Where the Indian merchants relied upon the Company’s business, they were threatened with financial penalties and dismissal. Independent Indian merchants were approached with bribes and promises of extra business. The measures introduced by the Company and the scale of investment necessary for long distance overseas trade combined to undermine the profitability of interloping voyages. The formation of the English East India Company in 1708 absorbed interlopers into official English trade with the East. Some independent English traders invested in the Ostend and Swedish East India Companies in thel 720’sandl 730’s,but never really posed a threat to the official English trade in India. The need to respond to the perceived threat of interloping voyages did not have any major effects in the English relationship with Indian merchants. The adjustments made by the Company only occurred with the presence of an interloping vessel, and the more usual conditions within the relationship were quickly re-established when the interlopers were removed. In the group of private traders, we must include Indian merchants. The merchants concerned here were those who carried on their own business at the same time as they worked for the Company. As such they experienced a similar conflict of interests between their activities on the Company’s behalf and their individual aspirations. It was not always the case that what was good for the Company was good for its Indian merchants. The relationship between this group and the Company’s resident servants proved to be the most critical for the English corporate interest in India. At the same time, it is probably wise to emphasize that the references to Indian merchants and their activities in this chapter, related only to those merchants who dealt with the English. During the period 1659 to 1760 there was a vast area of Indian commercial life which never came into contact with the Europeans, let alone with the English. It should be understood that the relationships outlined here are those which can be found in the English records. These records, although voluminous and exciting in their scope and description, were not written under any delusion

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of objectivity. They argue English viewpoints, and concern themselves with English activities and attitudes in India. As such, inferences about the Indian mercantile experience from such records are limited mainly to India’s maritime commerce with Europeans. Indian merchants were essential middlemen in the European trade during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is an obvious point, but one which bears emphasis here, because such necessity materially affected both the corporate and private interests in Anglo-Indian com­ merce. The multiplicity of markets, the diversity of commodities, along with the divergences in commercial practices, and the disparities of monetary values between regions, and the differences in social norms, customs and administrations, all made maritime commerce on the south Asian littoral of the Indian Ocean a morass for unwary Europeans. Moreover, Indian merchants came in many varieties and creeds. For the purpose of analysis we can divide them into two main groups. There were the pedlars and the larger merchants, the latter also engaging in small scale activities according to individual perceptions of profitability. In essence the Indian scene was similar to commercial experience over most of Europe. The crucial distinction, both within Europe and the rest of the world, lay with the development of the joint stock companies, which reached their contemporary apogee in the Dutch and English East India Companies. There was the admixture of pedlars and larger merchants operating at the different levels in both regions of the world. The purely local markets in Europe had their counterparts in the bazars of Surat, Masulipatnam and Hooghly. The wholesale spot markets and forward markets serving the local trades as well as the larger retail and inter-regional markets also operated in these centres. These last activities were those within which the Europeans were to involve themselves. The major Indian port-cities were not manufacturing centres as such. They were entrepdts, collecting commodities from their hinterlands for distribution elsewhere. This dispersion of production created the basic problems for the English traders. They were separated from the producers by languages, customs and space. Only after they became settled in die ports, and their requirements for particular types of commodities became known, did the English begin to seek ways of dealing more directly with the producers. People have always maintained an ambivalent attitude towards the middleman, and this was even more pertinent for the East India Company. The Company was itself a middleman, in the sense that it bought wholesale goods in India, transported them to England and sold them to the retail trade and colonial transhipping institutions. It continually sought to establish a more direct connection between itself and the producers. In Coromandel and Bengal it was to succeed by the middle of the eighteenth century.

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A major part in this progression was played by the private interests, which had begun to take over most of the functions formerly the province of Indian merchants in India’s maritime trade, thus forcing those Indian merchants still left in the commerce further down the scale of importance. By the later years of the eighteenth century it was simply the case that Indian merchants were no longer as important as they used to be in Anglo-Indian commerce. A great deal of the process was undertaken by Englishmen. However, during the period under discussion Indian associ­ ates were as necessary for private traders as brokers were to the Company, and it is in the realization of this relationship that we can find the essence of the problem for the corporate interest. Any reconstruction of the relationship between Indian merchants and English private traders is immediately confronted by the difficulty of separating the corporate and private interests within it. The Indian merchants who acted for the Company also acted for the private interests while promoting their own interests, in the same way that the English private traders were also acting as the Company’s servants. Quite who was acting in which interest in any given circumstance, and who was gaining the most benefit, or experiencing the most detriment, is not always clear from the records. Most functions were common to both areas in greater or lesser degree, depending on the circumstances at various times. Indian merchants were employed as brokers, interpreters, agents, attorneys, writers, money-changers, cashiers, intermediate brokers, and subcontracting merchants. Some undertook specific tasks while others handled a number. The Company’s appointed brokers in the northwest and the ‘chief merchants’ in the southeast were the most important, and were invariably men of good standing in the community and of high credit-worthiness. They arranged the Company’s sales and purchases in the various areas in which the English maintained factories. They generally organized the flow of money and goods to and from the host of minor merchants who were in direct contact with the producers, and were responsible to the Company for the consignment of the required quantities and qualities of goods at the specified times. The private traders used a similar system with their banians and dubashes . These men maintained a more persona] relationship with their English colleagues. The official Indian merchants, although distanced from the individuals by the structure of the factories’ councils which determined the contracts, frequently enjoyed close personal associations with the ranking English servants in their private capacity. Along with the obviously commercial functions, many official merchants acted as intermediaries between the Company and Indian governments. For their services the Company’s Indian merchants were generally paid a commission, based on the value of the transactions they conducted on the Company’s behalf. Merchants who performed their tasks well were often

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rewarded with tokens of the Company’s appreciation. There were also merchants who maintained a familial commitment to the Company over two or three generations. On the whole the association between the Indian merchants and the Company was as amicable as any could be between two parties, each trying to maximize their profits. Problems arose when the contracting merchants squeezed the producers too much and the commod­ ities fell short of the required quantity and quality. Cheating the producers was one way the merchants could rake off extra profits by saving on the price paid to the producer. The practice of extorting bribes, and paying in defective coins-subject to discounts on exchange-or poor quality foodstuffs and raw materials, tended to result in the producers returning goods commensurate with their treatment. The resulting disagreements with the Company regarding quality frequently revealed the merchants’ activities. The situation was exacerbated when English servants and the Indian merchants colluded to cheat the producers and the Company by pocketing the difference between the stated price of commodities and what the producers actually received. Conversely, the Company regularly tried to fix prices lower than the merchants could accept. By fiddling about with the proportions of the money advanced to Indian merchants the Company tried to force them to employ more of their own money in the investments, thereby avoiding recurrent problem with bad debts. The issue was not simple since the Company had to sell the goods it imported from Europe. If Indian merchants felt they were receiving a poor deal, they frequently refused to pay the prices set by the Company. One example of the English attempting to overcome such problems and rationalize supplies was the imposition of a joint stock company on the merchants at Madras in the 1680’s.This policy led to the impoverishment of many of these merchants during the early years of the eighteenth century. It is significant that it could be implemented only at the settlement where the Company enjoyed effective autonomy and where the Indian merchants were relatively weaker. The policy could not be imposed on the Company’s Bengali merchants, and was not even considered in the northwest. In this fragile equilibrium between the corporate aspirations and those of the Indian merchant-suppliers lay the germ of one of the most critical problems faced by the contending groups. The dastak was a certificate given, under the conditions of the various firmans and parwanas, by the Company to the merchants to pass the Company’s goods through the innumerable customs posts and toll barriers. The goods purchased by and from the Company were exempted from transit duties, thus allowing prices to remain attractive for both parties. This was especially important during trading recessions, as such exemptions provided an incentive to Indian merchants to purchase from the Company. By 1681, in Bengal, it was the accepted view that granting dastaks in this way was the usual practice, so

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that people trading with the English would buy the goods only on condition of their being exempt from customs. Although an eminently sensible commercial precaution, particularly since the Company had paid the Mughal government for its privileges, the process was open to abuse. Local governors did not appreciate the loss of revenue at their tolls, especially when the Indian merchants carrying the goods had only a minimal association with the Company. The interpreta­ tions put upon the parwanas permitting ‘English’ goods to travel free of transit duties was open to debate, and created many difficult situations. This was more critical when the goods being protected by dastaks were not the Company’s but belonged to the private interests. During the first half of the eighteenth century the Company was aware of the problems, sending no less than 25 standing orders to its settlements in Bengal prohibiting the issue of dastaks on private goods. Such prohibitions fell on unresponsive ears, not only in Bengal but also on the northwestern littoral. Here similar collusion between Indian merchants and the private interests over passes ran riot. When Hyder Quli Khan, governor of Surat in 1724, beg*^ to insist upon distinguishing between the Company's commodity J those of its servants, the Company recognized the danger of its being connected with the practice of diminishing the Mughal revenues. At the same time, the directors realized that their servants would continue to act in their own interests, and suggested that judiciously placed bribes would prove helpful. The directors also hoped that the new governor would take a less rigorous view. Being unable to prevent the illicit use of passes, or effectively to discipline their servants, forced the directors into assisting their servants even though the Company’s regula­ tions had been contravened; all this to protect an English commerce within which the distinctions between corporate and private interest had become blurred. Issuing passes to cover goods transacted by the Company became a profitable enterprise for English servants. The passes became convertible, in that they were sold to Indian merchants irrespective of whose goods were being transported. Englishmen, and particularly ranking servants, had few scruples when it came to issuing passes to cover their own goods, nor did they worry about the legitimacy of selling passes to their Indian associates to cover goods which had no connection with the English commerce. Association between the Company’s Indian merchants and Englishmen assumed greater significance the higher the rank of the servant. The collaboration of Sir Edward Winter, governor of Fort St George, with Beri Timmanna at Madras during the 1660’s, and William Blake’s administration in Bengal between 1662 and 1668, were examples of how unscrupulous men could exercise power to their own profit. At Surat in the mid-1660’s,

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Bhimji Parak reportedly used his privileged association with the English president, Sir George Oxenden, to transact all the Company’s business, and control every Indian merchant involved in the Company’s investment in the northwest. Similar situations prevailed in Madras and Bengal during the early eighteenth century. It was distressingly common in the English settlement for weak or acquisitive senior servants to be accused of permitting their Indian associates to act rapaciously. Sometimes, as with Francis Hastings and his dubash, Krishnama, at Madras, the activities were so offensive that the directors accused the Hastings administration of giving the English government a stink of corruption in the nostrils of Madras’s Indian neighbours.Hastings was dismissed in October 1721, and his Indian associates, Krishnama and Venkatapati were brought to task in the hope that such action would in future discourage all instances of oppression. Problems caused by ranking servants abusing their authority in order to wring as much profit as quickly as possible continued to trouble the Company. The concern was heightened by this sort of collusion conflicting with the Company’s stated objectives of attracting Indian merchants of English settlements, by establishing the institutional rule of law, which protected life, limb and property. Unfortunately, temptation could always find flaws in the best of intentions. It is clear that collaboration and collusion was rarely in the Company’s interest, and one of the difficulties is that of attempting to enforce the analytical distinctions. The Company’s servants exploited their positions to the utmost in their pursuit of wealth, so the distinction between servant as servant, and the servant as private trader tends to become unworkable. However, the attractions for the Indian merchants were clearly in the opportunities for power and profit, gained from collaborating with as senior a servant as possible. For the Englishmen the greatest profits were to be made in transacting the commodities reserved by the Company for the corporate trade. In the legal private trade between regions in the East there were substantial profits to be made on occasion, but during the period to 1760 it is as well to remember that most of the enterprises were small and individualized. Englishmen in their private trade operated on the line between the peddling and wholesale markets. The Company tolerated the peddling trade of its servants, but for obvious reasons disliked ventures which operated in the wholesale markets. During the period we are examining the principle of 'little and often’ was the normal procedure, rather than a series of spectacular investments. Nevertheless, it was also true that the more senior the servant the greater were his opportunities and the more extensive was his private trade. When servants accumulated a large capital investment their activities shifted into the wholesale markets, where they competed directly with the Company and Indian merchants concerned with the maritime trades.

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Whether operating in the peddling or wholesale markets, English private traders had to finance their activities. The low salaries paid to servants generally did not form a large enough trading capital for most servants, who looked for other sources. The fortunate men had relatives in England who could send out capital, but this was strictly regulated and policed by the Company. Less scrupulous men, with the opportunities enjoyed by rank, stole or ‘borrowed’ money from the Company’s cash. Others borrowed from Indian merchants. This again was irregular and frequently created problems for the Company, since, in most cases, the Company’s credit was used to secure the loans. Any failure to repay was then laid at the Company’s door. The identification of Englishmen with the Company resulted in claims against the Company for loans taken out by servants on their personal accounts. Where the Englishmen concerned died their Indian creditors frequently demanded repayment from the Company. The Company found such claims repugnant, especially when they received support from local Indian governments. The necessity to maintain amicable relationships with Indian governments and merchants always cost the Company money, either in repayment of the debts or in the presents and bribes required by the governors to ignore the claims. Borrowing from Indian merchants was often essential if servants were to drive a trade on their own. Any checks of the Indian merchant’s ability to lend money were regarded as infringements of the personal liberty of English servants. At Madras, in 1726, the English residents complained that governor James Macrae’s oppressive administration discouraged the merchants from revealing their true wealth by way of loans to Englishmen. This they considered a great hardship, for credit with the Indian merchants enabled many people to carry on a private trade, and they often had more at sea than they were actually worth. Alternatively, ranking English servants could use their positions to demand loans from the merchants. All of it directly ignored the Company’s proscriptions against its servants borrowing money from Indian merchants. The activities continued, leaving little doubt that debts incurred by Englishmen in their private trade were often critical in upsetting the local equilibrium of the Company’s relationship with the merchants. Indian associates in the private trade were also used to safeguard English goods. On a notable occasion at Masulipatnam during the seventeenth century, the discredited William Jearsey attempted to protect his estate against the Company’s claims on him by depositing his goods with eminent local merchants. The attempt to impress the council at Fort St George with his poverty failed when the ploy was discovered. In similar vein Indian associates sometimes negotiated with local Indian governors to protect their principal’s activities from the Company’s interference. This was part of the general commercial environment of which the private interests operated, reflecting in many ways the structure

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of the corporate trade. At a more personal level of activity, Indian merchants transferred money to and from different regions in India for their English associates. The reputations of the merchants concerned underwrote the transfers. The transactions could be quite complicated. In June 1670, John Vickers and William Bagnold drew a bill of exchange for Rs 600, through their Indian broker in Hooghly. The bill was sent to Edwards to present to Ugra Sen, a broker at Kasimbazar. Edwards was to exchange the bill drawn upon Ugra Sen for one drawn upon Gokul Das, a broker in Patna. This bill was to be sent to John Marshall in Patna in order to purchase opium for Vickers and Bagnold. Earlier in the month, Vickers had sent Edwards a bill of exchange for Rs 400 upon Ugra Sen, so that Edwards could purchase, on Vicker’s behalf, silk lungis and other small parcels of commodities, suitable for the private trade to Europe. It is clear from the letters concerned that this was a familiar procedure. Tarwary Arjunji Nathji, the Surat banker, performed a similar function for English private traders at Bombay and Madras. Not only bills of exchange passed between Englishmen and Indians in different regions, money and goods were also transacted. In 1699 John Smith at Dacca sent Rs 2000 to Richard Edwards to be sent on to Jairam Malik, the house-broker in the English factory at Hooghly, while a further Rs 1000 was to be invested by Edwards on Smith's behalf at Kasimbazar. Edwards also, on at least one occasion in 1670, sent goods with an Indian merchants as far afield as Gauhati in Assam. The produce of this transaction was to be collected at Dacca by Smith and either employed there, or returned to Edwards in bills of exchange. All of it gives us a clear indication of the extent and importance of the circulation of goods and money on trust among Englishmen and Indian merchants in the private trade. On the Coromandel coast, English private traders sheltering under Kasi Viranna’s influence during the 1670’s found it easier to obtain commodities, which could be purchased at cheaper prices than those available to the Company. There was also much to be gained by keeping, wherever possible, agents at the sources of production. This was especially true of the diamond trade through Madras, where diamond merchants charged relatively high prices. To this end Thomas Pitt regularly entrusted large sums of money to his agent Rama Chand. Associations between English private traders and Indian merchants transacted business over the whole spectrum of maritime trade in India, Persia, the Red Sea, the southeast Asian archipelago and China. One particularly successful example of this type of commercial eclecticism was Thomas Pitt. He employed Khwaja Surhaud, the eminent Armenian merchant in Bengal, in obtaining goods for his ship, Sedgewick, bound from Bengal to Persia, and for another vessel sailing to Mocha in the same season. Another of Pitt’s prominent Indian contacts in Bengal was Mathuradas. Pitt also relied heavily upon the sound judgement of his

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Indian merchants to secure good quality commodities at cheaper prices than those available to his competitors. Pitt's ability to obtain goods from the archipelago, shipped to Coromandel in Dutch vessels, was regularly based on the intelligence he received from Indian merchants at Madras. It is clear that merchants did serve in many capacities for the private interests. 'Partner' is not really a suitable word to describe the relationship for it implies too rigid a connection. Merchants operated for different men at the same time. Adiappa Narayan, governor Richard Benyon's dubash at Madras, conducted an impressive business in his own right. The merchant dealt with a great number of Indians, ranging from peons and coolies, through all sorts of commodity-merchants, dubash, and artisans, to the Company’s merchant, Tambi Chetty, and local Indian dignitaries. His European customers and clients included his employer, Richard Benyon, and a cross-section of the most eminent Englishmen in Madras, along with a number of Portuguese inhabitants. In much the same way William Monson was served for twenty years by Bundla Krishna, while also utilizing the services of other prominent merchants of Madras like Tambi and Tulasinga Chetty. Monson also employed his dubash*s son as his personal servant. Just as families worked for the Company over time so did they also for the private traders. A short statement of Benjamin Boucher's affairs at his death in September 1705 gives us a tantalizing glimpse of some of the connections. Boucher's official position was the Company's zamindar at Calcutta, to which he was appointed in 1704. The Company’s broker, Janardan Seth, was a close associate of Boucher. Through Janardan, Boucher transacted with Janardan’s brother Varanasi Seth, and with Collerchum, Janardan's gumastah in Hooghly. At the same time Boucher employed a merchant named Caggou as his factor at Balasore. He was also involved with various other Indians, including one Suffachund the chawkidar of Govindpur. Unfortunately, the fragment does not permit us to locate these people more firmly, but it is clear that there was a widely ramifying network of personalities, each with their own areas of influence and connections. A more definite association between English private traders and an Indian merchant can be found in the papers of Francis Pym. In Bombay, Pym and his partner, Robert Hunt,dealt mainly through Gopaldas Laldas. Between 1750-1752, together with Brabazon Ellis, the associates lent money on respondentia for ships travelling to Basra, Mocha and Jiddah. After the various discounts were deducted the transactions amounted to over Rs 74,000.During this period Pym, Hunt and Gopaldas Laldas bought and sold ships, the Indian purchasing at least two from Pym and Hunt. They also traded in cotton, through the cotton-brokers Kirparam and Naththu, and a variety of other commodities: pepper, olibanum, coconuts, betel nut, coral, rice, chintz and cutlery, l i e list of Indian merchants involved is quite lengthy, many of them appearing regularly. Pym and

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Hunt were obviously involved in the money-market, dealing with the banker Tarwary Arjunji Nathji, and appear to have been agents through whom bills of exchange could pass regularly between Indian merchants. Their connections among the English servants included the future governors of Bombay, Charles Crommelin and Thomas Hodges, and Laurence Sulivan, the future chairman of the East India Company. The picture that emerges from such a brief survey of the relationship between Indian merchants and the English corporate and private interests is one of infinite variety, colour and movement. In the early years especially Indian merchants were absolutely necessary for a successful English commerce in India. By the middle of the eighteenth century they were not so crucial. Over the years Englishmen built up a body of knowledge about Indian trade, and this was communicated in the conventional wisdom of each generation of English servants. But more than this, the Company’s gradual moves conceding its servants greater latitude in private trade permitted a better initial capitalization of the private interests. The growth of an organized English money-market, albeit one with a substantial local involvement at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, gave the private interest greater flexibility in its trading enterprises. However, there is no reason to suppose that this development was inherently destructive to Indian merchants involved in the Anglo-Indian maritime trades. The expansion of trade into the interior still required large numbers of Indian associates as agents, but it is true that important functions like banking and shipping were being taken over by the English. Shipping was obviously crucial, but there is no evidence to show that, at a time when shipping space was at a premium, English ship owners discriminated against Indian merchants as such. So we are left with the question of why Indian merchants appear to have lost their pre-eminence in Indian’s maritime trade by the second half of the eighteenth century. In his study, Indian Merchants and the Decline o f Surat c.1700-1750 , Ashin Das Gupta has contributed a persuasive answer for the Gujarat region, where he argues that the degeneration of traditional political controls formed the prime cause. This was certainly a large part of the problem, but it does not explain why the English could assume such a significant proportion of India’s maritime commerce. If things were that bad for the locals, why then could the foreigners see any benefits, not only in trade to Europe, but also within India and the Indian Ocean? It seems to me that the answers to these questions can be found in the dual roles played by the English servants of the East India Company. The major distinction between the English Company and Indian merchants can be seen as the consequence of specialization. There is no doubt that the Company specialized in its capacity as a long-distance overseas trader, and that the joint-stock organization was considered

