The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade

442 Pages·1974·30.129 MB·English

by  Niels Steensgaard, American Council of Learned Societies

Niels Steensgaard
The Asian Trade
Revolution of the
Seventeenth
Century
The East India Companies and the
Decline of the Caravan Trade
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century was originally published as
Carracks, Caravans, and Companies, volume 17 in the Scandinavian Institute of Asian
Studies Monograph Series, Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1973.
NIELS STEENSGAARD is a professor of history at the University of Copenhagen in
Denmark. He is the author of several articles in the fields of European and Asian
history.
[1974]
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1973 Studentlitteratur, Niels Steensgaard. All rights reserved
Published 1973. The University of Chicago Press edition 1974
Printed in the United States of America
78 77 76 75 74 987654321
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Steensgaard, Niels, 1932-
The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century
Originally presented as the author's thesis,
Copenhagen.
Bibliography: p.
1. Commerce—History. 2. Europe—Commerce—
Asia—History. 3. Asia—Commerce—Europe History.
I. Title.
HF495.S83 1975 382'.094'05 74-16397
ISBN 0-226-77138-5 ISBN 0-226-77139-3 (pbk.)
Contents
Preface 7
Introduction 9
Part I The Fall of Hormuz, a Comparative Study 12
Chapter I The Peddling Trade 22
The Pedlars 22
The Economy of the Peddling Trade 31
The Peddling Market 42
Chapter II The Redistributive Enterprizes 60
"Publicans and Thieves" 60
Persia .. 68
The Ottoman Empire 74
Estado da India 81
The Redistributive Institutions and the Market .. .. 95
The Redistributive Enterprizes Ill
Chapter HI The Companies 114
The East India Company and the English Crown 114
The East India Company in the International System 120
The United East India Company and the Dutch Republic 126
Power and Profit in the Policy of the United East India Company . .. 131
The Companies and the Market 141
The Companies as Institutional Innovation 151
Chapter IV The Fall of Hormuz 154
The Cape Route and the Caravan Routes around 1600 155
The Triumph of the Companies 169
The Reversal on the Levant Markets 175
The Fall of Hormuz 193
Part II The Loss of Hormuz. People and Events 209
Chapter V The Dream of a Great Alliance 211
The Persian Initiative and Anthony Sherley 212
The Christian Princes' Reply 225
The Replies come in, War begins 230
Seven Persian Ambassadors 237
The Course of the War and the Crisis of Confidence 1607-08 244
Chapter VI Hormuz is the Question 253
The Carmelite Mission 1608 254
Robert Sherley 258
Anthony Sherley's Projects 262
The Augustinian Mission 1608 266
Robert Sherley in Rome and Spain 270
Janghiz Beg and Gouvea in Spain 283
In Persia 1608-13 286
The Crisis of Confidence 1613-15, Gombroon's Fall 291
Robert Sherley 1611-15 297
Chapter VII The Loss of Hormuz 305
Sherley's Second Spanish Embassy 1617-22 305
Figueroa in Persia * .. 312
British Beginnings 323
The Loss of Hormuz 331
3
Part III After Hormuz 344
Chapter VIII The Losers .. 345
The Demolishment of a Town .. .. 345
The Portuguese Attempt at Revenge 347
The Portuguese without Hormuz 353
Sherley's Last Journey 358
Chapter IX The Attempt at Redirection of the Silk Trade 367
The Companies and the Persian Silk Trade 367
Silk Purchases in Persia 377
How Much? 394
Chapter X Instead of Hormuz 398
The Rise of Bandar Abbas 398
The Companies and the "Early Asian Trade" 405
Conclusion 412
Appendix, Currency and Weights 415
Manuscript Sources 424
Printed Sources and Modern Works 426
Index 435
Tables
1. Monox's estimate of the costs on the route Kazvin-Aleppo 1618 33
2. Dutch invoices for silk exported from Persia 1634/35-1636/37 35
3. Silk prices in Aleppo 1635-36 52
4. Pepper prices in Venice 1586-1590 55
5. Main items on the revenue budget of Estado da India 1584 and 1608-1607 88
6. Ports of origin of ships passing Bab-el Mandeb 1611, 1612 and 1616.... 90
7. Estimated and sales value of captaincies in Estado da India 1607 and 1615 94
8. Prices of pepper, indigo and cloves in Amsterdam 1624-26 150
9. Estimates of European consumption of Asian goods circa 1620 155
10. Known Portuguese return cargoes 1587-1609 166
11. Estimate of tonnage returned to Portugal from Asia 1571-1610 168
12. Estimate of European consumption of Asian goods around 1600 .. .. 168
13. Ships returned to European harbour from Asia 1581-1630 170
14. English re-export of Asian goods 1626-1627 174
15. Attendance at the meetings of the English nation in Aleppo 1616-1629 .. 188
16. Ships leaving Marseilles for Levantine ports 1614-18 189
17. Visnich's estimate of the annual arrivals to Hormuz before 1622 .. .. 197
18. Proceeds from sale of offices in Hormuz 1615 200
19. Company exports of silk from Persia 1618/19-1645/46, bales af approx.
100 kg 395
20. Metric equivalents of the most current units of weight 416
Maps
The Near East 5
India and the Indian Ocean .. 6
Diagram
Pepper prices and ships returned from Asia i5»81-1630 423
4
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Preface
The dramatic shift of balance in the European-Asian trade in the decades
following 1600 has fascinated me for several years. It appeared to me that
the decline of the Portuguese Empire in Asia, the decline of the intercon
tinental caravan trade and the triumph of the Dutch and English East India
Companies - the confrontation of the carracks, the caravans and the com
panies - was more than a tale of triumph and disaster, but also constituted
a decisive moment in world history, pointing towards that distribution of
wealth and power which characterized later centuries and the world in
which we live.
My point of departure was a study of the victorious companies, but I
soon found that the shift in balance could not be accounted for by looking
at the victorious side only. A satisfactory study would have to be made on
a comparative basis, taking into account what evidence might be unearthed
concerning the losers - the Portuguese Empire and the caravan merchants -
as well as the evidence contained in the company records. An early working
hypothesis based upon a simple comparison of the costs born by the mer
chants on the various routes proved insufficient; the composition of the costs
revealed that the outcome was determined neither by size nor by technical
