History Without Borders

Geoffrey C. Gunn

Published by Hong Kong University Press, HKU

Gunn, Geoffrey C.
History Without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000-1800.
1 ed. Hong Kong University Press, HKU, 2011.
Project MUSE.muse.jhu.edu/book/32160.

For additional information about this book

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/32160

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7
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch
and English Trading Companies

No sooner had the two Iberian powers established their positions as

cultural and trade brokers par excellence within the Asian Tributary
System than European rivals appeared over the horizon, namely in the
form of Holland and England. Basing their commercial strength on long-
distance trade and exploitation of the Atlantic trade in slaves, sugar, and
bullion, these two northern European powers emerged as the core of
what Wallerstein termed the “European world-economy” (1974: 107).
This chapter traces the “hegemonic shift” occasioned by the rise of the
northern European companies that would succeed — and eclipse — the
Iberians in the Asian trade. The shift was also characterized by monopoly
control over prized trade items at the source, control over territory, and
the establishment of European-style bureaucracies, as with the British
domination of the Indian subcontinent and the deepening involvement of
the Dutch on Java. Once the Portuguese monopoly on trade with China
had been broken, the opium-for-tea trade at Guangzhou further raised
the stakes for the European companies and private traders alike.
The European companies — Dutch, English, French and Danish —
were vastly better capitalized than the Iberian merchants. They have been
viewed as highly structured bureaucratic organizations and exemplars
of the first multinational corporations. Such understandings provoke a
range of questions: How rational were their operations in a Weberian
sense? And how did such rationality bode for the survival of indigenous
merchant networks, local bazaars, and traders?
186 History Without Borders

Rise of the European Trading Companies

A number of European countries, along with the United States, spon-

sored trading companies to engage the lucrative but costly business of
engaging the China trade at Guangzhou from the late 17th century. The
Dutch and English were the first northern Europeans to enter the classic
spice trade at the source, followed by the French and Danish, though
with far less success. The English and Dutch, joined by the French in
Indochina, would, famously, parlay their trading interests into territo-
rial empires. Naval supremacy played its part in such expansion, but so
did the building of alliances. The Europeans were ingenious in plying
local princelings and aristocrats, sultans, nawabs, and potentates, with
presents, useful (cannons) and otherwise (luxury goods and European
baubles). The successes invariably resulted in letters and treaties.
In the case of Holland, commercial rivalry went hand in hand with the
national revolt of the Low Countries against the Iberian powers, climax-
ing with the birth of the Dutch Republic in 1581. A year earlier, Portugal
had been annexed by the Spanish Crown, and the Lisbon market for
spices had come under the control of the court of Madrid (Morse 1926:
3). As a major distributor of spices in Europe, Protestant Holland
(and England) sought to bypass the ban on their trading in Lisbon by
dealing directly with the source of supply. Having broken away from
Spanish domination, the newly minted Dutch Republic declared war
on Spanish shipping and colonial outposts, mounting serial attacks on
the Portuguese, in the Spice Islands in 1601; Goa in 1603 and 1610;
Mozambique Island in 1607 and 1608; Melaka in 1616 and 1629; and
against the Spanish in the Philippines in 1610, and Macau in 1622 and
1626. All these attacks failed. But the Portuguese suffered irreversible
losses to the Dutch fleets, namely in the Spice Islands, 1605; Melaka,
1641; Colombo, 1641; Cochin (Kochi), 1662; alongside losses to the
Omanis, back in control of the Swahili coast of East Africa by 1730.
Much to their disappointment, the Portuguese were expelled from Japan
in 1639. Meanwhile, the English picked off Portuguese strongholds
around the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. Portuguese-Dutch rivalry in
West Africa reached a crescendo in the 1640s and 1650s, with Portugal
ultimately retaining control over Angola. Similarly, in Brazil, the Dutch
successfully sapped away at Portuguese control in the northeast until that
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 187

colony became independent in 1822 (Russell-Wood 1998: 25–26). The

shortlived Anglo-Dutch Fleet of Defense (1621–23) brought together the
combined firepower of British and Dutch fleets in the China seas against
Portuguese and Spanish vessels (Van Dyke 2006).
Within six years of their first trading voyage to Java in 1596, the
Dutch unified their various trading companies into the Dutch East India
Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC). By this point,
the Dutch had gained virtual monopoly over the spice trade in Ambon in
the Malukus. Until it was disbanded, nearly bankrupt, in 1798, the VOC
served as a state within a state. It was virtually the first multinational
company, running not only commerce but affairs of state, waging war,
and holding the right of life and death over its employees (Plate 15).
From the outset, the English East India Company, founded by royal
charter in 1600, was given exclusive trading rights between England
and Asia. Prior to the establishment of Madras and Calcutta as seats
of empire, the initial focus of the Company was the spice trade in the
Malukus. The fleet of the first voyage (1600), under James Lancaster,
visited Aceh and Banten and obtained trading privileges in both places.
Banten on Java was chosen as the optimal base from which to conduct
this trade. The fleet of the second voyage (1604) again visited Sumatra, in
addition to Banda and Ambon, where they failed to gain trading rights.
The third voyage (1606), under Hawkins, made the first English contact
with India (at Surat), with return voyages to Banten and the Malukus.
Surat and Mocha were the focus of the fourth fleet (1608). A fifth
fleet (1606) returned to Banten and reached Banda. The sixth to tenth
voyages sailed under instructions to procure Indian cloths (from Surat
and modern Khambat) to exchange in Banten against pepper and spices.
From Banten, formally established as a Company trading post in
1603, English ships made forays to Hirado off southwest Kyushu Island
in Japan and Siam (where trading privileges had been secured during
the eighth voyage under Captain John Saris). By 1617, Banten was over-
seeing “factories” or trading posts in Sumatra, Borneo, Banda, Japan,
and the west coast of India. In 1617, the Company gained possession
of the islands of Run and Rosengyn in the Malukus (until expelled by
the Dutch in 1620), and established a trading post at Makassar (until its
capture by the Dutch in 1667).
188 History Without Borders