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necessary for the Company to maximize its profits. Its interest in peddling as such was thus precluded by the scale of its enterprise and the cost-structure immanent to it. However, the reverse of this, the highly individualized Indian merchants operating in all the markets, a lack of specialization would not appear to be crucial. It is easy to assume that economies of scale and an integrated commercial structure are necessarily better than looser, more individualized and extensive small scale opera­ tions. The strength of the monolith can be seen as having the potential for overcoming the differentiated and individually weaker personal mer­ chants. Viewed in this way there is a possible explanation for the English rise to pre-eminence within India's maritime commerce. However, there is a need for a large measure of subtlety in this explanation. On reflection, various points require reconsideration. Fer­ nand Braudel's studies into late medieval European commerce suggest that specializations is not so crucial in traditional commerce. Braudel's extraordinarily lucid lectures, Afterthoughts on Material Civilisation and Capitalism offer us some similarities between European and Indian commercial life. First, a merchant would not specialize if no single facet of commerce was sufficient to demand all his energy. This would certainly apply to most of the major Indian merchants appearing in the English records. Secondly, a lack of specialization would also appear as a reflection of shifts in profits from one sector to another. Changes in the economic situation, particularly between types of textiles, or the profitability of supplying one commodity or another, say textiles or saltpetre in Bengal, would have forced merchants to be flexible and responsive to shifts in the English demand schedules. This would, of course, be no problem for merchants who already spread their enterprises widely, but would become critical when English commercial demands grew to the stage where they were a major part of the merchant’s total business activity. This would also become critical where merchants were locked into their social location and prevented from moving physically from one region to another when local conditions, famines, wars, pirates or pestil ence, imposed restrictions on commerce. Finally, specialization was apparent, particularly in money­ trading in India as well as Europe. The sarafs were an essential adjunct to English commerce whether corporate or private for most of our period. On the English side, the Company cannot be seen as a monolith whose decisions in London were implemented to the letter in India. Nor was the Company the critical element in the relationship between the Indians and the English. The corporate interest and its prescriptions were open to interpretation by the demands of the private interests. In this way local interpretation, although tempered by the boundaries of aspirations for a landed retirement in England, came to be the critical determinant of Anglo-Indian relations. But while Indian merchants were operating as individuals, reflecting in their associations with the English the shifts in the

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demand schedules, the English were developing the demand schedules. They were setting their boundaries, determining their contents, and were operating a new comparative advantage. This was developed out of the changing relationships with the producers and the control over technologi­ cally superior shipping, storage facilities, and a more extensive regional application of objective commercial principles based on institutional protection for commercial property, not effective outside English settle­ ments. The privileged positions held by the Company’s servants, where the corporate needs could be more immediately manipulated to personal advantage also put at a distinct disadvantage those merchants dealing with the English. Whenever the private aspirations were checked in India, local interpretation utilized the corporate strength and position to break through the barriers. This happened more often than not in dealing with local Indian governments. For the Indian merchants this was a crucial development because they rarely could hope for a similar capability against their governors. Although they could react against extortion they could not break out of the social position in which they were located. The situation had become critical in the degenerating political environment in the middle of the eighteenth century. Failing central controls permitted greater anarchy and extortion at the periphery than Indian merchants could tolerate. While a flexible attitude towards extortion could be borne with during brief periods of chaos, during political succession, an intensifying and expanding anarchy held little future for merchants. The traditional tolerance and remedies for extortion no longer proved feasible. Given the social constraints on the mercantile groups, allied with increasing expropriation by their traditional rulers and an intensifying commercial competition from English traders in the traditional commercial networks, Indian merchants lost their control over India’s maritime commerce during the eighteenth century. They lost it to Englishmen who initially depended upon them, but who came to resent this dependence, and who utilized the corporate presence to secure and promote their own commercial aspirations. Bibliographical Note Research of the English private trade in India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is still in its infancy, despite Holden Furber’s seminal study, John Company at Work (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1948). No other study had addressed itself to the issues until Peter Marshall published East Indian Fortunes: the British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1976). My own work, Foundations for Empire: English Private Trade in India 1659-1760 (New Delhi, 1980), is an attempt to place the private activities of Englishmen in the wider debate about how the British Indian empire developed. Apart from these three books private trade appears only as a minor concern in the general literature.

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The one notable exception is Holden Furber’s latest contribution, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600-1800 (Minneapolis, 1976). This book is a fine introduction to European expansion in Asia during this period, and should be read before any other book of more specific focus. Kirti Chaudhuri’s extremely detailed but immensely difficult study, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1660-1760, (Cambridge, 1978), is probably the only other book which really recommends itself to the interested student. Work on the activities of Indian merchants is also scarce. Ashin Das Gupta’s Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat c.1700-1750 (Wies­ baden, 1979), elegantly complements his previous essays, and opens up the area for further study. A number of essays by Sinnappah Arasaratnam, dealing with mercantile activity along the Coromandel coast, are also valuable introductions to any study of Indian merchants. Of less value, but still of interest are Susil Chaudhuri, Trade and Commercial Organisation in Bengal 1650-1720 (Calcutta, 1975), and Balkrishna Gokhale, Surat in the Seventeenth Century (Copenhagen, 1979). Let me conclude here with a piece of special pleading. There is no substitute for coming to grips with the primary documents. This is more important since the study of English private interests and Indian merchants in India is so restricted. There are two collections of private records which will prove exceptionally rewarding to students. The papers of Sir Robert Cowan in the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, and those of William Monson at Lincoln, are really crying out for detailed analysis. I recommend them to students interested in the relationship between Englishmen and Indians in the eighteenth century.

14 Merchant in Royal Service: Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya, 1683-1688 Jurrien van Goor

Introduction The Greek Constant Phaulkon (1647-1688) has been the subject of much envy, scorn and debate during his lifetime and afterwards. His meteoric ca­ reer from cabin boy to royal minister in Siam alone has been sufficient to make him an outstanding character among the Europeans in Asia in the seventeenth century. In the vast mass of contemporary literature his deal­ ings as strong man of Thailand are highlighted. The French government of Louis XTV hoped to use him as a crowbar to pry open Thailand so as to pro­ mote its political, mercantile and missionary aims. The English EIC hated the deserter, just as the Dutch who considered him to be the cause of their bad luck in the middle of the eighties. Phaulkon’s execution and subsequent mutilation of his dead body by a local mob speaks for the hatred he aroused in Thai-circles. A man who was able to command so much attention from Asians and Europeans seems to have been a truly remarkable personality. All contemporaries agree on this. Yet the emphasis in this paper will not be on Phaulkon’s exceptional performance as a person. By looking at his position at the Thai court I hope to elucidate the structural elements underlying his position. As a phraklang - minister of trade and the affairs of foreigners - Phaulkon played an important part in the relations between for­ eign traders and the king. My analysis of his position will stress the inter­ mediary function and the extent of freedom he enjoyed to follow a policy of his own. Apart from drawing on the existing literature on Phaulkon this paper is mostly based upon the archival material of the VOC, the Dutch East India Company. Finally, the long friendship between King Narai (1656- 1688) and the Dutch allows a general analysis of the position of foreign traders and its interaction with royal policy. The history of Thailand attracted much attention in Europe during the seventeenth century, in particular the embassies exchanged by King Louis XTV of France and King Narai made a great impression. The reports of these ambassadors in Europe had a short but deep effect upon French cultural life and thinking. The answers given by King Narai to French missionaries, who

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tried to convert him to Roman Catholicism, evoked great enthusiasm in philosophical circles. Temporarily deep admiration was expressed for ’’l’image embellie des Siamous, pieux, sages, éclairés” [the embellished image of the Siamese, pious, wise, enlightened].1 This success came to a rude end by the palace revolt in Ayuthaya in 1688 and the subsequent eviction of the French. In European cultural life the Chinese replaced the Siamese in the gallery of non-European Wise Men. The great interest evoked in France gave rise to many contemporary publications and translations that have dominated the scene almost until this day. The Dutch missed out in this quest for the attention of the general public. Only one relatively small ac­ count of the events in 1688 was published a year later in Historien onses Tijds, a kind of journal about politics.2 The existence of a large number of published French sources about the Phaulkon episode has overshadowed the historiography of European relations with Thailand since then. Consequently European textbooks tend to overestimate the European influ­ ence upon the Thai king. D. G. E. Hall, who summarized earlier literature in which Anderson and Hutchison3 featured dominantly, thought two factors essential for the rule of King Narai: ’’[...] apart from the perennial struggle with Burma for Chiengmai King Narai’s policy was mainly concerned with efforts to free himself from the economic control which the Dutch had gradually been fastening upon his country during his father’s reign."4 The wish to create a counterbalance against the VOC, explained the invitation of the French to his country. The pressure upon the Dutch position brought about by the presence of the French was so great that the Dutch had to leave the country in 1686 only to return after the death of Narai. After that, accord­ ing to Hall, "the Dutch had forever lost the dominating position which had caused Narai to throw himself into the arms of the French”. This version has been generally accepted since then. Holden Furber5 followed Hall. To prove the shallowness of these general statements, it must be pointed out that the Dutch factory continued its existence without any hindrance from 1686 till the expulsion of all other Europeans in 1688. The Dutch were highly favoured by the new King Phetracha as a reward for their early recognition

1 2

3

4 5

Paul Hazard, La crise de la conscience europeinne (Paris, 1961), pp. 18-19. Historien onses tijds beheizende Saken van Stoat en Oorlog (The Hague, 1697), 2nd con­ tinuation. John Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century (rpt. Bangkok, 1981); E. W. Hutchinson, Adventurers in Siam (London, 1947); the same, in Selected Articles from the Siam Society Journal, vol. VIII (Bangkok, 1959). D. G. E. Hall, A History of South East Asia, 3rd ed. (New York, 1968), pp. 357-374. Holden Furber, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600-1800 (Minneapolis, 1976), pp. 117-118.

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of his position during the last months of Narai's lifetime6 and they were almost the only European spectators of the first year of the reign of this king (1688-1703). The explanation of the Phaulkon era in terms of a royal anti-Dutch move does not correspond with a contemporary Thai vision of the reign of King Narai, the patron of Phaulkon. A chronicle reads that the kings’s exer­ tions were directed to the "enlightenment of far-away countries with his fame and virtues". The royal wish to live on in history points at an important element in the explanation of the Phaulkon episode: the possible coincidence of a strong king's wish for fame with the presence of a capable minister to execute his desires. The English sources of the period show an obsession with the Dutch expansion in Southeast Asia. The strong competition made them probably too susceptible to explanations that overestimated the Dutch influence at court. Undoubtedly the Dutch held a strong position in the Thai trade, yet the offers of King Narai to the English do not show an inclination to oust the Dutch. The numerous wars, ex­ tensive building activities and diplomatic intercourse visible in a great number of overseas embassies also emphasize the king’s grip on the country’s affairs. In order to assess the Dutch influence upon Thai politics the relation between the Dutch traders and King Narai will be investigated. Did the Dutch really control the economy of the country, was this a one-sided affair in which the king had no say, from which he derived no profit? A compari­ son between the Dutch position during Narai's reign with their status under Phetracha enables us to shed some light upon these questions. Ayuthaya in the Seventeenth Century In the seventeenth century the Thai kingdom was one of the greatest and richest in Southeast Asia. Its population was estimated at about 1,900,000 persons,7 most of them Thai, but with a number of Malays among them. The latter group lived mainly on the Malay peninsula. Outside the bound­ aries of his kingdom the Thai king wielded influence in the Malay king­ doms on the peninsula and the islands. Malay kings paid hommage by sending gold or silver flowers to Ayuthaya, invoking help or support in war or internal strife. At around 1680, for instance, friction arose between the Thai court and the Dutch concerning Jambi on Sumatra. The sultan of Jambi who was hard-pressed in his country had sent a number of embassies to 6

7

J. E. Heeres/F. W. Stapel, eds., Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-lndicum, 6 vols. (The Hague, 1907-55), III, pp. 473-479. Akin Rabibhadana, The Organization of Thai Society in the Early Bangkok Period 1782-1873 (Ithaca, misplaced), p. 17.

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Ayuthaya to make a request for help.8 The Dutch Company wanted him to be their vassal. Jambi also sent for help to Mataram on Java. For a while the relations between King Narai and the Dutch were thwarted by this. Later on it was said that the sultan had paid homage only because of the rich remu­ neration made by the Thai king, the value of which was twice his own gifts. The Thai claim to Jambi was based upon its former overlordship over Malacca. Joost Schouten, Dutch resident in Ayuthaya from 1628 to 1634, consid­ ered the Thai king to be one of the mightiest kings in Asia.9 This conviction was based upon two considerations. The king as the apex of the administra­ tive structure of the realm could call upon all the men in his country to support him in war and execute works on a large scale like digging canals or building temples. According to Schouten all people, including the noble­ men, were the king's slaves. The direct command over as many inhabitants of the realm as possible, was crucial for the king’s position. There was a con­ stant danger that the great men of the realm drew a number of the king's men under their command. A second element that supported the king’s po­ sition was his monopoly of the in- and outgoing trade of the kingdom. Schouten imputed a yearly income of several millions to the king. This in­ come was mainly derived from the king's share in the rice and other in­ come of the country. Foreign traders had to buy their goods from the royal agents only, to whom imported goods should also be offered. Another source of income were the many ships sent out by the king to trade in China, Japan, Manila, the Indonesian archipelago, Bengal and Coromandel in India. Not all of these voyages proved to be a success but Ayuthaya was rich and impressed many foreigners by the magnificence of its palaces and temples. The high sacral position of the king was expressed by the pomp and style of his public appearance. Schouten estimated the king’s train to exceed fifteen thousand people on his yearly visits to certain temples in October. The Dutch settlements consisted of a large factory just outside Ayuthaya, some warehouses in Bangkok and a minor factory in Ligor (Nakhon Si Thammarat). The European staff in all settlements did not ex­ ceed forty persons.10 The Dutch and other Europeans in Thailand The Dutch had been established in Thailand since 1613. Their long stay and good relationship with the Thai court had been interrupted only in 8 9 10

GM, III, pp. 534,686 ; ARA, VOC 1377, fol. 529,545; VOC 1386, fol. 640. Joost Schouten, Beschrijvinge van ier Regeeringe Macht Religie...des Coningkrijcks Siam (1636). VOC 1377, fol. 503.

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1622, 1663 and 1685, years when problems arose, all of which were very soon settled by mutual agreement. Without exaggeration one may state that the Dutch were the most respectable European trading community there. In con­ trast to Hall's assertion that King Narai from the beginning of his reign was looking for support against the Dutch, research at the Dutch archives pre­ sents quite a different picture. It shows that before his enthronement Narai already was well inclined towards the Dutch. The latter were grateful but at the same time apprehensive of the new king's great ambitions and inclina­ tion to war.11 In the first years none of these fears came true. Narai sup­ ported the Dutch by the purchase of sapanwood and tin.1112 He took measures when a Dutchman was murdered in Ujung Selang and did his best to improve their position in the tin-trade there. In this affair most probably two things were intertwined. The king's position on the Malay peninsula was contested, Ujung Selang being in the frontier-area. Repeated endeav­ ours of the king before 1663 to grant to the Dutch the free tin-trade in that is­ land were thwarted by local magnates.13 This method of granting monopoly rights in certain areas as a means of befriending traders while at the same time enhancing the royal position there, is not limited to this isolated case. In 1675 the English were offered the tin trade in a number of spots on the Malay peninsula. The following year they were offered a pepper-monopoly in Patani but the local governor who was friendly to the Dutch kept the English out.14 All these offers, of which nothing came, need not be a sign of a special inclination of the king, they were probably tactical moves to improve his position at little cost. According to the Dutch sources Narai's reign was from its beginning characterized by three elements: warfare, extensive trading activities, and the building of great works to embellish the capital dties. In 1662 the campaigns in the north against Chiengmai and the building of a new palace took so much money that the royal factors, during their master's absence, pressed foreign merchants to accept all kind of goods at too high a price. This led to complaints by Dutch and other traders15 and in 1663 the ships from Manila, Macao and China stayed away. The VOC resolved to refrain from purchasing Thai goods so as to force the factors to lower the prices. Another problem concerning a royal junk taken by the Dutch off Hainan,16 caused extra trouble. Hereupon Batavia ordered the staff in Ayuthaya to evacuate its quarters. After some negotiations the king, who allegedly did not know 11 12 13 14 15 16

GM, III, p. 108. GM, III, pp. 289,354,711,784. GM, III, pp. 244,495. Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam, pp. 125, 138. GM, III, pp. 399,711. GM, III, pp. 423.

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about the bad treatment of the foreign traders, dismissed his factors and severely punished them.17 Since then no problems arose until the ascen­ dancy of Phaulkon. Thai courtiers in 1689 attested that since 1664 the rela­ tions with the Company had been untroubled.18 From Dutch sources one gets the impression that after 1664 the king needed the Dutch for his own trade, the Company being one of his biggest customers. Another advantage of maintaining good relations to the Dutch was that Thai ships stranded in foreign ports could rely on Dutch support and credit-facilities. There are no signs that Thai foreign trade was inter­ rupted. The number of royal ships and the lists of foreign merchants visiting Thailand do not provide evidence for such an allegation. The opposite was the case: the king supported the Dutch in their trade.19 He renewed his en­ deavours to grant them the tin-monopoly in Ligor20 and forwarded them money when they were short of cash. The Dutch imported luxuries and cu­ riosities from all parts of Asia and Europe to satisfy the king's demands. On one occasion, in 1672, the king asked for 1,300 mirrors,21 which perhaps were to be used at the Dusit Maha Prasat Hall at Lopburi. A number of Dutchman served the king in all kind of positions. A Dutch interpreter frequently visited the court and seems to have made such an impression that he was invited now and then for a talk with the king.22 The relationship between the king and the Dutch resident had been in­ stitutionalized in the conferment of a Thai court rank to this resident.23 In this way the Dutch were included in the Thai social system. The Dutch kept a keen eye upon the political activities in the kingdom but after 1656 tried to steer clear as much as possible from actual interference in the affairs of the kingdom. This policy bore fruit until the arrival of the French who were out for exactly the opposite. In the seventeenth century other European trading companies had not met with much success in Thailand. The English only intermittently visited the country during Narai's reign. As soon as the English tried to settle again in Thailand in 1675 King Narai showed them favours comparable to those the Dutch enjoyed. They, too, were allowed to build a stone house, the materials for which were freely given, the king sev­ eral times forwarded money, they were given the rather dubious tin-purchase rights, the pepper-monopoly in Patani, etc. It is easily understandable 17 18 19 20

21 22 23

DRB, 1663, passim. VCX 1456, fol. 1965-1968. GM, m, p. 536. GM, III, p. 711. GM, in, p. 784. VCX: 1415,fol. 915-916. George Vinai Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth Century Thailand (Center for Southeast Asian Studies Special Report no.16,1977), pp. 102-108.

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that the English factors at Bantam, who followed all moves of their "enemies in trade" with great concern, explained Narai's offers as a token of his weariness with the Dutch.24 The clumsy management of their affairs and the brutal behaviour of some of the representatives of the EIC, obstructed their progress.25 Only some English country traders who entered the king’s service gained some influence. The French Compagnie des Indes Orientales could not boast of much success either, notwithstanding the very good reception of its first representative Bourreau-Deslandes in 1680. The court acceded to the Frenchman’s wish not to kneel on hands and knees before the king.26 He was allowed to sit crosslegged. But this ceremonial success was not followed by economic advantages. The Dutch, and even the English, enjoyed a higher reputation in this field. The French were granted the monopoly of the export of pepper, however, this did not constitute much of a favour if one considers that the planting had not begun yet.27 This "favour" most probably was another example of the king’s endeavour to increase his position by offering another castle in the air and it may be that the pepperplants of which the Dutch had no knowledge, were those earlier offered to the English Company in Patani. The Dutch were in a much more favourable condition. The French instrum ental in bringing about a rapprochement between the French and Thai courts were members of the missionary orders, who had arrived there by accident.28 Only after receiving a second letter from Louis XIV in 1682 French prospects brightened re­ markably. The accounts of European trading companies active in Thailand might easily induce one to believe that they were the only traders in that country. The contrary is the case. The king and the phraklang were active traders and ships from other Asian countries also visited the Thai ports regularly. In 1680, for example, 114 ships called at Bangkok, while 108 left that dty. Only one or two large Dutch ships per year visited Bangkok.29 Nevertheless, after the king the Dutch were the most important traders in Thailand.30 The French were not the only ones on whose shoulders "diplomatic" contact with Thailand rested. King Narai sent out his own embassies to countries lying between Persia and China and even to the court of King 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam, pp. 128, 144, 145. VOC 1362, fol. 931-934. A. Martineau, ed., Mémoires de François Martin, fondateur de Pondichéry ( 1 6 6 5 -16 9 4 ), 3 vols. (Paris, 1932), II, p. 206. Martineau, Mémoires, II, p. 289; VOC 1362, fol. 961,990; VOC 1377, fol. 527. S. Delacroix, Histoire universelle des mission catholiques. Les missions modernes (Paris, 1957), pp. 213 et seq. VOC 1386, fol. 640. Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth Century Thailand, p. 111.

