studies in eighteenth century mughal and ottoman trade

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Studies in Eighteenth Century Mughal and Ottoman Trade

Author(s): James D. TracySource: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 37, No. 3 (1994), pp.197-201Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3632255.

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2/6

JESHO,

Vol.

XXXVII,

?

E.J.

Brill,

Leiden

STUDIES

IN

EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY

MUGHAL AND

OTTOMAN TRADE

BY

JAMES

D.

TRACY

(Netherlands

nstitute or Advanced

Studies,

Wassenaar,

The

Netherlands)

In a format not unfamiliar to

readers

of

JESHO,

the

books

reviewed

in

this

special

issue

on

trade

suggest

themes

that

are

addressed

by

the three

articles.

It is

particularly interesting

that

Anthony

Reid's

edited volume on

Southeast

Asia

in

the

Early

Modern Era raises the same

questibns

that have also

framed

recent discussion of

the

commercial

and

economic

development

of

South

Asia

and the Middle East

during

the

same

broad

period.

Studies

showing

the

continuing vitality

of

indigenous

trading

systems

have

long

laid

to

rest the

idea that

Europeans

came

to dominate

regional

commerce almost

as soon

as

they

arrived in Asian

waters.

Further,

as Kenneth Hall

points

out,

a number

of

scholars

now believe that

developments

after

about 1650

represent

new

configurations

of a

still

vigorous

trade,

rather

than a decline

of the Asian

trading

networks that were henceforth to be

outpaced by

the

European

companies.

To

question

the overall

importance

of

Europeans

in

Asian

commerce

is

of course

also to

question

the relative

weight

of maritime

trade and

overland trade.

The

Begley-De

Puma volume

on

Rome

and India

shows that

this issue is

no

less

important

for the remote

past:

the

discovery

of

Greek

pottery

and other

Mediterranean

goods

along

India's

Malabar

coast establishes

the

importance

of Roman maritime trade

only

if

one

can-

not

imagine

land routes

by

which

these wares reached their eventual

destination (Willem Vogelsang suggests the Iranian plateau, and the article

by

David

Whitehouse

proposes

the

caravan

route

to

the

head

of

the

Persian

Gulf).

Finally, George

Spence

points

out

that in

his

valuable

study

of

Money,

Markets

and Trade

in

Early

Southeast

Asia,

Robert

Wicks

employs

a functional

definition

of

money (so

as to include

rice,

cowrie

shells,

etc.)

which

frees

his

discussion

of

money

from modern

or

Europeanist assumptions,

but

also

blunts

the revisionist force

of his thesis

postulating

a

general

trend towards

monetization

in

Southeast

Asia. In other

words,

insofar as

the

history

of

Asia in the early modern era still has to overcome the remnants of a col-

onialist

bias,

one can

clear the

way

for a

better

understanding

Asian

societies

in

their

own

terms either

by

drawing

on the arsenal of cultural

relativism,

and thus avoid

comparisons

that

may

or

may

not be

invidious,

or

by showing

the

development

of

comparable

institutions

no

less

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3/6

198

JAMES

D. TRACY

sophisticated

than their western

counterparts,

but not

by

doing

both at

the

same time.

The articles

presented

here all find

Asian

trading

networks

still

flourishing

at least until the

early

eighteenth

century;

two of them stress

the

greater

importance

of

overland trade relative

to maritime

trade,

and

each

of

the

authors is

rightly

concerned to

indicate,

from the

perspective

of

trade,

parallel

developments

in

Asian and

European

institutions.

The

merchants

who

figure

in

these

pages

may

at times

have

relied on

Europe's

merchant

fleet

(as

at

Damiette),

but

they

needed no lessons in how to

do

business.

Muzaffar

Alam's

study

of

Mughal-Uzbek

commercial

relations,

ca.

1500-1750,

starts

with the sensible

premise

that

the

coming

of

a

Central

Asian dynasty to India would strengthen commercial ties between the two

regions.

He

explores

the

role of

settled

communities of

Indian

merchants in

Bukhara

and

Samarqand,

the

commodities that moved back

and

forth

across the

mountain

passes

(including

some of the

Central

Asian horses

that

are

a focal

point

for

Gommans'

article),

the

Central Asian and

Indian

intermediaries

involved-the latter

principally

Multinis,

Hindu

or

Muslim,

and the

Hindu

Khatris-and

the

strong

concern

of rulers

on both

sides

of the

Himalayas

to

protect

and

enhance

trade routes.

