Gateways of Asia: Port Cities of Asia in the 13th-20th Centuries 0710305540, 9780710305541

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Contents
Introduction Brides of the Sea Revisited
1 Aden in Pre-Turkish Times (1232–1538): The Arabian Entrepot of the Western Asian Seas
2 Masulipatnam Revisited, 1550–1750: A Survey and Some Speculations
3 Banten around the Turn of the Sixteenth Century: Trade and Society in an Indonesian Port City
4 Penang 1786–1832: A Promise Unfulfilled
5 Bombay and the Famine of 1803–6: The Food Supply and Public Order of a Colonial Port City
6 Kuwait Before Oil: The Dynamics and Morphology of an Arab Port City
7 Colombo and the Re-Making of Ceylon: A Prototype of Colonial Asian Port Cities
8 Bangkok in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Dynamics and Limits of Port Primacy
9 Kobe and Niigata: Situation and Site in the Development of Two Japanese Port Cities
10 Vladivostok: ‘City and Ocean’ in Russia’s Far East
11 Alleppey: From a Port without a City to a City without a Port
12 ASEAN Ports since 1945: Maritime Change and Port Rivalry
13 Japan’s Seaports and regional developments during the Era of High-Speed Growth, 1960–75

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GATEWAYS OF ASIA

GATEWAYS OF ASIA Port Cities of Asia in the 13th–20th Centuries edited by

Frank Broeze

in association with the Asian Studies Association of Australia (Comparative Asian Studies Series, vol. 2)

First published in 1997 by Kegan Paul International This edition first published in 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © Kegan Paul International 1997 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 10: 0-7103-0554-0 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-7103-0554-1 (hbk) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. The publisher has made every effort to contact original copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

CONTENTS

Introduction Brides of the Sea Revisited Frank Broeze 1 Aden in Pre-Turkish Times (1232–1538): The Arabian Entrepot of the Western Asian Seas Hassan Saleh Shihab 2 Masulipatnam Revisited, 1550–1750: A Survey and Some Speculations Sanjay Subrahmanyam 3 Banten around the Turn of the Sixteenth Century: Trade and Society in an Indonesian Port City Christopher Wake 4 Penang 1786–1832: A Promise Unfulfilled Kenneth McPherson 5 Bombay and the Famine of 1803–6: The Food Supply and Public Order of a Colonial Port City Mariam Dossal 6 Kuwait Before Oil: The Dynamics and Morphology of an Arab Port City Frank Broeze 7 Colombo and the Re-Making of Ceylon: A Prototype of Colonial Asian Port Cities Rhoads Murphey 8 Bangkok in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Dynamics and Limits of Port Primacy Malcolm Falkus

9 Kobe and Niigata: Situation and Site in the Development of Two Japanese Port Cities Takeshi Yamasaki, Kanae Tanigawa and Gayl D. Ness 10 Vladivostok: ‘City and Ocean’ in Russia’s Far East Robert Valliant 11 Alleppey: From a Port without a City to a City without a Port Hans Schenk 12 ASEAN Ports since 1945: Maritime Change and Port Rivalry Keith Trace 13 Japan’s Seaports and regional developments during the Era of HighSpeed Growth, 1960–75 Peter Rimmer with Toru Taniuchi

INTRODUCTION

BRIDES OF THE SEA REVISITED Frank Broeze Department of History University of Western Australia

In 1870 the foreign residents mostly merchants and shipping agents of Yokohama desired to improve the appearance of their small enclave through the creation of a park.1 In the first instance, their request to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs led to a ludicrous squabble between the British, who wanted to see a cricket ground included in the park, and the Americans, who did not. But soon afterwards, and far more importantly, the affair induced the Meiji government to adopt western-style city planning and to expropriate religious and state grounds throughout Japan in order to transform them into public parks for the recreation of all Japanese citizens. Although less profound perhaps than many other changes in rapidly modernizing Japan, this radical social measure was a telling example of the dynamic influence of Yokohama, the western ‘spearhead’ which was Meiji Japan’s first modern port city.2 Yet, only a few years later, the foreigners were directly challenged by the rise at Tokyo (the former Edo) of the Mitsubishi Steamship Company which, after amalgamation with the Kyodo Unyu Kaisha, in 1885 became the Nippon Yusen Kaisha. Very soon the NYK was a vital element in the set of maritime power instruments with which Japan delineated its local sphere of interest3 and, after the victories over China and Russia, established itself as the indisputably strongest power in East Asia. By this stage the leisure time preferences of Britain and America had become totally irrelevant to Japanese policy making and planning. The amazing capacity of Japan to pull up itself by its own economic and technological bootstraps still offers ample material for a great variety of comparative studies with China. Central in Japan’s policy of modernization stood from the beginning the industrialization of its port districts and the creation of additional port zones for that purpose. As Rimmer shows in his chapter, this pattern of growth became

even more pronounced during the period of rapid growth after 1960. Significantly, after about a century of political fluctuations and spasmodic economic development focusing on Shanghai and to a lesser extent Canton (Guangzhou),4 the current leaders of China from the late 1970s assigned a systematic and ‘catalytic’ role to its port cities “in the nation’s … drive toward modernization and economic development through the adoption of the open policy.”5 But this open door, by contrast to that of the turn of the past century, was to be firmly under Chinese control. This Janus-like, mediating and dynamic role of port cities has been a major element in the thrust of modern port city literature since Murphey and Price published their seminal articles on Asia and colonial America6 which triggered off a global diffusion of port city studies. In the process a fertile interaction between history and other disciplines, above all geography, economics and town planning (no Australian equivalent exists for the comprehensive American concept ‘urbanism’) resulted in a growing number of collaborative volumes.7 Indicative of the broad front, multidisciplinary approach and challenging agenda of this wave of port town and port city studies is the collective and diverse nature of the themes and authorship of each of these works. That very diversity of disciplines, nationalities and perspectives is also one of the main pillars supporting Gateways of Asia. Eight historians are joined by almost as many geographers, planners and economists. Taking an alternative perspective, in the company of six Australians stand one Yemeni, two Indians, three Japanese, three Americans and one European. It is not necessary here to repeat or summarize the introduction and first chapter of Brides of the Sea for a definition of the port city concept and its heuristic values. But the publication of this volume, in many ways a sequel to that work, does provide the opportunity of clarifying a few points and elaborating on some issues raised after its publication. A number of reviewers of Brides, for example, found the port city concept nothing more than a common-sense description, devoid of any particular explanatory usefulness and not capable of creating or sustaining a conceptual framework to bring together the empirical studies contained in the volume.8 That it is the port which makes the port city different from other cities is, in itself, of course no more than a statement of fact but these reviewers have missed the point that the explicit and conscious use of the term ‘port city’ entails far more than that. It specifically means that the economic, social, political and cultural life of that city is also predominantly determined by and has to be analysed in the light of that port function. It is that complex and allembracing superstructure which creates both the challenge and the possibility to assess just how the port city’s functional difference affects its character and identity and how it interacts with its hinterland. It is perfectly possible that in an empirical study the fundamental concept which relates, for example, port function to interethnic social and cultural relations can appear to have shifted to the background;9 it has, nevertheless, lost nothing of its explanatory and integratory potency. The same applies, conversely,

in studies of rival financial networks in western India based on, for example, Broach and Bombay.10 None of this should be read to mean that the port is the only dynamic sector in the port city or that it can be seen in total isolation from its immediate environment.11 The well-documented presence of Chinese entrepreneurs and labourers in Shanghai12 or a host of ethnic groups from western India in Bombay13 – to use only two examples from Murphey’s many modernizing enclaves – demonstrate the latter interrelationship eloquently. A particularly poignant role was played by Kuwait’s largely Persian waterside workers who saved the port city state in 1920 from the attacking Sa’udis. In earlier periods the strong-points of the Estado da India, similarly, were planted into a social environment which continuously interacted with the society and culture of the Europeans within the factory or city walls. Indeed, as McPherson has demonstrated elsewhere,14 the number of pure Portuguese rapidly diminished and a human amalgama developed which in many ways was comparable to that of the burghers of Colombo or ‘Eurasiates’ of Batavia. Nevertheless, it is above all the active intertwining of all forces from foreland and hinterland through the physical and mediating function of the port which explains the extent, pace and manner of each port city’s specific development. Explicitly or implicitly, with all the fuzziness around the edges and all the dilemmas that no precise definition or conceptualization can ever avoid, there is a clearly distinct semi-maritime semi-terrestrial urban structure on the physical border between land and sea. As such, this concept of the port city can surely be used as a heuristic tool, both geographically and historically, for an analysis of its historical development. A specific complication, perhaps downplayed too much in Brides, is the multi-functionality of most port cities. This element was particularly highlighted in most contributions to Atlantic Port Cities where trade was occasionally seriously rivalled by defence and administration as the prime dynamic urban sector. In this volume, too, there is a plethora of case studies analysing the intimate connections between the economic base of the port city – on both the macro- and micro-economic levels – its morphology, and its political, social, and cultural life – ranging in scope from Dossal’s cameo on the food supply of Bombay to Falkus’ Bangkok and the two collaborative chapters on Japan. In view of this multi-functionality and the tendency of many port cities to develop over time into general cities there can, as one reviewer noted,15 easily be disagreements or uncertainties about the definition of the concept. Some may take the purely contemporaneous view that multi-function is multi-function, whatever its origins; others may apply historical criteria and still see the port city in existence when a significant number of non-maritime functions have over time directly been derived from the port. It will never be possible to solve such definitional differences but they do not fundamentally affect the usefulness of the concept or its applicability. Moreover, they cannot undo that cooperation between historians and ‘urbanists’ which now has

gone “a long way toward integrating port history with urban history.”16 Such a truly multi-disciplinary analytical framework makes the port city concept eminently suitable as a vehicle for both comparative studies and syntheses. The comparative analysis of Kobe and Niigata by the Japanese-American troika Yamasaki, Tanigawa and Ness may in this respect be regarded as paradigmatic for Gateways of Asia as a whole. Although most other chapters focus on a single port city, comparisons are implicit in many of these ‘biographical’ studies and collectively they are building stones of an overall history of Asian – and, ultimately, world – port cities which remains to be written. That such a history is still far off, as so many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle have as yet not been sketched, does not make any difference to the principle. A vital element in the mixing of disciplines, which is often overlooked, is the need to integrate the human dimension. History, however much it may have become structural and quantitative, must also be human. The human dimension can have many faces, as many indeed as there are people. The history of maritime labour and other workers is still in its infancy and so is that of the women who inhabited port cities and precincts.17 Business leaders have received more attention, but too often still in isolation from the life of the port cities in which they operated. Price noted the need to focus more attention on the trading firms of the port cities in order to understand the growth of those cities. Checkland, in a more general vein, observed that ‘business history and urban history have largely failed to come together. The entrepreneurs who provided the economic base for the city, as well as largely determining its morphology (being the dominant claimants for sites), have received little attention. Capital formation, having been seen largely in sectoral terms, has been very little approached in terms of urban units.’18 One of the purposes of Gateways of Asia is specifically to take up the implicit challenge from these two Chesapeake- and Clydeside historians. Businessmen are found in profusion through the book, as much almost as the sources allowed it. They are the backbone of cities as diverse as Masulipatnam, Banten, Kuwait, Bangkok and pre-Bolshevik Vladivostok. Many scholars, however, have insisted that the essence of city life is not so much economic but psychological and existential, pivoting around the ‘image of the city’ and the ‘city experience’.19 Both themes have, in fact, been one of the strong points of Indian port city research, exemplified by scholars such as Ashin Das Gupta20 and, in this volume, Subrahmanyam. Das Gupta’s Surat is a city full of merchants and shipowners and his ‘Maritime City’ is not static but continuously responding to new situations and circumstances. And, as he notes, it is only the life-experiences of Surat’s individuals which can explain the responses of the city to its constantly changing environment. In other words, the situation does not become ‘real … if we do not know what it felt like for human beings who were in it.’21 And, as the chapter on Kuwait suggests, what it smelled like!

Unfortunately, more often than not the material for a psychological approach is simply not existent.22 This applies especially the further one recedes in time and the more one moves away from rulers, wealthy entrepreneurs and others who have the power to be noted and to create historical images. What about the physical reality of the port felt by the hundreds and later thousands of its maritime labourers – most, if not all, ‘people without history’?23 The ‘reality’ of the masses is all the more pertinent as it was the demand for labour to fill these back-breaking maritime occupations which was responsible for much of the port cities’ immigration from vicinity and hinterland. This, in turn, made them grow into large, socially and ethnically even more complex, communities than they had ever been before. With their indigenous labour they often helped outsiders – Europeans or others – to maintain their foreign enclaves and much of the shipping which linked these together.24 As noted earlier, they brought with them their social and cultural values. With the surviving parts of Asian traditional shipping and shipbuilding they thus helped produce in microcosm the sharp and sometimes explosive juxtapositions of the indigenous and ‘the other’ which were characteristic of modern imperial dualist society. The recent growth of metropolis-size port cities makes it equally difficult to maintain a sense of humanity and the human experience. Is it actually still possible to catch the essential experience of Hong Kong, Madras or Colombo or is the only result of such an attempt utter fragmentation without the chance of reconstruction and synthesis? In the introduction to Brides of the Sea several instances have been noted of autobiographies which combined individual with urban experiences.25 In this context the chapter on Kobe and Niigata is particularly interesting as it compares the changing social problems and human experiences of the two cities and raises questions which may lead to new avenues of research. It is this very complexity of the Asian port city, old and new, which makes it such a challenging and compelling theme. Moreover, as needs no further stressing, by contrast to the Americas Asia was a continent with a maritime tradition which went back far into time to at least three millennia BC. The social and cultural character of Asian port towns both before and after Vasco da Gama, inevitably, was radically different from those on the shores of the Atlantic, even if often their occupational structure and economic role and development were quite comparable. Asia’s pre-European maritime trade can be viewed from two perspectives. One is that of the spatial network of trading and shipping emporia, each presumably with small-scale maritime and terrestrial hinterlands;26 the other that of the specific ethnic and family communities who, in permanent or alternating diasporas, were the human cogs who made the system of emporia and overseas trade function.27 Indian banyans,28 Gujaratis,29 Hadhramis,30 Armenians,31 Persians, 32 Chettiars,33 and Chinese34 are just a few of the many such groups. For quite some time after the arrival of the Europeans many elements of these networks and relationships continued to exist as each Western ethnic

group, company, factory or even individual trader found it indispensable to work with indigenous merchants, bankers and other businessmen.35 Although in some parts of Asia the Europeans were able to remove all local participation, in others they became no more than just one of a number of stakeholders (or, as in China, Japan, and Arabia, even hardly that). In recent years, after the two centuries or so of European domination and revolutionary technological and political change, the tables have been turned again. Asia has now fully reclaimed its port cities. Now, under quite different circumstances, it is the policies of the ASEAN governments which determine regional port systems and it is Japanese firms and businessmen who have built up a multinational expatriate presence along the reaches of Asia’s littoral and beyond.36 It is this long continuity in Asia’s relationship with the sea, the ‘indigenous Asian context’ as Brown termed it,37 which is the second major theme intended to give cohesiveness to this collection of wide-ranging empirical studies. At the beginning of our period Shihab’s study of Rasulid, pre-Turkish, Aden and close towards the present the chapters dealing with Japan’s port city development strategies and ASEAN port rivalry lie largely if not wholly outside the era of European domination. Not surprisingly all other contributions, and with that the main weight of the volume lies in the period of Asian-European contact, conflict and co-operation. Individually, the Asian component varies in each of the chapters. It ranges from almost purely Arab Kuwait via ‘interactive studies’ such as those on Banten, Masulipatnam, Bangkok and Alleppey to the largely Russian history of Vladivostok. Collectively they offer the fascinating picture of the ever dynamic and shifting maritime frontline of the gigantic tussle between the aggressive and technologically superior Western powers and resilient Asia which, despite all discrimination and other difficulties, in many areas succeeded in keeping a foothold. It is perhaps that common experience of maritime enterprise and resistance more than any common ecological and/or cultural identity which helped turn the eastern two-thirds of Eurasia from a purely geographical into the historical concept of ‘Asia’. The most lasting contribution of the Portuguese may well have been to have laid the foundations for this positivist – but also essentially eurocentric – ‘Asia’ through their creation of the Estado da India which, in its most ambitious scenario, stretched from the Red Sea to Japan. This blindly homogenizing, eurocentric, and often profoundly racist concept of ‘Asia’38 may well be seen as the ‘oriental’ counterpart of the equally undiscriminating ‘America’ which Columbus’ successors at the same time created in the European mind; for ‘Africa’ the time was still to come. From the centrality of maritime Asia and the active interrelationship of its port cities with both hinterlands and forelands follows the title of this book, Gateways of Asia. The traditional view of port cities only existing as modernizing enclaves in Asian lands represents, obviously, only a partial and predominantly eurocentric part of their long and complex history. This suggests a one-way traffic from overseas to the inland

societies and economies which would have been implied by ‘Gateways to Asia’. The essential multi-directional impact of port cities, in part as centres of economic growth and development, in part as vibrant urban communities with linkages inland, to other Asian destinations, and overseas to their varying forelands is, I feel, evoked more effectively by Gateways of Asia. Classical intra-Asian connections like the Arabian ventures to Zaitun or, conversely, the Chinese expeditions to Rasulid Aden are as much part of such networks as the Red Sea-bound sailing ships of Surat and Masulipatnam, the smaller vessels of the various East India Companies (and in some cases also the Eastindiamen themselves, as in the cotton and opium trade from Bombay to Canton), the British-dominated steamshipping lines of the age of imperialism or the containerships of Japan and its adjacent little dragons. The radical change in historical perspective which the title of this book underlines and underwrites, parallels the changing significance of one of the great monuments to western power in Asia, the ‘Gateway to India’ on Bombay’s waterfront. When erected it was intended and liked by the British (and equally disliked by many Indians) as symbolizing the metropolitan source of all authority and dynamism. This particular message was less than permanent but the gate’s inscription Prima Urbs in Indis – even if its use of Latin is now a somewhat painful anachronism – remains as strong an expression of Bombay’s claims to national hegemony after Independence as it had been under British rule.39 More than ever before, particularly since in recent years India’s economic policy has been liberalized, Bombay is the pivot of the country’s modernization, warts and all. Japan’s industrialization and the rise of the conservative oil-producing countries in the Arabian peninsula provide other examples of such dramatic shifts in the balance of economic power and activity. Each, in its way, is based on – and, in turn, stimulates – port, port industrialization and port city growth. Despite the positivist definition and academic acceptance of ‘Asia’ as a meaningful term there are, whatever the subject of analysis, many and big problems arising out of the continent’s size and diversity. Brides of the Sea has rightly been criticized for leaving significant gaps in its coverage of Asia’s coastline.40 The composition of the present collection of essays has been determined in a conscious attempt to make up for some of that deficiency. A more balanced geographical distribution is offered as both Arabia and Japan are now represented with two chapters each. This, in turn, has shifted more weight toward the Asian rather than European elements in the continent’s history. Even further than Japan on the northeastern periphery, by contrast, there is Vladivostok, in character perhaps Asia’s most European port city. The three chapters on Japan and Far Eastern Russia are also designed to compensate for the absence of studies on China and Korea. Southeast Asia has been allotted four chapters, evenly distributed through time, as is the case with the same number of chapters for South Asia.41 But several other criteria can be used to distinguish between the various contributions. Chronologically, in their collectivity and even more so when entwined with the