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Louis XTV. Regular intercourse with other countries in Southeast Asia enabled the Thais to acquire information from a large part of the sur­ rounding region. The court was well-informed on recent developments in Batavia through a number of Europeans who had entered the king's service. Most prominent among the Europeans in the king's pay was Constantin Phaulkon, a Greek who was to play a central role in the political life at Ayuthaya during the last years of King Narai. In 1679 Phaulkon appears for the first time in Dutch sources bargaining for some textiles in Ugor.31 At that moment he was patronized by Richard Burnaby and George White. The former represented the EIC in Thailand, while White had taken service with King Narai and acted as a master on one of the royal ships. It seems that in 1680 Phaulkon entered royal service, too, and as a khaluang, began to work in the royal warehouses. Among the reasons mentioned for this is the wish of the English merchants in Thailand to have a translator of their own at court. These merchants had collected one thousand crowns to present Phaulkon to the phraklang. In his new capacity as royal servant the Greek won the phraklang*s favour for his handling of the transport of a Thai embassy to Persia. He re­ placed the Indian Muslims to whom this formerly had been entrusted, by reducing the cost of transportation to half its original price. The trip proved to be a great profit to the phraklang. By putting Phaulkon at the phraklang*s service the English had won access to the communication centre for foreign­ ers but the EIC did not gain much from this connection as, from the begin­ ning, animosity existed between Phaulkon and Potts, who represented the EIC after Burnaby's departure. Probably this had to do with the "temptations of private trade". Almost all servants of the EIC fell for it, a great number of them also took service with the king. Another reason for the minimal use the English made of this connection was the Company's wish to dictate the terms of trade. In Thailand, a country in which the king had drawn the trade to himself, this was bound to fail. As a representative of the treasurer Phaulkon had to see to the payment of English debts to the king. His stand­ ing with the king already enhanced by his firm stand in payment affairs, grew once more while acting as a translator during the interview of monseigneur De Pallu and King Narai. The interest of the French missionaries in Phaulkon grew also when Phaulkon was converted to Roman Catholicism while marrying Marie Guimard, a lady from the Roman Catholic community of Japanese extraction living in Ayuthaya.32 His rise in the king's esteem can be gauged also from the Dutch request in 1682 to be 31 32

VOC 1386, fol. 652; VOC 1415, fol. 909-910; Hutchinson, Adventurers, chs. II and in. E. W. Hutchinson, Aventuriers au Siam au XVIIième siècle (Saigon, 1947), pp. 205-207; the same, Revolution in Siam 1688 (Hongkong, 1968), pp. 11, 12, 128; Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam, p. 169.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 273 Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya 1683-1688

453

allowed to know which presents would please the king. Phaulkon's star rose so quickly that in 1683 the king had offered him the office of phraklang. He declined, but accepted to act as an adviser to Okya Wang, the Malay who actually held the post.33 In this position as second man Phaulkon wielded great influence behind the scenes. Okya Wang was not able to do much without his knowing about it. The Dutch partly ascribed their ensuing setback to the rivalry between these two men. The nomination of Phaulkon to this office meant much more than only a change of the staff of the royal household. The deceased phraklang was the Iranian Aqa Muhammed who had held this post since 1664. From Persian as well as from European sources it is evident that the king had become wary of the misuse of royal funds by the Iranians in his service. Both type of sources indicate the enormous prof­ its the Iranians made on the exchanges of embassies between Siam and Persia. Phaulkon seems to have cut down the costs by half.34 Phaulkon’s rise was clearly expressed in his titles. He was okluang first, then became okhpra and shortly afterwards okya. In this final rank he was the okya chakri, i.e. the ’’lieutenant or governor-general, who finds his work in receiving and dispatching embassies, and who presides in the lofty meet­ ing of the states etc., ditto he directs the whole trade in this country, without forgetting his own. He is great administrator of the king’s treasury.’’35 Nobody in the rasadon or government of the country was powerful enough to speak up against him. In the name of the king he dictated all outgoing let­ ters. An army of spies kept him informed of what happened elsewhere, in­ cluding Batavia. Not everybody was able to appreciate Phaulkon’s ascendancy. The jeal­ ousy of the representatives of the EIC was deepened when Phaulkon re­ ported through interlopers to the directors in London about their misde­ meanour in Thailand. The head of the English factory, Potts, was completely unfit for his job. He was even accused of having set fire to the factory.36 What really happened then will remain unknown. Potts spread the rumour that Phaulkon had been involved in the arson in order to have his debts with the EIC wiped out literally. Potts' successor was not able to improve the relationship. In 1684 the EIC left Thailand,37 only some private Englishmen who served with the king or with Phaulkon stayed behind.

33 34

VOC 1386, fol. 682. John O’Kane, trans., The Ship of Sulaiman (London, 1972), pp. 58, 98-104; Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth Century Thailand, p. 170, n. 10; Hutchinson, Revolution, pp. 11, 12.

35 36 37

VOC 1415, fol. 909-910. VOC 1377, fol. 620-629. VOC 1386, fol. 658-659.

INFORMAL PRESENCES

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Jurrien van Goor

454

The French Compagnie des Indes Orientales did not do much better after the departure of the Thai embassy to France in 1681. The French resi­ dent had to sell his textiles piece by piece in a "small peddlar shop"38 and the French considered abolishing their establishment. But the arrival of a letter of Louis XIV in 1683 somewhat improved their position. BourreauDeslandes was able to conclude a commercial treaty and he also served the king on a voyage to Surat to redeem one of Narai’s vessels that was stranded there.39 The Dutch director in Surat who had forwarded the stranded Thai crew a large amount of money, was not willing to hand over the ship and cargo without due payment, a thing which Deslandes was not able to do. This refusal caused much annoyance at the Thai court and it became one of the reasons for friction in the following years. Friction between the Court and the Dutch Phaulkon's start in 1682 coincided with a number of developments that were partly favourable and partly unfavourable for the Dutch. The English who elsewhere in Asia were among the foremost competitors of the Company, would leave soon. The French did not constitute a real threat at the moment, although in the long run one could not foresee what would come from the correspondence with their king. Other affairs seemed to be more serious; the Thai ship in Surat was just one such affair. A second mat­ ter dragging on for several years was the problem concerning the right of Jambi to declare its vassalage to the Thai king. A question of die same kind was the complaint made by envoys from Johor about the Dutch intention to conquer Siak on Sumatra.40 Siak was considered to be subordinate to the Thai king. The problems about Jambi came to a premature end. After having sent gold and silver flowers to Ayuthaya in 1682 and 1683, the prince of Jambi in 1685 drew the king's wrath upon himself by robbing Thai ships and taking away a number of his subjects.41 The complaints made by Johor were taken rather seriously, especially Phaulkon was rather upset by them. He flew at the Dutch resident, warning him that he would inform the Japanese king about the deeds of the Company. The Dutch should not think they were dealing here with Ternateans, Macassarese or Bantanese: the Thai king had enough men and means at hand to wage war against the Company.42 The Dutch, so he said,

38 39 40 41 42

vex: 1377, fol. 527. VOX! 1415, fol. 885-886; Martineau, Mémoires, n, p. 344; Hutchinson, Revolution, p. 128, tells that Deslandes ascribed his difficult position to Phaulkon's jealousy. CM, IV, pp. 785-786. GM, V, p. 9. 1415, fol. 911.

vex:

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 275

The house of the French ambassadors in Ayuthaya (La Loubfere, Royaume de Siam)

276

INFORMAL PRESENCES

Map of Ayuthaya about 1680 (La Loubère, Royaume de Siam)

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 277 Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya 1683-1688

455

were ungrateful, they did not understand the extent of the favours bestowed upon them by the king and Phaulkon. We shall never know whether Phaulkon only acted as a spokesman of the king or had his own axe to grind. We may assume that Phaulkon, who had been in the service of the English and had heard about their expulsion from Banten by the Dutch in 1681, and who knew about the Dutch conquests in the spice area and the subsequent defeat of Macassar, was afraid of further Dutch expansion and was apt to exaggerate the Dutch intentions in Jambi and Siak. Moreover, Phaulkon had entered the pepper trade himself and needed the pepper from Jambi, proba­ bly in order to supply it to the French Company. It seemed as if the Dutch had lost their good position at court, certainly the more so when the splendid French embassy under De Chaumont ar­ rived.43 The honour paid to other ambassadors present at the moment, was completely overshadowed by the reception of the French. A Persian am­ bassador complained to the Dutch about being completely neglected. A Portuguese emissary who had arrived in Thailand shortly before, had not been treated as well as the French ambassador.44 For De Chaumont a newly built house was furnished "so lavishly as if the French king himself was to be lodged there". The main object of the French embassy was not trade, but the conver­ sion of the king, and this was not achieved. The Dutch translator at court re­ ported that King Narai made fun of these endeavours to influence his reli­ gious convictions.4546This was not the first attempt of this kind, the Persian ambassador had tried to convert him to Islam. One may wonder whether Phaulkon who acted as a translator during the audiences of the French priests, really conveyed their message.4546But the king was shrewd enough to get the point. There is a Dutch story about the way Narai had put De Chaumont in his place: The French ambassador had presented a portrait of Louis XIV riding a white horse, saying "Mylord King, here Your Majesty is shown the excellent prince, reigning above all others over the Christian world". Hereupon Narai was said to have answered: "Mylord Ambassador, you forget God in Heaven."47 All in all the French embassy was not much of a success - the Dutch trading privileges remained intact - and several members of the ambas­ sador's retinue remarked casually that this had been the last visit of a French ambassador to the Thai king. More troublesome for the Dutch position were the French Jesuits who stayed on and kept in touch with Phaulkon. It seems 43 44

45 46 47

See Hutchinson, Adventurers. VOC 1415, fol. 896-897,916-918,925 and 928. VOC 1415, fol. 916-917. Hutchinson, Selected Articles, pp. 101,120. VOC 1386, fol. 647.

INFORMAL PRESENCES

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Jurrien van Goor

that generally the number of Europeans in royal service increased. Frenchmen received military posts in Bangkok, Ujung Selang and Phitsanulok, and a number of English interlopers were engaged as seacaptains, others got administrative posts in Tenasserim.48 The growing influence of Phaulkon was deeply felt in the Thai foreign trade. As a head of the royal trade department and as a private trader Phaulkon managed to control most of Thailand’s foreign trade.49 Traders were forced to sell their goods at a price dictated by Phaulkon. New royal ships were built or hired. But not only foreign traders, the Siamese also re­ sented Phaulkon’s interference. In 1683 a number of foreign traders threat­ ened not to come back. Phaulkon, who had been entrusted with the king’s great seal in 1684, was not impressed. He clearly aimed at a complete trade monopoly. In 1683 he forced the Dutch to abandon the trade in pewter and silk, a year later he refused to sell them copper or pewter if they did not de­ liver all spices to him.50 His claims were not purely commercial, he insisted that in their letters to the king the Dutch should address him as emperor.51 The rise of Phaulkon coincided with Narai entering the fifty second year of his life.52 The importance of this number was said to be reinforced by his being the fifty second king since the foundation of royal rule in Thailand. In order to ensure the eternal memory of this, the Company was instructed to change the date in its letters to the king. Instead of dating the letters according to the Chula era, the Buddhist system should be used. The Chula year 1096 should be replaced by 2228 A.B. The sending of embassies to France, Portugal, Persia and China occurred in the same period. The European community in Ayuthaya ascribed these embassies to the king’s wish to make his name known all over the world, because of the absence of a lawful male heir. Other Europeans assumed that Narai was fed up with the Dutch and was looking for contact with other powers. Another group held the opinion that these embassies should be imputed to the influence of the French bish­ ops. The Dutch suspected that Phaulkon was behind all this; under the guise of serving the glory of his king he was probably pursuing his own aims. The reception and sending of embassies was not an unusual feature, it was the sudden increase that attracted attention. The explanation for the increase in the number of embassies might be found in a combination of the factors mentioned. Narai’s longing for international fame and Phaulkon's ability to give expression to it were the reasons for it. The Dutch however 48 49 50 51 52

Ibid. Ibid., fol. 636. Ibid., fol. 636, 644, 645. Ibid., fol. 648-649; VOC 1415, fol. 909. VOC 1915, fol. 887,895-896, 914-915.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 279 Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya 1683-1688

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preferred to keep a low profile and to save the costs of exchanging embassies. The appreciation of Narai for an embassy sent by the Prince of Orange would have been very great, according to Phaulkon - the Annals of Ayuthaya refer to Narai as the one who "enlightened far-away countries with his fame and virtues"53 - but unfortunately, the Company was not willing to cooperate in enhancing the king's glory. The rumours spread by the French that the Company was planning something against the king may have influenced the king. Nevertheless he did not abridge the privileges of the Company. Therefore the Dutch did not believe that the king had any grudge against them. The Dutch lacked a good contact at court. Phaulkon was not in favour of the Dutch, he was always surrounded by the French Jesuits. The presence of the French ambassador afforded these Jesuits with a direct access to the king and the French conspired to keep others away. A Portuguese envoy from Cambodia did not get an answer in spite of his numerous requests to Phaulkon, because of his involvement in the expulsion of French padres from the country. Another Portuguese envoy from Macao uttered the same complaints, he had to wait for months before he was admitted at court. The Dutch resident was keenly aware of the French opposition and he managed to steal a march over them. Vexed about the continued absence of a reply to the letters of the governor-general, he made a request to the king to be allowed to consult Batavia.54 The king gladly acceded this request and sent a Thai ambassador along to discuss pending issues. Narai was especially interested to know whether the chill in the relation with the Dutch was caused by mismanagement of their local resident or could be ascribed to a de­ liberate policy of Batavia. This shrewd move was appreciated by the diplo­ mats and courtiers, compliments were paid to the Dutch resident from all sides. To avoid possible negative effects, the Dutchman asked to be allowed to humiliate himself before the king. Two days later the audience was held at court within the second wall. Narai recommended his envoy Okluang Chula to the care of the Company. The envoy had to accomodate "the cases entrusted to him, from which will result much profit for the Company, in order to remain in its old position”. The mission succeeded completely. Okluang Chula had been ordered especially to question the governor-general about the reliability of the ru­ mours that the Dutch wanted to wage war against Thailand. After having been completely convinced of the falseness of these rumours, the Thai en­ voy reported accordingly at home. In a public audience witnessed by thou­ sands of people the king expressed his gratitude to the Dutch resident and 53 54

George Coedès, "Une recension pâlie des Annales d'Ayuthaya", Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient 14 (1914), p. 25. GM, V, pp. 42-44; VOC 1415, fol. 934.

INFORMAL PRESENCES

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458

Jurrien van Goor

rewarded him with a special dress and sword. Another mark of honour was bestowed upon the Dutch resident in 1687 when he was accorded the rank okluang. In the same year the Dutch were allowed to build a stone house in Ligor.55 This was a mark of good standing with the king. While the Dutch improved their position, the EIC was not yet able to regain a foothold. Only the English freetraders, who had promoted Phaulkon's first rise in 1680, were able to collect their reward. Burnaby became the Thai governor of Mergui on the Malay peninsula, Samuel White was nominated shabandar at Tenasserim. After lining his pockets there White wanted to return to the Company's service and seems to have suggested to the directors at Madras in 1685 to attack Tenasserim in order to recoup their losses in Thailand. The ensuing war lasted until the death of Narai.56 A comparison between the events in 1663 and those in 1685 shows sim­ ilarities. In both cases the Dutch had lost direct access to the king. In 1663 Narai waged war in the north, in 1685 Phaulkon held a strong grip upon the daily administration. In both cases trade was not possible. Not only the Dutch, other traders ran into trouble, too. The Ruin of Phaulkon and the Departure of the French The second French embassy that arrived in 1687 came with six ships and brought six hundred soldiers. These soldiers, who had apparently come in answer to a request made by Phaulkon, embarrassed him considerably.57 According to the Dutch he had only asked for one hundred and fifty men but was quick to ward off the danger by splitting the main body of the force and assigning the troops to several towns and forts all over the country. Moreover, the officers were forced to swear fidelity to King Narai which they strongly resented. The ensuing irritation about Phaulkon coincided with growing tension within the French camp. The Compagnie des Indes Orientales had been very stand-offish. In religious circles opposition arose between the missionaries who lived in Ayuthaya and the Jesuits who ac­ companied the ambassador, and not all of the officers had the diplomatic qualities for their contacts with Phaulkon. Many of them could not readily accept the high position the Greek occupied at court and not all of them were willing to accord him the honour and title that went with it.

55 56 57

VCX 712, fol. 177, 201, 206, 208; VOC 1409, fol. 1098-1110; VCX 1429, fol. 195-197, 802803; VOC 1438, fol. 1647; VOC 1440, fol. 2501. Martineau, Mémoires, II, pp. 432, 510-515; VOC 1440, fol. 2235; Hutchinson, Revolution, pp. 46-52. Hutchinson, Adventurers, ch. VII; Martineau, Mémoires, II, pp. 518-522.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 281 Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya 1683-1688

459

The second French embassy was very well received, but nevertheless ended in a complete failure once more. Phaulkon and the ambassador La Loubfere did not get on very well. The pretensions of this second embassy were certainly as high as those of the first. The ambassador behaved very ar­ rogantly towards the Dutch and refused to receive the Dutch resident. The rumour was spread that the Dutch were planning an attack on Ayuthaya; a Dutch sloop was seized on the Menam by French soldiers.58 These occur­ rences must have fostered the anti-European feelings that existed in court circles after the English Company's misdemeanour in Tenasserim. One was not sure about Dutch intentions. French insinuations probably had much less effect than intended, because of the offense given by the presence of the French embassy and Phaulkon's imperious behaviour. The common people of Thailand were vexed by numerous novelties, like taxes on poultry and cattle, fish, vegetable and fruit, which had been introduced by Phaulkon. Thai traders had a grudge against Phaulkon due to his control of trade. The sangha was said to have been forced to leave the temples and work for a liv­ ing. The violent demeanour of French soldiers in the streets annoyed the people. This feeling increased when after the departure of La Loubfere the French soldiers were left behind with insufficient food and pay to live on. According to the Dutch many of them had to beg or steal to stay alive. La Loubfere departed abruptly in the beginning of 1688 without having taken leave decently. The resentment against strangers was so great after this event that measures were taken to defend Bangkok against a surprise attack. There was further unrest when King Narai fell ill in February 168859 and there was factional contest among the courtiers, because the king had pre­ ordained his adopted son Moon Pi to be his successor. Phaulkon supported the king’s choice. The leader of the opposition was Okphra Phetracha, com­ mander in chief of the royal troops and foster-brother of the king. He and his son had a great antipathy against the Greek. The son was even said to have knocked out some of Phaulkon's teeth during an altercation. Both parties tried to enlist troops. Presumably to finance the recruiting of such troops, Phaulkon refused to pay off arrears to the Dutch. Interest-free loans nor­ mally granted the VOC were refused. The money had to be borrowed else­ where at a very high rate. But Phaulkon’s party could not boast of a large fol­ lowing, it was completely dependent upon the king. When Narai's illness grew more serious, Phaulkon's influence decreased correspondingly. An at­ tempt of the Greek to strenghten his position by letting the king order all French soldiers to assemble at Lopburi, was frustrated by Phetracha. At the same time Phaulkon was also compelled to pay back debts to the French. In

58 59

VOC 1440, fol. 2253-2240, 2258-2259. Ibid., fol. 2497; VOC 1453, fol. 239-258.

282 460

INFORMAL PRESENCES Jurrien van Goor

order to do so he pressed Chinese traders to sell their pepper for a very low price to the French Company and the French became once more unpopular when they tried to seize the Chinese merchants' ships to get hold of the pepper-cargo. Soon after these events, an intrigue set up by Phaulkon and Moon Pi to cause a general confusion by setting fire to the Moorish quarters and then kill Phetracha was overheard by Phetracha's son who happened to be in the palace. Subsequently incriminating letters and documents were found and the intrigants were arrested when Narai was still alive. Moon Pi was be­ headed on May 22. His head was thrown at Phaulkon’s feet with the words: "Here is your king." In the meantime there was a definite rupture between the French and the Thai. French soldiers occupied Bangkok. It took almost one year before Phetracha succeeded in getting rid of them with as little bloodshed as possible. With the exception of the Dutch all Europeans in the kingdom were imprisoned. This also marked Phaulkon's end, his downfall coming as suddenly as his unexpected rise. After an interrogation he was convicted and beheaded. Dutch sources record that in the night dogs dug up his bones. In a general outburst against foreigners the dead body of Phaulkon’s son was also desecrated and the people destroyed French chapels and churches. During those hectic days the Dutch managed to keep out of harm’s way. Their trade had recuperated after 1686. But they were also forced to take a stand in the struggle for the succession to the throne. Phetracha who had told Narai not to press his claims had two other pretenders killed. He also sounded the French-Dutch relationship by proposing the Dutch resident to enter in an agreement with the French about a safe-conduct to pass Bangkok. The Dutch refused however saying they did not want to diminish the king’s glory by requesting foreigners to travel on the Menam. At a subsequent in­ terview the Dutchman paid "almost royal honour" to Phetracha. The court on its side requested Dutch help against possible French attacks from the sea. The actual delegation of power from Narai to Phetracha did not lead to much trouble. On July 11 Narai handed the "sword of state" to his daughter and died some hours later. Phetracha continued his rule and married the daughter. In a number of actions Phetracha showed his rule to be a break with the past. He remainded at Lopburi until August 1, then he made his way to Ayuthaya in a great procession with the mortal remains of his predecessor. Ayuthaya was to become the sole center of government, the many palaces in Lopburi had been granted to the sangha, the houses built for the reception of foreign ambassadors were given to courtiers, the Collegium Constantinum was bestowed upon the Chinese. The taxes introduced by Phaulkon were abolished. Freedom of tolls was granted throughout the whole country for three years. The sangha was restored to its former posi-

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 283 Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya 1683-1688

461

tion. Two years later Phetracha, after having brought an important image of Buddha from Lopburi to Ayuthaya, had the whole of the former city de­ stroyed with the exception of the parts given to the monks.60 The Dutch had been the only Europeans present at Phetracha's festive entrance into Ayuthaya, they went to meet him nine miles before the city. To enhance their prestige the Dutch resident had textiles distributed among the crowd. They were in the good books of Phetracha who "straightly de­ clared not to be willing to deal with any Europeans in his country except for the Dutch**. An endeavour of the royal factors to change the terms of trade to the disadvantage of the Dutch was stymied by the resident by a direct appeal to the king. The old contract with Narai was renewed by Phetracha in 1688, while the tin monopoly had been annexed. The Dutch position was once more confirmed a month later in a solemn audience at court. After the departure of the French troops the Dutch were the only European traders left. Notwithstanding the special inclination of the new king towards the Dutch, other Europeans were not completely forgotten in later years. The English showed up only accidently, while the French did not succeed in re-establishing a good relation in 1696 although the acting phrak­ lang was said to be pro-French.61 This meant in actual practice that Phetracha closed his kingdom for all Europeans except the Dutch who combined political reliability with great creditworthiness, which was exactly what Phetracha needed. During Phetracha’s reign (1688- 1703) one reads repeatedly about inter­ nal unrest, revolt and secession in the frontier districts.62 Patani and Kedah, for example, refused to recognize Thai superiority in 1692, a subsequent campaign against Patani failed. It seems that the number of phrai luang, the men directly subordinated to the king, dwindled.63 Probably all this must be ascribed to the weak position of the usurper. Phetracha had to buy the support of many by making gifts and grants and the sangha had to be favoured, too. Therefore the king was actually short of money and, notwith­ standing his good disposition towards the Dutch, he pressed them hard. Thus, the growth of the Dutch textile imports under Phetracha, due to the absence of the English and the French, did not lead to an increase of profits. Under Phetracha the Dutch factory was maintained mainly for the purchase of deer skins that could be sold with a good profit in Japan. The tin-monopoly did not mean much either, Phetracha forced the Dutch to buy it from him at a much higher price than the one to be paid in Ligor. He tried to renew the royal trade to Coromandel and Bengal with 60 61 62 63

GM,V,p. 404. GM, V, pp. 589,830; VI, pp. 65,74,81. GM, V, pp. 404,529,660,829; VI, pp. 26,107. Ibid.; Akin Rabibhadana, Thai Society, p. 36.