But following the “Amboina massacre” of 1623 and failure in

the Japan trade, the presidency was removed from Banten to Dutch-
controlled Batavia. With the capture of Banten by the Dutch in 1682, the
English removed to Bencoolen (Bengkulu) on the west coast of Sumatra,
where, in 1687, they constructed Fort York. More generally, the British
focus shifted to the Coromandel coast or eastern seaboard of India, just
as the Company became an agent of the state in consolidating British
power over Mughal India. In 1684, Fort St. George (Madras) was raised
to the rank of presidency, controlling Company activities around the Bay
of Bengal; Bombay replaced Surat as center of the Company’s activities in
west India and the Persian Gulf. Even so, Banten remained a way station
for British shipping, now focused upon the China trade.
By founding the French East India Company (La Compagnie française
des Indes orientales) in 1664, the French Crown sought to compete with
the English and Dutch companies. This was planned by Jean Baptiste
Calvert and chartered by King Louis XIV (r. 1638–1718) with the Indian
Ocean zone in mind. The first director-general of the Compagnie was
François Caron, a veteran of the VOC who had spent 20 years in Hirado.
Under Compagnie auspices, the islands of Bourbon (Reunion) and Île-
de-France (Mauritius) were established as plantation colonies. The
French also intervened in Siam in 1685–88, both in the form of mission-
ary enterprise at the court but also in a failed attempt to fortify an area
near present-day Bangkok and at Mergui in the Bay of Bengal (Le Blanc
2007).
As the Mughal empire was entering its decline, the French and English
sought to expand their alliances with local rulers in south India. With
the French defeat in the Battle of Plessey (1757) by Robert Clive, Bengal
came under British domination. Nevertheless, the French retained their
enclaves at Pondicherry, south of Madras, and Chandernagore, on the
banks of the Hugli River in Bengal, into modern times. French agents
engaged in a kind of economic espionage in maritime Southeast Asia
(as by the plant-hunter and empire-builder Pierre Poivre); the actions of
missionaries and, in their wake, admirals induced France into launching
gunboat diplomacy against the Nguyen kings in Vietnam, leading to the
piecemeal annexation of the vast Indochina peninsula.
The only other European company to engage Southeast Asia directly
was the Danish East India Company (Dansk Østindisk Kompagni),
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 189

founded in 1616. The Kompagni, dissolved in 1650, would be given

an initial 12-year monopoly on Danish-Asian trade. From Tranquebar
(Tharangambadi) on the eastern seaboard of India, the Danes pioneered
a trading route to Tenasserim (Mergui), tapping into deliveries of pepper;
from 1621, they entered the trade with Makassar in cloves, as well as
opening up new trade routes to Banten and Sunda. From 1754, a settle-
ment was established in the Nicobar Islands, although soon abandoned
(Subramanyam 1989; Rasmussen 1996).
The preceding narrative of steady European expansion should also be
read against the complex background of intra-European rivalry and wars,
especially the Napoleonic Wars. Notably, the Netherlands were overrun
by French forces in 1795, and turned into the client Batavian Republic,
incorporated four years later into the French empire. Only with the
defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in 1810 did the Netherlands
regain its autonomy. The French occupation of the Iberian Peninsula
also weakened Spain and Portugal’s hold over their colonies, especially
in the Americas. On the other hand, the Napoleonic interlude saw the
British occupying the French Indian Ocean possessions of Reunion and
Mauritius, along with the five French trading posts in India, Pondicherry
included. Dutch outposts also fell to British occupation, most notably
Java under the temporary administration of Thomas Stamford Raffles
(1811–15) following the Anglo-Dutch Java war of 1810–11, but also
Melaka, west Timor, and the Malukus. Only Deshima in Nagasaki con-
tinued to fly the Dutch flag.

The Dutch East India Company Operation

By the 1620s, firmly established in their new capital of Batavia on Java,

the Dutch succeeded where the Portuguese had failed, in implanting
administrative structures and neutralizing indigenous sources of power
throughout the eastern archipelago. They also waged a war of attrition
against the Portuguese, capturing Portuguese caravels, launching attacks
on Macau (albeit unsuccessfully), and sapping the Melaka trade. By
1641, with the fall of Melaka to the Dutch, the Portuguese were obliged
to confine their archipelagic trade to Makassar (in alliance with Muslim
rivals of the Dutch) and to Timor, where Portugal’s creolized allies check-
190 History Without Borders

mated Dutch ambitions to acquire a monopoly over the durable and

useful trade in sandalwood to China.
In part, the Dutch chokehold on the Malacca Straits led not to a
weakening of Portuguese trade, but to an intensification of its Macau-
based activities. By the mid-17th century, Macau replaced Melaka as
the key center of Portuguese private trade, just as Macau-based traders
(both Portuguese and Chinese) began to fan out to such destinations
as Vietnam, Borneo, Manila, Timor, and even across the Bay of Bengal.
The 16th- and 17th-century “age of commerce” enjoyed by the maritime
Southeast Asian polities saw a corollary rise in commerce in the South
China Sea, not only on European ships, as with the Macau-Japan trade,
but in newer ventures along the China coast to Vietnam and other des-
tinations via the junk trade and private Portuguese ventures, sometimes
with Asian partners (Manguin 1972; Gunn 1996).
By the late 1630s, as Fujita (2000) has written, the Dutch had reforged
medieval trade networks by connecting two separate maritime zones, the
East China Sea and the Indian Ocean, through the two-way shipment
of Chinese and Japanese bullion and Bengali silk. O.W. Wolters (1967)
termed this a “single ocean” trade. It may be objected that the Portuguese
traders and even the Arabs before them had accomplished the same prior
to the advent of the VOC, but it is also true that, as a rising bourgeois
proto-capitalist economy, the Dutch shipped cargoes in volumes and
varieties that exceeded those of their Iberian and Asian rivals in the 17th
century. After the Portuguese, no single Asian power commanded the
intra-Asian trade to the same degree as the European traders.
VOC trade routes and trading ports were constantly changing accord-
ing to political circumstance and commercial intelligence. Dutch trading
routes underwent shifts, not only owing to the capture or loss of impor-
tant trading posts, but because the rise of direct trade with Holland
allowed certain centers to bypass Batavia’s chokehold over shipping.
So-called coffee ships, sailing from Mocha in Yemen to the VOC fortified
trading post of Galle in southwest Sri Lanka, were one example; after
1720, a direct route was opened between Holland and Guangzhou (Van
Dyke 2006) and, from 1734, to Bengal.
Through plunder and capture, the Dutch gradually usurped Portuguese
commercial and political control across the long Eurasian maritime
crescent. From 1609, the VOC had settled and fortified Pulicat on the
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 191

eastern seaboard of India, north of present-day Chennai (Madras). With

the capture of Melaka and the ouster of the Iberians from the Malukus,
the Dutch cemented commercial hegemony across their proclaimed
“official trade zone.” In 1646, the VOC gained exclusive trading privi-
leges at Deshima in Japan, at Portugal’s expense. In 1663, the Dutch
seized Cochin on the Malabar coast of India and, as with the Portuguese
before them, intrigued with local authorities. Surat in Gujarat would
also emerge as a site of major Dutch commerce with the Mughal empire.
The Dutch established a trading post on the Hugli River along with a
string of trading posts up the Ganges, connecting with interior India.
In 1634–80, the VOC establishing a trading post at Syriam in Lower
Burma. In the South China Sea zone, only Portuguese Macau held out
against Dutch aggression, resisting three major attempts at invasion in
the early 17th century, confirming, with China’s approval, the city-state’s
privileged gateway role to the Guangzhou and China trade (Gunn 1996).
Having tapped Japanese silver at its source, the Dutch procured Bengal
silks, among other items, for the return voyage (Das Gupta 2000: 67).
Huang Anh Tuan (2007) has described in great detail the Dutch silver-for-
silk trade in the period 1637–1700 with Tonkin, the major silk produc-
tion and export region in East Asia. Persia was another important center
where the Dutch traded (Barendse 2002). From their Southeast Asian
base in Batavia, the Dutch levered their way into Hirado and Nagasaki in
Japan, Tainan on Taiwan, various ports in Burma, Cambodia, Siam, and
Trinh- and Nguyen-controlled Vietnam. But, denied direct access to the
China market and driven out of Taiwan in 1661, the Dutch also sought
to co-opt the China junk trade to their advantage. The Dutch never
achieved true monopoly over the shipment of ceramics, either Chinese or
Japanese. There were always competitors at various ends of the ceram-
ics networks — Muslim, Indian, Chinese, Portuguese, and English. The
intra-Asian trade, as perfected by the VOC, was an exchange of Asian
commodities against other Asian products.