case studies of Brides of the Sea, the chapters represent a largely uninterrupted chain of Asian life and experience stretching over seven-and-a-half centuries, from the foundation of the Rasulid Dynasty in Aden to ASEAN and Japan of the present day. In the longue durée of this interaction between land and sea several powerful themes are always present. The struggle for urban development, regional hegemony and economic prosperity is set in vastly different political, social and technological contexts but the element of power, implicitly or explicitly, commercially and/or politically, stands always central. Incisive comparative conclusions can be drawn from the entrepôt-directed policies of the traditional rulers of Aden and Kuwait, Banten and Masulipatnam, on the one hand, and those of Penang and modern Singapore on the other. There indeed is a particularly poignant juxtaposition across the northeastern Indian Ocean of indigenous Masulipatnam, struggling valiantly to maintain its traditional role in Asian trade, and British – company as well as private – Penang. By contrast, other ports were embedded in larger national or colonial polities and their fortunes were determined by vastly more complex dynamics. Vladivostok, for example, was mainly a tool in the power game which gripped the Far East and in its particular semi-maritime character mirrored that of Central Asia. Other ports again were enclaves of westernizing influences as well as facilities for the export of bulk and raw materials; these included Bombay, Colombo, and Bangkok. Much of the thrust behind their development was based on what may be termed ‘hinterland promotional’ policies in which the development of port facilities, inland transport and selective commodity production for export – ranging from Yemeni madder to opium, tea, rice and tropical timber – went hand-in-hand. That such policies were not always successful is shown dramatically by the examples of Alleppey and Niigata. But while the latter has, to a large extent, been caught up in the general economic boom of Japan and perhaps may benefit from an economic boom in post-Soviet Vladivostok and Siberia, Alleppey continues to languish. It does not seem to have any chance to emancipate itself from the ever stronger influence of Bombay (with its new container port Nhava Sheva) and Cochin, and to some extent mirrors the experience of post-eighteenth century Masulipatnam. The ports on Japan’s southern coast and Vladivostok were equally windows on the world but the dynamics of Japanese and Russian (later Soviet and now again Russian) society were dramatically different. The Japanese model of port-based industrial growth – including the reclamation of new land, following the examples of nineteenth century Bombay and The Netherlands – in turn has become a global model which has stimulated projects in virtually every Asian country. These range from the Islamic Seaport of Jiddah and Dubai’s Port Rashid to Indonesia’s Batam island opposite Singapore, China’s special economic zones and, most recently, the ex-US naval base of Subic Bay – ironically, a far superior site to Manila itself – in the Philippines. Also Vladivostok, long time more isolated than any other port city, is now committed to a

strategy of commercial liberalization and port industrialization. The turbulent history of the ‘Sovereign of the East’, however, offers a special case highlighting important maritime elements which in other ports often have remained hidden in a literature which used to be predominantly driven by economic questions. Besides its function as a commercial port Vladivostok was, above all, a naval base and, from the 1930s, an important fishing port. Both had a profound impact on its occupational structure and morphology. There is a striking irony here as the foundations of most if not all Asian port cities ultimately rest on indigenous fishing villages; the name Masulipatnam itself means ‘Fish Town’. It would not be too much to see the origins of Asian seafaring in the myriads of fishing communities which, to a very large extent, still stretch along much of the littoral of the continent and its islands. Classical examples of such villages later transformed into world ports are Kobe and Yokohama, Singapore, Madras, Colombo, Bombay and Jiddah. From the beginning fishing was one of the pillars of Kuwait’s seabased economy.42 Vladivostok, too, was established on the site of an existing fishing community and the same applied to many other European and/or indigenous urban creations. Most frequently, the original inhabitants were removed but in a few cases they remained on the spot, forming an increasingly tenuous but fiercely traditional enclave.43 The study of port cities is as diverse as history in general. Several chapters – like those on Aden, Masulipatnam, Kuwait, Bangkok, Vladivostok, Alleppey, and KobeNiigata – attempt to sketch a living ‘portrait’ of their ever dynamic subjects, including elements such as their economic base, morphology and humanity. Murphey analyses the dynamic interrelationship between Colombo and its Sri Lankan hinterland. Others, like Dossal’s study of the food supply of Bombay, focus on a vital aspect of the functioning and even survival of the city and, in doing so, illuminate one of the most important issues of colonial empire building. Wake and McPherson, in their chapters on Banten and Penang, deal with crucial phases in the rise and fall of individual ports within rapidly changing networks of commerce and power. Two chapters, finally, deal explicitly with port systems – those of Japan and Southeast Asia since 1945 - but network analysis is implicitly present in all. This introduction may be closed with a quotation from Price’s summing up of Atlantic Port Cities: ‘These essays … have seriously investigated many problems and developments that were common to many of the ports, and by so doing have laid the foundation for future comparative research on the history of these ports and of … ports generally.’44 As Murphey recently emphasized,45 a large agenda awaits further development and implementation. The main purpose of the cluster of chapters offered in Gateways of Asia is to provide such building stones which individually and collectively may lead to a better understanding of the development, functioning and the historical significance of port cities throughout Asia and, ultimately, throughout the

world. That is not a self-seeking objective designed to make port cities – or ‘maritime influence’ in general – the only or even a superior way to analyse Asia’s chequered history. But the approach through port cities and the maritime environment cannot but enhance our understanding of the nature of the complex interactions of external and indigenous players in Asia’s history. Thus we have a powerful tool to reassess the role of the former and their impact on the many and diverse societies that collectively make up ‘Asia’.46 Perhaps even more importantly, we can also better understand the main springs of Asian societies, their dynamics and continuously changing relations with each other, and the full extent of their response to, and emancipation from, European expansionism. From the vantage point of the global village of 1996 few more important historical issues exist than those relating to multi-cultural interactions.47

NOTES 1 This first paragraph is based on Shirahata Yozaburo, ‘An Encounter or European and Japanese Concepts in the Field of Urban Planning History, with the Urban Park as a Symbolic Example’, in Yamada Keiji, ed. The Transfer of Science and Technology between Europe and Asia, 1770–1880 (Kyoto, 1994), pp. 165–78. Yokohama, a little fishing village, had been chosen by the Japanese as a treaty port in order to keep the Westerners away from the traditional Japanese port of Edo; for the same reason Kobe was chosen rather than Osaka. 2 Rhoads Murphey, ‘Traditionalism and Colonialism – Changing Urban Roles in Asia’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 29 (1969), pp. 71 and 84. 3 Renpei Kondo, ‘Japanese Communications: The Mercantile Marine’, in Shigenobu Okuma, ed. Fifty Years of New Japan (rep., New York, 1970), pp. 447–64, and William D. Wray, Mitsubishi and the NYK, 1870–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1984). See J.N.F.M. à Campo, Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij. Stoomvaart en staatsvorming in de Indonesische archipel 1888–1914 (Hilversum-Rotterdam, 1992) for a study of how during the same period the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij combined commercial and political roles in the ‘state formation’ of the Dutch East Indies. 4 See, e.g., Rhoads Murphey, Shanghai – Key to Modern China (Cambridge, Mass., 1953); Robert Y. Eng, Economic Imperialism in China. Silk Production and Exports, 1861–1932 (Berkeley, 1986), and ‘The Transformation of a Semi-Colonial Port City: Shanghai, 1843–1941’, in Frank Broeze, ed. Brides of the Sea. Port Cities of Asia from the 16th–20th Centuries (Sydney-Honolulu, 1989), pp. 129–51. 5 Yue-man Yeung & Xu-wei Hu, eds China’s Coastal Cities. Catalysts for Modernization (Honolulu, 1992), p. 2, and also Figure 1.1, ‘The Spread Effects of China’s Coastal Cities’. To this may be added a systematic policy of merchant fleet

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expansion, similarly mirroring Japan’s earlier maritime expansion. Sun Yat-sen’s post-World War I grandiose plans for China’s economic developments through similar transport strategies did not get much further than the pages of his The International Development of China (London, 1920; 2nd ed. 1928). Murphey, ‘Traditionalism and Colonialism’, pp. 67–84; Jacob M. Price, ‘Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century’, Perspectives in American History, vol. 8 (1974), pp. 123–86. See, esp., Dilip K. Basu, ed. The Rise and Growth of the Colonial Port Cities in Asia (Berkeley, 1979; 1983); Robert Ross & Gerard J. Telkamp, eds Colonial Cities. Essays on Urbanism in a Colonial Context (Dordrecht, 1985); Broeze, Brides of the Sea (1989); J. Kathirithamby-Wells & John Villiers, eds The Southeast Asian Port and Polity. Rise and Demise (Singapore, 1990); Revista de Cultura, nos. 13–14 (Macao, January-June 1991): ‘The Asian Seas 1500–1800: Local Societies, European Expansion and the Portuguese’, parts 1 and 2; Franklin W. Knight & Peggy K. Liss, eds Atlantic Port Cities. Economy, Culture, and Society in the Atlantic World, 1650–1850 (Knoxville, 1991); B.S. Hoyle & D.R. Pinder, eds European Port Cities in Transition (London, 1992); and Indu Banga, ed. Ports and Their Hinterlands in India 1700–1950 (New Delhi, 1992). See also Denys Lombard & Jean Aubin, eds Marchands et hommes d’affaires dans I’Océan Indien et la Mer de Chine 13e-20e siècles (Paris, 1988). Malyn Newitt, in The Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 76 (1990), pp. 300–1, and Remco Raben, in Itinerario, vol. 15, no. 2 (1991), pp. 122–3. But cf. Ian Brown, in Economic History Review, vol. 44 (1991), pp. 206–7, Paul Wheatley, in Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 22 (1991), pp. 543–4, and Josef Konvitz, in Journal of Urban History, vol. 19 (1993), pp. 117–8. E.g., Heather Sutherland, ‘Eastern Emporium and Company Town: Trade and Society in Eighteenth-Century Makassar’, in Broeze, Brides, pp. 97–128. See, e.g., G.D. Sharma, ‘Ports of Gujarat in the Nineteenth Century: Trading Networks and Commercial Practices’, in Banga, Ports and Hinterlands, pp. 199– 211, and Gita Bajpai, ‘Broach in the Late Nineteenth Century: Changing Profil under Colonial Rule’, in Ibid., pp. 213–26. Newitt, in Mariner’s Mirror. See Murphey, Shanghai, Eng, ‘Shanghai’, and especially Linda Cooke Johnson, Shanghai from Market Town to Treaty Port, 1074–1858 (Stanford, CA, 1995). See T.S. Sanjeeva Rao, A Short History of Modern Indian Shipping (Bombay, 1965), pp. 62–3 and 88–9; and Frank Broeze, ‘The External Dynamics of Port City Morphology, Bombay 1815–1914’, in Banga, Ports and Hinterlands, pp. 265–7. Kenneth McPherson, ‘A Secret People of South Asia. The Origins, Evolution and Role of the Luso-Indian Goan Community from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries’, Itinerario, vol. 11, no. 2 (1987), pp. 72–86. See also the excellent study

15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

27 28 29 30

31

by J.G. Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: Europeans and Eurasians in Dutch Asia (Madison, Wis., 1983). Anthony Disney, in The Great Circle, vol. 12 (1990), p. 135. Wheatley, in Journal of Interdisciplinary History, p. 544. For examples of the rare studies of such groups see, e.g., Rasiklal P. Chola, Dock Labourers in Bombay (Bombay, 1941); S.D. Punekar & Kamala Rao, A Study of Prostitutes in Bombay (2nd ed., Bombay, 1967); and James F. Warren, Rickshaw Coolie: A People’s History of Singapore, 1880–1940 (Singapore, 1986). S.G. Checkland, ‘An Urban History Horoscope’, in Derek Fraser & Anthony Sutcliffe, eds The Pursuit of Urban History (London, 1983), p. 455. The classical statement is in Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge Mass., 1960). Ashin Das Gupta, ‘The Maritime City’, in Banga, Ports and Hinterlands, pp. 359– 65. Ibid., p. 360. See also my comments in the ‘Introduction’ of Brides, pp. 12–3, and n.15. Cf. Daniel F. Doeppers, ‘Metropolitan Manila in the Great Depression’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 50 (1991), p. 533. Using, in a different context, the terminology of Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People Without History (Berkeley, 1982). See, e.g., D. Desai, Maritime Labour in India (Bombay, 1940); Cholia, Dock Labourers in Bombay; and Frank Broeze, ‘The Muscles of Empire. Indian Seamen under the Raj, 1919–1939’, Indian Economic & Social History Review, vol. 18 (1981), pp. 43–67. Broeze, Brides, pp. 27–8, n.15. See, e.g., K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean. An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1985), chs 2 and 5; Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge, 1984), chs 5–6; and also Kathirithamby-Wells & Villiers, The Southeast Asian Port and Polity. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade, chs 8–9, passim; and Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation, pp. 224–6. See, e.g., Calvin H. Allen, ‘The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 44 (1981), pp. 39–53. See, e.g., M.N. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat. The Response to the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley-New Delhi, 1976). L.W.C. van der Berg, le Hadhramaut et les colonies arabes dans l’archipel Indien (Batavia, 1883); Yusuf A. Talib, ‘Les Hadhramis et le monde malais’, Archipel, vol. 7 (1974), pp. 41–68, and ‘Études sur la diaspora des peuples Arabes dans l’Océan Indien’, Diogène, vol. 3 (1980), pp. 39–54. See, e.g., R.W. Ferrier, ‘The Armenians and the East India Company in Persia in the

32 33 34

35 36 37 38

39

40 41

42 43 44 45

Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries’, Economic History Review, vol. 26 (1973), pp. 38–62, and M. Aghassian & K. Kévonian, ‘Le commerce arménien dans l’Océan Indien aux 17e et 18e siècles’, in Lombard & Aubin, Marchands, pp. 155– 82. See Sanjay Suhbrahmanyam’s chapter 2, on Masulipatnam, on this volume. H.D. Evers, ‘Chettiar Moneylenders in Southeast Asia’, in Lombard & Aubin, Merchands, pp. 199–220. See, e.g., C. Salmon, ‘Les marchands chinois en Asie du Sud-Est’, in Lombard & Aubin, Marchands, pp. 331–52, and Christine Dobbin, ‘From Middleman Minorities to Industrial Entrepreneurs: The Chinese in Java and the Parsis in Western India 1619–1939’, Itinerario, vol. 13 (1989), no. 1, pp. 133–54. See, esp., Ashin Das Gupta & M.N. Pearson, eds India and the Indian Ocean 1500– 1800 (Calcutta, 1987). For a case study of this phenomenon in its formative period see P. Post, Japanse bedrijvigheid in Indonesië, 1868–1942. Structurele elementen van Japans vooroorlogse economische expansie in Zuidoost-Azië (Amsterdam, 1991). Brown, in Economic History Review, p. 207. See also Johnson, Shanghai, ‘Introduction.’ This definition of ‘Asia’ (as opposed to alternatives derived from any inner cultural, political or ecological cohesion of the continent) of course comes close to recent views about the origins and purpose of the racist ‘orientalism’ present in so much of the Western historiography on Asia and the Middle East (the classical statement of which is Edward W. Said, Orientalism [New York, 1978]). One of the effects of World War I was to promote Bombay to the clearly first port in India above Madras and Calcutta. See D.S. McLean, ‘Different Codes on a Level Playing Field: India’s Shipping (1910–1925) and the Impact of the Great War’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Western Australia, 1992), p. 302. Linda Cooke Johnson, in Journal of Economic History, vol. 50 (1990), p. 963. With this the coastline between Bengal and the Arabian peninsula has to a certain extent been ‘covered’. Long-term studies of Khorromshahr (Muhammerah) and Basrah are still long overdue, but for Karachi there is now Indu Banga’s imaginative overview, ‘Karachi and its Hinterland under Colonial Rule’, in Banga, Ports and Hinterlands, pp. 337–58. Fatimah H.Y. Al-Abdul-Razzak, Marine Resources of Kuwait. Their role in the development of non-oil resources (London-Kuwait, 1984), ch. 8. See the highly interesting conference paper (Asian Studies Association of Australia, Armidale, 1992) by Peter Reeves, ‘The Koli and the British at Bombay: The Structure of their Relations to the Mid-19th Century’. Price, in Knight & Liss, Atlantic Port Cities, p. 276. Rhoads Murphey, ‘On the Evolution of the Port City’, in Broeze, Brides, p. 243.

46 See, in this context, the ‘Roundtable’ in the International Journal of Maritime History, vol. 5, no. 2 (December 1993), pp. 211–35, on Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History (London, 1993). 47 For a recent and stimulating synthesis with an international and maritige perspective see Kenneth McPherson, The Indian Ocean. A History of People and the Sea (Delhi, 1993).