284

INFORMAL PRESENCES JuTrien van Goor

462

Dutch credit and support. In contrast with Narai, Phetracha was heavily in debt to the Dutch for years on end, yet he forced them to accept more than they needed. They had to buy all commodities at the royal warehouses, and women who were accustomed to sell rice to the Dutch, were chased away by the royal factors. Owing to the king’s monopoly of the actual trade, money became very scarce in Thailand and almost disappeared.64 The difficulties of the king were augmented by his son's behaviour. There had been talk of conflicts between the king and the upparat, the suc­ cessor to the throne. The latter together with his mother, appropriated part of the foreign trade but neither of them had the money to finance this and, accordingly, the Company had to wait for its income. The lessening grip of Phetracha upon the proceeds of the kingdom is manifest also in the desire of courtiers for money.65 If we are to sum up the Dutch position after ten years of Phetracha’s rule, it can be said that no major changes had occured. The trade did not go too well. Thirty years later one encounters the same picture, the king and the phraklang being largely in debt to the Company and the Dutch thereby strongly tied to the country.66 Conclusion Reassessing briefly the outcome of the investigations into the Dutch archives concerning the role of Phaulkon and the relationship between the kings Narai and Phetracha with the Dutch, one might say that the position of Narai has been underestimated. His rule seems to have been rather stable, especially in the later years. He was free to pursue his policy against Burma, to undertake large works, to send out large embassies and ships and to for­ ward money to foreign traders. From this we may conclude that Narai was a powerful and rich king, able to use the proceeds of his kingdom. In the Dutch archives no indications were found of a "concern to free himself from the economic control of the Dutch". Rather the contrary was the case: as traders the Dutch were held in esteem, Narai tried to use them for his aims in the Malay peninsula, and their factors were given a court rank. The prob­ lems that arose in 1663 and 1685 were caused by the hard pressure the royal factors exerted upon all foreign traders, not only the Dutch. In both cases matters were settled in a peaceful way. The Dutch on their side provided the king with mirrors, silver, curiosities from Europe, weapons, copper for tem­ ple decoration and artisans. Royal Thai ships were given help when stranded elsewhere in Asia. 64 65 66

CM, V, pp. 659,829; VI, pp. 4,5,53. GM, V, pp. 499,502,506,529,531,588,625,829. GM, DC, p. 706.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 285 Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya 1683-1688

463

A comparison of the rules of Narai and Phetracha seems to confirm the conclusion that Narai’s position has been underestimated. As a new man Phetracha had to "buy” the support of all kind of groups in his kingdom. The sangha was endowed with palaces and buildings, taxes were suspended or abolished, members of his family tried to take part in the proceeds of the kingdom, the loss of the phrai luang started during his reign. Phetracha was not able to fit out ships and was constantly short of money. His power was challenged in several parts of the realm. The Dutch were hard pressed and had to wait for their money for a long time. Ironically the king who said to be very positively inclined towards the Dutch, pressed them harder than Narai ever did, the explanation being the lack of stability of his position compared with Narai. The other pillars of his power base not being quite as good as those of his predecessor, he had to resort to the foreign traders. This also contradicts Hall’s ideas about the Dutch impact upon Narai’s rule. Another conclusion to be drawn is that traders had to adapt themselves to local circumstances. The English and the French Companies were not able to do so, they only temporarily settled in Thailand and did not get much out of it. This contrasts strongly with the Dutch who had been assigned a place in the country's social and trading system. The careers of the freetraders Burnaby and White also demonstrate that opportunities existed if one ac­ cepted the Thai system. Foreigners depended on local support; the most prominent case to exemplify this was Phaulkon himself. Apart from his own great capabilities in the diplomatic field, in the command of languages and in trade, his rise and fall should be attributed to the possession or loss of royal favour. His fascinating personality and dramatic end have c rned us only to the extent that he provides an example of a very distinct ^ ap of merchants in Southeast Asia - of those who became engaged in a royal trading depart­ ment. Most of them were known under the title shabandar or harbourmas­ ter. Phaulkon's case was similar and he was only one of many Europeans to win the confidence of an Asian ruler, and to be entrusted with his "host’s” relations to the foreign trading community. His astounding career seems to be more of a hindrance than a help to understand his function and position. Voltaire for instance ascribed his meteoric rise to European superiority over Asians.67 In this paper the opposite has been postulated. Apart from his great personal qualities Phaulkon owed his ascendancy to the specific conditions under which trade was conducted in Thailand. The presence of foreigners in governmental positions was not re­ stricted to the case of Thailand, but could be found throughout Southeast Asia. A number of Dutchmen for instance were shabandar on Bali in the 67

Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam, p. 163.

INFORMAL PRESENCES

286

Jumen van Goor

464

seventeenth century. On the same island Europeans, Chinese and others held the position of shabandar in the nineteenth century till the end of tra­ ditional rule. Purbatjaraka’s study of the shabandars in the Indonesian archipelago shows a great variety in their ethnic origin; often their origin from foreign trading-groups is dear in their denomination.68 Yet, visitors frequently styled them minister of foreign affairs, or of the affairs of foreign­ ers. The reasons to choose a member of a foreign merchant community for such an important position seem to be manifold: Personal qualities, knowledge of trading techniques and other languages played an important role. Another reason was that being an outsider in the kingdom which em­ ployed him, the foreign merchant had little or no access to local power networks and more than others depended for his position on the king's favour. This does not mean that he could not become very important due to the large sums of money he handled and the favours he could grant. The case of Phaulkon however made it clear that in the final struggle for power such merchants could only succeed if they sided with a strong faction. The last shabandar of the king of Lombok shared the same fate.69 In short, a man in a position like Phaulkon had to deal with competing groups and it would help him if he knew how to play them off against each other without giving away too much. For example, while the Dutch were complaining about their lack of success in Thailand, the French ambassadors were not really able to improve the economic or religious position of their countrymen, although the opposite was suggested. Giving the impression of a special treatment to selected foreigners seems one of the weapons Phaulkon used to make them not only accept him, but even actively ingratiate themselves with him. The mutual distinct and envy among the foreigners provided Phaulkon ample room for scheming without having to explain his intentions. The reverse of the medal is that most of the phraklang or shabandar came from trading communities or had access to trading networks. The Dutch as representatives of the greatest trading company at the time must have been attractive due to their ability to purchase great quantities of export produce. Several episodes of Phaulkon’s careen indicate a connection with strife among trading groups. His way into the royal establishment was opened up by the English free traders at the expense of the EIC. The phrak­ lang*s esteem was enhanced by the Greek’s management of the Persian con­ nection. Although the English Company could not make a profit, its former 68

Purbatjaraka Pumadi, "Shabandars in the Archipelago", J o u r n a l o f S o u th e a s t A s ia n 3.2 (1962), pp. 1-9. Jurrien van Goor, "Said Abdullah, politicus in de marge van het imperium", in the same, K o o p lie d e n p r e d ik a n te n t n b e s tu u r d e r s o v e r zc e , b e e ld v o r m in g e n p la a ts b e p a lin g in een a n d ere w e reld (Utrecht, 1982), pp. 58-109.

H is to r y 69

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 287 Constant Phaulkon as Phraklang in Ayuthaya 1683-1688

465

servants easily could and grew rich in royal favour thanks to the protection by Phaulkon. When Monsieur Constance, as the French called him, rose to power the Dutch were not able to make much of their old connection due to the disregard of their man, phraklang Okya Wang. Another explanation that seems to offer itself is the agrarian orienta­ tion of the great majority of the inhabitants of the Southeast Asian king­ doms in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Foreign trade consisted mainly of the export of agrarian goods and minerals, manufactures were rare or non-existent. Foreign trade was as often as not a royal monopoly or prerogative. At least in Thailand the king monopolized the export of the goods that had been brought in as taxes by his subjects. He was the greatest trader in the realm. The proceeds of this trade made it possible for him to maintain a splendid royal lifestyle, accentuated by the sole possession of arms and status goods. The royal monopoly or endeavours to create one, ex­ cluded the great men of the kingdom to amass sufficient wealth to threaten the king’s position. The phraklang should be a man that could be trusted not to engage in intrigues against the throne. As far as the sources go we have no indication of Phaulkon betraying the king.

15 European Exiles, Renegades and Outlaws and the Maritime Economy o f Asia, c. 1500-1750 G.V Scammell

For centuries Europeans were fascinated by rumours and legends of the wealth and wonders of the Orient and by stories of the supposed existence there of realms free from all those tiresome taboos and restrictions that prevailed in the West. Long before the arrival of Vasco da Gama, renegades were serving the Mongols in Iran and Marco Polo had been in the entourage of the Grand Khan himself. The Portuguese pioneers were disconcerted to encounter in 1501 a certain Benvenuto de Abano who had spent the previous twenty-five years sailing the seas of Asia, and his contemporary, the Muslim Khoja Safar Salmani, an erstwhile Genoese or Albanian.1 But this was nothing compared with the flow that followed western pen­ etration of the maritime economy of the East, scattering European adventurers and outlaws throughout the Orient anywhere from the shores of the Persian Gulf to those of the Pacific Ocean. And very soon these hopefuls were joined by European pirates, some working from ports in their mother countries, some from the Caribbean and North America, and some from bases in the Indian Ocean, of which Mada­ gascar was, according to taste, the most celebrated or the most notorious. Such men, frequently of remarkable skills and fearsome abilities, exercised a considerable influence on the maritime history of the East in the early modem centuries, and it is with the origins, aspirations and activities of these elusive—indeed often anonymous— but nevertheless highly significant figures that this paper is concerned.2 Refugees from, or rejects of, western society came from many parts 1 G. V. Scammell, ‘The Great Age of Discovery, 1 4 5 0 - 16 5 0 * (London, Hakluyt Society, 1 9 8 2 ), p. 6 . 2 G. V. Scammell, The First Imperial Age, European Overseas Expansion €.¡4 0 0 -17 13 (London, 19 8 9 ), pp. 2 9 - 3 0 , 16 9 , 2 3 7 .

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of Europe and not necessarily from its most impoverished or politi­ cally turbulent areas. The Jesuits were scandalized by the cosmopoli­ tan throng they encountered at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar, whilst later the Maratha Admiral, Kanhoji Angre (16691729), ‘used’, it was said, ‘many Europeans’ to man his formidable squadrons. Such expatriates were mostly deserters from the service of those western maritime powers established in the East and hence, initially, the large numbers from Portugal. Some Portuguese were already employed in Bengal—as soldiers amongst other things—as early as 1521.3 Thereafter they crop up alike in Thailand, Vijayanagara and the Bay of Bengal —to whose rich pickings 2000 had been drawn from Goa alone by the late 1500s —and where, as in the Red Sea, they were busily engaged in piracy. They appear in Mesopotamia, at the royal court of Golconda and in the imperial Mughal capital. By the seventeenth century there were Portuguese serving the Persians at Kung or working as seamen in Muslim vessels engaged in evading Portugal’s attempted control of the export of pepper from western India. They built fortifications and provided shipping for Shivaji. They supplied gunners to the Mughals, pilots for the Chinese, galley commanders for the ruler of Arakan and construc­ ted men-of-war for the Sultan of Atjeh. Some even got as far as setting themselves up as princelings along the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal.4 By the early 1600s the English were, if less numerous, scarcely less ubiquitous, and this notwithstanding the endeavours of some staunchly Protestant officers of the East India Company to prevent ‘the shame’ which befell ‘our religion’ through the conduct of such renegades. The celebrated Will Adams was profitably ensconced in Japan at the beginning of the seventeenth century—deaf to the calls of marital bliss and duty in the home country—whilst a compatriot was 3 Voyage dans Us deltas dtu G auge et de L ’Irraouaddy, ¡521,

Luis Filipe Thomaz (Paris,

ed. Genevieve Bouchon et

19 8 8 ), pp. 5 1 , 3 3 7 . 4 The N e w C am bridge H isto ry o f In d ia , I, 1 , M. N. Pearson, The Portuguese in India (Cambridge, 1 9 8 7 ), p. 8 7 ; G. V. Scammell, ‘The Pillars of Empire: Indigenous Assistance and the Survival of the E stado da In d ia c. 1600 - 17 0 0 ’, M o d e m A sia n Studies 2 2 , 3 ( 19 8 8 ), pp. 4 3 7 ff at p. 4 8 5 ; Anthony Disney, ‘Smugglers and Smuggling in the Western Half of the E stado da In d ia in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries’, Indica 2 6 , i and 2 ( 19 8 9 ), pp. 5 7 ffat p. 6 5 ; Intrepid Itin e ra n t . M a n u e l Godinho an d his Journey fr o m In d ia to P ortugal in 1663 , ed. and trs. John Correia-Afonso and Vitalio Lobo (OUP, Bombay, 19 9 0 ), pp. 5 2 , 7 1 ; A. R. Kulkami, ‘Marathas and the Sea*, in K. S. Mathew (ed.), Studies in M a ritim e H istory (Pondicherry, 19 9 0 ), p. 9 6 ; Bouchon, Voyage dans Us deltas , p. 6 2 .

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 291 THE MARITIME ECONOMY OF ASIA I 5 O O - I 75O

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equally happily established in the Celebes.5 Others were settled in Madagascar shortly after and, as a chance reference in the account of a shipwreck reveals, in Kerala. In the mid-i6oos there were those, allegedly encouraged by ill-disposed compatriots, who fled from Surat to join local potentates, and there were enough Englishmen scattered about the countryside around Bombay for the East India Company to urge that they should take up residence in its newly-acquired posses­ sion. But to little effect, and later in the century we meet their fellows serving by land or sea the rulers of Gujarat, Bengal, Arakan, Golconda and Bantam. Some held high office under the Shah of Persia (Iran). More numerous still were those in Mughal pay—their alcoholic prowess already remarked by the emperor Jehangir—whilst others made a significant contribution to the armed strength of the Marathas. Many more were less ominously employed by local mer­ chants—by those, for example, of Gujarat and Bengal, or by the Armenians of Madras.6 O f the numbers involved it is difficult, if not impossible to say, though we hear on one occasion (1654) of 23 deserters from Surat. But such was the propensity of the English to decamp that in the late 1670s the East India Company warned all freemen —those trading, that is, under its licence—in and around Masulipatnam that they were to move into Madras, and further for­ bade them to build houses or acquire property elsewhere, or to enter the employment of any Indian prince. So little was the message heeded, however, that in 1680 Charles II of England found it necess­ ary to call home from India all Englishmen in indigenous service there. Meanwhile, British pirates, soon reinforced by their brethren from North America, were roaming the Asian seas from the shores of East Africa to the Straits of Malacca.7 The story was much the same with the Dutch—or at least with that cosmopolitan labour force employed by the Dutch East India Com­ pany—and despite the fact that on the whole prosperous and tolerant Holland was a country to which, rather than from which, people fled. 5 D e re k M a s s a r e lla , A W orld Elsew here. E u ro p e’s Encounter w ith J a p a n in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ( V a l e U P , 1 9 9 0 ) , p . 1 0 5 . 6 S e r a fim D . Q u ia s o n , E n g lish ‘C ountiy T ra d e ’ w ith the P hilippines, ¡644-1765 (Q u e z o n C i t y , 1 9 6 6 ) , p p . 3 7 ff. 7 A h u g e fu n d o f in fo rm a tio n o n E n g lis h a n d o th e r re n e g a d e s is to be fo u n d in F . C . D a n v e r s a n d W . F o s t e r ( c d s ) , Letters Received by the E n g lish E a st India C om pany fr o m its

Servants in the E a st, 160 2 -1 6 1 7 (6 v o ls, L o n d o n , 1 8 9 6 - 1 9 0 2 ) ; in W . F o s te r (e d .), The E n g lish Factories in In d ia , 161 8 -1 6 6 9 ( 1 3 v o ls , O x fo r d , 1 9 0 6 - 2 7 ) ; a n d in S i r C h a r le s F a w c e t t (e d .), E n g lish Factories in In d ia , 1 6 7 0 -7 7 ,1 6 7 8 -8 4 , n e w ser. (O x fo r d , 1 9 5 2 - 5 5 ) . S e e a ls o C h a r le s G r e y , P ira tes o f the E astern Seas, 1618-1729 (L o n d o n , 1 9 3 3 ) .

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292 644

G. V. SCAMMELL

One Dutchman was encountered by the English at the beginning of the seventeenth century living it up on an island in the Molucca Sea ‘with as many women as he pleaseth . . . he will sing and dance all day long, near hand naked .. . and will be drunk two days together’.8 Less hedonistic, or less fortunate compatriots were subsequently employed, or sought employment, in Japan and Gujarat, turned Muslim at Mocha (1647), and like all others flocked to join the Mughals. Indeed such was the scale of their exodus that in the mid-1600s the Dutch East India Company was anxious to reach agreement with the imperial court concerning the recovery of these miscreants. Then, of course, as in Europe itself, and as in the polyglot world of commerce and seafaring anywhere, westerners in Asia commonly migrated, fled or were ejected from the service of their own country into that of some other European power. In the early 1600s the Portuguese were leaving Sao Tomé by the score to join the Dutch at Pulicat, yet their fleet in action against the English in the Persian Gulf in 1625 had amongst its complement 200 English, Scots, Irish and Dutch ‘runagadoes’. The Abbé Carré later met Frenchmen in Port­ uguese service at Kung, and at Daman (1673) came across a com­ patriot from Provence waxing rich on the proceeds of commanding indigenous and Portuguese ships whilst his lady, in true Latin style, pursued a colourful romantic life in his absence.9 A certain William Carmichael turned up in England in the early 1600s, leaving a wife and family in Goa, having been employed, so he claimed, by the Portuguese in Asia—including China—for thirty years.10 By the mid­ dle of the century his fellows were deserting both to the Portuguese in Coromandel and to the Dutch at Surat—to whom one, allegedly of a ‘perverse and passionate’ nature, bethought to take himself when in trouble for his misdeeds, chiefly a reluctance to attend church. Others jumped ship at Goa (1651) and Daman (1652). The garrison drum­ mer at Madras, after some ill-advised exploits, departed (1651) for Goa and ended in Macassar. A contemporary, thwarted in his expec­ tations of undertaking a voyage to Pegu for the influential Mir Jumla, fled to Sao Tomé and compounded his sins by becoming a ‘Papist rouge’. And so extensive was the flow of fugitives—free and slave— 8 G . V . S c a m m e ll, The W orld Encompassed. The F irst European M a ritim e E m pires c.8 o o 1650 (L o n d o n , 1 9 8 1 ) , p . 4 1 2 .

