A version of this essay was published in the Encyclopedia of World Trade published by ME Sharpe Publishers, Armonk, New York.
Indian Ocean Trade © Anup Mukherjee
The Indian Ocean trade network spans from east coast of Africa through Middle East to western and eastern India and then on through Burma to the different islands of Southeast Asian region. It is a vast trade network that has witnessed thriving trade since the ancient times. This trade in the earlier times took place in the form of coastal trade between different centres of trade. For example, the Indus valley people had good trade relations with the Sumerian and Mesopotamian civilisations. This trade network was equally important to Europe even before the Suez Canal came into existence. Usually the goods from the East would be carried via the Arab merchants either through the Red Sea route overland to Nile or through Persian Gulf via Syria and Black Sea. The direct European ships that came to this region came round the Cape of Good Hope in the southern tip of Africa.
The east coast of Africa can be classified into Banadir coast, Mrima coast, Mozambique and Madgascar. Banadir coast is a desert area with trade centres like Magadishu and Brava. The coral islands of Lamu archipelago form the northernmost border of the Mrima coast. On these islands are located Mombasa, Malindi, Pemba, and Zanzibar. Mrima coast produced food items and Pemba exported fruits, yams, and rice to Socotra, Mogadishu and Yemen. The main centre in the southern Mozambican region was Sofala. It happened to be a centre of gold trade to Torwa. Mozambique’s trade was as such directed towards India. Along the Eritirean shore in Ethiopia, the island of Massawa, was centre of grain, salt, ivory, slaves, cloth and firearms.
From Red Sea region to Persian Gulf, are situated some of the important trading centres of Mocha, Aden, Socotra, Yemen coast, Muscat, and there on to Bandar Abbas, Hormuz etc. Coffee trade was important for Mocha. Jidda was the port of Mecca with which there was a regular trade with India. The westernmost port of Persian Gulf was Basra on the mouth of Tigris. Trade between Levant and Orient was conducted via Basra and Hormuz. Baniya merchants conducted the trade between Bahrain and India. Bahrain incidentally was also an entrepot centre during the ancient times. Aden was another important centre that developed as an important place to control the entry into the Red Sea. In earlier times, horses were an important export from the Arabian region. Muscat was a flourishing trade centre and controlled the trade between Gulf and Makran cost. On the eastern end of the Makran coast, on the mouth of Indus, was situated Barbaricum and later on the Lahri-Bandar. These served as the ports for the hinterland.
On the western coast of India were situated the centres in Gujarat, Konkan and the Malabar Coast. Gujarat had Gulf of Kachh and Gulf of Khambhayat (Khambhat) sharing within them the Kathiawar peninsula. The main centres of trade in Gujarat were Cambay, Bharuch (Broach), Surat, Diu, and many minor ports like Jamnagar, Porabandar, Namanah, Goga etc. These areas in the medieval times were either under the control of local rulers or the Mughals. Textile, indigo, grain etc were the main items of trade. To the south of Gujarat were the seaports of Daman, Bassein Salsette, Chaul, etc. On the Konkan coast were also the ports of Janjira, Dabhul, Vengurla, Goa among others. Dabhul was the main outlet for the Bijapuris in the seventeenth century. On the Malabar coast were the important trading centres of Karwar, Cannanore, Mahe, Calicut, Cochin, etc. The Malabar coast of Kerala was incidentally a very frequented region since the ancient times, when there were settlements of Europeans and Arab merchants in this place. The main attraction of the Malabar was the spices particularly the pepper trade.
Next in line were ports of Ceylon. Thereon to the east coast of India- the Coromandal coast on the Bay of Bengal. It had important trade centres like Masulipatnam, Pulicat, San Thome, Pondicherry, Cuddalore, Porto Novo, Nagapatam etc. To its north east direction was the Bengal coast. Here an ancient port was Tamralipti (Tamluk). Later on important centres emerged like Chittagong and Satgaon. The coming of European East Indies trading companies led to new centres being created like Hugli, Bandel etc. Important trade centres of later times like Calcutta emerged because of the settlement of Europeans in such places. This was also true of places like Bombay on the West coast or of Madras on the Coromandal coast.