1

ADEN IN PRE-TURKISH TIMES (1232–1538) The Arabian Entrepôt of the Western Asian Seas Hassan Saleh Shihab Yemeni Centre for Studies and Research Aden Branch

During its apogee under the rule of Yemen’s Rasulid and Tahirid dynasties (1229–1538) Aden was the epitome of the hegemonic regional entrepôt. Shipping and trade in the Asian seas before the arrival of the Europeans was largely organized through a network of such entrepôts or emporia.1 Located at suitable sites on strategic nodal points throughout Asia’s maritime space, they could be port city-states like Melaka,2 or form part of larger territorial states as was the case with Aden, Cambay and Zaitun. All jealously guarded their capacity to offer ‘an unrivalled choice of commodities, a variety of currency and banking services, and shipping space to all destinations’ in order to maintain their regional hegemony and status as collection and distribution pivots in Asian trade.3 While the lifeblood of long-distance trade and shipping was the overseas diasporas of ethnic mercantile communities, no port city could do without the active participation and entrepreneurship of its own indigenous businessmen. The cosmopolitan population of Aden, for example, included many Yemeni merchants – both Muslim and Jewish – besides a large number of more or less permanently resident Syrian and Indians. Foreign traders came from all quarters of the compass, including Persia, India, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Red Sea and, as the Genizah papers confirm,4 Cairo.5 Conversely, Adeni merchants had spun their own networks of agents and relatives stretching into all directions of the wind. The prosperity of such entrepôts, however, also depended vitally on supportive policies on the part of their rulers – the ultimate reason why incorporation into greater or other territorial units was often fiercely resisted; paradoxically, but often inevitably, the very costs of defending the independence or competitiveness of particular entrepôts

could fatally undermine their commercial attractiveness and raison d’etre. This applied at all times and in all locations, but rarely as eloquently as in the case of Aden in the time leading up to its capture by the Turks in 1538. As Aden – with the exception of Serjeant’s works6 – is often merely a name in the western historiography of that earlier period, this chapter aims at providing a ‘biographical sketch’ of the city during its preceding three centuries under Yemeni rule when it enjoyed its greatest prosperity.7

Location and site The old harbour and town of Aden are situated within the crater of an extinct volcano on the eastern side of a small peninsula, located in latitude 12° 47’ North and longitude 45° 10’ East, on the southwestern coast of Yemen, near the strait of Bab El-Mandab, the mouth of the Red Sea. Aden is nearly completely surrounded by a natural wall of lofty hills which protected the harbour from the southwest monsoon and the town from the aggression of the hinterland tribes. North of these hills a narrow strip of sea called Khormaksar cut across the isthmus which connected the peninsula with the mainland. At high spring-tide it could isolate Aden and until a bridge was built over the narrowest stretch of Khormaksar all travellers, trade and animals had to be transported by small boats across the water of the khor.8 There was no road from Aden city to the mainland, except through two narrow tunnels9 dug into the lowest part of the eastern mountain. The longer of the two was over 300 m long, opposite what is now known as the beach of Abyen, while the shorter one was located further north. The tunnels were destroyed in the Portuguese attack on Aden in AD 1513,10 but reconstructed subsequently. After Aden’s capture by the British, in 1839, they were linked to the town’s fortifications by a road which ‘connects the isthmus position, as it is called, with the crater [Aden city]’.11 The current gateway of Aden (the Main Pass) is not mentioned in the Arabic sources of Adeni history. It is perhaps one of the Turkish passes which was built during the first period of Turkish rule in Yemen (1538–1635), for it very much resembles the Turkish pass at Shaharah, a town in the North of Yemen. Wellsted, who visited Aden in the 1830s, in his description of the gate observed: ‘The marks of the chisels still remain on the face of the rock’.12

Figure 1.1 Aden in 1513, under attack by the Portuguese, Courtesy of Mr H. S. Shihab, of Aden During the Arabic period the long tunnel was closed by an iron gate,13 and guarded by a garrison situated on the walled heights of the mountain. On the seaside Aden was protected by a high wall extending north-east along the beach, with six gates. Of these the custom gate, in the southern part of the wall, was the most important. Through it all merchandise between ships and custom house had to pass. On the mountain south of Aden another wall extended in a broadly east-west direction along the heights. Here another gate opened up on Hulkat Bay. Its extensive set of fortifications made Aden unlike all other port cities on the entire south coast of Arabia. They indicated clearly that its rulers were afraid of the aggression of both hinterland tribes and any other attacker who might have designs on Aden and its commercial wealth from the seaside.14

Figure 1.2 Artist’s impression of the ‘passes’ or town bridges of Aden (left) and Shaharah (north Yemen, right), built in the 16th century. Courtesy of Mr H. S. Shihab, of Aden There are no records specifically naming Aden before the fourth century AD, but it is widely believed that Arabia Emporium in the geography of Ptolemy Claudius (c. AD 150–160) and Eadaemon Arabia in The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea15 probably were epitheta of Aden rather than proper names. A similar case was that of Barbarah, on the north coast of Somalia, which was also called El-Khor As’said, i.e. ‘Lucky Harbour’.16 In addition, the Periplus stated that the distance from Ocelis, a village on the Strait of Bab El-Mandab, to Eadaemon Arabia was ‘about twelve hundred stadia’.17 As ten stadia of the Periplus roughly equal a statute mile,18 the twelve hundred stadia amount to some 120 miles ( just under 200 km), nearly exactly the distance between Aden and the Bab El-Mandab. Already in its earliest days, long time before Greek sailors ventured out across the Arabian Sea to India, Aden was receiving cargoes from Egypt and India. It appears to have been a classical emporium where traders and sailors from both countries met to exchange their wares.19 In the fourth century AD Aden was named in the records of a Byzantine missionary who founded a church for the Christian community at Aden. This congregation consisted mainly of Greek and Roman traders who by this time had become so numerous that they required a proper church.20 This is clear evidence that Aden, during the first Byzantine dynasty, had resumed its old entrepôt function as an intermediary between Egypt and India.21 According to early Arabic historical and geographical sources Aden was, before and after the emergence of Islam, the gateway of Yemen as well as an international entrepôt. It was also famous for the manufacturing of the most precious perfumes in the world. Overseas merchants carried these to Sind

and India by ship, while other traders exported them overland to Persian and Roman markets.22 During the Islamic era Aden attained the height of its prosperity, especially during the Rasulid Dynasty (c. AD 1226/1232–1453). Abu Abdullah Al-Maq’dissi, the famous Arab geographer and traveller, who visited Aden in the 10th century AD, described its flourishing commerce as follows: ‘If you entered Aden, you could hear of a man who came to it with one thousand Dirhams [silver coins] and returned home with one thousand Ashrafi Dinars [gold coins]; another who came with a hundred and got out with five hundreds; and another again who came with a quantity of frankincense and left with a quantity of camphor; your soul should be greedy of wealth.’23 Nearly three centuries after Al-Maq’dissi another Arab traveller named Salah-AdDin Bin Al-Burhan visited Aden and described it in his book Massalek Al-Absar: Aden was a busy port city frequented by many vessels from Hijaz, Sind, China and Ethiopia. Traders from all these areas came to Aden to buy the provisions their own countries lacked. ‘No week’, Bin Al-Burhan claimed, ‘passed without several vessels arriving at its harbour. There were many different commodities for sale and a variety of shops. Its traders always made plenty of profit from their trade.’24 The arrival and departure of the vessels was governed by the seasons of the year. When a Nakhodah (Captain) intended to sail for a particular port or country, he hoisted a banner on his mast with a specific colour designating his destination. Merchants then hastened to the place where his vessel was moored. Slaves and servants carried their trading goods including large assortments of textiles and weapons. A temporary market was set up at the beach and Adenis flocked to the market to buy and to enjoy themselves as if it were a social outing. ‘Who dwells at Aden’, Bin Al-Burhan observed, ‘needs much money, for the cost of living is very high. Food and drink are very dear. He also needs to cool his body by washing it several times a day, during the hot season. But the merchants of Aden don’t mind these high expenses and the unwelcome climate because of the rapid growth of their wealth.’25 Ibn Batutah, the famous Arab traveller, visited Aden in the first half of the fourteenth century and described it as follows: ‘Aden is the harbour of the country of Yemen, located on the coast of the great sea and circled by the mountains. There is no entrance to it from the mainland except from one side. It is a great city. There are no plants nor trees nor any sweet water, but tanks exist for catching the precipitation when it rains. Sweet water is brought from a distance inland but the tribes who live there sometimes prevent the people of Aden to take water from the wells unless they pay money and clothes for it. It is a very hot city, and a busy seaport. Big vessels come to its harbour from Cambay, Tana, Qulan, Kalkout, Findrinah, Shalyat, Monjarour, Faqunour, Hanwar, Sindabour and other Indian ports. Merchants from Egypt and India have established themselves there and its indigenous inhabitants are traders, fishermen and porters. Everyone of its traders is very wealthy. Individuals can even own big

vessels and their cargo without anyone else having a share.’26 Further testimonies to Aden’s wealth were given by the early Portuguese who visited Asia when the Asian network of trade had not yet been affected by the European invaders. The conqueror Afonso de Albuquerque called the city ‘strongly fortified and with the most beautiful houses that I have seen in the East, very tall and white-washed’.27 He was only too well aware of the pre-eminent regional position of the city which was also, and for the last time, recognized by Tome Pires in his Suma Oriental Viewing the Asian trading system from the Gujarat perspective, he wrote ‘Cambay chiefly stretches out two arms, [to]… Aden and … Malacca, as the most important places to sail to’.28

Shipping The ancient harbour of Aden was in what is now known as Sirah Bay or Front Bay, on the eastern side of the peninsula. It was protected by the mountains from the southwest monsoon and all other winds except those from the northeast, where its opening to the sea lies. Sirah Island also shielded the bay from waves and gales from the southeast, while its fortress on the top protected both harbour and city from armed attack. Before the introduction of artillery there were large catapults on the top of Sirah Mountain and rocky outcrops ashore. At the northern side El-Akhdar Mountain protected the harbour. On its top another strong fortress had been built, named El-Khadra. Sirah Island provided safe anchorage along its western shore. It is said that some eighty vessels could be anchored there during the season.29 There was no pier or jetty in the harbour and all freight, passengers and animals were carried by small boats between the vessels and the beach. The trading vessels which travelled to India from Aden and other ports on the southern coast of Arabia such as Ash-Shihr, sailed twice a year. The first season was the beginning of the southwest monsoon, which Arab sailors called Ra’s Ar-Rih, i.e. the ‘Head of the Wind’. They sailed from Aden in April and kept their route near the shore to Ra’s Fartak (Cape Fartak, in easternmost Yemen) on the south coast of Arabia, where they sailed against the last blows of the northeast monsoon. At Cape Fartak they left the shore behind and, with the first fresh blows of the southwest monsoon, sailed across the Arabian Sea to India.30 The second season was during the last quarter of the southwest monsoon, which Arab sailors called Ad-Damani or Ad-Dimani and roughly ran from August 8th to September 1st. Their departure date was governed by the fact that the nakhodahs were obliged to arrive in India before the first blows of the northeast wind. Thus the season stretched from early June to late August when the southwesterly winds became so strong that even fishing men were afraid to leave the shores of southern Arabia and western India. The passage to India from Arabia and

East Africa was stopped during this period. During the northeast monsoon vessels came to Aden from India and other countries to the eastward. But also they, usually, did not travel in the stormy season, especially between the coast of South Arabia and Soqotra Island. As for Aden’s communications with ports in East Africa and the Red Sea, the vessels sailed with the northeast monsoon from Aden and returned from East Africa with the opposite, southwest, wind and from the Red Sea with the northerly. Ibn Al-Mojawir, who in the first half of the thirteenth century AD resided a few years at Aden, stated in his book Al-Mustabser that sharp-sighted watchmen were situated on the hills around the harbour of Aden to watch out for the arrival of ships. If one of them perceived a ship on the horizon, he signalled to his companion who shouted ‘Hirya’ and signalled to the next watchman, at the harbour, who sent news of the vessel’s arrival to the governor of the town. The first one of these watchmen was situated at the top of the eastern end of Al-Akhdar Mountain north to the harbour, to cover shipping arriving from India and other eastern lands. The other one was stationed at the summet of El-Manzar hill, south of the town, to watch out for vessels of what was known as the Al-Qarim trade, which came from Egyptian ports on the Red Sea coast.31 Table 1.1 Spice taxes

(*) A Bahar: approx. 300 lbs When a vessel arrived and anchored in the harbour a representative of the governor of Aden came on board with a special customs inspector who searched all passengers. He examined their turbans, hair, sleeves, trousers, and even looked under their armpits. Women passengers were searched by a female officer. The next day the traders were allowed to go ashore with their personal baggage. After three days they were allowed to bring their merchandise to the Custom House, where they had to open

every package and itemize their contents piece by piece. If the merchandise was saleable by weight, Custom officials weighed it. Finally, the Customs officer assessed all the articles and imposed a heavy tax.32 Table 1.2 Cloth taxes (all Customs)

Commerce and customs Since the city’s earliest times the rulers of Aden had turned the advantages of its location and its function as an international entrepôt into account by imposing heavy imposts on trade. When Ibn-Al-Mojawir visited Aden he found that no less than five taxes were levied: the old tax, i.e. the ordinary customs tariff; the Shawani tax (‘warships tax’); the Dar Al-Wakalat tax (tax of the Agency House); the Dar Al-Zakat tax (tax of the Tithe House); and brokerage.33 The warships tax had been introduced during the Ay-Yubid’s rule in the Yemen (1173–1227). 34 Ibn Al-Mojawir also reported on the special imposts levied at Aden. On each horse, for example, the government took 50 Dinars when it entered the city from the inland and 70 Dinars when it was re-exported by sea. This tax was also introduced in the Ay’yubid time. On iron they took half the quantity, similarly a tax introduced during the Ay’yubid reign. A quarter was taken on consignments of lead. On each slave 2 Dinars was levied on importation and, on re-exportation through the gate to the inland, another ½ Dinar. When a vessel was sold the vendor had to pay a fee of 10 per cent. Our traveller also identified the most important commodities traded at Aden which were not taxed. From Egypt came wheat, flour, sugar, rice, soap, hyssop, perfumery, olive oil, oil of Eljar, pickled olives, and small quantities of nuts for sweetmeat and honey; from India rice, kichree, mixtures of rice and pulse, sesame, soap, myrobalan, red ochre, cushions, pillows, table cloths, arabi cloths manufactured in Malabar, sandals, and beads of Dibul; from Ash-Shihr on the southern coast of Yemen salt fish and date stones; and, finally from Ethiopia (i.e. East Africa) goat. For each article not taxed in the Custom House the Adeni government took a Kirat (one thirteenth) for every Dinar of its value for Al-Wakalah, and one Fils of every Dinar for Al-Zakat, beside the

customary brokerage.35 The major exports from the Yemen to India, through the port of Aden, in the last centuries before the ‘Vasco da Gama era’ were fo’wah (madder) and horses. Madder was prepared from the roots of Rubia Tinctorum and exported as a dye to India. It was produced in great quantities during this period. Ibn Al-Mojawir claimed that in the year 615 H. (c. AD 1217) most of the fertile hills of Yemen were planted with the fo’wah. According to him, the yield for a field planted with wheat was 5 Dinars against a yield of 60 Dinars, if planted with madder. In 622 H. (c. AD 1224) the price of a Bahar of madder even rose to 76 Dinars.36 In order to catch the season of the vessels travelling to India fo’wah was planted in either October or December.37 A full year after planting the farmers cut the shrubs with scythes. They then ploughed the roots and washed and polished them till they became bright red in colour. After weighing the crop was packed in gunny bags. The crop resulting from the October planting came to Aden before the beginning of the first season (or the big season, as it was called) for ships travelling to India which, as was mentioned before, began in the last week of April from Aden. The roots from the December planting reached Aden in time for the second season of travelling to India which Arab sailors called the Ad-Damani. Albuquerque’s information confirmed the vital importance of madder for the political economy of Aden and its ruler.38 The sultan maintained an absolute monopoly on the article and yearly shipped between 20,000 and 25,000 sacks to India. The trade was highly profitable as he paid the farmers six xerafins per sack and sold them at Cambay for twenty-two. After madder the most important trade was that in horses. Also they were exported to India in great numbers. They arrived at Aden from the interior of Yemen, chiefly from the northern part of Tehamah province and the neighbourhood of San’a. There was one season per year for shipping horses and the king of Yemen, with his princes, advisers, the governor of Aden and many other dignitaries always came to the harbour to witness the spectacle of the horses being hoisted aboard the India-bound vessels. The king and the royal treasury of Yemen were vitally interested in the trade of Aden as a considerable proportion of their income was derived from the entrepôt’s trade. It was claimed that already before Al-Mojawir’s time during the Ay-Yubid Dynasty (i.e. before the Rasulids captured the throne) the people of Aden every year despatched four consignments of treasure to Ta’iz, the Ay-Yubid capital of Yemen. Each of these remittances amounted to 150,000 Dinars or more.39 The sources of these funds were: the receipts on the madder entering Aden, the receipts on the vessels’ arrival from India, the export duty on horses to India, and the receipts from vessels journeying to India.40 A special verse was composed to celebrate these transports: Table 1.3 Annual treasury tribute

Ta’iz is the capital of Yemen, Its treasures come from Aden. During the Rasulid Dynasty treasure was dispatched only once a year but the value of this single tribute amounted to more than that of all four annual missions of the previous years together. The annual expedition under the Rasulids was known by the ancient Yemeni historians as Al-Khizanah As-Sa’idah, i.e. the ‘Happy Treasury’. As is shown in table 1.3, each treasury consisted of gold and silver currency, textiles and other precious articles, apart from the valuable presents which were usually presented by the sea traders to the sultan of Aden.41 Since pre-Islamic days Aden had acquired a favourable reputation as a great entrepôt, a collection centre for redistribution of the East-West commerce between South and East Asia and the Levant. As a result of its position and reputation Aden had established good relationships with the ports and countries from which these commodities arrived. In order to keep these relations on a steady keel governments of those ports, from time to time, sent embassies with valuable presents to the Kings of Yemen. These missions included four from China (Zaitun), one in the time of the second king of the Rasulid Dynasty Al-Mudhafar (647–94 H.) and three on the last of Cheng Ho’s seven ambitious expeditions.42 Some of these presents which came to Aden in the times of the Rasulid Dynasty have been recorded (Table 1.4).43 Table 1.4 Presents from foreign governments

The port city in international rivalry During the long history of Aden as a successful entrepôt its wealth attracted the envious attention of many who were led to challenge the rulers of the Yemen. Disputes and conflicts between pretenders and kings were bitter and frequent, and, even during the time of each individual dynasty, Aden was several times taken and retaken. During the later years of the Rasulid Dynasty, half-way through the fifteenth century, additional taxes were imposed on the import and export trade at Aden in order to finance the wars fought in the interior. No wonder that some sixty years later Albuquerque, in 1513, remarked that Aden was even more heavily fortified on the landside than on the seaside!44 Paradoxically, but inevitably, these heavy taxes became the principal cause of the collapse of this dynasty and, with it, of Aden’s prosperity, as overseas merchants were forced to look for another suitable port in the Red Sea region to market and exchange their merchandise. The Egyptian government grabbed this opportunity and began to encourage trading vessels to by-pass Aden and unload their cargoes at Jiddah – the ‘Bride of the Red Sea’ – which at that time was subject to them.45 The Yemeni government did not give up readily and sent a number of its warships to take up station at the Bab ElMandab Strait. Their purpose was to intercept Jiddah-bound merchantmen from India and to force them to return to Aden, or Ath-Thagr Al-Mahroos as it was called, i.e. ‘the Protected Port’. The Arabic sources of this period record some of the sea battles which

took place between the vessels of the traders and the warships of the Yemeni government. The Yemenis lost many ships and superior Egyptian sea power gained control of the Red Sea trade and directed it into the port of Jiddah.46 By the middle of the fifteenth century the trade of Aden collapsed together with the Rasulid Dynasty. After a short period Aden recovered its prosperity under the rule of the Tahirids who replaced the Rasulids, for the kings of the Tahirid Dynasty had been traders and shipowners unlike their predecessors.47 Moreover, quite ironically, the Muslim rulers of Aden were helped by the arrival of the Portuguese. As Albuquerque noted, the presence of Portuguese warships prevented Indian ships from sailing on time for their Red Sea destinations. In consequence, Aden’s entrepôt function gained a new lease of life. Many cargoes were unloaded there and reexported by Adeni merchants on their own ships to Jiddah. At the same time merchants from Jiddah and even Cairo came to settle in the city which became ‘more wealthy than it used to be’.48 This prosperity, however, was short-lived and ended with the Turkish occupation of Aden in 1538. Even so, it was quite remarkable that the regional hegemony of Aden lasted as long as it did. Before the Turkish conquest the Portuguese - in 1513 had attempted to capture the city but the attempt failed. After a four day siege Albuquerque, the Portuguese commander, withdrew with his troops and twenty warships. Three years after the Portuguese attempt the new Mamluk sultan of Egypt sent his Commander Ra’is Sulaiman to take Aden by assault but he also failed. The Turks captured Aden by treachery. They arrived in a fleet of about 80 warships. The Turkish commander Sulaiman Pasha invited the ruler of Aden, the last king of the Tahirid Dynasty, to visit his flagship. When the king arrived on board he was, with some of his ministers, promptly seized and hanged. After this the Turks had little trouble in seizing the city.49 One of the main themes in Asia’s nineteenth century history is the ‘Great Game’, the paranoid struggle between Britain and Russia in their race to divide and control the continent; between the two powers of the sea and the land little space remained for independent states. A similar fate was in store for Aden in the early sixteenth century when it became squeezed between the amphibious forces of the youthful Estado da India and the armies of the still vigorous and expanding Ottoman Empire. One can only speculate how different Aden’s history – and that of its region – would have been had the Portuguese enjoyed the same luck of arms in their attack of 1513 as that which favoured them at Melaka or Hormuz.