9 The Travels o f the A b b é C arré in In d ia a n d the N e a r E ast, 1672 to 1674,

trs. L a d y F a w c e t t

a n d ed . S ir C h a r le s F a w c e t t w ith the a ssis ta n c e o f S ir R ic h a r d B u r n (3 v o ls, H a k lu y t S o c ie ty , 1 9 4 7 - 4 8 ) , I I I , 7 4 8 8 “. 10 G . V . S c a m m e ll, 'E n g la n d , P o rtu g a l a n d the E stado da India c. 1 5 0 0 - 1 6 3 5 * , M o d em

A sia n Studies 16 , 2 ( 1 9 8 2 ) , p p . 177(1*.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 293 THE

MARITIME ECONOMY

OF A SIA

I5OO-I75O

645

between Madras and Sao Tomé and Sao Tomé and Madras that the matter had to be regulated by an Anglo-Portuguese agreement in 1651. This cosmopolitan diaspora was part of a far larger movement. Economic disaster, poverty, religious bigotry, intolerance, oppression and lack of opportunity at home drove ambitious or disgruntled Europeans not only to Asia but to flee from their mother countries to neighbouring states, to join the Ottomans in the Levant, to become Muslim corsairs in North Africa, or to take their chance among the Africans of Guinea or the Indians of North America. But no call was stronger and more insistent than that of the Orient. Its major indi­ genous states neither offered easy access to the agents of European companies or powers nor were much impressed by their claims. The western presence was primarily maritime, with Europeans soon scat­ tered along the routes now worked by their ships from which, as in other waters and at other times, they freely deserted. Expatriates encountered pockets of political instability providing limitless opport­ unities for the able and unscrupulous. There was the prospect, whether by trade or plunder, of riches of a staggering order. There were wealthy, powerful and often tolerant rulers willing to pay for the services which westerners could—or alleged they could—provide. In a world now afflicted by the pretensions and rivalries of European states, and far more profoundly by those of newly-emergent indi­ genous powers, various local potentates were persuaded of the advan­ tages that could accrue from the employment of European naval and military technology, then in process of making significant advances. Indigenous shipowners similarly saw the benefit to be gained by hiring western commanders or pilots with inside knowledge or par­ ticular skills to take charge of their vessels on commercial routes opened up by Europeans, or on those on which the competition, not to say outright hostility, of western craft was to be expected. Renegades and their fellows thus came to fulfil a number of clearly defined functions. Many were gunners both by land and sea. PreEuropean Asia certainly had its firearms and artillery, but western guns rapidly improved in quality and effectiveness from the late six­ teenth century, chiefly as the result of almost incessant warfare, just as the skills needed for their handling became more exacting. Hence European experts, or self-proclaimed experts, in the gunner’s art crop up throughout much of Asia from the early 1500s. In 1663 Father Godinho acutely noticed that though the Mughals had a great deal of artillery their tactics of cavalry raids in open country gave them little

INFORMAL PRESENCES

294 646

G. V. SCAMMELL

occasion to use it. He thought their gunners poor and believed most of them to be Dutch or Portuguese and hardly Europe’s finest.11 But despite this somewhat jaundiced testimony, expatriate influence was clearly considerable. When, for example, Aurangzeb, outraged at the doings of western pirates, decided to have a navy of his own, it was to be under his ‘Frank gunners’. Many of these were in fact English and their exodus from the service of the East India Company is well documented. Thus there were complaints in 1656 that as the imperial siege train made its way to Lahore it was reinforced, if that is the right word, by drunken English sailors transmuted into artillerymen, and indeed the emperor Jehangir was of the opinion that the more his English gunners imbibed the better they shot. In 1670 the Company proceeded against one decribed as a gunner’s assistant who was recruiting in Bombay for the Mughals, whilst some years later the imperial representative in Surat was pressing the English for gunners and encouraging crews to desert from Company ships to serve as artillerymen. Some of these specialists are even known to us by name, like Thomas Roach, chief gunner at Agra in 1674 and obviously a man of standing with the emperor.12 Other evidence is patchy but significant. In the early 1500s the presence of renegade gunfounders in Calicut was one of the many bones of contention between the Portuguese and the Zamorin. Soon after their arrival in the East the English noticed that the ships of Atjeh carried ‘very good brass ordnance: semi-canon, culverins, sakers, minions’, or in other words a full range of western weapons.13 The East India Company learned in 1653 that eight of its soldiers had already deserted from Madras to be gunners in local service and two more were on the point of going. Meanwhile in Golconda the influen­ tial Mir Jumla was employing French, Italian and English artil­ lerymen and gunfounders, and at the end of the century the notorious former buccaneer, Plantain, was chief gunner to Kanhoji Angre. In short, there was a close relationship between European renegades and nascent indigenous naval power. Similarly, much in evidence were those expatriates who manned or navigated Asian vessels. In 1601, for example, the Dutch met a Japanese craft on passage to Manila under a Portuguese pilot—and n

Godinho, ed . C o r r e ia -A fo n s o , et a l.y Factories, passim.

p. 7 1 .

12 F o s te r

13 G . V . S c a m m e ll, ‘ In d ig e n o u s A s s is t a n c e in the E s ta b lis h m e n t o f P o rtu g u e se P o w e r in A s i a in the S ix te e n th C e n tu r y * , PP-

3- 4 -

Modem Asian Studies

1 4 , 1 ( 1 9 8 0 ) , p p . ifT at

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF EUROPEANS IN AFRICA AND ASIA — 295 THE MARITIME ECONOMY OF ASIA I 5 O O - I 7 5 O

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hopelessly off course—and during that brief period from the late 1500s to 1635, in which the shogunate licenced Japanese overseas trade, most of the ships engaged carried Portuguese pilots who were, of course, familiar with the routes to be sailed. Mughal vessels in the Bay of Bengal used Portuguese seamen in the 1650s, and in the late 160os English pirates intercepted a Chinese junk off Malacca with two Portuguese pilots on board. A ship belonging to Mir Jumla, bound for Persia (Iran) in 1650 carried an English pilot, as did one from Bengal which put into Gombroon in 1654, and the list might easily be extended.14 Almost as numerous were those Europeans in command of local vessels. They, too, could offer indigenous owners expert knowledge of particular waters and in addition useful contacts in ports where their fellow countrymen were established. In return they could expect handsome remuneration and attractive partnerships in commercial ventures. Many, however, were like as not of that sinister breed, later found in the novels of Joseph Conrad, obliged for various reasons to exercise their skills in regions little frequented by their compatriots. So in the early 1600s a vessel belonging to the ‘principal Moor’ of Masulipatnam and under a Portuguese master was intercepted by the Dutch on passage from Tenasserim (Mergui).15 Later in the century Petro Loveyro, known to the English as ‘an antient Portuguees’, and clearly an experienced seaman, commanded Bengal ships working to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. At the same date the Abbé Carré knew Frenchmen who were masters of Indian vessels sailing from Surat and Daman. He met the English commander of a ship belonging to a Surat Armenian, whilst another Englishmen subsequently had charge of the locally-owned Welcome of the same port. So ubiquitous were these Europeans that in 1652 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a seasoned traveller, came to the unhappy conclusion that their services were in such demand since neither Indians nor Persians had ‘the least know­ ledge of navigation’.16 Yet at that very time indigenous ships under indigenous command could be met in harbours throughout huge areas of maritime Asia, whilst as European pirates were to find to 14 15

Massarella, World Elsewhere, pp. 8 1 , 1 3 2 - 3 . Peter Floris, His Voyage to the East Indies in the Globe,

(Hakluyt Society,

1 9 3 4 ),

p.

i

6i i ~ j5 > ed. W. H. Moreland

68.

ed. and trs. V. Ball (2 vols, 1 8 8 9 ), I, 2 0 3 - 7 ; cf. K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean. An Economic History from the Rise o f Islam to 1750 (Cam­ bridge, 1 9 8 5 ), pp. 1 3 9 - 4 0 . 16

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India, / 6 4 0 -6 7 ,

revised edn by William Crooke (OUP,

1 9 2 5 ),

INFORMAL PRESENCES

296 648

G. V. SCAMMELL

their cost many such vessels were not only armed but well able to look after themselves. The renegades, however, whose activities were most apprehensively watched by their compatriots, were those engaged, one way or another, in providing or commanding military and naval forces for local rulers. Portuguese experts built, or helped to build, fortifications for Shivaji.17 Earlier (1615) one of their compatriots had supplied the formidable ruler of Atjeh with 12 ‘very great galleys’, only to come to a depressing end, trampled to death at his royal master’s command lest he performed a similar service for others. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Japanese, eager to acquire shipwrights who could build them vessels capable of crossing the Pacific, had to make do with such secrets as they could elicit from Will Adams, an English pilot employed by the Dutch East India Company, who was originally detained in the islands and subsequently reluctant to depart from them. More sinister still were the naval and military condottieri—a breed dying out in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe—command­ ing their own forces and serving where the pay or opportunities seemed best. In 1521 the Portuguese encountered in Bengal a fellow countryman with his followers —equipped, it might be noted, as arch­ ers and not with the latest weaponry—so integrated into the indi­ genous world that they had no hesitation in setting about their supposed compatriots. Some years later the colourful Diogo Soares de Mello was fighting for the Burmese in Thailand, whilst in the 1580s and 1590s there were Portuguese mercenaries engaged on both sides in the Thai-Burmese wars. At the end of the century one set up what was tantamount to his own principality at Siriam, in the Irrawaddy delta, and others were making their presence felt in Laos and Cam­ bodia.18 In the 1660s ah English officer who had fought on the losing side in the civil wars at home turns up in imperial pay in Persia (Iran) together with several other European experts. He was taken on by the Shah ‘to discipline his people in the military art’—by no means the first or last to be so engaged—only, like many others after him, to fall on hard times after the death of his master. Meanwhile the King of Arakan had a fleet of galleys fighting somewhat unsteadily (1665) under Portuguese command against the Mughals and, as we have already noticed, Europeans figure largely in the upsurge of Maratha seaborne endeavour under Shivaji and his successor. In 1659 the 17

K u lk a r n i, ‘ M a r a t h a s a n d the S e a *, p . 9 6 .

10 P e a rso n ,

Portuguese in India,

p. 8 6 .

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Portuguese captain of Bassein reported that he had succeeded in the tricky task of attaching to the Lusitanian cause one Ruy Leitao Viegas who was then with his followers—some 340 ‘Portuguese and Topazes, black and white’—on the point of putting to sea with a flotilla of Maratha war vessels.19 Some years later the English authorities investigated (1684) the doings of a former officer in an East Indiaman who, having deserted at Goa (1677), compounded his many sins by having in his possession a M aratha commission to command a force of five or six vessels and to raise some English seamen to crew them. And at the end of the century the erstwhile pirate Plantain, now a Maratha officer, had charge, amongst other things, ‘of all the affairs of the grabs and gallivats’—those formidable small craft propelled by sail and oars—and on the most generous terms. But there was no surer way to wealth, it was widely believed, than by downright robbery, and in the centuries between 1500 and 1750 piracy flourished as never before and, as never before, on a global scale. This was the age of the Caribbean buccaneers, the Barbary corsairs, the Japanese wako, the Omanis, the pirates of Malabar and many others besides. But our concern is with the Europeans, amongst whom the British loomed so large that even a compatriot dismissed them as no better than ‘a nation of pirates’. First on the scent of loot in the East, however, were the Portuguese. Barely had they arrived before royal officers were off chasing indigenous vessels (1519) and by the 1530s their freebooters were roving the Bay of Bengal. But apart from the ravages of the Portuguese there and in the Red Sea, most western pirates found it more profitable and less hazardous to stay nearer to home. In the Atlantic they could hope to pick off Spanish treasure ships returning from the Americas and Portuguese vessels bringing back gold from West Africa—such depredations soon as much a godly duty as a speedy way to worldly wealth to ardent Protestants. With any luck, too, they might take Portuguese Indiamen as they struggled home on the last leg of the world’s most arduous voyage. Hence the fate of the Madre de Dcus which the English cap­ tured (1592) with an astonishing lading of jewels, spices and silks worth about 50% of their mother country’s annual imports.20 Already, however, English interest was shifting further east. Francis Drake’s celebrated circumnavigation of the globe (1577-80), in the course of which he acquired a shipload of booty in the Pacific at a time when Elizabeth I was nominally at peace with Spain and 19 S c a m m e ll, ‘ P illa rs o f E m p ire * , p. 4 8 5 . 20 S c a m m e ll, ‘ E n g la n d , P o rtu g a l a n d the

Estado\

p. 18 0 .

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Portugal, showed amongst other things that such feats could win the sovereign’s approval. Indeed, the Queen in effect gave the royal bless­ ing to piracy, setting a precedent followed, albeit far less rewardingly, by her successors. The voyage also showed that the riches of the East were at the mercy of those bold and resourceful enough to seek them. The message was not lost on intransigent Protestants when in 1580 Catholic Spain annexed Portugal and her empire and so appeared to control most of the known world. Following the outbreak of the Anglo-Spanish war (1585) a plethora of schemes was hatched for profitable incursions into Asia. Little was to come of them, though during the second English circumnavigation (1586-88) Thomas Cavendish took a Manila galleon with a cargo of enormous value and at the end of the century the remnants of one expedition found their way to Southeast Asia and the survivors of another plundered Port­ uguese shipping in the Straits of Malacca. Peace between Spain and England (1604) had little effect other than to loose into the East a wave of piratical and semi-piratical ventures, now directed to riches whose magnitude was fully understood and to opportunities whose scope was fully appreciated. The most tempting prizes, as the Portuguese had long known, were to be found in the Red Sea. From its shores indigenous vessels sailed eastwards with ladings which included large amounts of bullion. Towards the holy places of Islam there came, in the time of pil­ grimage, vessels carrying the devout of Asia, and more especially those of the Indian subcontinent, with all their valuable finery. They also had on board presents for the keepers of the shrines from such grandees as the Mughal emperors and their ladies, besides those goods which the pilgrims hoped to sell to cover their expenses and all those many and varied things which were to be marketed at the great fairs held in Arabia during the hajj— ‘all manner of East India goods, and abundance of fine stones for rings and bracelets . . . China ware . .. ’, or in other words ‘all the most precious commodities of the three quarters of the world’.21 Equally attractive was the great com­ mercial bottleneck of the Straits of Malacca where indigenous and western shipping passing between India, China and the Philippines could be intercepted and cargoes of silver—including that coming 21

M . N . P e a rs o n , ‘ P io u s P a ssen gers* M o t iv a t io n s for the H a jj fro m E a r l y M o d e m

In d ia*, in M a t h e w s , Studies in M a ritim e H isto ry , p p . 1 1 2 - 2 6 ; see a lso the a c c o u n ts o f J o s e p h P itts (c. 1 6 8 5 ) a n d C h a r le s J a c q u e s P o n ce t

( 1 7 0 0 - 1 7 0 1 ) in

S i r W illia m F o s te r

(e d .), The R e d Sea an d A djacent Countries at the Close o f the Seventeenth Century (H a k lu y t S o c ie t y , 1 9 4 9 ), p p . 3 8 , 1 5 8 .

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from America via M anila—spices and textiles could be had. Better still, in waters as vast as those of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean the chances of being caught were negligible, since no power had as yet either the resources or the will to police them, and many rulers were indeed willing to encourage, or at least condone, piracy. And happily, too, islands like those off the coast of East Africa provided safe and well-supplied bases, controlling both indigenous commercial routes and those sailed by European Indiamen. Early on the scene were the ships of the recently-founded English East India Company, in whose establishment and initial policies a vital role was taken by men experienced in and enriched by Atlantic privateering. Hence although England was allegedly at peace with the joint Hispano-Portuguese empire—apart from yet another privateer­ ing war in the early 1620s—it was to the accompaniment of skir­ mishes, pitched battles and the capture of Portuguese prizes anywhere from East Africa to South China that the Company pushed eastwards. And local shipping whose presence or behaviour was not to the liking of its officers received similar brusque treatment. The policies of the Dutch East India Company were the same, and during a brief period of joint operations (1620-22) the two corporations were engaged in outright piracy. Chinese ships were, for example, captured off Manila, and it was from such prizes that the Dutch obtained much of the silk so vital to their early trade with Japan. There were some subsequent isolated piracies by individual East India Company captains, but in general they had other things to do. Private enterprise, however, went from strength to strength. In 1613 the ship carrying an emissary of the English East India Company was threatened by pirates after passing the Cape of Good Hope and only saved when its assailants were distracted by the appearance of a vessel which turned out to be yet another freebooter homeward bound from Sumatra. Five years later the celebrated English diplomat Sir Thomas Roe denounced the doings of French, English and Danish rovers in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Nor surprisingly. Hardly had the English East India Company been chartered than James I was licenc­ ing venturers to breach its monopoly, leading to raids on the coasts of Java and Malaysia. Worse was to come. Charles I of England, ever short of money, commissioned Captain Quaile, a well-connected one­ time privateer—in whose earlier projects the king, in true Elizabethan style, had invested—to ‘range the seas the world over’ in one of the royal ships in pursuit of prizes. Which he did with a vengeance. The Dutch at Surat reported his arrival in 1631 with ‘no small store of

INFORMAL PRESENCES

300 652

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ducketts’, the fruits of his activities in the Red Sea. A further cruise in the same waters yielded at least six indigenous craft with cargoes of ‘ryce, opium, silk Stuffes, gold and bullone’ and his ship, though not Quaile himself, finally returned home with loot valued at £20,000—at a time when in England £5000 would buy a good vessel.22 The follow­ ing years saw French captures of even richer prizes in the Red Sea and the loss to a London pirate of a Surat vessel—which significantly mistook him for a Portuguese or Turkish rover—carrying coin and goods said to have been worth £30,ooo-£40,ooo. In 1636 the formi­ dable London entrepreneur William Courteen, then engaged— amongst other things—in breaching the monopoly of the English East India Company, despatched a squadron to Asia. Its backers included the king himself and it was commanded by the former privateer and one-time (though singularly unfortunate) East India Company cap­ tain, John Weddell. After a voyage which took him to western India and Atjeh he clashed with the Chinese at Canton and eventually turned up in Masulipatnam with a prodigious lading of precious metals. In the 1640s Courteen was also behind a bold project, initially floated by others, to colonize Madagascar. The island, thought the proposed commander in the original plan—Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I and a future wild cavalry general and dashing admiral— ‘may easily be made to hold the balance of all the trade between the East Indies and the rest of the world’. It could, that is to say, fulfil a similar role to that of the buccaneering bases of the Caribbean. These grand plans speedily foundered, but in the meanwhile European freebooters set about indigenous shipping. True, some never took a prize, and for some the outcome was far from that expected, with one French crew blown into Aden by bad weather (1656) and there seized and forcibly circumcised. But others enjoyed astonishing success, like those desperados under the command of a former factor of the English East India Company who wrought such havoc in the Red Sea (1662) as to provoke the Mughals into attempting to create their own navy. Now the pace became hotter still as pirates and buccaneers who had long haunted the Caribbean found it prudent to move on. Settlers in the islands came to see them as obstacles to a rewarding (if illicit) commerce with the Spanish possessions, and in any case defences against their raids were being strengthened and measures to control them were more vigorously enforced. As a result their efforts were deflected to the East, with appetites further whetted, so it was alleged, 22

G . V . S c a m m e ll, ‘ S h ip o w n in g in the E c o n o m y a n d P o litics o f E a r l y M o d e m

E n g la n d ’ ,

The Historical Journal

X V , 3 ( 1 9 7 2 ) , pp. 385(1*.

