Project Muse 32160-1272354
Project Muse 32160-1272354
Project Muse 32160-1272354
Geoffrey C. Gunn
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.
[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]
7
Hegemonic Sequence: Enter the Dutch
and English Trading Companies
Ambon
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
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
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).
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
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).
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
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