Batavia Under the Dutch

Founded in 1619 as the seat of the governor-general, Batavia served as

the virtual capital of VOC operations in Asia (including the Cape) as well
as the major rendezvous point for Asian shipping. The restored Kasteel
192 History Without Borders

Batavia (now Museum Bahari), with warehouses dating from 1652, in

the historic Pasar Ikan/Sunda Kelapa precinct of modern Jakarta, is an
emblem of Batavia’s role as the VOC’s premium port. Altogether, the
VOC employed some 200,000 staff in its various trading posts; in 1770,
however, there were only some 40 with the rank of senior merchant or
higher. As Gaastra (n.d.; 2003) has clarified, elite-track officials typically
amassed fortunes from both official and unofficial income, amounting to
millions of guilders a year. Many lived in luxury, surrounded by concu-
bines and slaves. Some married into royal families. Recruitment into the
VOC was a closed circle, favoring relatives.
Batavia was the major destination for Japanese exports, whether
entering the European or the intra-Asian trade. The governor-general
had supreme control over the company’s trade in Asia. Orders from
directors at home would ordinarily be transmitted to Batavia and then
passed down to Deshima and elsewhere. The VOC operated at various
levels: each post was headed by a governor (Ceylon, Cape Town), a direc-
teur (Bengal, Surat, Persia), or an Opperhoft, or head of establishment
(Deshima, Kupang on Timor). Despite the rise of direct shipping from Sri
Lanka, Bengal, and Guangzhou, Batavia remained central to VOC ship-
ping operations (Gaastra 2003).
Batavia was the first major port of call for the home voyage via the
southern Indian Ocean route, which included Cape Town. Dutch ships
transiting the Malacca Straits also serviced demand in India and beyond
for ceramics, copper, camphor, lacquerware, various textiles, spices, and
tea. Batavia came close to being a regional core, squeezing trade and
tribute from a wide sweep of the East Asian hemisphere, and lancing, as
it were, the traditional tribute trade carried out by both the Ming and
Qing and even by their Portuguese surrogates. Its architecture and street
plan mirrored this role, as did the colonial social hierarchies it supported.

Dutch Control over the Spiceries

Ambon

Ambon in the Malukus, a major source of coveted cloves, was conquered

by the Portuguese in 1519 and subsequently fortified. In September 1600,
Dutch admiral Steven van de Haghen successfully ousted the Portuguese
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 193

and concluded the first treaty between the VOC and the island’s inhabit-
ants. The conquest of Ambon gave the VOC its first territorial possession
in the archipelago, preceding the foundation of Batavia. Another treaty
was concluded by the admiral in February 1605, with Christian and
Muslim villages. But the Dutch were unable to enforce the terms of the
treaty, namely the maintenance of a fortress and the right of monopoly
over local trade in spices.
Dutch historian Vlekke (1965: 115) observed that the right of monop-
oly was not written into subsequent treaties. In any case, these first con-
tracts were of great importance, since “they laid the basis for the future
political development of the whole archipelago.” A treaty struck between
Admiral Pierre Willem Verhoeven and the “orangkaya and lords” of the
islands on August 10, 1609 was equally categorical, offering protection
from the Portuguese and other enemies in return for an obligation on the
part of all inhabitants to deliver up all their fruits (spices) to the Dutch
Fort Nassau on the island of Neira (Verhoeven 1646: 213).
Ambon was described by Verhoeven on March 19, 1627: “The fort
was located close to the shore enabling ships to berth almost alongside.”
It was constructed of stones in turn surrounded by a ditch and forti-
fied with four battalions. At some distance stood a “good” arsenal in its
own tiled building. Additionally, there was a large building housing a
governor, commissioner and other offices. Underneath these buildings
were located magasins or store lodges containing various foodstuffs such
as rice, meat, lard, oil, vinegar, and also cloves, only a small amount of
which was harvested on the island, the bulk being brought over from two
nearby islands, Ourion and Larique. The monsoon harvest, as observed,
amounted to 70 bars of cloves with 250–300 bars expected the following
season. While cloves occurred naturally on the islands, some five years
earlier quantities had been planted, yielding fruit in four or five months.
The fort boasted a boutique where “anybody, inhabitants of the island,
foreigners, bourgeois or domestics of the Company can go and buy what
they need.” There were 3,060 people then living on the island, of whom
1,230 were “black subjects” living near the fort. Altogether, 1,620 people
on the island were deemed capable of bearing arms (Verhoeven 1646:
27).
In 1619, following an Anglo-Dutch agreement, the English East
India Company was sanctioned to set up trading posts in the Malukus,
194 History Without Borders

provided it shared the costs of the Dutch garrisons. Finding little profit
in this arrangement, in January 1623, the English decided to withdraw
from the island, but not before they had suffered what is called the
“Amboina massacre.” This is a reference to the execution by the Dutch
of the chief English merchant at Ambon, along with ten of his country-
men and a number of Japanese, allegedly part of an English conspiracy
to kill the Dutch. Entering the English consciousness, even its literature
(John Dryden), this act of perceived Dutch perfidy would not be quickly
forgotten by the English.