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by rumours of the loot taken by the English East India Company during the course of its local wars in the late seventeenth century. Some of the buccaneers marched across the Isthmus of Panama, launched themselves into the Pacific in pursuit of the galleons carry­ ing American silver to the Philippines, and then pushed on to the Indian Ocean. Others came through the Straits of Magellan, but the majority followed the old-established route round the Cape of Good Hope, with many improving the shining hour by cruises along the West African littoral to pick ofTslavers. They attacked Asian seaborne commerce, European and indigenous alike, anywhere from the western shores of the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea to the waters of the Pacific. From the mid-i6oos they had bases in Réunion and the neighbouring islands and in particular in Madagascar where by the early 1700s there were about 250 of them out of a total pirate com­ munity of roughly 2500. The majority of these desperados were from the West Indies and North America—Boston, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, New York. They were reinforced by mutineers who seized the vessels in which they were serving and by deserters from the various East India com­ panies. Many were of that familiar and unlovable breed of keeper turned poacher—commanders of privateers or men commissioned to round up pirates who then took to piracy themselves. Of such none is better known than Captain Kidd, son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, husband of a rich colonial widow and one-time privateer against the French who was hanged for his misdeeds in 1701. Nor should it be overlooked that some pirate vessels were local craft com­ manded by Europeans. In 1684, for example, one belonging to the King of Thailand, with an English captain, took an Armenian-owned ship from Madras which was promptly refitted to be employed in piracy. By the closing decades of the seventeenth century European freebooters were capturing Chinese junks in the Straits of Malacca and intercepting vessels bound for Japan or returning from Manila. They plundered Portuguese shipping off Sofala or on passage between Goa and Macao and took English East Indiamen in the waters of Indonesia. In the Red Sea, where very often whole squadrons were operating, they plundered the traffic to and from Mecca, as when on one occasion they took the celebrated Ganj-i-SawaH laden with ‘great quantities’ of gold and silver and carrying a ruby-encrusted saddle destined as a present to Aurangzeb. Equally staggering was the cap­ ture at Réunion in 1721 of a Portuguese Indiaman taking home the

302

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cx-viccroy, Dom Luis de Meneses and a cargo of silks, textiles, porcelain and diamonds. Together with the loot harvested in earlier triumphs this yielded its captors something like £i,ooo,ooo.23 Nor was this unique. A venture in 1662 allegedly netted £3,000,000 and hauls of between £20,000 and £30,000 were common in the later 1600s when the gross total trade of England, then Europe’s most flourishing com­ mercial power, was about £i2,ooo,ooo.24 The division of this spoil amongst crews yielded the lucky—and this of course takes no account of the many ventures that failed—from £500 to £1200 each. Had they persevered as honest seamen at home they might have been paid— always assuming they were paid at all—24/- to 25/- a month, rising to 55/- in wartime, whilst masters of slavers would get £8 and of Indiamen £io.25 There is perhaps no more eloquent testimony to the value of Asian trade or to the scale on which eastern riches were transmitted to the \Vest by non-commercial ways so easily overlooked. Handling loot of this order rapidly became a substantial and wellorganized business. Some of the takings were shipped directly to the West Indies and North America, where, from the 1670s East India goods, mostly the fruits of piracy, were being sold in flagrant con­ travention of the supposed monopoly of the English East India Com­ pany and the terms of the English Navigation Acts. There were other major markets in Dutch Cochin and English Bombay, where the pirates had European accomplices, and in western Indian ports where they dealt with local merchants. Most of the loot, however, changed hands in the Comoros, Madagascar and the neighbouring Ste Marie. The islands gave easy access to the Red Sea and dominated all the most important commercial routes between East and West. They were free from the competition of agents of the great European monopoly companies whilst attracting Arab traders from East Africa. Like the old buccaneering strongholds of the West Indies they offered excellent anchorages, food—rice and cattle especially—and the sup­ port of at least some of the local peoples, not to mention the solace of the sexual favours of their women. As on the eastern littoral of the Bay of Bengal indigenous political rivalries allowed the enterprising to fish in troubled waters, receiving, in exchange for weapons and assistance, 23 G r e y , Pirates ypassim; C . R . B o x e r, ‘T h e C o u n t o f E r ic e ira a n d the P ira te s ’ , X X I V (19 7 4 ), pp. 8 5 4 ^

History

Today

The Economy o f England, 1450-1750 (O x fo r d , 1 9 7 7 ) , p. 1 3 3 . The Rise o f the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth

24 D . C . C o le m a n , 25 R a lp h D a v is ,

Centuries

( L o n d o n , 1 9 6 2 ) , p p . 1 36 ÎT

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slaves taken in internecine wars. And there was indeed a close connec­ tion between piracy and slaving, since merchants who came to pur­ chase loot commonly bought slaves for whom there were flourishing markets in Indonesia, and more especially in the western Atlantic settlements whose voracious demands the licenced monopoly sup­ pliers were rarely able to meet. To the islands, and particularly to Madagascar, merchants from the West Indies and North America sent provisions, reinforcement, guns and liquor—much of it lethal firewater—though some ships came out via Madeira to secure choicer vintages. These goods the pirates purchased with precious stones, bullion, spices, oriental textiles and porcelain, mostly taken in the Red Sea. The trade soon became so routine that vessels sailing to and from America carried correspondence, both business and personal, between freebooters and their wives and families—a common theme the explanation of the delayed homecoming of loving husbands and dutiful fathers—and American merchants appointed resident factors in Madagascar, some of them former buccaneers. Hence there flowed from the Indian Ocean to the Americas a rich and variegated commerce ranging from slaves destined for the plan­ tations to the cheaper oriental textiles with which New World mer­ chants could buy Blacks in Africa or the Caribbean. Some of the more luxurious items were absorbed by an affluent and growing American domestic market, with the Iberian settlements supplied through such entrepots as Jamaica and Curasao. A great deal, however, of the bullion and oriental goods that reached North America was re­ exported to Europe—once again contravening the English Navigation Acts—to help pay for those manufactures the colonies so urgently needed. Of the value of these dealings we know as little as of the smugglers’ trade. But there is some hint as to what was going on, and of its significance, in the allegations that at the end of the seventeenth century cargoes (chiefly precious metals) worth anything from £20,000 to £100,000 were being surreptitiously landed in obscure creeks and havens around New York and Philadelphia. Hardly surprisingly some pirates were able to set themselves up as princes or even kings in Madagascar, like that improbable pair Abra­ ham Samuells—offspring of a shipwrecked European sea captain and a Malagasy queen—and his successor, a one-time ship’s carpenter from Wales. Such potentates monopolized the slave trade of their domains, taxed vessels that came within their reach and in general carried on in the style of the Portuguese frontiersmen in Burma and elsewhere. So, too, like European and Goan adventurers in East

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Africa they had armies, slaves and strings of local mistresses, the favourites—notwithstanding that they now bore such homely names as Moll, Sue and Peg—dressed in ‘the richest silks’ and festooned with diamonds. But these regimes were not to endure much beyond the opening decades of the eighteenth century. European naval power grew stronger. Affronts to the rights of property could no longer be tolerated. Piracy sank from being a bold, admired and rewarding expression of bravura and rugged individualism to yet another vice of the lower orders. And now, too, the tentacles of imperial government began to reach to the remotest comers of the world. The European pirate community in Madagascar died out, or was driven out, though the old traditional ways were for a time pursued by the offspring of local women and the last of the freebooters. Western pirates, renegades and exiles were recruited from a wide spectrum of the lower ranks of European society and from many parts of the continent and its transatlantic possessions. Thus of the crew of one ship c. 1700 43 were English, 50 French and the remainder Danes, Dutch and Swedes, besides which complements frequently included non-Europeans and slaves. A handful of adventurers and pirate chiefs were, or claimed to be, men of some social standing. The celebrated Captain Bowen was of ‘creditable parents’ from Bermuda; Captain Kidd was a son of the manse; and the redoubtable Henry Avery, who tried everything from logging in the Caribbean to a spell in the Royal Navy, was a supposed scion of the landed gentry. So, too, of course was that remarkable earlier Portuguese frontiersman, Diogo Soares de Mello. For the rest pirate crews were, like other renegade groups, made up from deserters from the employment of states or trading companies, failed merchants, disillusioned colonists, escaped convicts and runaway indentured servants (white slaves in fact) from the Atlantic settlements. Many, in common with pirates elsewhere, were former professional seamen. They included those who had turned freebooter for no better reason—so they said—than that they had been forced into it by their captors. Some had come on hard times, either shipwrecked or unemployed. There were others who had been packed off to sea by their relatives as dangerous or useless—addicted to ‘vice and drunkeness’—and were impatiently awaiting some change in their fortunes. And there were plenty who mutinied and seized their ships since they were, or considered themselves to be, illtreated by their officers, swindled by their employers and persecuted by society—victims, as one put it, of ‘Laws which rich Men have

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made for their own Security’.26 Ashore many Europeans, Portuguese especially, found themselves in exotic surroundings for the simple reason that as convicts they had been exiled there. Others, men and women alike, fled, as they did in the Americas, from regimes not to their liking. In 1653 the officers of the English East India Company at Madras feared their troops would disappear if disciplined, whilst an English sailor, captured by the Dutch (1653-54), received so cool a reception after struggling back to Surat that he promptly went over to the Mughals. Men similarly deserted from the Portuguese Estado da India feeling themselves deprived of their rightful rewards by that network of influence, patronage and corruption that controlled prefer­ ment, or since they had suffered at the hands of royal officials. Then there were those who turned pirate or renegade, or disap­ peared into exile on a drunken whim, or to avoid the consequences of crimes real or alleged, or to escape their creditors—always a powerful incentive to swift and secret departure to distant places. Emboldened by drink a group of fuddled English seamen set off to join the Mughals in 1656. The colourful career of Diogo Soares de Mello in the Orient began when he was exiled to India for murder and received renewed momentum when he was obliged to flee the consequences of amatory brawls on arrival there. And Father Godinho discovered at the imperial Mughal court in the mid-1600s all those comfortably ensconced there because o f‘crimes committed elsewhere’.27 But Asia offered more than an agreeable refuge for the dispossessed, disinherited or disaffected of the West. Those Europeans who had seen, or heard, of the riches of Vijayanagara or the Mughals were no longer content, as the saying went, to eat hay. Pirates flocked to the East. Others were able to enjoy, less arduously and precariously, lives in every way more rewarding than would have been their lot at home. Will Adams showed a natural enough reluctance to leave Japan in the early seventeenth century, where he was set up with an estate, a Japanese wife and (eventually) a Japanese mistress. A fellow countryman in the Celebes at the same date told his would-be rescuers that he had ‘nothing to live on in his counterye [but was] in the waye of doing himself good here’.28 Some years later yet another Englishman, this time serving the Mughals, wrote with engaging 26 M a r c u s R e d ik e r, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World 1700-1750 ( C a m b r id g e , 1 9 8 7 ) , p. 2 4 5 . 27 P e a rso n , Portuguese in India , p . 8 6 ; Godinho, cd . C o r r e ia -A fo n s o , p. 2 0 9 . 28 M a s s a r e lla , World Elsewhere, p p . 8 0 - 1 , 1 0 5 .

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simplicity to his parents ‘I doe live well* and that—obviously a novel experience—he was now being paid. True, there was the considerable snag that though Mughal munificence was liberal the real value of wages and gifts was eroded by the need to engage in that conspicuous consumption—that grand and elegant way of living—which, as the missionaries sourly observed, characterized imperial society. Then, of course, there were those entrepreneurs who attempted to have the best of both worlds. Portuguese adventurers in and around the Bay of Bengal in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries endeavoured to use the positions they had obtained in indigenous society, or the concessions they had secured from local rulers, to extract rewards and honours from the mother country, just as English pirates, if successful enough, might be transmuted into colonial governors, naval officers or landed squires. Others meanwhile waxed rich on what Father Godinho succinctly described as ‘business opportunities’. Thus they might be licenced to produce wine in the Mughal realms, which they did cheaply, and then sold their vintages at suitably enhanced prices.29 They could engage in that infinity of trades that Asia offered, pursuing the same opport­ unities as were so avidly seized upon by western country traders of assorted nationality, especially those Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese who lived beyond the reach of Lusitanian authority yet who were never quite either exiles or outlaws. It was, for example, Port­ uguese renegades, including some who had converted to Islam, who were thought to be behind much of the smuggling of pepper from Konkan ports in the early seventeenth century, to the distress of the Estado's few remaining honest officials. Alternatively they could enjoy the rewards of office, like that one-time buccaneer who became chief gunner of the Maratha fleet and as such entitled, along with his shipmates, to 75% of the value of all prizes taken. Nor was it merely riches, power or rank that Asia could offer. There was the chance for westerners to escape from those bonds and con­ straints imposed, however feebly, by the teachings of Christianity and the conventions of European civilization. There were plenty of expatriates happy enough, then as now, to idle away their days in alcoholic stupor. There were plenty, too, coming from a Europe in whose Protestant realms fornication and its consequences were savagely punished, who were drawn to the apparent delights of societies in which slavery, concubinage and polygamy were widespread and 29

Godinho,

ed. C o r r c ia -A fo n s o , p p . 6 7 - 8 .

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accepted. Now they could live like that inebriated Dutchman we have already encountered or those Portuguese in the Bay of Bengal whose behaviour put a disapproving observer in mind of ‘wild men and untamed horses’.30 Others rejected the ordained social hierarchy and proposed to conduct themselves according to their own radical con­ victions. In pirate craft captains and chief officers were elected by their crews—-unthinkable in merchant vessels or men-of-war—and, equally unthinkable, all decisions of any consequence were taken by a mass meeting of the ship’s company. Such democratic and unusual ways of proceeding underlay the even more remarkable attempts to establish ‘a sort of commonwealth’ in Madagascar, reinforcing official suspicions that pirates would eventually set up somewhere an ‘alter­ native (and seditious) order’. There briefly appeared on the island the so-called state of Libertatia, intended as a retirement home for freebooters, but from which slavery was banned and into which freed slaves were welcomed. And elsewhere in Madagascar there emerged, as we have already noticed, various homespun potentates: ex-pirates, hirsute, unkempt and dressed in animal skins, surrounded by their Malagasy women and retainers yet—some at least—ruling their sub­ jects in rude natural dignity. Some exiles, outlaws and renegades could thus clearly live happily enough in their new environment even though many pirates were willing to accept pardons and there was a constant trickle of other Europeans, long domiciled in the East, back home. Enterprising, unscrupulous or fortunate individuals might become prodigiously wealthy and hence eligible for enthusiastic readmission to the bosom of their parent society. And in the early modem centuries, when the authority of European governments was still so fragile, rulers were in no position to risk the hostility, or to lose the potential services of so many men of proved ability. Thus the English crown long tolerated the misdeeds of pirates who were, as an ex-rover turned naval officer explained in the early seventeenth century, ‘the most daring . . . in war’. Such indeed were the reputation, skills and wealth of the Mada­ gascar community that between 1714 and 1723 monarchs like Peter the Great of Russia and Charles X II of Sweden, together with many lesser lights, were involved in negotiations—all abortive in the long run—to harness their talents and resources to a variety of commercial schemes.31 Not all former pirates could, however, become, like the51 30 P e a rs o n ,

Portuguese in India , p . 8 6 . Rival Empires o f Trade in the Orient 1600-1800

51 H o ld e n F u r b e r ,

PP- *44-5-

(M in n e a p o lis , 1 9 7 6 ) ,

308

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celebrated William Dampier, explorers or naval captains. Many never took a prize, others gambled or drank away their share of the loot, and several were effortlessly relieved of their takings by sharp merchants and middlemen. Then again, though some Europeans achieved in indigenous service ranks they could scarcely have hoped for at home none attained an eminence, or exercised an influence comparable to that of the Jews, Greeks, Italians and others in the far more primitive realms of the Ottomans. And it was, moreover, the fate of many to come to a sudden and exceedingly unpleasant end— put to death for treachery suspected or anticipated—or at best to be summarily dismissed. To attempt to strike a balance between the benefits accruing from the activities of European exiles, renegades and outlaws in Asia and the damage they inflicted is neither profitable nor possible. We can, however, see that luckless Portuguese convicts, dumped down in out of the way places, were able to provide their compatriots with useful information about local conditions and affairs, particularly in East Africa. More importantly, pirates and footloose Europeans opened up new and valuable trades, notably that between the Indian Ocean and Atlantic America, or—like Will Adams in Japan—facilitated the introduction of westerners into unfamiliar markets. One way or another they encouraged the dissemination of European technology in the East—selling arms, building western-style ships for local magnates—and so, like as not, exacerbated indigenous conflicts. But these were processes already set in train by the very arrival of Europeans in Asia. Again, the setdements made by adventurers, such as those of the Portuguese on the Coromandel coast of India, could provide the basis for the subsequent establishment of a more formal authority by their mother country. In the same way the depredations of pirates in the Indian Ocean brought the intervention of European trading companies—concerned for the safety of their commerce—with the French, for example, digging in on Mauritius. Furthermore, though expatriates might live on amicable terms with local peoples— a further manifestation of that pragmatic tolerance which could flourish where diverse cultures met—they were just as likely to com­ mit acts of fearsome brutality, with western pirates torturing or murdering the crews and passengers of the ships they took. On European maritime commerce in Asia freebooters inflicted some spec­ tacular if isolated blows—none more remarkable than their capture of Dom Luis de Meneses. On indigenous seaborne trade their impact was more substantial, though not crippling. Their onslaughts in the

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66l

Red Sea in the late seventeenth century disrupted the commerce of Mocha and, according to the former English chaplain at Surat, ‘so impoverish’d . . . some of the Mogul’s people that they must either cease to carry on a trade or resolve to be made a prey’.32 Even so, usually working with only a single ship, or in small groups, their ravages were never so serious as those of the North African corsairs in the West in the seventeenth century. They did, however, provoke Mughal retaliation. An imperial fleet was projected and repeatedly in the course of the later 1600s officers of the English East India Com­ pany in the subcontinent were arrested, its factories closed, its goods impounded and compensation demanded for the damage done. Like their compatriots who were—at least in European eyes—more law­ fully employed in Asia, western adventurers and freebooters had an influence that was locally significant but in general modest, which, given the paucity of their numbers and the vastness of the world in which they were operating, could hardly have bee*n otherwise. 32 F o s te r, e d .,

The Red Sea,

pp. 1 7 5 - 7 .

Index Abano, Benvenuto de, adventurer, 289 abolitionism, 62, 64 Abyssinia, see Ethiopia Accra, 74-5 Achin, 9-10, 148 Adams, Will, renegade, 290, 296, 305, 308 Adil Shah, 245-6 Afonso, duke of Braganza, 98 Afonso V, king of Portugal, 8 6 , 89, 100, 105 Africa European exploration of, 53-68, 86-7; Christianity and, 64, 67; and disease, 54; humanitarian attitudes in, 64; motives for, 57-8, 63-7 Europeans in, mortality rates, 69-77, 162 geography of, 53-5, 58-9 historiographic considerations, 33-4 interior of: Dutch expansion in, 174-210; European knowledge of, 53-68 missionaries in, 58 Portuguese in, 33, 53, 56-7, 73, 102-6, 108, 155-73, 242-3 resources in, 57 strategic importance of, 58, 6 6 trade in, 53, 58, 65-7, 72-4 African Association, 64-8 Africans attitudes toward European explorers, 56 European attitudes toward, in 18th century, 61-2 resistance to Europeans, in Zambezi region, 155, 162-3, 166, 169-73 Africanus, Leo, geographer, 53 Agades, 56 Agadir, 93 Agra, 227 agrarian economy, in Asia, 14-15, 43-4 agriculture in Asia, 44 in Cape Colony, 177-92, 194-7, 203, 209 in Portugal, 91-2, 101-2 Ahmadnagar, 247 Akbar, Mughal emperor, 290 Ala ed-din, 10 Albuquerque, Afonso de, 243, 245-6 Albuquerque, Mousinho de, 168 Alcdcer, 8 6 , 93 Alcâçovas, treaty of, 101 Alentejo, 98 Alfarrobeira, battle of, 8 6

Algarve, 98, 102 Ali, Saadat, Wazir, 219, 231 Aljubarrota, battle of, 92, 97 Allahabad, 228 Almeida, Francisco de, Portuguese captain, 238-9, 243-5 Amboina, 137-8 Amboina Massacre, 134-6 America(s)/New World mortality rates, 81-2 slavery in, 303 smuggling in, 14, 303 American Revolution, see War for American Independence amils, 222, 224-5, 231, 233 Amsterdam, trade in, 19-20 ancien régime, 6 , 18-19 Andrade, Femâo Peres de, Portuguese captain, 113, 117, 121 Andrade, Paiva d \ 171 Andrade, Simâo de, Portuguese captain, 117-18 Andrews, Matthew, 143 Anglo-French wars, 58, 6 6 Angola, 53 Portuguese in, 34 Angre, Kanhoji, Maratha admiral, 290, 294 Angwa River, 158 Anjos, Vas do, Zambezi family, 169 Annam, 4 Antilles, 14 Arabia, 6 Arabian Sea, 129 Arabs, wars with Portuguese, 32 Arakan, 291, 296 archival material and historiography of Portuguese colonies, 27-31, 37, 235 of Misericôrdia, 31 on private trade in India, 264 Arguim, 8 6 , 108 aringa, African social system, 155, 169-71 Armagon, 137 armies, see military artisans in Cape Colony, 188, 195 in West Africa, 74 Arzila, 93, 105 Asaf-ud-daula, Wazir, 219 Asia agriculture in, 14-15, 43-4

312

INDEX

Asia continued bourgeois movements in, 18-19 British in, 13, 41, 127-51, 217—34; see also British East India Company Dutch in, 129-31, 227; see also Dutch East India Company economy in, 15; comparison with Europe, 43-6; historiographic considerations, 15-16 European influence in, 5, 7, 48 European military in, 43, 49 exiles and renegades in, 289-309 historiographic considerations, 29-32, 3942, 47, 49-51 land power, 42 military power, 42; comparison with Europe, 41-3, 118, 122-4, 246-7, 293 political structure, 4-6, 16, 47-9 population, 5 Portuguese in, 28-32, 129 Russian expansion in, 5 smuggling in, 14 social structure, \b technology in, 44 18th-century: historiographic considerations, 1-3, 16-18, 21-2, 39 trade with; see also East India Companies; British, 13, 41, 127-51, 221-34; British versus Portuguese, 135-6; Dutch versus British, 13, 41, 131, 134-6, 138-40, 144, 249; D u tc h v e rsu s Portuguese, 135-7, 142 transportation in, 44-5 Asiatic languages, historiographic significance, 29-30 Asiatic Society of Bengal, 59 Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, 64-8 aurang, cotton manufacture, 221, 227 Aurangzeb, 47, 146, 148, 294, 301 Avery, Henry, 304 Aviz dynasty, 8 6 , 92, 95, 97 Awadh, 48 Ayuthaya, 134, 266-9, 274, 275-6, 282-3 Azamgarh, 224, 228, 232 Azamor, 93 Azevedo, Joâo Lücio de Os Jesuitas no Grâo Parâ, 34 Azores, 8 6 , 99, 102-3, 108 Azurara, Gomes Eannes de, chronicler, 86-9, 94-100, 103-5, 109 Bacias, Pero, renegade, 246 Baiâo, Sisnando Dias, conqueror, 159

