Page 90 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

trading patterns, indian ocean 1867

people’s daily lives in Indian Ocean societies changed Indigenous shipping was essential to local and
minimally, if at all.The entrance of European traders into regional trade, and new transoceanic trading networks,
the region did not cause a breakdown of the complex controlled by European ships, were partly crewed by
webs of trading networks. Trade with China through sailors from all over the Indian Ocean. But indigenous
these networks was for centuries more significant than shipping was confined to the Indian Ocean networks. No
trade with Europe. African, Middle Eastern, or Asian vessels rounded the
western edge of the Indian to trade directly with West
The Growth of Africa or Europe.
European Influence By the end of the eighteenth century, the scope and
The era of the European chartered companies, which scale of Indian Ocean trade had changed dramatically.
were founded in the seventeenth century, did alter the The Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope at the
scope of trading networks by bringing Indian Ocean poli- southern tip of Africa made it easier for European ship-
ties into direct maritime contact with Europe and the ping to access the Indian Ocean from the mid-sixteenth
Atlantic world. Europeans voyagers had initially come by century onwards. The Cape became part of an entirely
sea to the Indian Ocean as a consequence of their search new southwestern Indian Ocean regional trading net-
for a way to circumvent overland trade routes to the work in which one of the major commodities was slaves.
fabled Spice Islands. Once they encountered the rich and
varied maritime trade of the Indian Ocean, however, they Plantations and the Expansion
inserted themselves, often through force, into all the of Global Capitalism
major networks in the region. Indigenous trade and ship- Much of the East African coast and the islands of Pemba
ping did not disappear but was disrupted with the rapid and Zanzibar came under the rule of the Omani maritime
expansion of commercial capitalism in the region. empire around the beginning of the nineteenth century,
Although the spices provided the initial impetus for creating a western Indian Ocean trading network from
trade, the major commodities that stimulated this com- East Africa to the Middle East and South Asia largely
mercial revolution were cotton and textiles from India. based on ivory, cloves from clove plantations, and slaves.
The European demand for Chinese tea stimulated the The islands of Madagascar and Mauritius became Euro-
production of opium in South Asia: Opium was traded pean slave-plantation colonies, while plantation agricul-
in Southeast Asia for the silver and pepper that was ture grew throughout the region. Tea from India, coffee
traded in China for the purchase of tea. from Indonesia, and sugar from many Indian Ocean soci-
European weapons technology, one of the few com- eties became three of the most significant plantation
modities from Europe that was in demand in the Indian crops during this time.
Ocean region,altered the dynamics of state formation and In the late eighteenth century, the British had estab-
conflict. In Southeast Asia, the increasing presence of Por- lished convict colonies on the coast of Australia. This
tuguese, Dutch, and English trading posts and colonies, added another component to trade and forced migration
established through conquest and diplomacy, fractured in the Indian Ocean and extended European conquest
many of the existing maritime and territorial empires, and colonization to the eastern periphery of the region.
which then reconfigured in smaller-scale polities.This era In the nineteenth century direct colonization and trade
laid the groundwork for direct European colonization and between Europe and Indian Ocean societies intensified.
strengthened imperialist networks that introduced Both South Africa and Australia became dominated by
changes in crop production, raw-materials extraction, European settlers. Societies in the region became increas-
and commodities production throughout the region.The ingly integrated into, dependent upon, and marginalized
overall volume of trade increased dramatically, though it by, the expansion of the global capitalism. As the indus-
continued to be linked to trade with China. trial revolution stimulated demand for raw products