Banda

Lying southeast of Ambon, the island of Banda, as described by

Roggewain, was ruled by a Dutch governor from his seat at Neira.
Customarily an eminent merchant, he had several other neighboring
small islands under his jurisdiction. The government council was modeled
along that of Ambon. The island was so well fortified that it was deemed
“impregnable,” always guarded by a large squadron of small vessels.
The garrison was described as “numerous but in much worse condition
than any other in the Company’s service which arises from want of vict-
uals, the island being of a barren, sandy soil, producing very little food
of any sort ... the reason that the soldiers eat cats, dogs, and any other
animal that comes to hand.” The natives, as described by the Dutch, were
a “cruelly perfidious and intractable people,” which “the Company was
forced to root out for their own security” in creating a Dutch colony.
But, “being composed entirely of a rascally good-for-nothing people,” in
“a very short time, they are carried off by the dry-gripes, or twisting of
the guts which is the endemic distemper of this country.” Roggewain also
described “a sort of free burgesse, who are called Perkiniers,” charged
with the curing of nutmegs, which they supplied to the company in what-
ever quantities they thought proper and for which they received “a very
moderate gratification, and yet live much at their ease.” But crisis aside,
“the important commerce in nutmegs, which grow there in such prodi-
gious quantities [enables] the Dutch to supply all the market of Europe”
(Harris 1745: 291).
In December 1616, the English Company set up on the tiny island
of Pulau Run, in the Banda group. Though gaining access to Run’s
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 195

nutmeg plantations, the beleaguered English group came under almost

immediate Dutch surveillance and attack. In 1621, the Dutch overran
the English defenses, thus effectively canceling the short-lived Anglo-
Dutch agreement of 1619. But if the English prisoners were subject to
various cruelties, the Bandanese were the victims of what today might be
described as genocide. Undoubtedly, the debacle in Run and the treach-
ery of the Dutch at Ambon drove the English Company out of the clove
and nutmeg trade at the source, but it also saw a renewed focus by the
English on the pepper trade at Banten from their new headquarters at
Batavia, and later on the west coast of Sumatra (Keay 1991: 47–48, 246).

Makassar from 1669

Working from VOC archives, Knapp and Sutherland (2004) draw a por-
trait of a mostly thriving Makassan marketplace, under decisive Dutch
control from 1669. Harbormaster registers reveal that, following a dif-
ficult transition period, Makassar thrived on exports, not only to local
markets including Batavia, but also to China in the trade in sea cucumber
or trepang, collected by Makassan and Buginese seafarers over a wide
maritime zone that included even northern Australia.
The VOC was ruthless in driving out European competitors, delim-
iting the agency of local entrepreneurs, and tightening its monopoly
over the spice trade. Under the Treaty of Bongaya (1669), Portuguese,
English, and other European traders were expelled and forbidden to
trade at Makassar. The VOC was granted a monopoly over imports of
Indian cloth and Chinese wares. All subjects of Makassar were obliged to
obtain VOC sailing passes, including even the smallest vessels. Owing to
ongoing wars in Bima on Sumbawa, voyages to the Lesser Sunda Islands
were initially forbidden. More damaging for Makassan interests was the
prohibition on voyages to China and, especially, the Malukus and the
Philippines. The Dutch did not seek to eliminate the interisland trade
entirely, especially where they profited and where it did not impinge on
their monopoly over the spice trade (Knaap and Sutherland 2004: 20).
A range of products was traded in Makassar — including agar agar,
bird’s nest, wax, and rattan — but the trade in trepang, a prized item in
southern Chinese cuisine, is illustrative of Makassar’s commercial revival.
The trepang trade from Southeast Asia to China was still in its infancy in
196 History Without Borders

the early 1700s. In the 1720s, only an average 3.5 cargoes arrived annu-
ally at Makassar; almost all outbound cargoes were Batavia-bound, with
Chinese vessels taking a bare one-third of the volume. By the 1760s, the
total number of cargoes arriving at Makassar had risen to 83, though
fluctuating over the decades. Through the century, the Chinese grip on
the trade became stronger, at the expense of the VOC and indigenous
agents. By the 1780s, Chinese vessels were taking over 90 percent of the
cargoes. With junks sailing direct from Xiamen in the 1770s, Batavia’s
share of the market began to decline; by the 1780s, Xiamen’s share rose
to 85 percent. Xiamen junks supplied the Makassan marketplace with
ceramics, textiles, and possibly iron, also entering regional trade net-
works from Banda to Sumbawa. Makassar not only imported a range
of cottons from India and China but also locally made cloth (Knapp and
Sutherland 2004: 100–105).
The Makassans, including Buginese and other ethnic groups, were
capable of considerable agency outside of Dutch control. In 1611,
having recently converted to Islam, Makassar conquered its Buginese
rivals. Ranging wide over the archipelago in an almost explosive burst
of activity, Buginese seafarers carved out colonies around the Sulawesi
littoral, on Lombok, Sumbawa (Bima), Flores, and Ceram; they entered
into dynastic intrigues (Johor); and expanded their trade diaspora across
an even greater crescent, reaching the Malacca Straits and the coast
of Kalimantan (Andaya 1995). In 1640, the sultan of Tolo dispatched
a fleet of 100 prahu layar and 15,000 men to sack the Portuguese set-
tlement of Larantuka in eastern Flores. The Dutch may not have dis-
approved, but the Makassan fleet also advanced on Timor, mounting a
short-lived attempt at Islamic conversion on the largely animist island
(Gunn 1999: 75–76). As described by Lieberman (2009: 869), this was
the largest tributary domain in the history of the eastern archipelago.
Alongside the Arabs and Sumatran Minangkabau, the Buginese com-
prised the most significant non-Chinese, diasporic trading community of
the archipelago. Some time in the early 1700s, the Makassans also initi-
ated annual trepang voyages to northern Australia, as Chinese demand
began to increase (Plate 19).
Unquestionably, Makassar under VOC control entered a new phase in
its commercial history, as instanced by the trepang trade linking up the
northern coast of Australia with markets in distant China. Our view of a
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 197

flourishing Makassar comes not only because the documentation on this

port is better than on many others, but because of the port’s locational
aspects, the agency of its various ethnic groups, a dynamic indigenous
industry (including in textiles), and consumption-driven demand. Such a
view of post-contact Makassar appears to challenge Reid’s “age of com-
merce” argument, that, following the trade-based prosperity of the 16th
and 17th centuries, early modern Southeast Asian maritime kingdoms
faded away or were caught in a pincer between European and Chinese
commercial rivals (Knapp and Sutherland 2004).

Melaka Under the Dutch (1641–1824)

Melaka had been demographically transformed under the long Portuguese

rule. Especially notable was the emergence of a Catholic, Portuguese-
speaking Eurasian community. After a series of naval skirmishes and
sieges, Dutch sea power eventually prevailed in wresting control of the
port city, in 1641. Except for the Napoleonic interlude of 1794–1818
when the British took control, the VOC administered Melaka until 1824,
when the British again usurped the Dutch.
Melaka had already lost much of its importance when captured from
the Portuguese in 1641. Nevertheless, as the surviving VOC Stadthuys
building in the modern city testifies, Melaka under the Dutch experienced
a revival, especially as a depot where cargoes were sorted between those
for Indian markets and those for Europe. Mid-18th-century Melaka,
according to a contemporary British source, “still supports its reputation,
and its commerce is very considerable” (Beawes 1772: 787). Melaka was
also seamlessly connected into the VOC trading network, serving as an
important transshipment point for cargoes arriving from Japan, Taiwan,
and China, alongside the traditional archipelagic trade.
As the Malaysian scholar Nordin Hussin (2007: 197–98) notes,
from 1641 until 1824, Melaka hosted 32 Dutch governors, alongside
their respective entourages of company officials and senior merchants.
In their administration of the town, the Dutch upheld the ward system
as the most important unit in VOC colonial administration. The Dutch
initially created four wards, each headed by a superintendent. These
were Tengkera (from the Portuguese tranqueira) in the north, Bandar
Hilir to the south, and Bungaraya and Bukit Cina on the eastern side of
198 History Without Borders

