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The Development of British Commercial and Political Networks in the Straits Settlements 1800 to 1868: The Rise of a Colonial and Regional Economic Identity?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2010

ANTHONY WEBSTER
ANTHONY WEBSTER*
Affiliation:
Liverpool John Moores University, School of Social Science, 68 Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9BZ Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper examines the growth of the British commercial communities in the Straits Settlements in the first half of the nineteenth century. It describes how they emerged as a coherent commercial and political interest group, separate from the Indian empire, with their own network of allies and commercial partners in Britain. As such, the Straits merchants emerged as a significant political lobby in their own right. It contends that in the process, they revived earlier notions of Southeast Asia as a discrete geographical region, in which political and ethnic diversity was bridged by the flourishing of maritime commercial networks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , July 2011 , pp. 899 - 929
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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