Baker, Aaron, 141 Bambuk, 56-7, 65-6 Banaras, 226, 228-9 Banda Islands, 134 Bangka, 138-9 Bangkok, 150, 268, 278, 281-2 Banks, Joseph, explorer, 60-1, 66-7 Bantam, 10, 131, 136, 139, 141-2, 144, 148, 291 Banten, 277 Barbados, 127-8 Barbier, Estienne, revoit leader, 206 Bareilly, 232 bares, mining camps, 166 Barlow, George, governor-general of India, 221-2 baroque era, 2 Barreto, Francisco, explorer, 156-7 Barreto, Manuel, 159-60 Barros, Joâo de, chronicler, 87, 238-40, 245 Barue, 158, 168-9, 171-2 Basra, 137 Bassein, 136, 142, 297 Basu, P, historian, 218 Batavia, 1, 7, 10, 16, 22, 131, 269, 279 Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, effect on Javanese society, 19 batik, textile printing method, 1 1 Bayly, C.A., historian, 47-8, 50 Beaufoy, Henry, secretary of African Association, 64-6 Beijing (Peking), 113, 116 Bengal, 43-5, 48-9, 137, 148-50, 217-20, 222, 225-34, 244-5, 253, 255-6, 283, 290-1, 295, 302 Benin, 74 Benkulen, 148 Bensaüde, Joaquim, writer, 89 Benya River, 75 Benyon, Richard, 260 Berar, 230 Berg river valley, 180, 182, 193 betel nut, 260 Béthencourt, Jean de, 97 Bihar, 6 , 225, 229 Bijapur, 144 bijwoners, tenant farmers, 195 biography, Brazilian, historiographic considerations, 35 Blake, William, administrator in Bengal, 256 blockades, 30, 140, 143 Blumenbach, J.F. De Generis Humani Varietate Natura, 61-2

INDEX Bocarro Livro do Estado da India Oriental, 30 Bombay, 127-9, 136, 142-3, 146-8, 217, 260-1, 291, 294 Bondu, 65 Borneo, 7, 137 Bomu, 56, 65 Bosman, Willem, Dutch official, 74 botany, 59-60, 63 Botelho, Nuno Alvares, Portuguese commander, 135 Botha, M., burgher, 206 Boucher, Benjamin, zamindar, 260 bourgeois movements, 2 1 effect on Asia, 18-19 Bowdich, T.E., English traveller, 55 Bowen, Captain, 304 Boxer, C.R., historian, 27-38, 93, 237 Braganza, faction in Portugal, 86-7, 94, 98-9, 105 Brandenburg, 72, 74 Brazil Company, 35-6 Brass, William, botanist, 63 Braudel, Fernand, 44 Brazil biographical materials on, 35 historiographic considerations, 34-6 Breede river valley, 776, 193 British conquest of Bengal, 45 effect on Indian political structure, 4, 6 exploration of Africa, 63-8 exports, in 18th century, 13 Hundred Years* War, 91 merchant class, 251 military, see also British Royal Navy; in Asia, 43, 49; in Iberia, 91-2 trade with Africa, 65 trade with Asia, 13, 41, 127-51, 221-34; competition with Dutch, 13, 20, 41, 131, 134-6, 138-40, 144, 249; competition with Portuguese, 135-6 trade with India, 249-64; historiographic considerations, 263-4; Indian merchants in, 252-64 war with France, 58, 6 6 war with Spain, 298 in West Africa, 72, 79-80 British colonies in Africa, 127 in Asia, 127-51, 217-34 in North America, 127-8 population, 127 British East India Company, 41, 127-51,

313

217-34, 249-64, 290-1, 294, 299-302, 305, 309 historiographic considerations, 217 Indian merchants and, 252-64 interlopers and, 252, 300 private trade and, 249-64 in Thailand, 270-3, 285-7 British Royal Navy, 42, 49, 128-9 British South Africa Company, 171 Bruce, James, navigator, 60, 63 Bruintjes Hoogte, 776, 193, 198 Bugis, 42 Bundelkhand, 230 bureaucracy Irano-Indian, 6 mandarin, 4 Burma, 4, 284, 296, 303 Burnaby, Richard, official of British Company, 272, 280 Bushmen, see Khoisan Bussy, 42 Butua, African kingdom, 159 Cadamosto, Alvise de, 87, 106 Calcutta, 218, 221, 226-9, 233-4, 260-1 calicoes, 130, 134, 137 Calicut, 137, 144-5, 242, 294 Calvinism, in Cape Colony, 205 Camoes, Luiz de, poet, 244 Cambodia, 279, 296 Camdebo, 776, 193, 200, 206 Cameroons, 8 6 , 106 camphor, 15 Cananur, 238 Canary Islands, 8 6 , 89, 96-7, 99-103, 106, 108 cannibalism, and Chinese attitudes toward Portuguese, 114-16 cannons, in Asia, 42, 118, 122-4 Canton, see Guangzhou Cape Bojador, 8 6 , 96 Cape Colony, 174-210 agriculture in, 177-92, 194-7, 203, 209 artisans in, 188, 195 demographics of, 174-5, 776, 190, 797, 192, 201 disease in, 185, 188 economy in, 178, 183, 186-92, 187, 194203, 262, 209-10 frontier settlements, 192-210 historiographic considerations, 2 0 2 hunting in, 186, 190, 207 land grants in, 181—7, 184, 189 livestock in, 178-81, 186, 188, 195, 197200, 209

INDEX

314

Cape Colony continued population, 174, 193-4 race relations in, 201, 204-10 religion in, 204-5, 210 social structure, 2 0 1 - 8 southwestern region of, 181-92 transportation in, 183, 193, 197-9, 209 women in, 201-2, 205-8 Cape Town, 174, 176, 197-8 Cape Verde Islands, 34, 8 6 , 103, 106 Caribbean, buccaneers in, 300-1 Carmichael, William, renegade, 292 Carnatic, 43 Carré, Abbé, 292 cartography, 59-60 in 18th century, 53 Carvalho, António de Albuquerque Coelho de, 35 Casa da India e Mina, 28 Castanheda, Femâo Lopes de, chronicler, 238-9, 243 Castile, 91 relations with Portugal, 91-3, 97, 101, 105, 298 Castilho, Augusto de, 170 Castro, Fernando de, Portuguese nobleman, 101

Catherine of Braganza, 144 Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, 41 Cavendish, Thomas, navigator, 298 Celebes, 134, 291 Cerveira, Afonso, chronicler, 87 Ceuta, 93-4, 97, 100-2 Ceylon, 6-7, 21, 129, 142 Chakraningrat, 21 Chang T'ien-tsê, historian, 115 Charles II, king of England, 128, 136, 143-5, 291 Charles //, ship, 147 Charles XII, king of Sweden, 307 Chamock, Job, 150 Chaudhuri, K.N., historian, 40, 44 Chaumont, Alexandre de, French emissary, 277 Chaunu, Pierre, historian, 90 Ch’en Wu-te, censor, 123-4 Cheringoma, prazo, 159 Chesterfield, Earl of (Philip Dormer Stanhope) Letters to his Son, 61 Chicoa, 158, 159 Ch’ien, C.S., 29 Ch’ien Lung, Chinese emperor, 4 Child, Josiah, director of East India Company, 147-9

China, 4-7, 43, 269, 278 agriculture in, 15 comparison with Indonesian civilization, 8 economy in, 44 political structure, 4 population, in 18th century, 5 Chinese, attitudes toward Portuguese, 113-25 cannibalism and, 114-16 Ch’iu Tao-lung, censor, 116-17 chivalry, in Portuguese chronicles, 87-8, 95, 104, 109, 235-6 Christianity in Cape Colony, 204-5 role in exploration of Africa, 64, 67 role in Portuguese expansion, 88-9 Chu Wan, 119 cinnamon, 15 Clive, Robert, 42-3, 219 Cloppenburg, J.W., Dutch official, 208 clover, in Cape Colony, 178 cloves, 15, 134, 137 Cochin, 137, 238 coconuts, 260 coconut wine, 168 coffee, 14, 46 colonos, prazo inhabitants, 164-5, 169 Columbus, Christopher, 106, 108 Committee of Plantations, 128 Comoro Islands, 135, 302 condottieri, 296 Congo River, 53 Conny, John, 74 conquistadors, in eastern Africa, 156-60 Conrad, Joseph, author, 295 Constantinople, 105 conthias, system of military service, 91 continents, historiographic considerations, 4950 Convention of Goa, 135 Cook, Captain James, navigator, 60-1 Cook, Humphrey, lieutenant governor of Bombay, 145 copper, 278 Cornwallis, Charles, First Marquess, 220-1, 223, 227, 231 Coromandel, 253, 259, 283, 292 Correia, Gaspar, chronicler, 235-6, 238 Côrte-Real, Joâo Pereira, governor of Cape Verde Islands, 34 Cortesào, Armando, 31 Cortesao, Jaime, historian, 89-90, 96 Costa, Soeiro da, soldier, 104 cotton, 46, 65, 221, 226-7, 230, 232-3, 260 Courteen, William, entrepreneur, 300

INDEX Coutinho, Gongalo Vaz, fidalgo renegade, 246 Couto, Diogo do, chronicler, 235-8, 244, 247 Covilham, 98-9 Crandon, John, writer, 250 Crommelin, Charles, governor of Bombay, 261 Cromwell, Oliver, British statesman, 136, 142 Cruz, da, Zambezi family, 168-70, 172 Cruz, Luiza da, Zambezi landowner, 168 Curtin, Philip, historian, 70, 77 Dabhol, 239 Daendels, Herman Willem, 40 Dambarari, 156, 158 Dampier, William, explorer, 308 Danda Rajpuri, 136, 142-3 Danish, in West Africa, 72 Danvers, F.C. The Portuguese in India, 28 D’Anville, J.B., cartographer, 59 Das Gupta, Ashin, historian, 40, 261 das talcs, customs certificates, 255-6 Davies, Cuthbert Collin, historian, 218 Day, Francis, 141 deaths, see mortality rates De batik-kunst, Rouffaer and Juynboll, 11 debt in Cape Colony, 186, 189-90, 191, 209 and Indian private trade, 258 Defoe, Daniel Robinson Crusoe, 61 Delhi, 43, 227 demography, of Cape Colony, 174-5, 176, 190, 191, 192 Denham, Dixon, 56 deserts, African, trade routes in, 54 Deshima, 6-7 Deslandes, French emissary, 274 diamonds, 259 Dias, Diniz, Portuguese captain, 104 Dietlof, Hans, Dutch colonist, 208 Diffie, Bailey, historian, 90, 107, 109 disease in Cape Colony region, 185, 188 risk of, and European exploration of Africa, 54 in West Africa, 74, 77, 80 in Zambezi region, 162 Doab, 218, 224, 228, 230, 232 documentary material, and historiography of Portuguese colonies, 27-32 dowries, 161-2 Drakenstein, 180, 182, 185 Duarte, king of Portugal, 97, 100

315

Dundas, Henry, British secretary of state, 6 6 Dupleix, Joseph-François (1697-17630, governor of French Indies, 6 , 42 Dutch in Asia, 129-31, 227, see also Dutch East India Company in Indonesia, 1, 129 in Thailand, 266-87 trade with Asia: competition with British, 13, 41, 131, 134-6, 138-40, 144, 249; competition with Portuguese, 135-7, 142 wars with Portuguese, 32 in West Africa, 72-9 Dutch East India Company, 1 , 6-7, 41, 45, 252-3, 292, 299 corruption in, 20, 41 effect on Indian political structure, 7 fall of, 19-20 historiographic considerations, 3, 16-19 in Java, 8 as military power, 7, 42 products traded, 13-15 in southern Africa, 174-210 in Thailand, 269-70 trade relations with China, 7 dysentery, 74 East India Companies, 41, 45, 59; see British East India Company; Dutch East India Company; French East India Company; Swedish East India Company economy, in Asia, historiographic considerations, 15-16 e e n l o p e n d e s , single men, in Cape Colony, 201, 207 Egypt, trade agreement with France, 6 Egyptian studies, 60 Ehrenkroon, Jan, Dutch colonist, 208 eighteenth century as category in Asian history, 1-3, 17, 21-2, 39 as category in European history, 40-1 exploration of Africa in, 53-68 Elizabeth I, queen of England, 297-8 Ellis, Brabazon, 260 Elmina Castle, 75, 108 Elwes, Robert, 250 England, see British English Navigation Acts, 302-3 Enlightenment, effect on Javanese society, 19 Equiano, Olaudah, 62 Ericksz, Barent, navigator, 72 escudeiros, Portuguese squires, 95, 98, 240

316

INDEX

España, Don Luis de, 96-7 Estado da india, 241, 245, 247 Ethiopia (Abyssinia), 63 Portuguese in, 33 Europe economic power, comparison with Asia, 43-6 military power, comparison with Asia, 413, 118, 122-4, 246-7, 293 18th-century, historiographic considerations, 40-1, 49-51 European expansion, see Portuguese expansion European history, effect on historiography of Indonesia, 3 Europeans in Africa, 53-68, 86-7; mortality rates, 6977, 162 attitudes toward Africans, 67 attitudes toward slavery, 62, 64 Chípese attitudes toward, 113-25 exploration of African interior, motives for, 57-8, 63-7 political involvement in Asia, 48 exiles, see also renegades in Asia, 289-309 in India, 235-44, 248; historiographic considerations, 235-8, 248 explorers mortality rates among, 72 sponsors of, 57 factories, in British colonies, 127, 129-31, 134-45 Fage, J.D., historian, 64 fairs, 155-7 Farquhar, British colonel, 17 Fatah, Abdul, sultan, 139, 147 Feringis (Portuguese), 117, 119, 122-3 Fernandes, António, exile, 243 Femando, king of Portugal, 92, 95, 102 fever, see disease fidalgos, Portuguese social class, 94-5, 98, 101-2, 105, 107-8, 239, 246 Flushing, 9 Fonseca, André da, 34 Forbes, British major, 171 Formosa, 7 Fort Amsterdam, Kormantin, 75 Fort Batenstein, Butri, 75 Fort Marlborough, Sumatra, 148 Fort St. George, Madras, 141, 256, 258 Fort York, Sumatra, 148 France, population, 5 Franschhoek, 180, 182

freeburghers, 174, 177-89, 197, 209 freehold farmers, 174-92, 187 freemerchants, British, 251 Freitas, Alvaro de, 104 French in Africa, 56-7 colonization of Asia, 4, 6 Hundred Years’ War, 91 invasion of Egypt, 43 relations with Thailand, 265-6, 270-1, 274, 277, 279-87 trade agreement with Egypt, 6 war with England, 58, 6 6 in West Africa, 72 French East India Company, 41, 271, 274, 277, 280 Jumos, headmen, 160, 164-5 Gama, Vasco da, explorer, 236, 242, 289 Gambia River, 53, 65-6 Gamtoos River, 176, 193 Ganges river valley, 218 Gary, Henry, 145 Genoese, in northern Africa, 93 geographical science, in 18th century, 53-4, 59 Ghana, 69; see also Gold Coast Gil, Alvaro, 104 Goa, 31, 156, 243, 245-6, 290, 292 Convention of, 135 Misericordia of, 31 Godée, E.C., see Molsbergen, E.C. Godée Godinho, Vitorino Magalhâes, historian, 85, 90, 93, 95-6, 101, 103, 107, 109, 293, 306 Golconda, 127, 131, 290-1, 294 gold, 57, 65, 91-2, 106, 156, 164, 166, 297 Gold Coast, 56-7, 72-3, 106 Europeans in, mortality rates, 69-79, 82-3 Gombroon, 134, 143, 147-8, 295 Gomes, Diogo, explorer, 87, 99 Gomes, Fernao, 8 6 , 106 Gonçalves, Antào, high treasurer of Ceuta, 103 Gorakhpur, 224, 229 Gordon, Robert, 200 Gorongosa, 172 Graaff-Reinet, 776, 193 Grand Canary, 100 Grant, James, merchant, 229 Grantham, Thomas, British captain, 147 Great Fish River, 174 Greaves, John, mathematician, 60 Guangzhou (Canton), 113, 117, 119-25, 1501, 227, 300

INDEX Guengue, 168 Guimard, Marie, 272 Guinea, 72, 86-7, 1 0 2 - 6 , 108 Portuguese in, 34 Guinea Coast, trade along, 53, Gujarat, 291-2 gumashtas, 220

86

hajjy 298 Hall, D.G.E., historian, 266, 269 handicrafts, in Asia, 13-15 Hantam, 193 Haring, C.H. The Spanish Empire in America, 27 Hartingh, 21 Hastings, Francis, 257 Hastings, Warren, administrator in India, 6 , 42, 217, 219, 221 Hausa states, 65 Heemskerck, Dutch commander, 10 Henry (Henrique), ‘the Navigator’, prince of Portugal, 57, 86-7, 94-106 historiographic considerations, 87-90, 94, 97, 109-10 Heeren XVII, 177-81, 186 Herodotus, 55 Ho Ao, censor, 116-17, 122 Hodges, Thomas, governor of Bombay, 261 Hogendorp, van Dirk, 11, 21 Holland, 4 Homem, Pedro, Portuguese captain, 119 Hooghly, 259 Hormuz (Ormuz), 135, 143, 246 Homemann, 56 Hottentots, see Khoisan Hottentots-Holland Mountains, 193 Houghton, Daniel, explorer, 56, 65-6 Houteniqualand, 208 Huguenots, 175, 177 humanitarianism, and exploration of Africa, 64 Hundred Years* War, 91 Hunt, Robert, 260-1 hunting, in Cape Colony, 186, 190, 207 Hunyani River, 158 Huo T’ao, Chinese minister of rites, 119 Hyde, John, merchant, 221 Hyderabad, 48 Idrisi, geographer, 53 India British expansion in, 217-34 British factories in, 133-4, 140, 144-7 British influence in, 5, 230-1

317

comparison with Indonesian civilization, 8 economy in, 44, 48, 218, 221-34 exiles in, 235-44, 248 historiographic considerations, 40, 51 military, 42-3, 48 political structure, 47-8; in 18th century, 4-6 population, in 18th century, 5 Portuguese in, 238-40 renegades in, 235-40, 244-8 routes to, 89-90, 109 trade in, 249-64; historiographic considerations, 263-4 Indian merchants, 252-64 historiographic considerations, 252-3 Indian Ocean, maritime history of, 40 Indies, see Indonesia indigo, 15, 46, 130, 134, 137, 225-9, 233 Indonesia, 7, 227 British factories in, 133-4, 137-9 comparison with continental Asian civilizations, 8 Dutch in, 1, 7-8, 129 economy in, 1 2 historiographic considerations, 1-3, 9, 16-19 labor in, 14 smuggling in, 12-13 trade in, 13 industry, in 18th-century Europe, 41 Inhabanzo, 160, 164 Inhambane, 167 interloping, 251-2 Inyanga, 171 Irano-Indian bureaucracy, 6 Iskander, 10 Islamic studies, 59-60 ivory, 57, 164, 166 Jaipur, 227 Jaitapur, 136 Jakarta, 6 , 131 Jalali, 229 Jamaica, 128-9, 303 Jambi, 134, 136, 138-9, 267-8, 274 James, duke of York, 129 James I, king of England, 299 Jamestown, Virginia, mortality rates, 81 Japan, 4-5, 43, 134, 290, 292, 295-6, 299 British trade with, 134 comparison with Indonesian civilization, 8 economy in, 44 political structure, 5 population, in 18th century, 5 shogunate in, 5, 295

318

INDEX

Japanese, smuggling in China, collaboration with Portuguese, 119-20, 122 Tack

1 3A 5

Java! 6-8, 49, 131, 147, 268, 274 art in, 11-12 coffee in, 14-15 Dutch in, 7-8 economy in, 44 exports, 14-15 military, 9-10, 42 political structure, 8-10 rice production, 11 social structure, 18-19 sugar in, 14 Java War, 40 Jearsey, William, 258 Jehangir, emperor, 294 Jesuits, in Asia, 32-3, 277, 279-80, 290 Joao I, king of Portugal, 90-2, 95-7, 104 Jo3o II, king of Portugal, 89, 98, 107 Jogjakarta, 7, 42 John of Gaunt, 91-2 Johor, 9, 274 Jones, William, linguist, 59 Jonge, De Opkomst, 8, 18 Joseph II, archduke of Austria, 41 judicial system, in Portuguese colonies, 31 Jumla, Mir, Muslim general, 141-2, 292, 294 Jumna, 230 junks, ships, 17 Kaffirs, 160, 240, 243 Kafue River, 167 Kalpi, 230 kampong, 19 Kandy kingdom, 42 K’ang Hsi, Chinese emperor, 4 Karanga, 155 Karoo, 776, 193 Kartasura, 11 Karwar, 144-5 Katsina, 56, 65 Kawab, 43 Kedah, 283 Kerala, 291 Kerr, Montagu, 171 Khan, Almas Ali, 225 Khan, Neknam, 142 Khoikhoi, 179, 181, 183, 185, 193, 195, 2012, 204-10 Khoisan, 175, 181, 195, 202-3, 206 Kidd, William, captain, 301

kidnapping, by Portuguese, 94, 96, 115-16, 123 Kirparam, 260 Kishm, 140, 147 K’o Ch’iao, Chinese commander, 119 K’o Jung, Chinese commander, 118 Kora, 225 Koran, 59 Kung, 290 Ku Yen-wu, scholar, 116 labor, in Indonesia, 14 Lagos, 100, 104 Lake Nyasa, 169 Lampong region, 10 land grants in Cape Colony, 181-7, 184, 189 Portuguese, 97-100, 157, 160, 162-3 Langeberg Mountains, 776, 193 Langkloof Mountains, 776, 193 languages, Asiatic, historiographic significance, 29-30 Laos, 296 Larache, 93 Ledyard, John, explorer, 64 Leeward Islands, 128 Leyden, 10 Leur, van J.C., historian, 1-22, 29-30, 39-52 Lijst van Overlijden, list of deceased, 73 Linhares, Conde de, Portuguese viceroy, 135 Linnaeus, Carolus, botanist, 59, 61-2 Lisbon archives, 1755 earthquake damage to, 28 literature, translation of, 59 Little Karoo, 193 livestock, in Cape Colony, 178-81, 183, 186, 188, 195, 197-200, 209 Livingstone, David, explorer, 167, 169 London, 228 Lopburi, 282 Lopes, Fernáo, chronicler, 86, 95 Loubére, Simon de La, French ambassador, 281 Louis XIV, king of France, 150, 265, 271-2, 274, 277 Loveyro, Petro, renegade, 295 Luanze, 156, 158 Lucas, explorer, 64 Lucas, Gervase, lieutenant governor of Bombay, 145 Lucknow, 221, 225-6, 232-4 Luenha River, 158, 168—9 Lu Tang, Chinese commander, 119