the historic Portuguese fort. The fort itself, though serving as residence
for VOC officials and privileged Burghers (Dutch Eurasians), remained
outside the ward system. By the 1770s, the number of wards had risen
to seven, including Herenstraat and Jonkerstraat, with their Burgher,
European, and rich Asian populations, as well as wards for Malays and
Moors.
Nordin (2007) has also noted Dutch suspicion toward the Catholic
community, on the basis of both their loyalty and their religion. Unlike
the Baba Chinese and the Muslim Jawi Pekan communities, who were
highly indigenized, the Catholic Eurasians remained apart. At the top
of the political and social hierarchy stood the Dutch official caste. The
British author Beawes (1772: 787) records the presence of 200–300
Dutch families in Melaka. Generally, as with the Portuguese before them,
the Dutch looked to the Chinese as indispensable partners in trade.
Attitudes toward the Indian community were less positive, though their
role in regional trade was acknowledged. Certain Indian merchants com-
manded fleets of ships trading between India and China. Malays tended
to traditional occupations and their niche in agriculture was also indis-
pensable for the survival of the colony. Certain Jawi Pekan, or indigenized
Muslim Indians who identified with the Malay community, were highly
educated, while others gained esteem in colonial society as successful
traders. One of the more celebrated was Munshi Abdullah, known as
the father of Malay literature. Under Portuguese rule, the Muslim com-
munity of Melaka included Javanese, Bugis, Minangkabau, and many
other ethnic and crossover groups. As Nordin (2007: 289) comments,
while cultural separateness was maintained in Melaka under the Dutch,
as the Dutch Reformed Church sought to hold sway over the Christian
communities, cultural barriers were continuously being challenged, with
intermarriages and other relationships.
The period between 1780 and 1830 was one of urban growth in
Melaka; its population reached between 11,500 to 14,500 people. By the
19th century, wealthy Chinese tended to displace the Burgher households;
new waves of Chinese immigration eroded the distinction between Baba
Chinese and newcomer. With the end of VOC rule, Melaka had become a
typically Asian town. Eventually, with the foundation of Penang in 1786
by English East India Company merchants, Melaka began to lose out
to its new rival at the northern end of the Straits. And after its British
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 199

founding in 1819, Singapore would also siphon off trade and traders
from the ancient port (Nordin 2007).

VOC at the Cosmopolitan Court of Ayutthaya

European maps and images of Ayutthaya — generally taking an aerial

view of the kingdom from the south — reveal a walled city forming a
natural island out of an oxbow of the Chao Phraya River. An artificial
canal on the eastern side provided a natural defense. The 1686 map of
French missionary Jean de Courtaulin shows that Ayutthaya hosted both
Portuguese and French churches outside its walls, attending to a congre-
gation of some 2,000 Catholics. Muslim (Moorish), Malay, Pegu (Mons),
Chinese, Japanese, French, Portuguese, and Dutch quarters are all indi-
cated, alongside ethnic villages. Canals intersected by streets define dis-
crete quarters, including the royal palace, pagodas, and a naval arsenal.
Tributaries and waterways supported rich agricultural production.
Courtaulin’s map was one of the first to acknowledge the large number
of temples to the north and east of the city. The court was fixed in its
notions of kingship, steeply hierarchical and feudal in relation with sub-
jects, unforgiving to traditional enemies — yet remarkably open to the
world.
The first European traders to make direct contact with Ayutthaya
were the Portuguese, arriving soon after the conquest of Melaka in 1511.
Within five years, they had gained trading privileges. The Dutch gained
similar privileges in 1592 from King Naresuan (r. 1590–1605), who had
reconsolidated the kingdom in the wake of the Burmese invasion and
wars of the 1590s. But it was Ekathotsarot (r. 1605–10) and his succes-
sor, Songtham (r. 1610–28), who first invited foreign traders to estab-
lish a presence in Ayutthaya, opening up a new chapter in that country’s
history (Theeravit 1988: 21). All trade in Siam was mediated by the all-
important phrakhlang or first minister. As in other Asian courts, the prac-
tice of plying the court with expensive or exotic gifts obtained.
Ayutthaya’s favorable geographic location, connected by the Chao
Phraya River to the transoceanic trade via the Gulf of Siam, was an
important factor in its growth. Royal monopolies over trade were well
established; the court had tribute trading relations from Ming China on.
Resident Chinese merchants at the court served the long-distance trade in
200 History Without Borders

locally constructed Chinese junks (some actually flying Portuguese flags).

For instance, the Chinese crews manning royal junks on the trading
route to Nagasaki lodged in a special quarter of the local Chinatown.
Japanese also lodged in a special quarter, from the late 16th to the mid-
17th century.
But it was the VOC that, from 1608 to 1767, retained a virtually
uninterrupted presence. Naresuan had perceived as threatening the
Portuguese maritime power and chokehold over even overland trade to
Tenasserim. The first two Dutch diplomats to Siam, Cornelius Specx and
Lambert Jacobsz, offered to facilitate a visit by Naresuan’s envoys to the
United Provinces, an offer that was eventually taken up by Ekathotsarot.
To appease the Portuguese, the king also dispatched a mission to Goa.
Eventually, the ambassadors from Siam joined a VOC ship under the
command of Admiral Matelief, arriving in the Hague in 1609. But,
uncomfortable with the dominant VOC trading position at Ayutthaya,
the court renewed its trading concessions for Portugal in 1636.
Even so, the VOC was alone among the European companies in con-
tinuing at Ayutthaya, apparently owing to their neutral stance in the
1668 conflict. From King Phetracha (r. 1688–1703), the VOC gained val-
uable trading privileges in tin at Ligor. King Thai Sa (r. 1709–33) ratified
existing treaties, though by his reign it was clear that the VOC could no
longer maintain its monopoly privileges — or its profits — in the face of
competition from private Chinese traders.
In 1750, the Burmese attacked Ayutthaya and plundered the VOC
trading post; leaving Bang, the Dutch factor, dead in the chaos. In August
1766, Bangkok fell to the attackers. This time, the VOC director aban-
doned the post, leaving a local in charge. The following February, Siam’s
capital was again attacked and razed to the ground. The VOC later
resisted a call by King Taksin, the Teochiu Chinese founder of Thonburi,
to reopen a post in Bangkok. By 1788, the VOC was dissolved (Brozius
2009).

