Page 91 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1868 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

from around the region, markets were created for Euro- Technological Advances and
pean goods, and indigenous production that competed Changes in Indian Ocean Trade
with them was forcibly disrupted. Colonial rubber plan- Changes in maritime technology during the nineteenth
tations were established in the East Indies, India, and century profoundly altered the dimensions of Indian
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) during the course of the late Ocean trading networks.Wooden-hulled ships gave way
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. to iron-hulled ones, but more important was the gradual
Insatiable demands for labor worldwide also created a displacement of the great sailing vessels by steamships
huge international market for workers that created new that were less dependent on the wind patterns of the
networks in the Indian Ocean.While slaves initially pro- Indian Ocean and that reduced the time of voyages.The
vided the main source of labor, gradual emancipation opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 allowed direct mar-
during the course of the nineteenth century stimulated itime access from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean,
indentured servitude. India in particular became a major creating an entirely new network of trade in the region.
source of indentured workers, who were contracted all Steamships had stimulated the demand for coal world-
over the world. wide, and new mining industries grew up in places like
South Africa and Australia. Improved ship design and the
New Patterns in the development of canning and refrigeration from the late
Indian Ocean Region nineteenth century onward transformed the fishing indus-
The development of European empires and colonies try in the Indian Ocean from an indigenous and regional
shifted the pattern of major ports and polities in the trade into an international trade that was part of the
Indian Ocean over the long term. The earliest major global commercial trading networks.
example of this was the displacement of Melaka, which The displacement of steam by fuel derived from oil in
declined rapidly after Portuguese and then Dutch con- the early twentieth century thrust the oil-producing coun-
quest.The Dutch purposefully diverted trade from Melaka tries of the Indian Ocean into global prominence. By the
to Batavia (present-day Jakarta) on the island of Java from late twentieth century it also integrated the southernmost
the mid-sixteenth century.The coastal or near-coastal cities territory,Antarctica, into Indian Ocean networks through
of Bombay (now Mumbai), Madras, and Calcutta became exploration and possession, if not direct exploitation.The
major trading bases for the British in South Asia, while the trade in oil is largely a maritime trade and therefore had
older inland cities of Delhi in India, Kandy in Ceylon, and an effect on the evolution of shipping technology.
Jogjakarta in Java declined in importance.The intensifica- Purpose-built oil tankers, as well as bulk and oil carriers,
tion of coastal commerce also shifted the emphasis of currently constitute the largest proportion of shipping
indigenous state formation, which had formerly been con- vessels in the world.The size and capacity of oil tankers
centrated inland along rivers, toward the coast. has expanded exponentially since the 1950s, from about
European colonization from the late eighteenth cen- 46,000 to 555,000 metric tons.
tury consolidated this trend with the establishment of The advances in airplane technology from the mid-
port cities such as Penang and Singapore in Southeast twentieth century, initially stimulated by the intensifica-
Asia, which were entirely the product of British imperi- tion of global warfare, has been one of the major motors
alism. Rangoon (now Yangon) became the center of of globalization.The trading and migration networks of
trade in Burma under the British, displacing the ancient the Indian Ocean have expanded to include air routes.
rice-producing hinterland cities. In East and southern Airplanes have made possible networks that are inde-
Africa, new ports such as Durban and Lourenço Marques pendent of geographical or oceanic impediments, and the
(now Maputo) were founded, while older ports, includ- volume of both cargo and passenger air traffic in the
ing Dar es Salaam (in present-day Tanzania) and Mom- Indian Ocean continues to grow rapidly.Airplanes enable
basa (in Kenya), came under European control. people to travel faster and further than any other form of