His data

do not

permit a quantitative comparison with the volume of contemporary trade

by

sea, but,

as

he

notes,

one

may

gather

from the

1688

commercial

agree-

ment with the

Armenians

(requiring

the latter to

export goods

from

India

by

sea

rather

than

by

land,

and on

Company

ships)

that the

English

East

India

Company

was

concerned

about overland

competition.

Along

the

way,

Azam

also

puts

question

marks

beside the

relationship

between

trade

and

politics

in

Mughal

India,

as we

now

understand it on

the

basis of

what

scholars have

worked out

in

the last

two decades.

It has been

argued

that

the

Portuguese

were

able to

gain

footholds

on

the Indian

littoral because six-

teenth

century

Mughal

rulers,

with some

exceptions,

took

little

interest

in

the

well-being

of their merchant

subjects,

who in

turn

had

little

influence

at

court');

but

Azam

points

out

that

rulers

on both

sides of

the

mountains

were at

pains

to

protect

and

enhance

overland

trade,

and

that,

at least in

the

early

eighteenth century,

Sikh

Khatris were an

influential

voice at

the

Mughal

court.

Similarly,

it

has been

argued

that

overland

trade

declined

1)

Michael N.

Pearson,

Merchants

and Rulers in

Guyerat:

The

Response

to

the

Portuguese

n

the

16th

Century

Berkeley,

1976);

but see

also

Tapan Raychaudhuri,

The

Commercial

Entrepreneur

in

Pre-Colonial

India:

Aspirations

and

Expectations.

A

Note,

in

Roderich

Ptak,

Dietmar

Rothermund,

Emporia,

Commoditzes

nd

Entrepreneurs

n

Asian

Maritime

Trade,

c.

1400-1700

(Stuttgart,

1991),

339-352

(reviewed

inm

ESHO,

vol.

36,

no.

2).




4/6

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

MUGHAL

AND

OTTOMAN

TRADE

199

In

the

early eighteenth century

because

of the

political

weakness

of

the

Mughal

Empire2),

but Azam

suggests reversing

the

relationship--the

Mughal

treasury

and

the

Mughals

themselves

may

have

been

weakened

because

trans-Himalayan

and other trade routes were

disrupted

by

a

variety

of

local circumstances.

The

eighteenth

century

horse trade studied

by

Jos

Gommans was

part

of

the

pattern

of

interchange

examined

by

Azam,

although

the

routes

along

which

war

horses

came to India

(generally

from

the

northwest)

were

by

no

means

confined to the roads

linking Mughal

and

Uzbek

centers.

Gommans'

results

may

be

compared

with

other studies

showing

that the

volume

of

goods

shipped

from

India

to

Europe

was

dwarfed

by

that

of

the

principal

trades

within the vast subcontinent

itself3).

A conservative estimate of the value of

horses

imported

into

India

in

the 1770s would

still

be

more

than

twice as

much

as the

combined

exports

to

Europe

from

wealthy

Bengal

by

the

Dutch,

English

and

French East

India

Companies.

Land and

sea routes

played

complementary

roles

in

the

horse

trade,

in

part

because

importers

resorted

to the more

expensive

(for

horses)

sea lanes

when inland roads

were

disrupted.

Gommans

too has an

eye

for the

relationship

between trade

and

politics,

and his

concluding suggestion

about

the

relationship

between

war

horses and state-building seems particularly interesting. Nearly all of the

Afghan

states that

emerged

in

the

eighteenth

century

were

carved out

along

the traditional

horse-trade

routes,

meaning

that

the

new

rulers

(one

of whom

started out

as a

horse

trader)

could

put

large

troops

of

cavalry

into

the

field,

at

a

time

when it was still

not

clear

whether horseback warriors

or the

new

British-trained

sepoy

infantry

would

ultimately

prove

more

effective.

Daniel

Crecelius

and

Hamza

cAbb-'al-CAziz

Badr

present

an

analysis

of

shipping manifests unusually rich in detail about the organization of trade

at

a lesser

Ottoman

entrep6t

in the

late

eighteenth

century

Since each

of

the

Damiette

documents

states that

the

captain

has the

authority

of

the

Ottoman

state

to

carry cargo

to other

ports,

and

since

theyaz'i

or

port agent

was

apparently

appointed

by

the local

governor,

there is

at

least indirect

evidence

that

state control

of trade

was still

intact,

at least in this corner

of

2) Ashin Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, 1700-1750 (Wiesbaden,

1979).