The Dutch and English in Japan

Although the Portuguese pioneered the silk-for-silver trade at Nagasaki

from 1570, in 1646 the Dutch were confined to the newly constructed
artificial island of Deshima in Nagasaki harbor, following their obligatory
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 201

relocation from Hirado. The English merchants had maintained a trading

post on Hirado from 1515 before leaving in 1623. With the Portuguese
expelled from Nagasaki, the Dutch, alone among the Europeans, were
permitted to conduct trade in Japan down to 1853, when Commodore
Perry’s famous black ships forced the Bakufu government to open
its doors to foreign trade. As traders on sufferance, and hostage to a
system of local payoffs and bribes, the Dutch were obliged to perform
an onerous and costly annual journey to the Shogun court in Edo. The
Nagasaki Trade System is better documented than many others, owing
to the longevity of Dutch trade and to the talents of certain outstand-
ing individuals in VOC employ, namely Caron, Thunberg, Kaempfer,
and Siebold, who devoted large parts of their lives to the study of Japan
(Plutschow 1983; Gunn 1999; Blussé 2008) (Plate 14).
What trade did the Dutch undertake at Nagasaki? From the dagregis-
ters, or VOC diaries, Dutch imports into Japan were comprised of both
bulk and piece goods. Trade in bulk tended to be dominated by sugar
(powder and candy), produced in Java and Taiwan, along with sappan-
wood, deerskins, pepper, nutmeg, cloves, sandalwood, and other tropical
products from VOC trading posts in India, Siam, Vietnam, and the East
Indies. The piece goods trade was dominated by such traditional imports
as silk from China, Vietnam, and India, but also included some European
cloths, responding to new tastes in Japan. The Dutch introduced to
Japan a range of European manufactures such as glass, clocks, and other
devices. Space restricts a discussion of the technology transfer to Japan,
known as rangaku, or Dutch learning. The Dutch at Nagasaki success-
fully tapped Japan’s silver and copper exports, feeding into a lucrative
trade with Southeast Asia. Lacquerwork and ceramics were important
complementary cargoes. The VOC at Nagasaki worked in competition,
and sometimes in collaboration, with Chinese merchant communities
engaged in the junk trade.

The Dutch and English Interactions with Trinh

Vietnam

European merchants and missionaries first began to arrive in Vietnam at

the time of the Trinh-Nguyen wars that beset, respectively, the north and
center-south of the country. The Portuguese had been in the region for
202 History Without Borders

one century and had developed a close relationship with the Nguyen in
trade and military technology. In the 1630s, the VOC began to establish
a trade relationship with Trinh Vietnam (Tonkin), which would see them
taking sides against the Portuguese and the Nguyen. In the 1640s, the
Dutch allowed some of their ships to be used in naval operations against
the Nguyen.
Although the Dutch had preceded the English in establishing a trading
base in Thang Long (Hanoi), the English followed up in 1671 with
the ship Zeni, dispatched via Banten. Ready to withdraw owing to an
uncertain reception, the English were commanded to stay by the king.
As Morse (1926) summarizes, a trading post was duly established, but
“struggled along for twenty-five years under a system of gifts, perquisites
and exactions; unable to pay in cash; unable even to buy in cash … but
receiving much of their export ladings in the shape of ‘gifts’ from the
King and prince.”
The Dutch were treated no better. Trinh Vietnam was then the only
source of supply for Chinese silks and was thus the prime source of silks
for the English market, notwithstanding the difficulties. In 1697, the
English abandoned their base. Three years later, the Dutch also with-
drew. The roving English sea captain Alexander Hamilton (1930: 114)
asserts that a private English trade was kept up with the Trinh capital
until 1722, when the trade was ruined forever by an “act of violence,”
namely, the abduction of a Vietnamese woman on an English ship.
Samuel Baron was the Vietnam-born son of VOC employee Hendrik
Baron. Following a five-year sojourn and education in England, the
younger Baron arrived back in his homeland in the 1670s, involving
himself with English Company affairs. By this juncture, the English and
Dutch were at war. William Gyfford, to whom Baron dedicated his writ-
ings, was then in charge of the English factory at Hanoi. Nevertheless,
during his four years of tenure, commerce in the Trinh capital waned,
owing to Dutch hostility, the avarice of local officials, and lack of a
market for English produce. Baron’s account, published in the Churchill
collection some 60 years after being written, offers, in the words of Draw
and Taylor (2006: 22), an informed account of Vietnamese history, edu-
cation, Trinh family politics, provincial and central government, the legal
system, public ceremonies, and everyday life — all the more valuable in
view of the notoriously weak Vietnamese sources for this period.
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 203

Zeelandia on Taiwan (1624–61)

Dutch trade with Japan became more structured when, in 1624, the VOC
settled on Taiwan, at least until their ouster in 1661. Having failed to
open direct trading relations with China, the VOC base on Taiwan made
relations with Fujian traders much easier. After 1634, it was common
practice to commission kraak porcelain to fit European tastes.
Through 1573–1620, the island dubbed Formosa by the Portuguese
and Spanish entered Ming writings as Taiwan, while the Dutch called
their settlement Tayouan (modern Tainan) — where, until the Dutch
arrival, Japanese and Chinese ships had rendezvoused in trade. The first
Dutch voyage to reach the Pescadores (Penghu) was that of Admiral
Wybrand van Warwick, who sailed from Patani in June 1604. A Dutch
fleet under Cornelis Matelief returned in 1607. The Dutch purpose was
to blockade the Chinese junk trade from Manila, an act which brought
them into violent collisions with the mandarins of Xiamen.
The choice of Anping, on the low-lying western coast of the island,
as Dutch headquarters came only in the wake of an ineffectual attempt
to settle on the Pescadores. The Dutch claimed that Taiwan had been
granted to the VOC by the emperor of China in lieu of their settlement
and rough fortification on the Pescadores. But even Java-based governor-
general Jan Pieterszoon Coen was obliged to acknowledge that Japanese
settlers had preceded them years before. According to Campbell (1903:
8), the Dutch action was more like a conquest than a concession.
Tayouan is described as a sandbank one mile long off the southwest
coast, producing only wild pineapples and some native vegetation. In a
short time, the Dutch settlement, fortified as Zeelandia, attracted 10,000
Chinese and aborigines. The numbers rose as refugees, traders in rice
and sugar, and other elements arrived to take advantage of Dutch secu-
rity and trade. Within five years, according to the statistics of the third
Dutch governor of Taiwan, Pieter Nuyts, the VOC had dispatched five
cargoes of silk to Japan and two to Java, totaling over one million florins.
Balanced against expenditure, “This gives for each of the Indies not less
than 100 percent profit” (Campbell 1903: 51).
According to Volker (1971: 34–64), the invoices of ships trading from
Taiwan to Batavia reveals that they held 100,000 to 250,000 pieces of
ceramics per shipment. In a short time, the Taiwan factory was servicing
204 History Without Borders