NOTES 1 See, e.g., Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge, 1984), p. 28; the maps in K.N. Chauduri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean. An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1985), pp.

2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20

38,40 and 41; also V.D. Divekar, ‘Maritime Trading Settlements in the Arabian Sea Region up to AD 1500’, paper presented at the 1st International Conference of Indian Ocean Studies, Perth 1979, and Kenneth McPherson, The Indian Ocean. A History of People and the Sea (New Delhi, 1993), chs 2–3. See the monumental two-volume work edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu et al., Melaka: The Transformation of a Malay Capital c. 1400–1980 (Petaling Jaya, 1985). Chauduri, Trade and Civilisation, p. 106. The Portuguese traveller, Tomé Pires, testified to Aden’s position when he described Cambay as being the central trading place of Asia with two arms stretched, eastward to Melaka and westward to Aden (A. Cortesão, ed. The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires [London, 1944], vol. 1, p. 42); see also Denys Lombard, ‘Y a-t-il une continuité des réseaux marchands asiatiques?’, in Denys Lombard & Jean Aubin, eds Marchands et hommes d’affaires asiatiques dans I’Ocean Indien et la Mer de Chine 13e-20e siècles (Paris, 1988), pp. 11–7, esp. pp. 15–7. Chauduri, Trade and Civilisation, p. 59. Cf. Serjeant, ‘Yemeni Merchants’, pp. 65 and 68–74. Brought together in his Studies in Arabian History and Civilization (London, 1981). For an Arabic account of Aden’s history see Hassan Saleh Shihab, Aden Furdhat Al-Yemen [Aden is the harbour of Yemen] (San’a, 1990). Ibn Al-Mojawir, Tarikh Al-Mustabser (in Arabic, ed. by Oscar Lofgren, Leiden, 1954), p. 116. Al-Kalkashandi, Subh Al-Asha (in Arabic, Cairo, n.d.), vol. 5, pp. 101–12. Mohammed Abul-Majid, Kla’id Al-Juman (in Arabic, Kanpur, India), p. 90. F.M. Hunter, An Account of the British Settlement of Aden in Arabia (London, 1968), p. 143. J.R. Wellsted, Travels in Arabia (London, 1838), vol. 1, p. 228. Abu Abdullah Al-Maq’dissi, Ahsan at-Taqassim (in Arabic, Leiden, 1909), p. 85. Curious is Albuquerque’s remark (made in 1513), that Aden had ‘so many castles and towers that it looks as though they were built more for show than for use’. (T.F. Earle & John Villiers, eds Albuquerque. Caesar of the East [Warminster, 1990], pp. 252–3). W.H. Schoff, transl. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (New York, 1912), p. 32. Suleiman bin Ahmed Al-Mahri, Al-Umdah Al-Mamriyah (Arabic ms. on Arab nautical sciences, ed. by G. Ferrand, Paris, 1925; original held in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris), vol. 7, p. 49. Schoff, Periplus, p. 32. Ibid., pp. 54–5. Ibid., p. 32. G.F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean (transl. into Arabic by Sayed

Yakoob, Cairo, 1958), pp. 94–5. 21 Ibid. 22 Ahmed bin Al-Hassan Al-Marzooki, Al-Azminah w’Al-Amkinah (in Arabic, Cairo, n.d.), vol. 2, p. 113. 23 Al-Maq’dissi, Ahsan al-Taqassim, pp. 97–8. 24 Salah-Ad-Din Bin Al-Burhan, Massalek Al-Absar (n.p., n.d.). 25 Ibid. 26 Ibn Batutah, Tunfat Al-Absar fee Gra’ib Al-Amsar wa Aja’ib Al-Asar (Cairo, 1967), vol. 1, p. 159. 27 Earle & Villiers, Albuquerque, pp. 252–5. 28 Cortesão, Suma Oriental, vol. 1, p. 42. 29 Ibn Al-Mojawir, Tarikh, p. 144. 30 Al-Mahari, ‘Al-Umdah’, p. 38a. 31 Cf. Serjeant, ‘Yemeni Merchants’, pp. 68–71. 32 Ibn Al-Mojawir, Tarikh, p. 139. 33 Ibid., passim. The currency of the country was the gold Malaki, of which 4½ Dinars equalled one Egyptian Dinar. The Dinar was divided into quarters, or four Dirhams; each Dirham equalled 3 Jwaz (sing. Ja’iz), each Ja’iz counting 8 Fuloos (sing. Fils), and each Fils 2 Baidhahs. 34 A.M. Al-Khazraji, Al-Ukud Al-Lulu’eyah fi Tarikh Al-Daulah Al-Rasuliyah [The Pearl Strings: A History of the Rasulid Dynasty] (Cairo, 1911), vol. 1, p. 47; see also R.B. Serjeant, ‘Yemeni Merchants and Trade in Yemen 13th-16th Centuries’, in Lombard & Aubin, Marchands et hommes d’affaires asiatiques, pp. 62–3. 35 Ibn Al-Mojawir, Tarikh, pp. 140–3. 36 Ibid., pp. 174–5. 37 King El-Ashraf Omer Bin Yoosif (a Rasulid who ruled 694–696 H., c. 1295–1296), ‘Ma’arif Al-Malah fee Marifat Al-Filahah’ (a manuscript on Yemeni agriculture; photocopy in the library of the Centre for Studies and Research, Aden). 38 Earle & Villiers, Albuquerque, pp. 256–7. 39 Ibid, p. 144. 40 Ibn Al-Mojawir, Tarikh, pp. 144–5. 41 Anon., Tarikh Al-Daulah Al-Rasuliyah (history of the Rasulid dynasty, ed. by Abdullah Al-Hibshi, Damascus, 1984), passim. See also Al-Khazraji, Al-Ukood AlLo’lo’eyah fee Tarikh Al-Daulah Al-Rasuliyah. 42 Cf. Serjeant, ‘Yemeni Merchants’, pp. 74–5. 43 Anon., Tarikh Al-Daulah Al-Rasuliyah, passim. 44 Earle & Villiers, Albuquerque, pp. 252–3. 45 Khalil Al-Zahiri, Zubdat Kashf Al-Mamalik (ed. by P. Ravaisse, Paris, 1894), p. 14. 46 Anon., Tarikh Al-Daulah Al-Rasuliyah, passim. 47 Abu’makhramah, Abdullah Attyeb, ‘Killadat Al-Nahr’ (manuscript, Library of

Manuscripts, Tarim, Yemen), vol. 3, p. 4. 48 Earle & Villiers, Albuquerque, pp. 256–7. 49 Mohammed bin Omer Attayeb Bafakih, ‘Tarikh Hawadeth As-Sineen’, (manuscript, original in Library of Manuscripts, Tarim; photocopy at the Centre for Studies and Research, Aden), p. 88b.

2

MASULIPATNAM REVISITED, 1550–1750 A Survey and Some Speculations Sanjay Subrahmanyam Delhi School of Economics, India

A decade into his reign as Sultan of Golconda, ’Abdullah Qutb Shah (r. 1626–72) decided to visit the eastern parts of his realm. Times were hard. The country was just recovering from one of the worst famines that it had seen since the 1540s. Moreover, the Mughal ruler Shahjahan had in May 1636 forced the Golconda ruler to sign a humiliating Inqiyad Nama (‘Treaty of Submission’) which stripped him of many of his independent pretensions and belied the panegyrist’s view that ’Abdullah was one who from birth knew he ‘would be like Alexander and Solomon, and issue orders to all the kings of the world’. And yet the young ’Abdullah – born in 1614, and placed on the throne as a stripling of twelve under the tutelage of his mother Hayat Bakhshi Begam – set off in 1636–37 with a retinue of some fifty thousand to visit the maritime provinces. Hardly under way, however, he was forced to turn back at the inland fort of Kondapalli, fearing troubles from recalcitrant subordinate zamindars. But three years later, in 1639, the Sultan, accompanied by his mother, several of his wives and harem, the Safavid and Mughal resident ambassadors (hajibs) Imam Quli Beg and Khwaja Zahid, and an astonishing number of infantry, horses and elephants, set out once more, this time reportedly on the advice of his minister (sar-i-khail), the Persian Mir Muhammad Sayyid Ardistani. The expedition was described in detail by the King’s son-in-law Mirza Nizam al-Din Ahmad Sa’idi, who was not an eyewitness (for he arrived in Golconda from Mekka only in 1645), but based himself on hearsay. In his Hadiqat al-Salatin, written in the 1640s, Mirza Nizam al-Din recounts how ’Abdullah, on a golden throne, and preceded by thousands of workmen who repaired roads and cleared forests, made his way to the Auspicious Port, the Bandar-i Mubarak of Masulipatnam. The entire expedition, from the court-city of Hyderabad to Masulipatnam and back, passing through the muqasas of leading nobles such as Pithoji Kantia, Rashid Khan Khan-i ’Azam, and ’Ali Akbar ’Ain ul-Mulk, took a leisurely two

months; a trading caravan would have taken a mere fourteen days. On 20 November 1639 the Dutch, English and Danish traders resident in Masulipatnam were ordered to pay court to the Sultan at his camp two days journey from the town. Later, in the beginning of December, he even inspected the English Company’s house, expressing surprise at their poverty, in evident contrast to the Dutch who had made him a present of rubies and promised for the next year an elephant and five horses.1 The residents of the port, whose road links with the hinterland improved as a consequence of this visit, were made aware that the Sultan’s authority was not as fragile as they might have thought, and the ties between inland political centre and trading port were strongly reinforced. Masulipatnam could have no meaning without Hyderabad providing its vital support. Shahjahan, who had once as a rebel prince spent several days in and around Masulipatnam, in November 1623, and who himself was particularly aware of the significance of maritime trade, cannot but have grasped the importance of the new situation. The rise to prominence and subsequent decline into obscurity of the port-city of Masulipatnam occupies a span of time extending some two centuries from about the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. ’Abdullah Qutb Shah’s visit thus marks a kind of median point in the life-cycle of this great pre-modern port, even if he and his courtiers did not realize it. Of course, even today, Masulipatnam is a provincial town with a certain importance, and as late as the 1860s it was fondly believed that it would return to its former glory for the centre’s profile in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been a pale shadow of its situation in the mid-seventeenth century, when it numbered among the dozen or so largest urban settlements in South Asia. The present essay occupies itself with examining Masulipatnam’s role as the successor of Motupalli, and the predecessor of Vishakapatnam, as the dominant port of the Andhra coast. It draws in part on earlier work by the present author, and others, on the trade and trading community of Masulipatnam, and argues that the rise and decline of the port must be understood in the context of the regional economy and political system of the eastern Deccan.2 It is further argued that the early modern period saw a transition in India from regional political and economic systems that were based on a link between an inland centre and a port which complemented and balanced each other, to another type of system wherein the port (be it Madras, Bombay or Calcutta) claimed to combine both the political-administrative and overseas trading roles.3 This transition, which occupied the latter half of the seventeenth century, and the first half of the century that followed, consumed Masulipatnam as a victim. The attempts in the mideighteenth century, and then again in the early nineteenth century, to turn Masulipatnam into a fortified ‘bastion’ thus represent an unsuccessful response to the imperatives of the hour. The political system with which Masulipatnam remained associated in its period of pre-eminence was that of the Qutb Shahi Sultanate of Golconda, founded in the early

sixteenth century. In the mid-1630s, this Sultanate came under the shadow of the Mughals, who exercised rights of suzerainty over it by means of a ‘Treaty of Submission’. Mughal silver coins were issued in Golconda as a tributary coinage and the rulers had to suppress their natural inclinations towards Shi’a Islam to please their suzerains.4 A complex period of fifty years followed, which is still only poorly understood, during which the Mughals participated in Golconda’s economy in a variety of ways, used armed force occasionally, but allowed the Qutb Shahs a good deal of local autonomy. It was only in the late 1680s that the Mughals finally found themselves powerful enough to do away with this arrangement and Golconda and Masulipatnam fell to Aurangzeb in 1686–87. There has been some debate on whether the Mughal conquest led to Masulipatnam’s decline. Whatever be the case, it was hardly true that all was over with the port in one stroke. On the other hand, it is certainly verifiable that by the last quarter of the seventeenth century the phase of decline had begun which continued to work itself out for another half century or more. Thus, by the late eighteenth century, when this essay concludes its bird’s eye view, the port was of little importance in overseas trade and Masulipatnam had declined so that it was no more a major urban centre in any other sense either. According to a census taken in 1837, its inhabitants numbered a mere 27,884 persons, which made it only slightly larger than the port of Nizamapatnam (Peddapalli) to the south, which housed 24,646 souls in the same year.5 Nevertheless, Masulipatnam did remain a local seat of administration (the chief town of the ‘Circar’ of the same name) during the early phase of English East India Company rule, and was eventually incorporated into the Krishna district of Madras Presidency as the headquarters of a taluka.

Lay-out of the town The town of Masulipatnam, or ‘Fish-Town’, also known as Bandar (which simply means ‘port’) lies in the delta of the river Krishna. The town’s present structure gives us only a few clues as to how it must have been laid out in the seventeenth century. Extensive restructuring has been carried out in the course of the last two centuries, and contemporary maps from the period with which we are concerned are elusive. So far as we can tell, then as now, Masulipatnam lay to the north of the channel of the river that served it in its role as a port, even though the present-day channel has been altered somewhat by modifications introduced under the Krishna irrigation experiments of the 1850s and 1860s. The main structure that helps us orient ourselves is the Bandar Fort, which is clearly set out in the maps accompanying the revenue re-survey conducted in the 1890s, and which was built on the site of the Dutch factory. The Fort, too, some 720 metres long and 540 metres wide, was originally built by the Dutch, and then extended and strengthened by the French during their brief occupation of the town in the mid-

eighteenth century. It still houses in its environs some of the early Dutch tombs such as that of Jakob Dedel, Councillor of the Indies, who died there in somewhat suspicious circumstances in 1624; the blue spots that were found on his face and body led some to conclude that he had been poisoned to prevent him investigating the misdemeanours of the resident Dutch factors.6 Masulipatnam today, as in the seventeenth century, lies about two km to the northwest of the Fort, whose immediate surroundings are thinly inhabited as it is located in a rather humid and swampy site. Indeed, writing in 1833, the English Company servant Walter Campbell stated somewhat sarcastically that the Fort was built by the Dutch on a … patch of dry ground, surrounded by a dismal swamp, which no living creature but a Dutchman, a frog or an alligator, would ever have selected for his habitation’.7 But better sites were perhaps hard to come by. A mid-nineteenth century description, in the gazetteer of Edward Thornton, provides the following details on Masulipatnam: The town is situated in an extensive plain, stretching westward to the Ghats, and in an unhealthy marshy situation, the atmosphere having the characteristic odour of such pestiferous places, arising from the putrefaction of the lacustrine plants, the Salicorniae principally … The pettah or native town is situate southwest of the cantonment, and has some wide and airy streets, tolerably straight and well-built.8 This rather brief description ties in rather well with what we can gather from the seventeenth-century sources. These include several English, French and Dutch travel accounts, and we may begin with one of the earliest and most celebrated of them, that of the English Company employee William Methwold, written about 1620. In sixteene degrees and a halfe lyeth Musulipatam, the chiefe port of the Kingdome of Golchonda, where the Right Worship-full East Indian Company have their Agent … It is a small towne, but populous, unwalled, ill built, and worse situated; within, all the springs are brackish, and without, over-flowed with every high sea fro almost halfe a mile about. It was first a poore fisher towne, from whence it took the name it yet retaynes; afterwards, the conveniencie of the road made it a fit residence for merchants, and so continueth (with it a fit residence for merchants, and so continueth (with increase of trade) since our and the Dutch nation frequented this Coast.9 We should naturally discount Methwold’s rather transparent attempt to take credit for Masulipatnam’s prosperity and focus instead on two other aspects of his description: first, his insistence on Masulipatnam’s limited size (or area) but populous character, and second, his suggestion that the ‘road’, or anchorage, of the port was rather better than

elsewhere on the Coromandel coast. This is odd, because the port did not have a natural cove, or harbour, unlike what we find on the southwest coast, in Cannanore or Bhatkal, or an estuary as at Basrur. In fact, ships had to anchor some distance offshore, as pointed out by Methwold’s contemporary, the Dutch factor Antonio Schorer, in his own ‘Relation of the Trade of the Coromandel Coast’ (1614–15): There is also a river, but unfit for ships or pinnaces to enter, being altogether shallow and also narrow, the ships which come here, namely ours and the English, must lie about a mile off shore, because it is absolutely flat. The ground is very soft; the ships lie in 3 and 4 fathom. The town is situated about half a league up the river.10 Thus, goods from the ships that were anchored offshore had typically to be transported to Masulipatnam in the small masula boats employed in the area for the purpose. Masulipatnam was evidently not as well suited for its function as Narsapur Peta to the north, in the Godavari delta. Of the latter, another Dutch account, again roughly contemporary to that of Methwold (probably by Pieter Gillisz van Ravesteyn), stated that the river there was ‘large, wide and convenient; ships of as much as 200 last burden can be sheathed or built in it’.11 Once the goods had been brought to Masulipatnam in boats, they went first to the customs-houses (the bangsars, or BankSoll, of contemporary documents), which lay on the river, not far from the Dutch factory. In what was later termed the ‘Pettah’ lay the English factory, and near it the factory that the French Company set up in the latter half of the seventeenth century. These factories appear clearly marked in a contemporary engraving, showing a ‘Distant View of Masulipatnam and its River’, published in a travel account by the Dutch predikant Philippus Baldaeus in the 1670s.12 The Baldaeus drawing admittedly is difficult in certain ways as it can not in some specific points be reconciled with the written descriptions of the town. The engraving shows Masulipatnam against the backdrop of the Bay of Bengal, with four ships anchored offshore in the distance. To the left (or northwest) lies a small settlement, perhaps the village of Arisepalli, or that of Mastavaram, which is connected to the main town by a small bridge of five spans.13 The town itself, which occupies the centre and centre-right of the drawing, is shown to have no outstanding buildings, though several structures appear to have two or more stories. To the far right, or south west, lie the European factories with their flags. The most striking feature, however, is a causeway leading from one of the town’s gates into the foreground of the engraving. The major problem with the Baldaeus depiction lies in understanding how the town was organized in relation to the river. If the town was indeed to the north of the river, as later evidence suggests, then both the causeway and the bridge to the north cannot have passed over the main channel, and must instead have been built over swamp land.