In the Southeast Asian region, trading centres were situated on the coast of Burma, and thereon to the ports in Malacca, Sumatra, Java, Acheh, Siam etc. In ancient times, the Southeast Asian region had thriving trade relations with the southern and eastern India and further east with China. Trade in this region was also influenced by culture and there was active adoption of culture from India that is visible in the form of influence of Hinduism in this region. South East Asia became important in the trade network because of it being a major producer of spices that was the main attraction for the traders. In this region the Dutch had become the major player, as after the Amboyna incident (1623), when Dutch seized the English factory and executed its occupants, then on the role of English in Southeast Asia was marginalized.
The trading centres were generally under the control of powerful rulers. During the medieval and early modern times it included regimes like the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughals etc. Most of these centres specialised in certain specific products that was indigenous to them, though they would also function as entrepots. An interesting dimension was that in these trade centres, most often there were settlements of foreign traders from different kingdoms and different regions. And also very often the major group of traders in a particular place were not necessarily indigenous to that place, but could have belonged to some other regions. This was particularly true of Arabs or the Baniyas who were quite influential in different centres, to which they did not belong originally. There were Arab settlements in places like Calicut and Surat, while there were Baniya settlements in places like Basra. Other trading communities that dotted the various trade centres of this region included Jews, Armenians, Geonese, Tamil Chettiars, Javanese etc. Most of the trade centres were well connected with the hinterland through navigation channels. An important factor in the Arabian Sea region was the presence of Monsoons that propelled the ships on the seas. This benefit of monsoons, which was seasonal winds that also brought rains to the different regions, had been discovered early and was used as a facilitator of direct trade between the trading centres without needing to go through the coastal route.
The trade developed into rivalry with the entry of European trading company, which aimed to monopolise the trade exclusively to themselves. Before them, it was the Arabs who were the major players in the Indian Ocean trade network. Among the Europeans, it was the Portuguese who entered first in this region. However they aimed more at political control over the sea rather than trade. Among the others, the Dutch were largely involved in the cotton trade from the east coast of India and the spice trade from the islands of Southeast Asia. Among the many items of trade included items like salt, sugar, grains, spices, horses, silk, jewellery, slaves, calicos, dates, building material, timber, glass, aromatic, coffee etc. The traders knew such instruments as spot and future. This was most visible in product like coffee.
The Indian Ocean trade network was not isolated to the world. This network was connected to other parts of the world like Europe and America and also China and Far East. Consequently, the market forces generated in these other regions also influenced trade network of Indian Ocean. On the east, Indian and Arab merchants would go as far as China. A consequence of the impact of the wider world was that new products like potato, corn, pineapple etc was introduced in this region.
An important aspect of the trade was development of ships that were sturdy to take long journeys. By the end of fifteenth century, the ships could carry loads of upto 350 to 400 tonnes. As timber for ships could not be found in Arabia or Persia, most of the ships were built in Gujarat or the Malabar region. This industry gradually adopted some of the western methods of building ships. However technologically, the Indo-Arab Boom and Chinese Junk could match the European ships. European ships could attain superiority only by the mid nineteenth century when it started to use steam engine.
The Indian Ocean trade that had its origin in the ancient times before the Common Era, became full fledged by the nineteenth century. Over these centuries it was influenced by multiple factors, though in later times, the two most important impact on this trade network were firstly the entry of monopolistic Europeans trading companies via the Cape of Good Hope, and secondly when the Suez Canal came to open a shorter route between Europe and this region.
References:
1) K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean, (Cambridge, 1985)
2) Commerce and Culture in the Bay of Bengal, Ed. Om Prakash & Denys Lombard (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999)
3) R.J. Barendse, The Arabian Seas, (ME Sharpe, 2002)