Hirado, Siam, and Batavia in the familiar intra-Asian trade. The trading
profile from Taiwan began to change, however, as Chinese settlers entered
this expanding frontier. Notably, sugar, produced on Chinese-run planta-
tions, and deerskins began to enter the trade with Japan.
The Dutch were concerned to eliminate trade rivals. Dutch attacks on
Fort Santiago in Tamsui started in 1641; they climaxed with a siege start-
ing in August the following year. Magnanimously, in their first victory
over the Spanish in the Pacific region, the Dutch spared the lives of the
defenders, but looted up to one million silver dollars from the fort. Dutch
Calvinist ministers moved in where Catholic missionaries had oper-
ated. The Dutch also faced considerable shipping losses at the hands of
Chinese “pirates.” Pieter Nuyts wrote to the VOC agent in Hirado in
June 1628, “No vessel can show itself on the coast of China, or Iquan
[the pirate-chief] has it in his power” (Campbell 1903: 38–39).
Japanese claims were harder to parry, especially as Japan continued
to ignore Dutch claims to overlordship. In 1626, Japan complained to
the Dutch embassy in Edo. In the “Nuyts affair” of 1628, 470 Japanese,
arriving in a heavily armed fleet of junks (six fieldpieces mounted on
deck, with nine below as ballast) led by a Captain Jaffioen, stormed the
Dutch fortress and held Nuyts and others hostage in exchange for an
indemnity for lost trade advantages. The issue was further complicated
by the trading claims of the Japanese merchants, Suetsugu Heizo and
Hamada Yahei. Nuyts was put in prison in Hirado, where he languished
for four years. To settle this affair, which also saw trade suspended at
Hirado, the Dutch were obliged to send a special envoy to Edo in 1634–
36, namely Hendrik Hagenaar (Renneville 1702–06: 309–429; Campbell
1903: 39; Murdoch 1903, 2: 639).
Eventually, in 1661, the Dutch fort fell to the pro-Ming forces of
Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) after a nine-month siege that denied to the
Dutch use of the island as a conduit linking the China and Japan trade
(Campbell 1903: 457; Chiu Hsin-hui 2007). Until conquered by the Qing
in 1683, the Zheng family dominated the coastal sea routes, sending junk
fleets to both Nagasaki and Manila.
In 1670, Koxinga’s son Zheng Jing (Cheng Ching) invited the English
Company at Banten to open trading relations. The directors in London
embraced the proposal. The English set up in the former town hall of Fort
Zeelandia, selling pepper and a small quantity of English broadcloth,
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 205

along with gunpowder, lead, iron, and muskets in support of the Zheng
war effort. The Zheng held Xiamen between 1674 and 1680, so the
English entered into trade with a mainland port (though not with the
imperial administration) for the first time, taking out porcelain and the
new commodity of tea. Even after the Qing conquest and takeover of
Taiwan, the English Company was granted renewed access to Xiamen in
1684–85, then firmly in Qing hands. With the Qing relaxation on con-
trols of overseas trade, English ships now sailed direct from India to such
ports as Guangzhou, Zhoushan (Chusan), and Xiamen. The Hanoi post
became redundant and was closed in 1697 (Morse 1926: 46; Farrington
2002: 80–97).

VOC in the Bay of Bengal

The Dutch did not neglect to secure trading posts on the Coromandel
coast of India, especially with a view to capturing a share of the textile
trade across the Bay of Bengal, with the Burmese market seen as the
prize. The main center of VOC activities on the Coromandel coast
was Pulicat, founded in 1609. Other 17th-century VOC settlements
along the Coromandel coast included Bimlipatam (Bheemunipatnam),
Jagannathapuram, Masulipatnam (Machilipatnam), and Nagapatnam.
As Wil O. Dijk (2006: 203) has highlighted, it was the opportunity pro-
vided by access to Indian textile trade at the source that provided the
impetus to engage in the Bay of Bengal trade. Following the establish-
ment of Pulicat, the Dutch entered into major competition with Asian
merchants for markets, setting up four trading posts in coastal Burma, at
a time when the political-religious capital was transferred from Pegu to
Ava in Upper Burma. The VOC conveyed Indian textiles and yarn from
the Coromandel and Bengal factories to Burma, exchanged against local
commodities. From 1650, the VOC began procuring copper coins enter-
ing Burma at the Yunnan border. Subsequently, Chinese coins sourced via
Burma were introduced as legal tender in Batavia and even Sri Lanka,
suggesting an even larger East Asian copper currency domain than con-
ventionally acknowledged. During 1620–60, Pulicat emerged as the
major Dutch center in eastern Asia for the production and distribution of
gunpowder, not only for VOC needs, but also entering the Bay of Bengal
trade wherever it was in demand (Dijk 2006: 44).
206 History Without Borders

Progressively, to 1795, all Dutch possessions on the two coasts of India

fell into the hands of the English East India Company. Earlier, in 1761,
following the Battle of Plessey (1757), which virtually kicked off English
domination of the subcontinent, the French outpost of Pondicherry had
also been occupied by the English. VOC control on Sri Lanka was also
racked by revolt (1761–65). Eventually, under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty
of 1814, Cochin was ceded to the English in return for tin-rich Bangka
Island off the east coast of Sumatra. Although Pulicat was repeatedly
contested, the English finally took over formal occupation from the
Dutch in 1825.

The English East India Company Focus on China

As Keay (1991: 52–53) has explained, aside from such motives as

expected profits from the spice trade, one reason for the establishment of
the English Company was the need to find markets for England’s staple
export of woolen cloth. Even though the Company was determinately
import-oriented, national expectations about woolen exports obliged
the directors to seek early diversification. In a 1606 report drafted by
Captain John Saris from Banten, the islands of Japan were singled out as
the only possible market for English broadcloth, especially as prospects
for sales were bleak in tropical latitudes.
In fact, Saris cannot have read the letter penned by marooned
Englishman Will Adams of January 12, 1613 from Hirado to his friend
Augustin Spalding of the English Company, in which he stated, “I fear
that there will be no profit which is principal for the commodities of our
country are here too cheap, that is cloth.” Matters would be otherwise,
he continued, “if the English merchants could access the Chinese trade,
then shall our country make such great profit here, and your worshipful
Indian Company of London shall not have to send money out of England
for in Japan there is gold and silver in abundance, for with the traffic
here they shall have their need” (East India Company 1896: 209–10).
Amazingly, the adventurous English in Hirado entered the junk trade
with Southeast Asia on their own terms. This they did by buying or renting
Chinese junks, which they (Will Adams among them) sailed to such loca-
tions as Siam, Cambodia, Nguyen-controlled Quang Nam, and, in a final
voyage of 1619, Trinh Vietnam. Other high-risk voyages were aborted in
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 207

