Secret Trades, Porous Borders: Smuggling and States Along a Southeast Asian Frontier, 1865-1915 (Yale Historical Publications Series)

454 Pages·2005·1.95 MB·English

by  Eric Tagliacozzo

Secret Trades, Porous Borders

Secret Trades,
Porous Borders
Smuggling and States Along a Southeast
Asian Frontier, 1865–1915
Eric Tagliacozzo
Yale University Press
New Haven & London
Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund.
Portions of Section III appeared previously as “Kettle on a Slow Boil: Batavia’s Threat
Perceptions in the Indies’ Outer Islands,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 
(): ‒. The author is grateful to JSEAS for permission to reprint these ma-
terials.
Copyright © by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that
copying permitted by Sections and of the U.S. Copyright Law and except
by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
Set in Garamond and Stone Sans types by The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tagliacozzo, Eric.
Secret trades, porous borders : smuggling and states along a Southeast Asian frontier,
‒/ Eric Tagliacozzo.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN ---(alk. paper)
. Smuggling—Asia, Southeastern—History. . Drug traffic—Asia, South-
eastern—History. . Counterfeits and counterfeiting—Asia, Southeastern—His-
tory. . Illegal arms tranfers—Asia, Southeastern—History. . Asia, Southeast-
ern—Commerce—History. . Asia, Southeastern—Boundaries—History. .
Great Britain—Colonies—Asia, Southeastern—History. . Netherlands—Colo-
nies—Asia, Southeastern—History—th century. I. Title.
HJ..ZT 
.(cid:2)—dc

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of
the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council
on Library Resources.
         
In memory of my father, Angelo Tagliacozzo

Contents
A Note on Orthography and Usage, ix
Acknowledgments, xi
List of Abbreviations, xv
1 Introduction, 
Part One Creating the Frontier: Border Formation and the State
Section I Building the Frontier: Drawing Lines in Physical Space, 27
2 Mapping the Frontier, 
3 Enforcing the Frontier, 
4 Strengthening the Frontier, 
Section II Imagining the Frontier: State Visions of Danger Along the
Border, 107
5 The Specter of Violence, 
viii Contents
6 “Foreign Asians” on the Frontier, 
7 The Indigenous Threat, 
Part Two Crossing the Frontier: Smuggling, Profit, and Resistance
Section III Secret Trades, Porous Borders, 185
8 The Smuggling of Narcotics, 
9 Counterfeiters Across the Frontier, 
10 Illicit Human Cargoes, 
Section IV The Illegal Weapons Trade Across the Anglo/Dutch Frontier, 259
11 Munitions and Borders: Arms in Context, 
12 Praxis and Evasion: Arms in Motion, 
Section V A Frontier Story: The Sorrows of Golam Merican, 317
13 Contraband and the Junk Kim Ban An, 
14 Worlds of Illegality, –, 
15 Conclusion, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 
A Note on Orthography and Usage
Tracing the intertwined histories of the many populations who lived
and interacted on the Anglo/Dutch frontier of colonial Southeast
Asia requires the use of many spelling systems and orthographies.
Both the Dutch and the British had their own (often very imperfect)
systems of rendering names, places, and concepts; many local actors
(such as the Acehnese and Overseas Chinese, for example) had sys-
tems as well. Applying some kind of consistency to this bewildering
array of names has proved to be a difficult challenge.
I have followed several conventions to simplify these diversities. In
the notes, I have used original spellings of names and places, so that
documents can be found directly and easily by subsequent researchers
in the various archives used in this book. Therefore Malacca rather
than Melaka and Billiton rather then Belitung. In my own text, I use
contemporary designations when referring to places: Aceh rather than
Atjeh, Bengkulu rather than Bencoolen. This is to help the modern
reader navigate the history presented here through familiar, present-
day geographies.
I have used period spellings of names in virtually all cases. Because
ix