This suggests that in the engraving the river lies behind the town, concealed save for a glimpse to the drawing’s far right. Alternatively, we may speculate that the artist used by Baldaeus gave free rein to his imagination, taking care only to include certain major elements mentioned by the author in his text such as the causeway linking Masulipatnam to the inland centres of Bezwada and Hyderabad, the European factories, and so on. The first is the more plausible explanation, for nothing in the drawing suggests casualness. Even the strategic placement of elephants in the foreground and on the causeway is related to Masulipatnam’s renown in the midseventeenth century as the bandar-i-pilan (Persian for ‘the port of elephants’), referring to the animals it imported from Arakan, Pegu, Aceh and Sri Lanka.14 Masulipatnam was, as Methwold pointed out, not a walled town for much of the seventeenth century, and this makes it difficult to ascertain its precise physical limits. In fact, this is a more general problem encountered in relation to many of the port cities in South Asia – and, for that matter, Southeast Asia, as Wake shows elsewhere – in the period, and brings into focus why urban morphological studies have largely concentrated on fortified inland centres such as Shahjahanabad or Golconda. Late nineteenth century surveys show Masulipatnam (or Bandar) as bounded in the following way.15 To the south, across the river (or canal), lies a swampy area, and the from east to west the villages of Polatitippa, Kona, and Rudravaram. West lie Mallavol, a village farmed intermittently in the seventeenth century by the English East India Company, and Gollapallem. Arisepalli and Mastavaram define the northern limits, while Kara lies east-northeast of the town. Between Masulipatnam and the sea one finds the fishing hamlet of Gilakaladindi, and near the sea itself, at the river’s mouth, a forested area. Some of these villages, such as Gollapallem, Mastavaram and Mallavol, find repeated mention in seventeenth and early eighteenth century documents, suggesting that then (as in the 1890s) they lay outside the town’s limits. This is further lent credence by the fact that Masulipatnam’s population in the 1890s was still just below 40,000, and hence less than what it had been in the 1670s; it seems plausible therefore that its physical limits would not have expanded in the interim. We know that across the causeway from Masulipatnam to the southwest, and astride the route to Hyderabad, lay the centre of Imguduru, in the late seventeenth century the place of residence of the hawaldar who administered Masulipatnam. The role of Imguduru seems to have been slight until the 1670s, but grew thereafter. It is given a fair amount of importance in French accounts from the mid-eighteenth century.16 It is possible that Imguduru is the point from which the Baldaeus engraving derives its perspective on Masulipatnam.

From fishing village to port-city Historians have in the past been anxious to assert a great antiquity for the port of Masulipatnam. Indeed, it is usually stated that it finds mention already in Pliny and other early geographies, as well as in the travel-account of Marco Polo.17 In fact, the only port in the region mentioned by the Venetian traveller is Motupalli, which at the time of his visit was under the rule of the Kakatiya queen, Rudrama Devi.18 Much later retrospective accounts, dating from the eighteenth century, assert that the port was founded in the fifteenth century by Arab traders, and then captured by the Bahmani dynasty in the last phase of its rule over the Deccan. Even if this is true, and it is by no means implausible, we can be sure that Masulipatnam was of no great importance in about 1520, for it never appears in the Portuguese documentation of the period, some of which – like the accounts of Duarte Barbosa and Tomé Pires – record even such minor ports as Kunjimedu and Armagon. Masulipatnam’s first appearance in the Portuguese sources is in the early 1540s, in the correspondence of a certain Miguel Ferreira, an aggressive entrepreneur based in central Coromandel, and in Fernão Vaz Dourado’s map of the Indian coasts of the same epoch. Later in the same decade, João de Barros mentioned Masulipatnam as a source of textiles in his fourth Década; and in the second half of the century, references become increasingly frequent.19 The Portuguese accounts portray Masulipatnam, by about 1580, as the port of the Sultanate of Golconda and its ruler, the ‘Cota Maluco’ (Qutb ul-Mulk). This is in contrast to its southern neighbour Peddapalli (later known as Nizamapatnam), which in that period was still under the control of the last Vijayanagara dynasty. When did Masulipatnam come under the control of the Qutb Shahi rulers, and what had been the situation earlier? We can answer neither part of the question with certitude. The extent of territory claimed by Quli Qutb Shah, while extending as far as Kondavidu, which he took, lost and then recaptured, late in his reign, seems not to have given him direct access to the coast. But it is likely that by the mid-1540s, the Qutb Shahi dynasty enjoyed some form of contact with Masulipatnam, which may still have been under the control, though, of one or the other of the Reddi or Velama lineages that operated in the vicinity. Links between the port and the capital of Golconda were hence only secured in the reign of Ibrahim Qutb Shah (1550–80), and the control of the coast extending from the Godavari to at least Point Divi had been achieved by the early 1570s. As Rajahmundry fell to Golconda forces in 1572–73, it became possible to link the textile-producing centres of the Godavari delta (ranging from Draksharama and Amalapuram, to Palakollu and Narsapur), to Masulipatnam and its hinterland.20 The capture of the area around Peddapalli, including the port itself, which seems to have occurred in the course of the 1580s, also brought the painted textiles of the lower Krishna delta within the same circuit of exchange, without the need to cross a

contested and volatile political frontier. Nizamapatnam by the last decade of the sixteenth century was a satellite port of the larger centre, Masulipatnam, and remained so through the following century. Portuguese accounts from the 1570s and 1580s also stress another element in their descriptions of Masulipatnam, and this is their own inability to check, or derive revenue from, its trade. They speak of the port as a source of rice, and munitions and steel for the Sultans of Aceh in northern Sumatra, and mention that by the late 1570s, the Portuguese viceroy or governor at Goa used to license privateers to lie in wait outside Masulipatnam, in the hope of seizing ships that were on their way to, or about departing from, the port. The Portuguese chronicler Diogo do Couto has left us a detailed account of one such expedition in the early 1580s, during the brief governorship at Goa of Fernão Teles de Meneses.21 The governor was advised by the captain of the Portuguese settlement of São Tomé de Meliapor that ‘in Masulipatao there were two naos from Achém loading iron, gunpowder, and other materials of war, which they needed to collect to attack Malaca; and another [ship] of the King of Pegu, which was as powerful as any from Portugal, and so rich that in duties alone it was valued at 150,000 cruzados.’ Fernão Teles resolved directly to send out a fleet, wrote Couto, not only because of the Acehnese ships, but also because there had recently been difficulties with Pegu, to which a Portuguese ambassador, Fernão de Lima, had been sent in order to negotiate the release of some prisoners. A fleet of four small vessels was equipped under the command of a certain Gonçalo Vaz de Camões. Its targets were not only ships from Aceh, but others from Pegu, including at least one that flew the flag of the Burmese ruler Bayin-naung (and which Camões’ expedition eventually burnt off the Burmese coast). The Masulipatnam-Aceh link is one that needs to be stressed, but it should be borne in mind that Masulipatnam in the last two decades of the sixteenth century was a port whose links were fast expanding, and which included not only Aceh but Arakan (the port-city of Mrauk-u), the ports of the Malay Peninsula, Mergui, Martaban and the Irrawaddy mouth ports, as well as other centres on the Indian east coast with which contact was maintained by means of coastal trade. At the same time, around 1600, the coastal traffic between Pipli and other Orissa ports and Masulipatnam was by no means to be despised; it provided the latter port much-needed supplies of rice (both for its own consumption and for redistribution to Aceh and other centres), and also made Masulipatnam a major market for the distribution of Bengal textiles. The timing of the emergence of Masulipatnam into the arena of Indian Ocean commerce fits in well therefore with economic and political developments in the eastern Deccan. The consolidation of Golconda’s power meant, first, that the port had a major urban market in the interior whose needs it had to service, and second, that between the capital and the coast, a host of subsidiary centres could arise and play an important role in exchange. Early Dutch records speak of the route between

Masulipatnam and Golconda as being mediated by a series of such centres. Two typical itineraries run as follows:22 Masulipatnam Vayyuru Bezwada (Belleware) Kondapalli Nandigama Penuganchiprolu (Onderouchonda) Pangal (Moulongol) Husainbegpur Malkapuram Golconda

Masulipatnam Vayyuru Bezwada Ibrahimpatnam Nandigama Adilabad (Penuganchiprolu) Ikhlas Khan ka peta Nusrat ka peta Pangal (Wellekhatta) (Patamghy) Singavaram Golconda

Both of these itineraries may be found in an undated, but early seventeenth century, Dutch document, which in the first of the two itineraries makes a particular comment about one of these centres, namely Konda- palli. We are aware that Kondapalli (also termed Mustafangar) had fallen quite early under Qutb Shahi rule, as two bilingual inscriptions from there, dated 1524/25 and 1538 (in Persian and Telugu) testify. It had emerged by 1600 as one of the main centres of Qutb Shahi power, located one remove from the coast, but intended to keep a check on events there through its garrison, which William Methwold in the early seventeenth century estimated at 12,000 troops.23 No substantial garrisons or forces seem to have been maintained by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah in such ports as Masulipatnam and Nizamapatnam; this was the preserve of fortresses such as Kondavidu (mostly named Murtazanagar) and Kondapalli, which were used to combat the still recalcitrant Velema and Reddi clans, while at the same time opportunistically using the very same clans (the so-called nayakwarian-i-azam) as auxiliaries. It should be noted in this context that the European observers of the early seventeenth century suggest that the liquid resources which flowed into the Golconda treasury by the late years of Muhammad Quli Qutb’s Shah reign (1580–1612) came very largely from the coastal districts. This view is somewhat at odds with the Persian records of the late seventeenth century, which seem instead to suggest that the interior districts accounted for some three-fourths of the total jama of the Golconda kingdom (11 million rupees, from a total of roughly 16 million rupees).24 One possible solution to

this apparent contradiction is that the European observers may have been speaking not of jama but of some other concept of revenue. Since we are aware that a great part of the interior was parcelled away to mugasadars, it may well be that the Europeans’ notion of revenues corresponded more closely to the khassa or khalisa lands, directly attached to the treasury rather than given out in prebends. All three accounts of Schorer, Ravesteyn and Methwold place Golconda revenues within a fairly close range, Ravesteyn estimating them at 1.7 million huns, Schorer at 1.9 million, and Methwold at 2.5 million huns.25 Taking an average, a figure for the period of around 2 million huns may be suggested, as against the revenues of Masulipatnam about 55,000 huns. The two coastal sarkars thus accounted, in this version for some 10 per cent or even more of the ‘revenues’, or of the khassa if the interpretation offered above is acceptable. As distinct from the Portuguese accounts mentioned briefly above, which tend to view Masulipatnam with a certain hostility and with an outsider’s perspective, the Dutch and the English materials (including the ‘Relations’ left by Methwold and his contemporaries) are written far more from the inside. This is because the Dutch settled a factory in the port quite early in their presence in India, in 1605, and were active participants in its life through the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century; the English, too, arrived early making their way soon after the Dutch, in 1611. By contrast, the official Portuguese presence in the port endured only a few years at the close of the sixteenth and the start of the seventeenth century, when they maintained a captain there; no records of these captains have been found to the present, and other private Portuguese traders who frequented the town also left little trace on paper.26 With the Dutch we are far more handsomely served, beginning with an insightful report, authored as early as 1608 by a certain Lodewijk Isaacx Eyloff. Lodewijk Isaacx, whose brother Pieter Isaacx Eyloff was also at Masulipatnam in these years as an employee of the Dutch factory, sets out in some detail the trading possibilities in the port, calling it the greatest trading-town in the area. However, he adds, a number of impediments exist to Dutch trade, and most important among those he lists are the ‘Moors’ of the port whom he portrays as closely linked to both the local administration and the court of Golconda.27 ‘Moor’, of course, is a vague category but Eyloff has been more specific in his account; he makes it clear that the principal merchants of Masulipatnam are not merely Muslims but Persians (‘Parsiaenders’), in which his testimony is backed up by Schorer, Ravesteyn and others.

The trading communities of Masulipatnam, 1600–50 Between the late sixteenth century and the 1670s, Persian merchants dominated trade at Masulipatnam, just as the Persians dominated court-politics at Golconda. We are uncertain when precisely this process began, since a strong Persian presence in the

Deccan dates back to at least the early fifteenth century. In the case of Golconda, given the adherence of its sultans to Shi’ism, there is every reason to believe this link must have been established early; Quli Qutb Shah himself, as is well known, was a Turkoman migrant from Hamadan, and related to the Qara-Quyunlu clan which had in the fifteenth century played a significant role in Iranian politics. In the reign of Ibrahim Qutb Shah, the role of the Persians in administration and politics grew still more conspicuous. A particularly significant figure is Sayyid Kamaluddin Ardistani (titled Mustafa Khan), who first appears in a position of authority in the late 1540s, at the close of the reign of Jamshid Qutb Shah. Appointed mir jumla of the kingdom by Ibrahim, in a bid to gain his support, Mustafa Khan proved tenacious in his ability to hold power. In 1566, he was asked to leave Golconda on suspicion of sedition, but instead of performing the hajj (as he had been asked to do), he went over to Bijapur and offered his services to Ali Adil Shah. Until the early 1580s, when power was seized by the habashi faction there, he continued to be a formidable force in the politics of Bijapur.28 Other Persians took his place in Golconda, many of them originally from the Gilan region in Iran, which is to say the southern littoral provinces of the Caspian Sea. They included men like Mir Muhammad Mu’min Astarabadi, who arrived in the Deccan in the early 1580s and remained in Golconda until his death in around 1624, as peshwa of the Sultanate. Mir Mu’min finds an important place in early Dutch and English records, as a jewel-trader in his own right, and as a difficult man to negotiate with.29 As can be gathered from their records, the court itself took a close interest in the affairs of Masulipatnam, and we find among the shipowners there several prominent Persians, as well as Sultan Muhammad Quli himself. The sultan’s interest was directed for the most part towards the establishment of direct trade beyond western India to the Persian Gulf (Hormuz) and the Red Sea ( Jiddah), which he had initially secured by means of a complex set of negotiations with the Portuguese state in the 1590s. Thereafter, as the Dutch and then the English were given a place in Masulipatnam, the Portuguese turned more and more hostile – even though they maintained a semi-official ambassador, a certain Frei Bartolomeu Dias, at his court into the 1610s.30 Initially, the Portuguese had tried another tactic. Knowing of the strong Persian presence in Masulipatnam and at the court, they had proposed to the Shahbandar of the port an exchange by which he would expel the Dutch, and the Portuguese would permit one Masulipatnam ship every year at Hormuz. The Dutch factors were worried by this, as we see from the letters written by Pieter Isaacx Eyloff from Masulipatnam in 1608.31 But nothing eventually came of the matter; and by the mid-1610s, the Portuguese Estado da India had assured itself of the enmity of the Golconda court by a series of actions, including an abortive raid on the Bay of Motupalli. However, after 1622, once Hormuz had fallen to Shah Abbas and the English Company, the idea of beginning direct trade with the Persian Gulf was raised again. It was actually implemented, though only in the early 1630s, with the blessings of Isfahan and the

more or less direct participation of the Golconda sultan.32 Thus, in the course of the 1620s and 1630s, Masulipatnam shipping came to be deployed more or less at full stretch, over an arc extending from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to Aceh and the Malay Peninsula. Although the Far East remained over its horizons, this remarkable feat of indigenous maritime entrepreneurship represents major testimony against the ‘era of Vasco da Gama’ concept. The bulk of Masulipatnam’s shipping that we can trace in these years belonged to Persian entrepreneurs or to traders based at other ports (such as the Sultan of Aceh, or Haji Baba of Arakan). It is distributed roughly as shown in Table 2.1, to the extent that we can reconstruct it from Dutch letters of the epoch. Table 2.1 Asian-owned shipping departures, Masulipatnam, 1624–34

source: subrahmanyam, Political Economy, pp. 214, 334. Important participants in this period include Mir Kamaluddin, Mazandarani, a resilient Persian merchant who had already been noticed by Isaacx as early as 1608, Mansur Khan Habashi (in the years before his execution in 1628), Mirza Muhammad Taqi Taqrishi, and a number of others. The Safavid hajib (resident ambassador) at Golconda is also known to have had a role in trade in these years, especially to Pegu, from where a quantity of precious and semi-precious stones were imported every year. But trade was by no means the monopoly of these merchants. For one, it is highly unlikely that they owned all the goods shipped on board their vessels. In 1629, when the Dutch and English captured a number of Masulipatnam vessels as a means of pressing the administration to accede to some of their demands, they found that the goods on board belonged to a variety of owners, some of whom they could ill afford to offend. Again, on the occasions that the Dutch and English offered freight services at the port, those from whom they took goods on board included a number of small-scale operators, as well as the Masulipatnam hawaldar, other officials, and major merchants. Impressionistically, it would appear that after the Persians, the next group in terms of importance were the Telugu Komattis, some Niyogi Brahmins, and thereafter other Chetti groupings like the Beris. The Balija Naidus, so important in trade in the ports of central and southern Coromandel in the seventeenth century, are far less of a presence here, and the Tamil Maraikkayars are scarcely to be found at all. Evidence of Jewish or