the Ryukyus. No question vexed the English in Hirado as much as the

need to tap into the China trade. According to Peter Auber (1834: 392),
Company secretary and historian, in August 1613 the Company and its
factors sought to take advantage of Hirado’s favorable location to enter
this trade, especially by engaging the services of the China captain and
leading Chinese merchants in Nagasaki. Efforts continued, in vain, right
up until the factory was withdrawn from Hirado.
Following setbacks in the Spice Islands and failure in Japan and on
Taiwan, the Company virtually withdrew to India, just as the nature of
trade with China began to change. While the collection of pepper, spices,
and tin continued in the islands, the English began to enter the opium-
against-tea trade with China. Banten re-emerged as a supply station for
the China trade, as foreign shipping began to trade directly at Guangzhou.
From their base in Madras, British naval expeditions began a long search
for strategic bases to protect their shipping lines to China against rivals,
“pirates,” and local rulers, who still dominated the strategic straits and
waterways. The cession of Penang to the British by the sultan of Kedah in
1794 was the first stage. As alluded to, the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15)
saw the English Company occupying Dutch possessions in the archipel-
ago, Melaka included. Over Dutch protest, Singapore was occupied by
the British in 1819. Eventually, English and Dutch spheres of influence
in the archipelago were settled under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824,
which also involved certain exchanges of territory on the Malabar coast.
The Malay world would never be the same again, especially as the Malay
and Borneo states would also be drawn into the British imperium.

The European Companies and the Guangzhou (Canton)

Trade

Only companies with deep financial resources could compete on and

survive the risks entailed in extending long-distance shipping lines
from Europe to China. In a short time, the Danish, Swedish, Flemish,
Germans, and Americans joined the Dutch and English companies in the
Asian trade. From around 1685–1700, Guangzhou (Canton) became the
focus of this trade.
From early Ming times, Guangzhou had already become the main
external trade counter on the coast of China, alongside ports in Fujian
208 History Without Borders

and Zhejiang. In choosing Macau at the southwestern extreme of the

Pearl River delta, the Portuguese were obviously aware of the impor-
tance of Guangzhou. In the early days of the new commerce, initial
negotiations with the Guangzhou authorities were conducted in Macau
roads, but the authorities soon came to realize that the trade was easier
to control from the Chinese city, leading to the lease of Macau Peninsula
to the Portuguese Crown as the single sanctioned trading base for for-
eigners on the coast of China (Chang 1934; Fok 1978; Gunn 1996).
As Van Dyke (2005) explains, from small beginnings, the Guangzhou
trade grew steadily each decade. From 1699 to 1714, the French and
English companies sent one or two ships each year. Armenian and
Muslim traders and other private (English) traders were already active.
From 1717, the first Ostend General India Company (of Austria) arrived
in Guangzhou. The VOC arrived in 1729, the first royal chartered Danish
Asiatic Company ship in 1731 and, in 1732, the first Swedish East India
Company ship arrived in Whampoa. From an early period, American
brigs joined this trade as private traders. Portuguese (and Manila-based
Spanish merchants) were, of course, still visiting Guangzhou each year
to procure their cargoes. Characteristically, Danish ships anchored at
Dane’s Island, French ships at French Island, and none but the official
class were permitted to lodge in Guangzhou. During the off season, all
foreigners were obliged to sojourn in Macau.
Typically, European ships on the China trade were the largest vessels,
they carried the richest cargoes, and plied the longest voyages. For the
European companies, the main aim was to buy tea, which had become
a fashion, even a habit, in Europe. Even so, within Europe, England was
the principal market, along with the British North American colonies, at
least until the Boston Tea Party of 1735. Profits from the tea trade with
China — the sole source of fermented tea leaves, at least until the British
established tea plantations in India and Sri Lanka — were obviously
substantial. As an example, between 1730 and 1833, the Danish Asiatic
Company sent 130 ships to China, of which five were lost. On average,
the voyage out took 216 days and the return, 192 days. Tea was not the
only commodity carried on these ships; much of the 700-ton capacity
was taken up by much coveted Chinese porcelain.
Profits from the opium trade were lucrative. All the companies
indulged in the opium trade with other Asian countries but not with
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch and English Trading Companies 209

China, as the risks of losing the tea trade were too great for the European
companies to bear. Rather, it was the private traders arriving from Bengal
who profited from the illicit trade in opium with China. Opium sales
brought quick returns paid in silver, necessary for the purchase of tea.
Some senior officials in Macau (and Bengal) were directly involved in the
opium trade. By the 1770s, opium was a regular imported commodity
at Macau. The English Company forbade its ships to carry the drug, but
encouraged private traders to purchase it from the Company in India and
smuggle it into China (Van Dyke 2005: 125). From 1773, the English
Company was granted permission to operate a grand house in Macau,
to which the merchants were obliged to retire during the off season, thus
adding a new dimension to Macau society, pending the foundation of the
British colony of Hong Kong in 1841.
By the 1830s, the East India companies ceased their operations in
Guangzhou, and private traders emerged as the dominant voice. By this
stage, the advent of the steamship had overwhelmed the traditional bar-
riers confronting would-be traders on the Pearl River; in the face of the
new technology, the Guangzhou Trade System administratively collapsed.
As stated in the introduction, with the prosecution of the “opium wars,”
the age of “unequal treaties” was about to dawn. The British colony
of Hong Kong assumed a critical new commercial importance on the
Guangdong coast, and at the expense of Macau and even Guangzhou.

Conclusion

As the Dutch and English followed the Portuguese and Spanish tradi-
tion of establishing fortified outposts and trading stations, they sought
to eliminate their European rivals while ingratiating themselves to their
Asian hosts, at least where they were outnumbered or outgunned, as
in the powerful bureaucratic empires of China and Japan, and also in
Vietnam and Siam. Such places as Melaka, Hirado, Nagasaki, Batavia,
Galle, and Zeelandia served as key nodes in a trade network linking
Southeast Asia not only with India, China, and Japan but with the world.
Many of these outposts would emerge as embryonic colonies; in the case
of Batavia (for the Dutch), and Madras, Penang, and Singapore (for the
British), these colonies became seats of empire, more or less conform-
ing to Weber’s rational-legal type of organization. Yet in others — Goa,
210 History Without Borders

Macau, and Nagasaki — the European presence remained as enclaves in

powerful Asian bureaucratic states where, in Weberian terms, traditional
or charismatic forms of government remained stubbornly embedded.
During the era of the “first globalization,” these European outposts,
with their mixed Asian-European elements, became the sites of intense
cultural exchange. While, typically, Christian missionaries accompanied
the European traders, they also served as knowledge brokers, as in trans-
mitting the achievements of European science and technology and, in the
reverse direction, revealing Asia to Europe through their copious writ-
ings and publications. Such revelations included not only knowledge of
Eastern religions and forms of government, but also hitherto unknown
foodstuffs, botanical species, and other exotica. And as the Americas
were brought into the new global trading regime, so Europe introduced
to Asia the fruits of the Columbian exchange, ranging from new dietary
supplements to drugs, with the most enduring being, undoubtedly,
tobacco. While some outposts supported discrete ethnic enclaves, almost
all were touched by the new creolized languages and populations that
emerged from the mingling of peoples and ideas.