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Chief Merchants and the European Enclaves of Seventeenth-Century Coromandel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Joseph J. Brennig
Joseph J. Brennig
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
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Extract

European enclaves were a characteristic feature of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century European presence in Asia, serving as centers of trade and European society far beyond the frontiers of metropolitan Europe. Yet to consider them as phenomena belonging only to the history of European Asia would be a mistake. Despite the protection of fortifications and control of the sea, the enclaves could never be completely isolated from their hinterlands, for not only did they receive their trade goods from the interior, but the changing local political stituation frequently threatened their survival. Moreover, the enclaves themselves had their definite non-European character, a population of local merchants, artisans and laborers which outnumbered the Europeans. These resident Asians provided goods, services and often capital for European trade; they were, as Holden Furber has observed, partners in European enterprise.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , July 1977 , pp. 321 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

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50 Ibid., Diary and Consultation Book, 1680–1681, 5 July, 1680, p. 45.

51 E.F.I., 1678–1684, p. 12. Master sold Vencatadry's trade goods for 41,000 pagodas and his jewelry for 8,000 pagodas.Google Scholar

52 R.F.S.G., Diary and Consultation Book, 1681, 24 February, 1681, p. 7.Google Scholar