Armenian traders in the port is, again, very rare until the 1680s, while the Gujaratis who in these years were playing so prominent a role in the ports of Bengal are totally conspicuous by their absence. Traces of the Komattis and Niygois are to be found at a different level than that of Persian participation. First, on those occasions where data exist for coastal shipping to Masulipatnam, there is a good deal of evidence for their control over trade in bulk commodities. In 1683, to take but one example, a Dutch list presents us with information on some small ships, boats and thonijs that had arrived at Masulipatnam in the months of March and April with rice and paddy.33 Five small ships, thirty-three boats (baarquenen) and thirty-two thonijs are listed; these are divided over forty owners, whose names are only partially identifiable. They include several Appannas with different inti peru (place-names used as personal names), at least one Govinda, two Venk-annas, a Venkatas, the Dutch factory’s interpreter (tolk) Gopu Narasu, as well as a certain Haji Miyan (‘Anji Mia’), and perhaps most enigmatic of all ‘Toenka Bibi’. The ‘daily diary’ maintained at the Dutch Masulipatnam factory in the 1640s yields similar data, and even if the names are often difficult to reconstitute in their entirety one has no difficulty in seeing that the participants in this trade differ from the great shipowners. A second source of information on Komattis and others is in their role as brokers to the Companies, for example as intermediaries in the organization of textile procurement. This yields a picture of this community in a subordinate role, which is probably how they appeared in Masulipatnam and Peddapalli. Their role in the hinterland markets as well as in towns such as Makkapeta, or even Bezwada, from which they procured goods for the trans-peninsular trade, is less easy to reconstruct, though we find occasional references once more in the European documents. These few mentions suggest that there existed in these other markets a powerful and wellfinanced group of Komatti merchants, whose circuits of trade and exchange ran parallel to those of the Europeans, who in the period had neither the resources nor the inclination to penetrate the consumption markets of the interior in any significant way.34

From ‘Opgang’ to ‘Ondergang’ In the first half of the seventeenth century then, Masulipatnam had a flourishing trade with a number of ports over a vast stretch of Asian sea space, ranging from the western Indian Ocean to the Bay of Bengal. Textiles produced in the Krishna and Godavari deltas, and in the interior around Warangal and Khammam, provided the staple of Masulipatnam’s exports; they were supplemented by some cotton yarn, iron and steel, some Bengal goods, and other re-exports. In turn, Masulipatnam was a significant importer of bullion, and especially gold, but also took in good quantities of copper,

other metals, some Chinese porcelain, pepper, spices, precious stones, elephants and horses. European goods were hard to sell in the port, as elsewhere in India; only cannon found a ready market here, and these were usually cast with imported copper rather than being imported ready-made. But by the late seventeenth century, there was already a widespread rumour that Masulipatam was doomed as a port-city. Chief among the tollers of doom was the Dutch factor Daniel Havart, whose Op- en Ondergang van Coromandel (‘Rise and Decline of Coromandel’) declared its intention to lay bare the innermost workings of the trade of the coast, and especially that of Masulipatnam, where Havart had spent a good amount of time.35 Published in Amsterdam in 1692, Havart’s work was soon used by the advocate and official historian of the Dutch Company, Pieter van Dam, in his own Beschrijvinge.36 Since then, the Op- en Ondergang has, regrettably, remained obscure; it has never been re-edited let alone been translated into English for the use of anglophone historians. It is hardly possible to do justice to Havart’s rich description in a few pages, but at the same time his work must form the point of departure for any study of Masulipatnam’s decline. Havart’s interpretation of Masulipatnam’s decline can be thought to combine several factors. There was, first of all, the Mughal invasion of Golconda, which had happened shortly before he wrote his account, and which left a substantial mark on his mind. The late 1680s and early 1690s, that is the years that immediately followed the Mughal takeover, were marked by drought, famine and pestilence, and there was also at least one major fire in the town in these years. But Havart was not sufficiently distant in time from these events to have a detached view of them; we can therefore hardly take his judgement on the relation between the Mughal invasion and the port’s decline literally Second, Havart seems also to suggest that Masulipatnam’s decline had begun rather earlier than in the 1680s, and that the Mughal invasion merely set the seal to the downward trend. In the Op- en Ondergang, a view of the weakness of Masulipatnam’s institutions is presented, which is echoed faithfully by Pieter van Dam. The central figure in this part of the account is the hawaldar of the port, whom Havart portrays as a merciless local tyrant, capable of any act from thrashing a visitor’s peon within an inch of his life for stealing a lemon from his garden, to squeezing foreign traders without any regard for the longer-term consequences.37 As Havart tells it, in the early part of the seventeenth century, the hawaldar’s power had been moderated at least by the shahbandar’s presence, but in later years the latter post became largely ceremonial. A third reading is also possible of Havart, against the grain of his own argument. This has been attempted by Joseph J. Brennig, who uses the Op- en Ondergang’ s evidence on the concession that the Dutch Company obtained in 1661 to trade toll-free between Masulipatnam and Hyderabad-Golconda to argue that it was the Company’s monopoly of this trade that led to the port’s decline. Brennig demonstrates that until

the late 1650s or early 1660s the fleet of Asian merchant vessels operating out of Masulipatnam had been quite large, but that it had declined by 1680. This decline cannot be understood, he argues, as a result of the Mughal invasion, which was after all a later event.38 His interpretation has been challenged in turn by S. Arasaratnam, who adopts the first of Havart’s arguments listed above. Arasaratnam’s evidence, however, is rather sketchy and his argument problematic. In order to demonstrate, as a refutation of Brennig’s thesis, the continued vitality of Masulipatnam-based Asian shipping in the mid-1680s, he uses English evidence from the Bay of Bengal, on shipping belonging not to Masulipatnam but to the ports of the Sultan of Golconda.39 Since, by this period, these ports included not only Masulipatnam but several others – most importantly Pulicat – there is clearly a confusion of categories here. Indeed, it can be shown from the Dutch records that several of the court-based traders in Golconda preferred by the mid-1680s to use Pulicat rather than Masulipatnam. My own argument, presented in earlier essays, supports that of Brennig on the issue of timing, but parts company with him on the precise causes of decline.40 It would appear to me that Asian shipping from Masulipatnam underwent a significant transformation between the 1630s and the 1680s, partly on account of the intervention of a single powerful operator, who used his access to state power to dominate competition. Here I refer to Mir Muhammad Sayyid Ardestani, the sari-khail and mir jumla of the Golconda sultanate in the 1640s and early 1650s. By the late 1640s, he owned and operated a fleet of ten or more vessels, which sailed to destinations ranging from the Red Sea and Basrah to Aceh and even Makassar. Also after he defected from Golconda to Mughal service in the mid-1650s, Muhammad Sayyid continued to cast a long shadow in Masulipatnam. The French physician, François Bernier, wrote about this in his exaggerated style: Emir-Jemla’s son, Mahmet-Emir-Kan, although nothing more than one of Aureng-Zebe’s Omrahs, is so much respected in Golkonda, and chiefly in Maslipatam that the taptapa, his agent or broker, virtually acts as master of the port. He buys and sells, admits and clears out cargoes, free of every impost and without any person’s intervention. So boundless was his father’s influence formerly in this country, that it has descended to his son as a matter of right or necessity.41 During the reign of Golconda’s last sultan, others tried to emulate his example. Most notable were the brothers Akkanna and Madanna, who emerged as the highest powers in the administration, setting aside the Persian faction, whose last major representative was Sayyid Muzaffar. In the course of this period, and especially in the 1680s, Madanna moved to reform the internal administration of Golconda, tightening controls over the ports, taxing the coastal salt trade more heavily, and attempting to intervene directly in

the grain market. I would contend that it was his reforms – which gave a privileged position to Niyogi Brahmins as local administrators – broke the back of the Persian trader-administrators who had operated out of Masulipatnam and whose position had already been weakened by the unfair competition practised by Muhammad Sayyid. By the early 1680s, the Persians virtually disappeared from shipowning in Masulipatnam. Instead one finds the vessels of traders based elsewhere: the ships of King Narai of Thailand, the vessels of a number of Armenians based in Bengal like Khoja Malim and Khona Yunus, the shipping of Nawab Shayista Khan (also from Bengal). A few ships still continue to operate, particularly to Tenasserim (and also on occasion to Macau), under the flag of the Sultan of Golconda.42 The odd Persian shipowner, like Mir Fakruddin, or the ‘dead great Moorish merchant’ Mir Abdul Bakr, finds mention to be sure, as does the Masulipatnam-based Armenian John DeMercora. But the dominant image that emerges by the mid-1680s is a different one. European trade, and especially the private trade of Englishmen like Samuel White and Robert Freeman, is now a major factor to be reckoned with. The odd private Dutchman, like the ‘free skipper’ Thomas Keerdekoe, also may be found operating several vessels to Arakan and across the Bay. The heyday of the Persian shipowner had passed.

Fortress Masulipatnam – a European enclave? The 1680s mark the beginnings of a new phase for another reason as well. In earlier years, at least from 1629, both the Dutch and English had attempted to use force on the sea in order to force local authorities at Masulipatnam to comply with their demands in the course of negotiations. Their demands might involve the payment of unpaid debts, or a call for the avenging of past ‘wrongs’, and were usually presented with a moralizing rhetoric which should not be taken literally. In 1629, for example, the Dutch claimed to be seeking revenge in part for the death of the Company’s director, Abraham van Uffelen, who had been imprisoned by Golconda authorities and became an early example of a ‘death in custody’.43 Van Uffelen, popularly known as ‘little Coen’ as his bellicose behaviour was not unlike that of the Dutch Governor-General, had been arrested because the Dutch had attacked a vessel from Arakan somewhat earlier, and refused to compensate the losses incurred thereby. The uneasy and inherently violent nature of relations was also observed by Bernier in the 1660s: Sometimes the Dutch presume to lay an embargo on all the Golkonda merchant-vessels in the port, nor will they suffer them to depart until the King comply with their demands. I have known them even protest against the King because the Governor of Maslipatam prevented them from taking forcible possession of an English ship in the port, by arming the whole population,

threatening to burn the Dutch factory, and to put all those insolent foreigners to the sword.44 However, until the 1680s, the Dutch had contented themselves with maritime actions. This changed for the first time in 1686, when the Dutch found themselves involved in a complex affair, which stemmed in part from their earlier decision of 1684 to give a certain Kodanda Srirama (Sirum Chodenda) exclusive brokerage rights over a large number of goods imported by the Company, including copper. Srirama was closely associated with Akkanna in the running of the Golconda mint; on falling out with the latter, he was seized and imprisoned, and the Dutch Company was left with a substantial debt unpaid for goods that he had taken on advance. A representation to the Golconda court was made by Laurens Pit but without result. Meanwhile Akkanna and Madanna were deposed and killed in March 1686 but also that produced no repayment. On the contrary, the Dutch claimed, Abu’l Hasan Qutb Shah ordered the Company to cease trade, forbade supplies of foodstuff to them, and ordered an embargo on their textile procurement.45 We have no means of ascertaining whether this was true or merely a convenient rumour spread by the Dutch Company to justify its actions. What we do know is that the Dutch now moved quickly. Three ships were sent from Ceylon with some four hundred European and sixty Sinhalese soldiers. They landed at Masulipatnam on 25th July, seized the main door (groot poort) of the town leading to the inland, and expelled the small Golconda garrison. The Dutch quickly built walls to make the town defensible on the land side, for in the weeks that followed there were repeated skirmishes, with the major Golconda attack being mounted on 14th August with a mere two hundred soldiers! Harried by Mugal forces, we may imagine that the affairs of Masulipatnam were scarcely foremost on the minds of those at the Golconda court. Finally, on 18th November, a farcical agreement was reached, under which the Sultan agreed to pay the Dutch 120,000 huns (or pagodas), over a period of five years; the Dutch were to receive 1,500 huns a month from Masulipatnam customs and 500 more from Pulicat. On these terms, they handed the town back to Golconda authorities, but – as Pieter van Dam put it – were to ‘remain frustrated of the remaining money’, since Golconda fell to Aurangzeb in 1687. The Mughals, of course, had no intention of compensating the Dutch for their bad business with a broker, who had for his part long since absconded.46 In later years the Dutch Company regretted the alacrity with which it had handed Masulipatnam back to Golconda. In the context of the 1680s, there had been pressing reasons to do so, including pressures from the English – who had lodged a formal complaint with the States-General through the Marquis d’Albyville. The gist of the English complaint was that the seizure of Masulipatnam was part of a larger Dutch conspiracy to deny them trading stations in Asia, as had been eloquently demonstrated

by the Dutch action against Banten some years earlier. The Dutch reply, drafted in 1687 by Van Dam himself, in his role as advocate, sought to separate the Banten question from that of Masulipatnam, and denied that the Dutch had any long-term intentions over the latter port. The capture, it was stated, was intended simply to ‘bring [the Sultan] to reason’.47 The controversy quickly fizzled out once the Dutch troops were withdrawn. In the 1690s and the early decades of the eighteenth century, the trade of Masulipatnam failed to pick up, and conditions in the region remained somewhat disturbed as Mughal forces sought to check local zamindars with only limited success. The Dutch position was, technically speaking, relatively secure, as the Commissioner Johannes Bacherus had succeeded in obtaining a favourable farman from Aurangzeb soon after the fall of Hyderabad. Their network of factories in the vicinity of Masulipatnam, and subordinate to it, included Palakollu and Draksharama in the Godavari delta, but as is evident in these years, the focus of Dutch trade was moving southwards, to rest more and more on centres like Sadras, which they had first settled in the 1650s, with a gual from Sayyid Ibrahim Beg, the local hawaldar. At the same time, also English interest in Masulipatnam waned, as Madras and Calcutta became the two focal points for both private traders and the Company. For the English Masulipatnam became a way-station between these two other ports, a subordinate centre on the coastal network from which a lading of textiles could be had, rather than a great port commanding regional hegemony. This stood in contrast to the survival of indigenous sea-going trade as there is still evidence in the early 1700s, and then again in the 1710s, of trade being carried in at Masulipatnam by the Mughal subadar at Hyderabad, and by shipping owned by the Thai ruler, originating from Tenasserim (or Mergui).48 The account of Sir William Norris, English ambassador to the Mughal court, who spent a good part of the years 1699–1700 in Masulipatnam is instructive in this respect. Norris, like others both before and after him, complained of the climate in the port, especially when ‘ye Raines begin to be dryd up and ye Morasses which almost encompass ye Town begin to be swampy in ye nature of a quagmire or Bogg which ingest ye aire with very ill or unwholesome savours and damps’.49 More curiously, he sought to link the fact that the marshy ground in the area had not been drained, to the lack of paddy cultivation; this, he felt, in turn explained the fact that ‘the inhabitants here are mostly suplyd with heir Corn from Bengall in little vessells and flatt botomd boates’. He testified to the continued profitability of this coastal grain trade, but makes little reference to other, relatively long-haul, Asian shipping from the port. Of major merchants in Masulipatnam, we learn little, and only one man – Haji Muhammad Sayyid – finds repeated mention in Norris’ journal, and that more as a sort of broker than as an independent merchant. The thirty or forty small mosques in the town were little used in the period, writes Norris, owing to the scanty numbers of Moores; and

even if Muharram was celebrated vigorously, the extent of the Shi’a population was still limited. To Norris, then, Masulipatnam appeared a precarious place, preyed on by the Mughal kotwal and hawaldar, and made all the more insecure by local resistance to the imposition of the jizya (discriminatory poll-tax) by the Mughals. Neither Faqirullah Khan, nor Mahdi Khan, the two subadars of the eastern Deccan in the years that Norris was present there, seemed to him capable of restoring the port’s fortunes. To add to this structural change, natural threats were always present, of which the most serious appeared to him to be fire: This Town has been consumd more yn once by fire, & ye III custome all ye poore people have of keepinge fire burninge all night in their little Thatcht Hutts to preserve ym from muscetos is very dangerous consideringe ye whole Town is as dry as Touchwood & if ever a fire should gett soe much a head as to lay hold on any of the ffactorys or larger houses it would be almost impossible to put a stop to it ….50 No major fires were reported, however, in these years, unlike the 1660s and 1680s, and despite Norris’ gloomy prognostications the town did survive. Things even began to change for the better with the consolidation in the 1720s of a new political order in the region created by Nizam ul-Mulk Asaf Jah. However, between 1724, when the battle of Shaker Kheda established Asaf Jah’s dominance over Deccan affairs beyond doubt, and the early 1730s, the Masulipatnam region underwent a period of further uncertainty. A zamindar of the region, Ramaraju (or ‘Ramarasoe’), is reported by the Dutch to have taken tribute and plunder on more than one occasion from Palakollu, Draksharama and Rajahmundry, with a force of some 10,000 men.51 The Dutch became exasperated; the situation also brought back memories to them of the late 1680s, when Aurangzeb’s presence in the Deccan had created the vacuum which allowed them to take Masulipatnam. Just such a proposal was hence put forward in 1729, by a secret resolution of the Dutch Council at the Company’s Coromandel headquarters of Nagapattinam: … that we should with sufficient military power (krijgsmacht) make ourselves master of one or the other suitable place in northern Coromandel, in which we could resist all sieges and assaults of the Moorish and Heathen governments which they continue to do regularly, and to that end following the example of the year 1686 the town Mazulipatnam seems to be the best and most suitable, for the town being open on the seaward side will be easy to capture, and being protected on the land side by walls and bulwarks, if its approaches were protected with fortifications, its defence would become sufficient to resist a substantial inland army.52