INDEX Macanga, 158, 169-70, 172 Macao, 124, 269 Misericordia of, 31 Macassar, 6, 21, 134, 136-7, 277, 292 MacCrone, I.D. Race Attitudes, 204-5 mace, 15, 134 Machado, Joao, exile, 242, 246 Macrae, James, governor of Madras, 258 Madagascar, 135, 289, 291, 302-4, 307 Madeira, 86, 89, 96, 99, 102, 108, 303 Madeira, Diogo Simoes, conqueror, 159-60, 164 Madras, 127, 141-2, 146, 148-9, 255-61, 291-2, 294, 301, 305 Madre de Deus, ship, 297 Madura, 10 Mafaldo, Portuguese ship owner, 96, 104 Majapahit, Indonesian congress of princes, 10 Malacca, 10, 21, 113, 116-17, 121, 129, 268 Malacca Straits, 42, 298, 301 malaria, 74 Malay peninsula, 10, 148, 267, 269, 273, 280, 284 Mali, 53 Mameluke Empire, 30 Manchu empire, China, 4 mandarin bureaucracy, in 18th century, 4 Mandinga, African people, 105 Mangkubumi, Indonesian official, 21 Mangkunagara, 7 Manica, 158, 171 Manila, 269, 299 Manjhi,. 225 Manuel I, king of Portugal, 98, 107 Marathas, 146, 230, 290, 296-7, 306 Maravi, 160, 167 Marques, A.H. de Oliveira, historian, 90 Martapura, 8 Martin, Claud, British colonel, 225 Martins, Ant6nio Coimbra, historian, 237-8 Martins, J.F. Ferreira Historia da Misericordia de Goa, 31 Masapa, 156, 158 Mashonaland, 155-7, 162, 169 Mas Sahid, Indonesian official, 21 Massangano, 168-71 Massinjire, 169, 171-2 Masson, Francis, botanist, 63, 198 Masulipatnam, 131, 140-1, 258, 291, 295 Mataram, 7, 10, 268 Mau, 228, 232 Mauretania, 86 Mavura, Mwene Mutapa, 159

319

Mazagâo, 34, 93 Melaka, see Malacca Melck, Martin, cultivator in Cape Colony, 190 Mello, Diogo Soares de, Portuguese frontiersman, 296, 304 Mendonça, Joào de, 241 Mendonça, Manuel de, exile, 241 Meneses, Luis de, viceroy, 302, 308 mercês, land grants, 97-8 Mergui, 149, 280, 295 Methwold, president at Surat, 135 Middelburg, 9 Middleton, Nathaniel, resident in India, 221 military Asian, 42; comparison with Europe, 41-3, 118, 122-4, 246-7, 293 British, 43, 49, 91-2 Dutch, 7, 42 European: in Asia, 43, 49; mortality rates, 71, 74-7, 81 in India, 42-3, 48 on Java, 9-10, 42 Portuguese, 32; nobility in, 91, 94, 97 renegades in, 246-8, 293-4, 296 slaves in, 159, 164, 167 Minas Gerais, 31, 35 Mindanao, 10 Ming dynasty, 113-25 mining, 166 Mirzapur, 230 Misericordia, archival materials of, 31 missionaries, 58, 72, 80 in Africa, 58 in Thailand, 265 - 6 , 271 , 277 , 280 missions, 58

in Portuguese colonies, 32 Moçambique, see Zambezi River region Moçambique Company, 168, 171 Mocha, 309 Mogal, see Mughal empire Molsbergen, E.C. Godée, historian, 1-3, 20 Monclaros, chronicler, 156-7 Mondego, 102 Mongolia, 5 Monomotapa, 57, 242-3 monopolies, 13 British, 128, 217, 221-2, 229-32, 249, 269, 302 Dutch, 144, 189, 197, 269-70, 283 in European-Asian trade, 128-9, 134, 249, 269-71, 278, 283-4 Portuguese, 13, 30, 99, 108-9 Monson, William, 250, 260 Monster Rollen, personnel lists, 73, 75

320

INDEX

Montemor, 98 Moors, 67, 94, 96-7, 100-2, 239-40, 243 Moradabad, 228 Mori, 72 Morocco, 86 Portuguese expansion in, 34, 93-5, 97, 99101, 103, 105, 107, 109 products of, 93 mortality rates of Europeans, 72, 81; in East Africa, 6979, 82-3, 162; in New world, 81-2; in West Africa, 69-77 methodology, 80-3 Mossel Bay, 776, 794, 198 Mount Darwin, 156 Mozambique, see Zambezi River region Mtoko, 171 muavi poison test, 170 Mughal empire, 4, 6, 43, 47-8, 135, 142, 146, 149-50, 217, 256, 290-6, 298, 300, 305-6, 309 Muhammed, Aqa, foreign minister of Thailand, 273 Muira River, 169 Muscat, 135 Muslims, 240, 244 in northern Africa, 56 Mwene Mutapa Gatse Rusere, chief of Karanga, 155-60, 164 Nagasaki, 7 Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, 6 Napoleonic War, 68 Narai, king of Thailand, 265-85 Narayan, Adiappa, Indian merchant, 260 Nascimento, Belchior do, Zambezi landowner, 168 Nathji, Tarwary Aijunji, banker, 261 Naththu, 260 Nepal, 4 Netherlands, see Dutch Netherlands West India Company, 72-7, 80, 82 Ngoni, African people, 167, 169 Nichols, explorer, 56 Nicholson, John, British captain, 147, 149 Nieuwveld Mountains, 776, 193 Niger River, 53, 65-6, 68 Nile River, 53 nobility, Portuguese, 91-3, 97-101, 105; see also fidalgos in military, 91, 94, 97 Norden, Frederick, naval officer and Egypt scholar, 60

Noronha, Garcia de, Portuguese governor, 241 Nova, Joào da, Portuguese captain, 242 nutmeg, 15, 134 oats, 178 Ockley, Simon, clergyman and scholar, 59 olibanum, 260 Oliphants river valley, 776, 193 Oliveira, Delfim d \ 170 Oliver, Roland, historian, 64 Omanis, naval power, 42 Ongoe, 156, 158 opium, 229 Orange River, 174 Order of Christ, 87, 98-100, 106, 109 Orient, see Asia; China; India; Indonesia; Japan oriental studies, 59 Orissa, 6 Ormuz, see Hormuz Orr, Robert, 225 Ottoman empire, 41-3, 47 Oudh, British expansion in, 217-34 outlaws, see exiles; renegades oxen, in Cape Colony, 183 Oxenden, George, president of British Company, 143, 148, 257 Paardeberg, 180f 182 Paarl, 180, 182 Pacheco, Gonçalo, fidalgo, 96, 104 Padroado, in Asia, 32-3 Palembang, 8-10 Pallu, François, French missionary, 272 Palma, 100 P’an Kuei-hsiin, censor, 121 Paragans, Indian territories, 6 Parak, Bhimji, 257 Park, Mungo, explorer, 56, 66, 68 Patani, 134, 269, 283 Pauli, James, merchant, 226, 232 Pedro, Dom, Portuguese regent, 86-7, 90, 92, 95, 98-9, 102-6 Pegu, 244 Peking, see Beijing pepper, 14, 120, 130, 134, 137-8, 144-5, 148, 217, 260, 269, 271, 277, 282, 290 Pereira, Duarte Pacheco, historian, 87 Pereira, Nun’Alvares, Portuguese constable, 92, 98 Pereiras, Zambezi family, 169-70 Perestrello, Bartholomew, 96 Perlin, Frank, 50 Perron, British general, 225

INDEX Persia, 4-6, 147, 273, 277-8, 291, 296 British factories in, 134 comparison with Indonesian civilization, 8 political structure, 4 Persian Gulf region, Portuguese in, 30, 33 Peter I, ‘the Great*, czar of Russia, 307 pewter, 278 Phaulkon, Constant, foreign minister of Thailand, 149-50, 265-87 Phetracha, king of Thailand, 266-7, 281-5 Philippines, 6, 298 phraklang, foreign minister of Thailand, 26587 Pi, Moon, heir to Thailand, 281-2 Pinto, Fonseca, Portuguese judge, 160 piracy, 103, 290, 297-309 by Portuguese nobility, 94-6, 100-1, 103, 107 Pires, Sancho, renegade, 247 Pires, Tomé, 113, 121 Suma Oriental, 31 Pitt, Thomas, 259-60 Pitt, William, British prime minister, 66 Plantain, buccaneer and Maratha commander, 294, 297 plantations, 127, 162 Plassey, 6, 43, 217 battle of, 40 Pliny, 55 Plooy, Willem, burgher, 205-6 Plymouth, mortality rates, 82 Pococke, Richard, Egypt scholar, 60 Polo, Marco, 289 Pontianak, 10 poppies, see opium population, see also demography Asian versus European, in 18th century, 5 of British colonies, 127 of Dutch colonies, 174, 193-4 Portuguese, 91, 101-2 porcelain, 302 Porto Santo, 102 Portugal agriculture in, 91-2, 101-2 chivalry in, 87-8, 95, 104, 109, 235-6 civil war in, 92 currency in, 91-3 economy in, as cause of Portuguese expansion, 90-2, 101 merchant class in, 92-3, 95 nobility in, 91-102, 105, 107-8, 239, 246 population, 91, 101-2 relations with Castile, 91-3, 97, 101, 105, 298

321

Portuguese in Africa, 53, 56-7, 73, 242-3 attitudes about religion, 239-40, 244 blockade of Red Sea and Persian Gulf, 30 in China, 113-25 Chinese attitudes toward, 113-25; cannibalism and, 114-16 exploration of Africa, 86-7 in India, 238-40; exiles and renegades among, 235-48 kidnapping by, 94, 96, 115-16, 123 in Malacca, 116—17 military, 32; nobility in, 91, 94, 97 in Morocco, 93 piracy by, 94-6, 100-1, 103, 107 in Red Sea region, 30, 33, 297 slave raids by, 94, 96-7, 100-1, 103-5, 107-8, 167; in China, 115-16 smuggling in China, collaboration with Japanese, 119-20, 122 trade relations with Chinese, 113-14, 119, 124-5 trade with Asia: competition with British, 135—6; competition with Dutch, 135-7, 142 wars with Arabs, 32 wars with Dutch, 32 Portuguese colonies administration in, 30-1 in Africa, 33-4, 155-73 archival material on, 29-31, 33, 37, 235 in Asia, 28-32, 129; missions in, 32 in Brazil, 34-5; archival material, 34-5 economy in, 30-1 historiographic considerations, 27-38, 235-6 judicial system, 31 military history of, 32 political history of, 32 Portuguese expansion, 85-110 • chronology, 86 historiographic considerations, 85-90, 235-6 in India, 238-40 in Morocco, 34, 93-5, 97, 99-101, 103, 105, 107, 109 in northern Africa, 93-5 origins of, 85, 89-110 source material on, 86-7, 90 Potts, official of British Company, 273 Povoa del Rey, 101 prazo dynasties, 155, 159-73 historiographic considerations, 171-2 prazos da coroa, 160-1 Prestage, Edgar Portuguese Pioneers, 90

INDEX

322 Prester John, 97, 239, 242 private trade, in India, 249-64 historiographic considerations, 263-4 Punjab, 48 Pym, Francis, 260-1 Quilimane, 158, 168-9 Quiteve, African kingdom, 158, 159

Raffles, Stamford, colonial administrator, 10, 40 History of Java, 9 Rajapur, 137 ransom, see kidnapping Rawdon, governor-general of Bengal, 63 Rayalu, Sri Ranga, rajah, 142 Rebelo, Gabriel Informaçam das cotisas de Maluco, 31 reconquista, Christian territorial expansion, 101

as model for later Portuguese expansion, 91, 93-4 Red Sea region, 137, 290, 299-302, 309 Portuguese blockade of, 30 Portuguese in, 33, 297 Reede, van Hendrik Adriaan, Dutch commissioner, 182 religion, see also Christianity; missionaries Portuguese attitudes about, 239-40, 244 renegades, see also exiles in Asia, 289-309 definition of, 244 in India, 235-40, 244-8; historiographic considerations, 235-8, 248 military role of, 246-8, 293-4, 296 Rennell, James, geographer, 54 Réunion, 301 Revubwe River, 169 Ribeiro, Joào, historian, 245 rice, 120, 178, 260 Javanese export of, 11 Riebeeck, van Jan, Dutch commander, 177-9, 209 Roach, Thomas, renegade, 294 Roe, Thomas, British diplomat, 249, 299 Roggeveld Mountains, 176, 198 Rohilkhand, 218-19, 225, 228, 232 Rondebosch, 174 Royal Adventurers, 128 Royal African Company, 127-9 Royal Botanical Garden at Kew, 59, 63 Royal Society, 61, 63 Russell, P.E., historian, 87-8, 90, 96, 100 Russia, Asian expansion of, 5

Safavids, 47 Safi, 93 Sahara, geography, 53 Salazar, António de Oliveira, Portuguese dictator, 89-90, 173 Salmani, Khoja Safar, adventurer, 289 salt, 232 saltpeter, 15, 137, 221, 230, 232 Salvador, 31 Samuells, Abraham, 303 Sancho, Ignatius Letters, 62 Santos, Joáo dos, Dominican friar, 156-7 Sao Jorge da Mina, castle, 69, 74-5 Sao Miguel, 108 sapanwood, 15, 269 sarafs, 262 Sáo Paulo, 31 Sao Tomé, 292-3 Schouten, Joost, resident in Ayuthaya, 268 Scott, John, merchant, 221-2 sea power, 304 in Asian waters, in 18th century, 42 British versus Dutch, 20, 41, 139-40 Segu, 66 Sena, 157, 158, 169-70 Senado da Camara, municipal council, 31 Senegal River, 53, 56-7, 105 Serráo, Joaquim Verissimo, historian, 91 Seth, Janardan, broker in India, 260 Seth, Varanasi, 260 Shamo, 169 Shao-chou, battle of, 118 Shilling, British captain, 135 ship design, European, use by Asia, 44 Shire River, 158, 169 shogunate, 5 Shore, John, 219 Shupanga, 158 Siak, 9, 274 Siam, see Thailand Sierra Leone, 70-1, 79, 86 Sikhs, 48 silk, 46, 120, 130, 134-5, 137, 278, 299, 302 silver, 46, 57, 91-2, 120 Sinclair, John, politician and economist, 63 Sind, 137 Singapore, as commercial center, 17 Singh, Raja Pahup, 225 Sintra, G o^alo de, fidalgo, 96 Siriam, 296 slave raids, by Portuguese, 94, 96-7, 100-1, 103-5, 107-8, 167 in China, 115-16

INDEX slavery, 62, 103, 164-5, 303 in Cape Colony, 178, 183, 185-6, 188, 190, 204 European attitudes toward, 62 slaves, military service by, 159, 164, 167 slave trade, 9, 58, 62, 99, 106, 108, 166, 303 European attitudes toward, 64 smallpox, 74, 185 smuggling, 9 in Americas, 14 in Asia, 12-14, 137-8 by British, 251 by Dutch, 9 in Indonesia, 12-13 by Japanese and Portuguese, in China, 119-20, 122 Sneeuwberg Mountains, 776, 193, 198 soap industry, 99 Soares, José Caetano Macau e a Assistência, 31 Sofala, 169 So Kwan-wai, 120 Solander, botanist, 61 Solinus, 55 Soshangane, Ngoni leader, 167 Sousa, Manuel Antonio da, conqueror, 169-72 South Africa, 79-80, 175, 176 Spain colonial powers of, 6 war with England, 298 Sparrman, Anders, scientist, 198, 206 Spice Islands, 129, 134, 136 spices, 15, 134, 151; see also specific spice sponsors, of explorers of African interior, 57, 64-5 squires, see escudeiros Sri Lanka, 42 Stel, van der Simon, Cape Colony official, 181, 185-6 Stel, van der Willem Adriaan, Cape Colony official, 181, 185-6 Stellenbosch, 180, 181-3 stock farmers, in Cape Colony, 192-201 Strandes, J.L. Die Portugiesenzeit von Deutsch und Englisch Ost Afrika, 33 Sudan, 65, 68 geography, 53 sugar, 14-15, 46, 99, 102, 108, 129, 137, 161-2, 229-33 Sulivan, Laurence, chairman of British Company, 261 Sumatra, 7, 134, 137, 148, 267, 299 Sumbawa, 10

323

Surabaya, 8 Surakarta, 7-8, 42 Surat, 135, 137, 139, 142-5, 147, 256-7, 291-2, 299 Surhaud, Khwaja, 259 Swally, 135 Swedish, in West Africa, 72 Swedish East India Company, 252 Swellendam, 776, 193, 199-200, 206 Swellengrebel, Hendrick, Jr., Dutch Company official, 199-200 Table Bay, 174, 776, 180, 181, 187-8 Table Mountain, 177-8 Taccorary, 74 Tai Ming, soldier, 118 Tanda, 221-2, 225, 228, 233 Tangier, 86, 93-5, 100, 102, 105 Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste, traveler, 295 tea, 15, 46 Teixeira, Tristao, explorer, 96 Tellicherry, 144 Templars, 98 Tenasserim, 280 Tenentes‘Gerais, governors of Zambezi settlements, 162-3 Teneriffe, 100 Tete, 157, 158, 159, 167-70 textiles, 11, 45, 50, 134, 262, 302-3 Thailand (Siam), 7, 134, 149, 265, 290, 296, 301 historiographic considerations, 265-6, 284 intra-Asian trade, 268 missionaries in, 265-6, 271, 277, 280 relations with British, 270-3, 285-7 relations with Dutch, 266-87 relations with French, 265-6, 270-1, 274, 277, 279-87 social structure, 268, 270 Thirty Years* War, 177 Thunberg, Carl Peter, botanist, 199 Tibet, 4 Tijgerberg, 180, 182-3 timber, in Africa, 57 Timbuktu, 53, 65 Timmanna, Beri, Indian merchant, 256 tin, 15, 269, 283 tobacco, 14, 178 Tokugawa, 47, 150 Tomar, 98 Tombos, land registers, of Ceylon, 30 Tonkin, 4, 7 trade, see also East India Companies', specific commodity

324

INDEX

in Africa, 53, 58, 65-7, 72-4 in Amsterdam, 19-20 in Asia, historiographic considerations, 1516 Asian-European, 12-17, 45, 49, 113-14, 119, 124-5, 130, 227 in India, 264 in Indonesia, 13 intra-Asian, 12-15, 17, 227 monopolies in, see monopolies private, see private trade in West Africa, 72-3 translation, of Eastern literature, 59 Treaty of Versailles (1784), 13 trekboers, 174, 186, 193, 195, 197-203, 206 Tripoli, 56 Tristao, Nuno, 103-4 Truäo, Vilas Boas, writer, 162 Tsang I-pen, rebel leader, 123-4 Tuban, 10 Tulloch, Alexander, British officer, 70, 79-80 Turkestan, 4-5 Türkey, 4 Türks, 41, 105, 245-6 Twining, Thomas, traveler, 229 Ughoton, 74 Ujung Selang, 269, 278 Van der Parra, governor-general of India, 19, 21 Venkatappa, Dannala, Hindu feudatory chief, 141-2 Vereist, governor, 220 Veyne, Paul, 238 Viegas, Ruy Leitäo, renegade, 297 Vyayanagara, 290, 305 Viranna, Kasi, Indian merchant, 259 Virginia, mortality rates, 81 Viseu, 98-9 V.O.C., see Dutch East India Company Voltaire, 285 Wagenmakers Valley, 180, 182 Wallerstein, Immanuel, historian, 40, 50 Wang, Okya, foreign minister of Thailand, 273 Wang Hung, Chinese commander, 118, 122 Wang Ying-en, Chinese centurion, 118-19

war, effect on Asian economy, 16 War for American Independence, 227 Warwyck, Dutch commander, 10 Watson, Richard, bishop, 63 Waveren, Land of, 180, 182 Wazir, 218-34 Weber, Max, 30, 38 Weddell, John, British captain, 300 Wellesley, Henry, 233 Wellesley, Richard, governor-general of India, 217-19, 226-33 Wetwang, John, British commander, 147 wheat, 188.179 White, George, 272 White, Samuel, 280 ‘white man’s grave*, West Africa, 54, 69, 83; see also mortality rates Whiteway, R.S. The Rise of Portuguese Power in India, 28-9 Wiese, Carlos, 171 wine, 188-9 Winter, Edward, governor of Fort St. George, 256 Woloff, African people, 105 women in Dutch colonies, 174-5, 201-2, 205-8 Yang San, soldier, 118 yellow fever, 74 Yen Ts’ung-chien, writer, 115 Yu Ta-yu, Chinese commander, 124 Zambezi Company, 168, 171 Zambezi River region, 53, 57, 158 political structure, 155, 159, 162-73 Portuguese in, 155-73 products of, 164, 166 race relations in, 156, 161-2, 164, 166-8, 170 zamindars, 223-4, 233-4 Zarco, Joao Gonsalves, Portuguese captain, 96, 104 Zeelen, Fredrick, burgher, 205-6, 208 Zumbo, 158, 171 Zuurveld, 176, 193, 198 Zwartland, 180, 182