and managerial efficiency alone, but rather by deep-rooted structural diffe
rences between the institutions concerned. I found that the shift in balance
might best be conceived of as the outcome of a confrontation of structures
or a structural crisis and that the comparative analysis should be focused
on key institutional features. This approach implies a high level of abstrac
tion. I hope, however, that I have nor broken what I consider a basic rule
for the historian, and lost sight of the men who acted and the reality in
which they found themselves.
The work on this book was begun in 1961-62 when I was a British Council
scholar. I divided my time in London between the School of Oriental and
African Studies and the archive of the Commonwealth Relations Office.
It is with pleasure and gratitude I think of the hospitality and kindness
extended to me by these institutions and by the British Council. On my
return to Copenhagen I was more or less submerged in teaching in the
difficult years when the number of students swelled without a corresponding
increase in staff and facilities. A grant from Statens almindelige Viden-
skabsfond enabled me, however, to continue the collection of material in
7
France and Venice. In 1967 I became a research fellow at the University of
Copenhagen, a further grant from the University enabling me to visit ar
chives in Spain, Portugal and Rome. In all essentials the manuscript was
finished in October 1971.
There are still a few languages I ought to know in order to master all
the evidence relevant to the subject, and there are archives I have not yet
visited in which I suspect more data might be uncovered. The comparative
approach has necessarily brought me into specialized fields and led me to
conclusions that are in conflict with national historiographical traditions. I
can only hope that I have substantiated my conclusions or, if I have erred,
that my errors may prove useful.
One of the pleasures of this study has been the quest for material, which
brought me to a large number of archives and libraries all over Europe.
Everywhere I have met with kindness and efficiency and I am very glad
to have this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the staffs of the
archives and libraries in which I have worked. I am also greatly indebted
to the Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies, which did me the honour of
including this volume in their monograph series, to Karl Reinhold Haell-
quist, fil. lie, of the Institute, who saw the volume through the press, and
not least to Mrs Paula Hostrup-Jessen, who heroically undertook to translate
my convoluted Danish into English.
Numerous friends, colleagues and students have a share in this book.
The Institute of History at the University of Copenhagen offers a lively
and stimulating milieu for the study and teaching of history, and I am
happy to acknowledge my debt to my friends and students at the Institute
as well as to the many other Danish and foreign historians with whom I
have discussed subjects bearing upon the problems of this book. I would
especially like to mention the advice and guidance I have drawn from
conversations with Professor C. R. Boxer, Professor Kristof Glamann, Pro
fessor Bernard Lewis, Professor Erling Ladewig Petersen and the late Pro
fessor Maurice Lombard.
I have a special debt of gratitude to Professor Aksel E. Christensen, who
was the director of the Institute in its (and my) formative years, and to
Professor Svend Ellehoj, the ideal superviser, who encouraged, but never
interfered. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to the late
Professor Astrid Friis who first introduced me to the study of the history
of international trade, and who taught me that historical subjects should be
studied, not in the safe hinterland of established categories, but in the
unpleasant regions where one may have to revise one's ideas on being
confronted with the sources.
The Institute of History at the
University of Copenhagen January 1973
Niels Steensgaard
8
Introduction
The destructive effects of the discovery of the sea route to Asia upon the
traditional intercontinental trade routes were not felt until after the elapse
of an entire century. After a set-back at the beginning of the 16th century
the trade routes through the Middle East regained their former importance,
and at the end of the 16th century the transcontinental caravan trade
reached dimensions which must presumably be regarded as its historical
culmination. No decisive blow was struck at the caravan trade until the
establishment of the North-West European trading companies, the Dutch
voorkompagnieen from 1595, the East India Company in 1600, and the
Dutch United East India Company (VOC) in 1602. During the first few
decades of the 17th century the most important Asian commodities dis
appeared from the west-bound caravans to the Levant towns; in some cases
the west-bound stream of goods was replaced by an east-bound stream,
the ocean having triumphed over the mainland.
This sequence of events, which may be regarded as established, raises a
problem which the historical literature has so far only touched upon to a
limited extent. How were the Companies able to triumph, where the Portu
guese had failed? Why did the transcontinental trade, which had resisted
Portuguese competition and attempted blockade throughout a whole century,
have to retire in favour of the Companies?
No direct investigations of the problem are available, but although the
question cannot be said to have been finally formulated or satisfactorily
answered, several historians have dealt with it within a wider context.
For Braudel, the problem is the survival of the caravan trade in the 16th
century, not its downfall in the 17 th century, the date of which, moreover,
he does not regard as finally established. Braudel sees the explanation in
the Portuguese ruthlessness and negligence and in the rise of alternative
routes from the pepper-producing areas in South-East Asia to the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf, primarily based upon the Sultanate of Achin in
North Sumatra. This development he places within a wider context: the
relative abundance of silver in the Mediterranean region in the second
half of the 16th century.1 Ralph Davis emphasizes the relative power of
1. BRAUDEL I p. 514-16.
9