The plan was simple. As in 1686, a fleet sent out from the south would capture Masulipatnam, Divi island, and the salt pans near the sea, the last of which it was believed would yield an income of 100,000 huns. Passing ships would be captured and the Dutch would control the seaward access to the port. The main problem was the army of Nizam ul-Mulk, estimated at 44,000 men, but the Dutch were confident of being able to resist even that large a force. Batavia seems to have ensured the plan was not put into effect, for its own reasons. They were prudent, for in the 1730s Nizam ul-Mulk turned his attention to the coastal districts, apparently intending to reconsolidate the fiscal apparatus in the region. As has been shown by Zahir Uddin Malik, this process involved appointing representatives who combined in their person the posts of faujdar, amin, and shiqdar, thus looking after both fiscal matters and ‘keeping the peace’.53 Both the Dutch records and the Persian documents analysed by Malik mention several holders of the post at Masulipatnam in the 1730s and early 1740s: Khwaja Arab Khan, for example, who held the post till 1732, Agha Husain in 1734, and Ghulam Imam Sahib Khan, who was faujdar in the early 1740s.54 In this scheme, Masulipatnam was the headquarters of a sarkar, containing five mahals, and whose jama’ (assessed revenue) was 491,229 Mughal rupees. The faujdars had considerable powers, maintaining a corps of troops with a part of the revenue they collected, and remitting the remainder by hundi to Hyderabad. The link between the port and Hyderabad, it began to appear, might just establish itself on the old footing, with the re-emergence of the latter as regional power. But history seldom repeats itself. The conjuncture of the 1570s and 1580s could not be revived quite so easily. The fiscal consolidation that was attempted in the 1730s was soon reversed in the following decade, and particularly after Asaf Jah’s death in 1748. As is well-known, this provided the occasion for a protracted struggle between his son Nasir Jang, and Hidayat Muhyiuddin Khan Muzaffar Jang, which lasted until 1751, by which time both contenders had been killed by Himmat Bahadur Khan, Nawab of Karnul. The coming to the throne of Salabat Jang in 1751 took place in circumstances vastly different to those which had obtained two decades before. In the course of the 1740s, the Europeans – both the French and the British – had emerged as formidable ‘country powers’. In September 1749, Muzaffar Jang had already conceded to the French rights over Masulipatnam, Divi island, and surrounding areas, with a stated jama’ of 800,000 Mughal rupees.55 In turn, part of the price paid by Salabat Jang for success was the cession to the French Company of a series of additional territories, so that by 1753 they comprised Srikakulam, Rajahmundry, Eluru, Kondapalli, Kondavidu, Masulipatnam and Nizampatnam. The notional head of the enterprise was the celebrated Charles de Bussy, and in 1752 he appointed a certain Leon Moracin (nephew of Madame Dupleix) to produce a report on Masulipatnam. It is with this report, and its vision of Masulipatnam in 1750, that the chronological ambit of this paper comes to an

end.56 The second chapter of Moracin’s Mémoire concerns trade, beginning with a consideration of the ‘old commerce of Masulipatan’: The situation of the town of Masulipatan had at another time rendered it the entreprôt for all the commerce that was conducted in the Gulf of the Kingdom of Bengal and all the eastern coasts of the part of India known as Hindustan. Its roadstead was frequented by vessels from Persia, and at times by those from the Red Sea. In a word, we know how famous this place was. The tyranny of the Moorish government has reduced this town from its flourishing state, of which there only remains a vestige. The European towns that have been founded on the coast of Coromandel have profited from its decadence and are in a sense raised on its ruins. Would it thus be impossible to bring back a part of its old commerce? I dare to pronounce, no. Masulipatan has in no way changed its location; the demands are more or less the same in the interior of the land; there one consumes broadcloth, coral, copper, silk and other raw materials of India; thus, nothing more is needed to support my opinion.57 The value of customs-collection at Masulipatnam was, he further noted, 34,911 Mughal rupees in 1752; since the customs-rates were 3 per cent for Europeans and Muslims, and 5 per cent for Hindus, this implied a trade of at least 680,000 rupees, or, assuming an average of 4 per cent, perhaps as much as 850,000 rupees. Now this may or may not appear to be a great deal, depending on one’s perspective. Compared to the customs collection at Narsapur, which was 4,000 rupees a year, it certainly appears large. But when compared to the revenue yielded by the salt trade from the pans located along the coast, it does not seem all that large. According to Moracin, the salt-pans around Masulipatnam alone yielded 60,000 rupees, and those in the vicinity of Nizamapatnam another 50,000 rupees. Nor did the octroi collected on the main route leading inland from Masulipatnam, at the village of Imguduru on the western end of the main causeway, appear all that much, comparatively speaking: it was worth 9,000 rupees a year, while the octroi collected at Gudur, which commanded the main route to Hyderabad, yielded as much as 40,000 rupees annually. Of course, we know that Moracin’s optimism proved unfounded. He had hoped that within ten to twelve years, Masulipatnam would be in a position to lead even the other French establishments to prosperity, unless it was overtaken by ‘events which all of human prudence can neither foresee nor arrest’. Instead, it fell into the hands of rivals, who were in all probability concerned with its potential as a coastal fortress commanding the delta of the Krishna. Moracin had for his part demanded a garrison of 800 regular troops, and 1,000 cipayes. When he reluctantly handed over control of the fort to the Marquis de Conflans, in August 1758, there were no more than 500 soldiers

in all. Conflans, who had been sent from Pondicherry by the Count de Lally in order to check the exuberance of Bussy and Moracin, was soon in difficulties himself, against the zamindar of Srikakulam. The English Company found this an opportune moment and Robert Clive sent out a substantial force under Colonel Forde to assist the zamindar. After a siege of several months Masulipatnam capitulated to the English in early April 1759. Thereafter the region remained in the hands of the English Company who received ex post facto legitimization of their control from Salabat Jang and the Mughal Shah ’Alam II. Their records from the close of the eighteenth century reveal a small town in decadence, with incessant squabbling between the English factors, their agents and local traders – including the last vestiges of the Persian community, now called the ‘Mogul merchants’ (apparently a translation of the term tujjar-i Mughliya).58

Conclusion At the outset of this chapter a simple argument concerning Masulipatnam was proposed. This was that the port’s rise and decline was closely linked to the political economy of the eastern Deccan, and to its articulation into the larger structure of which it was a part. As I have argued at length elsewhere, the economy of the eastern Deccan in the seventeenth century was organized along an axis of which the two poles were Hyderabad-Golconda, and Masulipatnam.59 Both were poles with populations of over 100,000 persons; Masulipatnam looked out to the sea, and Hyderabad to the centres of the western Deccan, and eventually to northern and western India. Around this axis smaller centres were organized, which while partly autonomous in character and locally oriented in their functions, were also partly shaped by the role they played in this regional economy. To understand why centres like Makkapeta, Ibrahimpatnam, Penuganchiprolu or Bezwada had often highly specialized occupational profiles, we must understand the context in which they were embedded. The character of even such minor centres, often no more than small towns or large villages, was determined by a far more complex set of forces than merely jajmani or the downward pressure of the state’s revenue-demand. We are still far from being able to articulate for this regional economy a proper hierarchical structure of urban and rural centres, which would enable us to understand what forces underpinned the conspicuous activity at Masulipatnam. Perhaps the lack of records will never permit us to do so for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But we can nevertheless catch a glimpse of the larger structure, and we can conceive of what the mutation of this regional economy in the later eighteenth and nineteenth century meant. In place of the axis-type model that has been presented above, what emerged was, in ports such as Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, a far more dendritic structure, where the balance was tilted wholly towards the coast. The very notion of

‘up-country’ centres points to this new orientation, which had previously only been found in small sections of the sub-continent, such as Kerala, where the ports had also been political-administrative foci. In Andhra itself interior and coast came in the period after 1750 somewhat to be distanced, as Hyderabad and its surrounding areas entered increasingly into a phase of economic involution. To conclude then, some writers have blamed the disastrous cyclone of 1864, which killed some 30,000 persons at Masulipatnam, for the fact that the port’s fortunes failed to revive. They may be too optimistic in their evaluation. The regional balance of the economy in the colonial period did not particularly favour the rapid growth of the town. By the early twentieth century, rival ports had firmly established themselves, and Masulipatnam remained what it had become by 1800: a minor provincial town located on the coast but without significant port functions. This is not necessarily a fate from which it is in urgent need of being rescued.

NOTES 1 Mirza Nizam al-Din Ahmad Sa’idi, Hadiqat al-Salatin, pt 1, ed. by S.A.A. Bilgrani (Hyderabad, 1932), summarised in H.K. Sherwani, History of the Qutb Shahi Dynasty (Delhi, 1974), pp. 504–5, and 686–7. For a contemporary English account see the letter from Andrew Cogan and other factors at Masulipatnam to Persia, 14 December 1639, in W. Foster, ed. The English Factories in India, 1637–1641 (Oxford, 1912), pp. 220–2. 2 For earlier work see, in particular, Shah Manzoor Alam, ‘Masulipatnam – a metropolitan port in the XVIIth century’, Islamic Culture, vol. 33, no. 3 (1959), pp. 169–87; Tapan Raychaudhuri, Jan Compagnie in Coromandel, 1605–1690: A study in the interrelations of European commerce and traditional economies (The Hague, 1962); Joseph J. Brennig, ‘The textile trade of seventeenth-century northern Coromandel: A study of a pre-modern Asian export industry’ (Ph.D thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1975); S. Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast, 1650–1740 (Delhi, 1986); Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500–1650 (Cambridge, 1990). After writing this chapter I came across I.P. Gupta, ‘Masulipatnam and its hinterland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in Indu Banga, ed. Ports and their hinterlands in India, 1700–1950 (New Delhi, 1992), but this article has little value from the viewpoint of either documentation or argument. S. Arasaratnam and Aniruddha Ray have initiated a comparative study of Masulipatnam and Cambay. 3 Cf. Frank Broeze, ‘Introduction: Brides of the Sea’, and Rhoads Murphey, ‘On the evolution of the port-city’, in Frank Broeze, ed. Brides of the Sea: Port-Cities of

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7 8 9 10 11 12

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Asia from the 16th–20th Centuries (Sydney-Honolulu, 1989), pp. 1–28, and 223–45. On the particular case of Coromandel, see in the same volume S. Arasaratnam, ‘European port-settlements in the Coromandel commercial system’, pp. 75–96. Sherwani, Qutb Shahi Dynasty; J.F. Richards, Mughal Administration in Golconda (Oxford, 1975). Edward Thornton, A Gazetteer of the Territories under the Government of the East India Company (4 vols, London, 1854), vol. 3, pp. 429–31. The death of Jakob Dedel is reported in a Dutch letter, from Marten Ysbrantsen at Masulipatnam to the Governor-General at Batavia, 2 October 1624; Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague (henceforth ARA), Overgekomen Brieven en Papieren (henceforth OB), VOC 1083, fols 219–21. Dedel’s tombstone, in the old Dutch cemetery, reads ‘Hier leyt begraven den E. Jacob Dedel in syn leven Raet van Indien ende Opperhooft te water ende te lande over de Nederlantsche negotie deser cust Coromandel overleden den 29 Augustij Anno 1624’. For a description of this cemetery in about 1700, see the account of William Norris, cited in note 49 below. Cited in T. Sreenivas, ‘Old Masulipatam’, The Journal of the Hyderabad Archaeological Society, 1918, pp. 17–47. Thornton, Gazetteer, vol. 3, pp. 429–31; also see Walter Hamilton, East India Gazetteer, containing particular descriptions of the Empires, Kingdoms etc. of Hindostan (London, 2 vols, 1828), vol. 2, p. 215. William Methwold, ‘Relations of the Kingdome of Golchonda and Other Neighbouring Nations’, in W.H. Moreland, ed. Relations of Golconda in the Early Seventeenth Century (London, 1931), p. 6. A. Schorer, ‘Brief Relation of the Trade of the Coromandel Coast’, in Moreland, Relations, p. 55. Anon., ‘Description of the Country ruled by the King Cotebipa [sic]’, in Ibid., p. 80. For the engraving, see Philippus Baldaeus, Nauwkeuriqe Beschrijvinqe van Malabar en Choromandel (Amsterdam, 1672); it may be found reproduced in several places, including on the cover of K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1985). Compare this with a crude sketch, the only other contemporary representation from the seven- teenth century of the port to my knowledge, in John Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia in Eight Letters (London, 1698). See in this context the discussion in Yogesh Sharma, ‘Villes, com-pagnies et marchands dans le Coromandel au XVIIe siècle’ (Ph.D. thesis, EHESS, Paris, 1991), vol. 2, pp. 318–57. The suggestion there is that the northeastern suburbs and ‘ville de barre’ were connected to the Ville principale’ by means of a small bridge constructed in the 1670s. This would mean that the main town of Masulipatnam

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was located south of the river in this period, which is hard to reconcile with later evidence. Some interesting material on this question is to be found in Prince Aurangzeb’s correspondence while in the Deccan in the 1650s; see Shaikh Abul Fath Qabil Khan, Adab-i ‘Alamqiri (edited by Abdul Ghafur Chaudhari, 2 vols, Lahore, 1971). I am grateful to Muzaffar Alam for a reference to these data, which he will present in a forthcoming paper. Andhra Pradesh State Archives, Hyderabad, Revenue Survey 1890, map no. 81; also see the Survey and Settlement Register of the Villages of Kistna District, Fasli Year 1309, ‘Descriptive Memoir of Bandar of the Bandar Taluk’. Compare this to a French plan from the early 1760s, in the India Office Library and Records, London, Orme Mss. 332, map 21, entitled ‘Mazulipatam aux Anglois avec les Nouvelles Fortifications a la Coste d’Orixa’, and also another English map, detailing their attack on the town, in Orme Mss. 333, no. 28.I have thus far not been able to trace two other eighteenth century (1750 and 1759) French maps referred to in Philippe Haudrère, La compagnie française des Indes au XVIIIe siècle (1719–1795) (4 vols, Paris, 1989), vol. 1, p. 361. Sharma, Villes, compagnies et marchands, pp. 326–8. Cf. Manzoor Alam, ‘Masulipatnam – A Metropolitan Port’. H. Yule & H. Cordier, eds and transls The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East (3rd ed., New York, 1903, 3 vols), vol. 2, p. 359. For details, see Subrahmanyam, Political Economy, pp. 147–9. Sherwani, Qutb Shahi Dynasty, pp. 163–4. Diogo do Couto, Da Asia, Década Décima (rep., Lisbon 1973–4), part 1, pp. 14–5, and 74–83; also see Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon (henceforth ANTT), Manuscritos da Livraria, no. 1104, fols 104–5, for an early seventeenth century account by an anonymous Portuguese priest. ARA, Collectie Sweers, fols 203–205, ‘Beschryvinge van de voornaemste groote steden gelegen onder diversche Coninckrychken vlecken die men passeert van Golconda af tot Alepo’. Methwold, ‘Relations’, p. 12. Richards, Mughal Administration, pp. 152–3. Moreland, Relations, p. 10 (Methwold), p. 56 (Schorer), and p. 77 (Ravesteyn). Since the publication of The Political Economy of Commerce (vide n. 2) I have found additional evidence on Portuguese relations with Masulipatnam between 1590 and 1610. In 1599, the Portuguese captain in the port was apparently a certain António Rodrigues IIhescas, a predecessor to Henrique Raposo. Later, in 1608, the captain – possibly the last one to hold the post – was an old soldier, Tomé Grego. (British Museum, London, Add. Mss. 28,432, fol. 14, Conde de Vidigueira to the

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30 31

32

King, 18 December 1599, and 125v, ‘Lembraça dos Galeões, galés, galeotas …’, concerning an unsuccessful Portuguese raid on shipping between Masulipatnam and Pegu. For 1608 see ANTT, Miscelâneos do Convento da Graça, Tomo II-E (Cx. 6), p. 653, Diogo do Couto to Vidigueira, December 1608. ARA, VOC 548, ‘Rapport (Informatie) door Lodewyck Isacz overgelevert over de handel op de Kust van Coromandel’ (1608). Also see the slightly later report of Samuel Kindt, dated April 1616, ARA, OB, VOC 1062, fols 44v–46v, section ‘Petapouly ende Maslipatam’. Sherwani, Qutb Shahi Dynasty, pp. 98–9,102–3, and 158–9; of particular importance for the career of Mustafa Khan is a Persian manuscript mentioned in W. Ivanow, Concise descriptive catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the collection of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (rep., Calcutta, 1985), pp. 153–4, ASB. 350 (Mss. F 9), fols 1–143. For a general consideration, also see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Iranians Abroad: Intra-Asian elite migration and early modern state formation’, The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 51, no. 1 (1992). Some other important Persian documents on relations between Golconda and Iran are summarized in Riazul Islam, ed. A calendar of documents on Indo-Persian relations (1500–1700) Karachi-Tehran, 2 vols, 1978–32), esp. vol. 2. Ibid.; also Jacques de Coutre, Andanzas Asiaticas (eds E. Stols, B. Teensma and J. Werberckmoes, Madrid, 1991), pp. 274–8, and L.C.D. Van Dijk, Zes jaren uit het leven van Wemmer van Berchem (Amsterdam, 1858), passim. A particularly important and detailed letter with numerous references to Mir Mu’min, from Van Berchem at Masulipatnam to Matteo Coteels in Banten, dated 30th August 1613, reposes in ARA, VOC 1056, fols 146–66. Antó Bocarro, Década XIII da História da India (ed. R.J. de Lima Felner, 2 vols, Lisbon, 1876), vol. 2, pp. 620–2. ARA, VOC 1055, letter from Pieter Isaacx Eyloff at Masulipatnam to Jacques l’Hermite de Jonghe at Banten, 31 May 1608; letter from Pieter Isaacx to the bewindhebberen, May 1608. The two use almost the same phrase. Thus, in the letter to Holland: ‘indien sij ons op de manier van Guseratte quijt wilden maecken een schip op Ormous Jaerlicx soude laeten vaeren’. The other letter adds that it would be ‘toll-free’. For an earlier mention, also see H. Terpstra, De vestiging van de Nederlanders aan de Kust van Koromandel (Groningen, 1911). Compare the Portuguese perspective in Couto’s letter to Vidigueira (1608), cited in n. 26. Couto claimed that Tomé Grego was imprisoned and maltreated by the ‘Moors’ of Masulipatnam, and forced to complain at the court of Golconda. For further details, see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Persians, pilgrims and Portuguese: the travails of Masulipatnam shipping in the western Indian Ocean, 1590–1665’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 22, (1988), pp. 503–30. For the account of a voyage from Bandar Abbas to Masulipatnam in the early 1650s, see also Travels in India

33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43

44

45 46

of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Baron of Aubonne (eds V. Ball and W. Crooke, 2 vols [London, 1925], vol. 1, pp. 203–207. ARA, VOC 1405, fols 1362–62v (1683). ARA, VOC 1122, fols 611–611v, letter from Johan de Meere and Arnoid Heussen at Masulipatnam to Batavia, 29th December 1636; also the comments in D.H.A. Kolff & H.W. van Santen, eds De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indie, 1627: Kroniek en Remonstrantie (The Hague, 1979). Daniel Havart, Op- en Ondergang van Coromandel (3 vols, Amsterdam, 1692). Pieter van Dam, Beschrijvinge van de Oost-Indische Compagnie (eds F.W. Stapel and C.W.T. van Boetzelaer, 7 vols [The Hague, 1927–1954]), esp. vol. 2, part 2. Havart, Coromandel, vol. 1, pp. 226–8. Brennig, ‘The textile trade’, pp. 36–8. Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, pp. 159–60; also see his ‘Coromandel revisited: Problems and issues in Indian maritime history’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 26 (1989). Cf. Subrahmanyam, ‘Persians, Pilgrims and Portuguese’, pp. 525–9. François Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, AD 1656–1668 (transl. A. Constable, ed. V.A. Smith, rep., New Delhi, 1989), p. 195. For an earlier discussion, see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Asian Trade and European Affluence? Coromandel, 1650–1740’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 22 (1988). The shipping lists used to buttress this conclusion are also listed in Subrahmanyam, ‘Persians, Pilgrims and Portuguese’, pp. 525sqq. The incident is discussed at some length in Raychaudhuri, Jan Company. Also see the letter from Adrian Willemszoon Goeree and Johannes Libenaer at Masulipatnam to the bewindhebberen of the Dutch Company, dated 3rd October 1624, ARA, VOC 1083, fols 222–4. Bernier, Travels, pp. 195–6. For a similar incident, involving the French at Masulipatnam in 1670, see J.S. Cummins, ed. The Travels and Controversies of Friar Domingo Navarrete, 1618–1686 (London, 1962), vol. 2, pp. 322–5; in this year, the French imprisoned the Armenian merchant and their former collaborator, John de Mercora, who counted many friends among the Persians of Masulipatnam. There were difficulties between the French Company and the hawaldar Muhammad Baig, who had the French factory surrounded; in the skirmishes that followed, one Frenchman was killed. Havart, Coromandel, vol. 1, pp. 211–3; and vol. 2, pp. 164–5. The affairs of Kodanda Srirama were first brought to my notice by Joseph J. Brennig in ‘Sirum Chodenda, a seventeenth century merchant of Golconda’, unpublished paper presented at the Delhi School of Economics, October 1983. I should acknowledge a considerable debt, over the years, to Dr Brennig, whose work on Masulipatnam was the point of departure for my own.