3)

For

example,

on the

Banjaras

and

their

immense

trains

of

cargo-oxen,

see Irfan

Habib,

Merchant

Communities

in Precolonial

India,

in

Tracy,

The Rise

ofMerchant

Empires:

Long-

Dtstance

Trade

in

the

Early

Modern

World,

1350-1750

(Cambridge

and New

York,

1990),

371-399




5/6

200

JAMES

D.

TRACY

the

empire ).

From

Damiette merchants

shipped mainly

small

quantities

of

rice

to

ports

in the

Levant,

notably

Ladiqiyya;

by

contrast,

from

a

major

entrep8t

like

Alexandria,

ships

that

were

typically

larger

than those

sailing

from Damiette headed for the Ottoman heartland

ports,

such as

Smyrna

or

Saloniki. The

fact that

the

manifests list

only

French

captains

and

their

ships

is

unusual

for

Damiette,

where

most

ships

were

Ottoman-flagged,

but

indicative for

the more

important

trade routes

in

Ottoman

waters;

one

may

venture to

suggest

a

parallel

with maritime trade in

eighteenth

century

India,

where

coastal trafic was in local

hands,

but

Europeans

controlled the

major

routes5).

Perhaps

the

most

intriguing pattern

that

the

authors are

able

to

draw

from their data

concerns

the

role of

theyaziji,

who

received the

merchandise from its owner, certified its lading on board a particularship,

and assumed

responsibility

for

its

safe arrival

at

the

designated

port.

Some-

times

ayazjif

would also sail with a

ship

as

supercargo.

Correlation

of names

and

destinations

suggests

that

a

given

French

captain

would often

use

the

services of the

sameyaziyi,possibly

because

theyaz~ji,

ike the

captains

them-

selves,

tended to

specialize

in

shipments

to a

particular

destination

in the

Levant.

Moreover,

most

of

the

twelve

yaziji

mentioned

in

these

documents

had

names

indicating

that

they

themselves

came from

the

Levant

coast or

the coast of Asia Minor; two can be identified as Syrian Melkite Christians,

a

group

whose

members

were

establishing

themselves in

Damiette

just

in

the

years

in

which

the

ship

manifests are

dated.

Drawing

all of

these

points

together,

it

is

possible

to

glimpse

in

the

evidence

put

forward

by

Crecelius

and

CAbd-'al-CAziz

akr

a

replication

in

modest

terms of

that vital

process

by

which

merchant

communities from

point

A

trading

to

point

B

throw off

small

colonies to

B,

the

better

to

consolidate the

connection.

A

trading

system

in which

(in

Philip

Curtm's

term)6)

new

trade

diasporas

are for-

ming can hardly be considered moribund.

In

sum,

these

articles that

complement

one

another in

building up

for

the

eighteenth

century

a

good example

of

that

more

dynamic

picture

of Asian

trading

systems

that

books

like

those

reviewed

here

are

calling

for.

Azam

makes

a

convincing

case

for

the

interaction

between

trade

and

state

policy

along

the

Himalayan

routes,

Gommans

highlights

the

complex

organization

4)

For

the

importance

of

its

control of

trade

to the

Ottoman

state,

Hurn

Islamoglu

and

Caglar Keyder, Agenda for Ottoman History, in Hun Islamoglu-Inan, ed., TheOttoman

Empire

and

the

World

Economy

Cambridge

and New

York,

1987), pp.

42-62,

especially

pp.

49-52.

5)

Ashin

Das

Gupta,

Changing

Faces of the

Manitime

Merchant,

in

Ptak

and

Rother-

mund,

Entrepots,

Commoditzes

nd

Entrepreneurs

n

Asian

Trade,

353-362.

6)

Philip

Curtin,

Cross

CulturalTrade

n World

History

Cambridge

and

New

York,

1984).




6/6

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MUGHAL

AND

OTTOMAN TRADE

201

and the

great

wealth invested

in

the

trade

in

a

key military commodity,

and

Crecelius and

CAbd-'al-CAziz

ive

us

a rare

glimpse

of the

men

who

could

use

European

shipping

to

help

them create

a

trading

world

that

was

small,

but

nonetheless

vital,

and

stamped

with the

culture

and

traditions

of their

own

region.


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