47 Van Dam, Beschrijvinge, vol. 2, part 2, pp. 167–8. 48 See the following shipping lists from the Dutch archives, ARA, OB: – 1698–99: VOC 1624, fols 247–54, – 1700–01: VOC 1649, fols 185–96, – 1701–02: VOC 1664, fols 647–59, – 1713–14: VOC 1885, fols 53–7, – 1718–19: VOC 1912, fols 132–9, and – 1719–20: VOC 1962, fols 334–8. 49 The Masulipatnam section of Norris’ account is to be found in the two volumes of his journal in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Rawlinson Collection, C. 912 and 913, esp. the former; these volumes have been extensively paraphrased in H.H. Das, The Norris Embassy to Aurangzib (Calcutta, 1959). For the passage quoted here, see Ibid., p. 119. 50 Ibid., p. 164; also see the extensive discussion by Norris of life at Masulipatnam on pp. 119–67. 51 General letter from Diederik Durven and Council, 30 November 1729, in J. van Goor, ed. Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Keren XVII der VOC, vol. 9 (1729–1737) (The Hague, 1988), p. 43. 52 Ibid. 53 Ahiruddin Malik, ‘Documents relating to Pargana Administration in the Deccan under Asaf Jah I’, in Medieval India – A Miscellany (vol. 3, Bombay, 1975), pp. 152–83. 54 Cf. Yusuf Husain, The First Nizam: The life and times of Nizamifl-Muik Asaf Jah I (Bombay, 1963), p. 210. 55 These may thus have included both Masulipatnam and Nizamapatnam. According to Richards (Mughal Administration, p. 183), the jama’ of Masulipatnam’s 8 parqanas in 1712 was 448,000 rupees, and that of Nizamapatnam’s 314,000 rupees. The ‘Documents’ published by Malik suggest a jama’ in 1733 of 491,000 rupees for sarkar Masulipatnam, and 246,000 for Nizamapatnam. Both thus point to a stable combined jama’ in the region of 750,000 to 800,000 rupees. But cf. M.A. Nayeem, Mughal administration of Deccan under Nizamul Mulk Asaf Jah (AD 1720–1748) (Bombay, 1985), p. 116, which shows sarkar Marsulipatnam with 8 mahals, including Narsapur, in 1705–07. Finally, for the first substantive French acquisition of lands in Masulipatnam, of 40 bighas in 1734, see Husain, The First Nizam, pp. 236–7. 56 Jean Deloche, ‘Le mémoire de Moracin sur Macilipattanamu: Un tableau des conditions économiques et sociales des provinces côtières de l’Andhra au milieu du XVIIIe siècle’, Bulletin de I’École Française d’Extrême Orient, vol. 62 (1975), pp. 125–50. 57 Ibid., p. 137.

58

Cf. P. Sudhir and P. Swarnalatha, ‘Textile traders and territorial imperatives: Masulipatnam 1750–1850’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 29 (1992). 59 Cf. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Rural industry and commercial agriculture in late seventeenth-century south-eastern India’, Past and Present, no. 127 (February 1990), pp. 95–130.

3

BANTEN AROUND THE TURN OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY Trade and Society in an Indonesian Port City Christopher Wake Department of History University of Western Australia

Port cities have had a major role in the shaping of historical developments in Southeast Asia from early times, as centres of commerce and urban settlement, as the focal point of extensive political systems, and as gateways for the entry of exogenous cultural influences into the region. In the period of Southeast Asia’s ‘Age of Commerce’, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, urban centres which owed their existence to the growth of maritime trade increased in number, size, and importance. Largely as a result of these developments, Anthony Reid concludes, Southeast Asia was at this time relatively highly urbanized in comparison with other parts of the world.1 The implication of this comparison is not that the aggregation of ‘urban’ populations in different social and cultural settings should be expected to lead to similar outcomes. The cities which developed in Southeast Asia were, as Reid has shown, ‘of a very different type from those of the West or China.’2 In their morphology and in their social structure Southeast Asia’s pre-colonial cities developed very much along their own lines. What is especially noteworthy as a general feature of this process of urbanization is the degree to which those social groups which were engaged in commerce remained in a state not simply of subordination, but of direct dependency on the holders of political power, within a social order which remained essentially aristocratic. The strong development of regional trade which characterizes Southeast Asia’s ‘Age of Commerce’ did not give rise to an independent merchant class capable of acting as a social counterweight to the power of the ruling élite. Undoubtedly, this had a good deal to do with the inroads made by Europeans into maritime trade in Island Southeast Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in particular with the reliance of the Dutch and English on monopolistic trading

arrangements with local rulers which had the effect of diminishing the role of the merchant and strengthening the dominance of aristocratic elements in the social order. So far as Java is concerned, the crushing of the port cities of the pasisiran – the northern and eastern coastal regions of East and Central Java – by the inland power of Mataram in the seventeenth century acted as a check on the development of an Islamic-entrepreneurial civic culture which, under different circumstances, might have acquired a much larger role in Javanese society.3 As it happened, Mataram’s conquest of the pasisiran port cities and the regressive economic policies pursued by both Mataram and the Dutch stifled the growth of the Javanese trading classes right up to the nineteenth century. The influence of external factors of this kind is certainly important. There are also other considerations which should be taken into account, however, which relate to the internal situation of the urban communities themselves. In the first place, there is a question whether we do not in fact have an exaggerated view of the matter. Perhaps, through ignorance, we underestimate the scope and vitality of urban life, on Java especially, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As more becomes known of the history of the Javanese pasisiran during the Mataram period, we may be surprised at the extent to which mercantile society flourished in the coastal towns despite the weight of aristocratic hegemony bearing down upon the trading classes from above. For the present this must remain a matter for speculation. A question for immediate consideration concerns the sociological categorization of traders and ruling élites in the port cities of the pre-colonial era, and the nature of their relationship to one another. J.C. van Leur, in his seminal work on the subject, identified a wealthy class of merchant gentlemen as the principal source of capital investment in maritime trade in port cities all along the sea routes from the Red Sea to China and Japan. In van Leur’s view these constituted an actual haute bourgeoisie – an ‘urban patriciate’, ‘patricians leading a seigneurial way of life’ – which dominated the conduct of maritime trade, often in close association with local ruling elites.4 ‘In some places,’ according to van Leur, ‘as in Surat, the wealthy merchant class held political power themselves; in others authority remained exclusively in the hands of the related class of nobles and high royal officials, independent governors, and collegiate bodies.’5 Van Leur allowed also for the important part which rulers and nobles might play as occasional participants in trade, through preemption, monopolization of staple items, shipowning and investment in voyages,6 but for the most part it is the role of the class of merchant gentlemen which he stresses. It is important to note here that, while van Leur was generalizing about conditions over a very wide area, much of his evidence in fact relates to trading communities around the shores of the Indian Ocean. When specific examples of merchant gentlemen in Southeast Asia are cited, these turn out to be rather special cases, either foreigners in the service of the ruler, as harbour officials or headmen of foreign congregations, or

Chinese acting as intermediaries between the European trading companies (which supplied them with capital) and the local market.7 Whether these examples – officials and quasi-officials for the most part, whose position was one of direct dependency on the ruler – prove the existence of a genuine haute bourgeoisie is doubtful. Van Leur speaks of merchants who were in some sense patrician yet remained a distinct class apart from the nobles who were ‘lords of the land’. More recently, Anthony Reid has located the economic dynamic of port communities in Island Southeast Asia in the role of nobles who were also merchants – an indigenous ‘merchant aristocracy’ which had its origins in a class of wealthy traders which rose to prominence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and which constituted the dominant class in port cities like Melaka, Aceh, Patani, Banten and Makassar in the period of their most vigorous growth.8 Subsequently this ‘commercial orang kaya oligarchy’ fell victim to the growth of monarchic power, a development associated with changes in the conditions of external trade brought about by the action of European trading powers, which facilitated a trend towards royal absolutism and state trading monopolies.9 This is an attractive thesis. It offers a coherent interpretative framework with which to approach the study of social and political change in Island Southeast Asia between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. It also sets an agenda for historical inquiry, with a view to ascertaining the degree to which each of the major port states in the region does in fact conform to a common pattern of development. To this end, the present paper will examine the urban environment and social structure of the port state of Banten,10 with a view to elucidating the social ethos of the dominant social group and the nature of its relationship to the commerce of the port in the period before the rise of Dutch power in the region. I shall argue that the local merchant class at Banten did not constitute an ‘urban patriciate’ in any meaningful sense of the term, and that the dominant social class was a martial aristocracy which was not directly involved in the maritime trade of the port.

The rise of Banten in regional perspective Banten in its heyday was one of the great port cities of Southeast Asia. In certain respects it may be taken as representative of a whole class of pre-eminent port cities which dominated maritime trade in the region between the seventh and seventeenth centuries. Palembang, Melaka, Johor and Aceh, as well as Banten, all clearly belong in this category. These were not ports which came into existence to serve the needs of thriving hinterland economies. Rather, they owed their rise to their rulers’ ability to capture the traffic in luxury goods passing through Southeast Asian waters. Strategic location in relation to the Straits of Melaka and Sunda, the two alternative ‘gateways’ through which seaborne trade between the Indian Ocean and Southeast and

East Asia had to pass, was a necessary but not in itself a sufficient condition for success in the struggle for control of this lucrative trade. Of fundamental importance was the possession of naval force to patrol the sea-lanes and maintain the primacy of the preeminent port.11 The constraints thus placed on the free flow of trade (for all the preeminent port cities were merely one of a number of possible sites, not necessarily the most convenient, for the provision of entrepôt facilities), the danger of piracy, especially to be feared in the confined waters of the southern entrance to the Melaka Straits, and the fact that there existed these two alternative sea passages to the Indian Ocean (plus Isthmian portage routes between the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Siam) - these circumstances in conjunction set the scene for dramatic changes of fortune when the strength of the hegemonic power of the day began to wane. One cannot but be struck by the number of port cities which, having risen to preeminence at a particular moment in history, subsequently collapsed into insignificance. Some, like Palembang, the former site of Srivijaya, have recovered a role for themselves as modern commercial centres after centuries of stagnation and decay. Others, like Kalah and Folo-an, cities once renowned for the richness and volume of their trade, have vanished virtually without a trace.12 Banten’s good fortune, and that of its near neighbour, the ancient port of Sunda Kalapa ( Jakarta), was in its sheltered anchorage and strategic location in relation to the Straits of Sunda. When Srivijaya, the Sumatran thalassocracy which policed the Melaka Straits between the seventh and thirteenth centuries, went into decline, and piracy in consequence became a menace to shipping,13 the Chinese junks which voyaged to India for pepper continued to pass through the Melaka Strait.14 Traders from India, however, found it more advantageous to shift their trade with central Sumatra to ports on the West Coast and to make their way on to Java via the Straits of Sunda.15 The growth of this trade through the Sunda Strait was connected to the rise of Pajajaran, the HinduBuddhist kingdom of the ethnic Sundanese of West Java, which had its capital in the vicinity of modern Bogor and its outlet to the sea at Sunda Kalapa in the period from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.16 When the Muslim sultanate of Melaka reestablished order in the Melaka Straits, in the fifteenth century, however, the main East-West trade route swung back again to the northern passage 17 and West Java relapsed into relative unimportance.18 The fifteenth century was also a period of increasing trade in Moluccan spices to the West.19 The flowering of the Moluccan spice trade and the more or less contemporaneous withdrawal of the Chinese from direct trade with India and with the Moluccas gave a strong impetus to the growth of port cities along the trade routes. Melaka and the ports at the eastern end of the Javanese pasisiran became the main southern termini for the overseas trade of the Chinese.20 Also of importance in this connection was the rise of local pepper-growing industries in Southeast Asia, in locations adjacent to the main ports feeding into the China trade, first in Java,21 then in

Northeast Sumatra, across the Strait from Melaka.22 In the fifteenth century Melaka grew rich on the trade in pepper with China.23 The cessation of Chinese voyaging to India and to the islands of Eastern Indonesia, towards the middle of the fifteenth century, was related to another important development. This was the growing domination of the trade between South and Southeast Asia by Muslims from India and West Asia, the result of which was that most of the port cities of East and Central Java had become Islamized by the end of the century. In the Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires we can discern the general outlines of a pattern of trading relations which linked the various ports of Java and Melaka in the early years of the sixteenth century, before the full effects of the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese were felt throughout the region. Melaka was the great meeting place for trade between East, South and Southeast Asia, and the principal port of destination for vessels from both China and the Indian Ocean. The Muslim ports of the Javanese pasisiran (Gresik, Japara, Demak, Ceribun) possessed their own merchant fleets which traded to Melaka, exchanging the spices and sandalwood of Eastern Indonesia for Indian textiles and Chinese silk and porcelain which they carried back with them to Java for redistribution through the islands. Standing apart, but at the same time linked in to this Muslim trading network, were the ports of West Java (Sunda Kalapa, Ci Sadané, Banten and Pontang) which belonged to Hindu-Buddhist Pajajaran. The West Java ports traded to Southeast Sumatra and through the Straits of Sunda to West Coast Sumatra, funnelling the local produce of these regions (cotton, gold, honey, wax, camphor, benjuin, rattans, pepper) into the wider trading system via Sunda Kalapa, which traded to Melaka and to other ports on Java.24 The Sunda Straits route was also used by ships from Banten to bring slaves from the Maldives and by Banten and Ci Sadané to fetch Cambay cloths from West Coast Sumatran ports which the Gujeratis visited.25 The main function of the West Java ports in this period thus appears to have been to carry on the trade between lower Sumatra and Java, a role which still belonged to Banten at the end of the sixteenth century. The fall of Melaka to the Portuguese in 1511 inaugurated a new era in the history of commerce in Southeast Asia, in which the old patterns of exchange were rapidly dissolved. In their quest for exclusive control of the supply of Moluccan spices to the European market, the Portuguese sought first to bar the free passage of Muslim traders from the Indian Ocean through the Straits of Melaka. Then, in 1522, they reached agreement with Pajajaran for the establishment of a Portuguese base in Jakarta Bay. This move, which raised the prospect of Portuguese power planted in close proximity to the Sunda Strait, stirred Demak, the leading Muslim port of Central Java, to action to ensure that the southern sea route should remain open to Muslim traders from the Indian Ocean. Demak seized control of Banten in 1524 or 1525. The capture of Sunda Kalapa followed two or three years later, so that when the Portuguese arrived to build

a fort (in 1527) they found their entry barred by the presence of the Muslims.26 Banten was chosen to be the centre of Muslim power in West Java in preference to the old port of Sunda Kalapa, despite the latter’s earlier importance as an entrepôt and as the outlet for the trade of a relatively populous hinterland, because of its closeness to the Sunda Strait. Banten was simply too important strategically to be left as a minor centre which might fall into the hands of a rival power. When the Muslims occupied the area they shifted the location of the town from its original site, some 10 kilometres up the Banten river,27 to a new location at the mouth of the river, which was more convenient for the projection of naval power through the Straits of Sunda. Banten achieved pre-eminence as a major regional entrepôt in the middle decades of the sixteenth century in much the same way as other ports which rose to dominate trade routes in the region in previous centuries. Like Melaka and Srivijaya in earlier times, Banten was primarily a centre of political power, which was strategically located for the deployment of military (naval) force to draw trade to the port and maintain its entrepôt role.28 Banten’s opportunity to establish itself as a major centre of trade arose as a result of the Portuguese capture of Melaka, which fractured established patterns of trade and imparted new strategic importance to the Straits of Sunda. While the Portuguese managed to seize much of the Moluccan spice trade which formerly went through the Straits of Melaka, a significant proportion evaded Portuguese surveillance in the Moluccas and, passing along the north coast of Java, reached the Indian Ocean via the Straits of Sunda. Important though this development was, however, Banten’s rise had more to do with the redirection of the overseas trade of the Chinese. With the Portuguese blocking direct access to the pepper-growing regions in Northeast Sumatra which had supplied the Chinese market via Melaka in the days of the sultanate, the centre of Southeast Asian pepper production shifted to South Sumatra and West Java and the Chinese junk traders redirected their voyaging in that direction.29 The leading role which Banten attained in regional and inter-regional trade was due to the success of its rulers in drawing these pepper-producing regions into its own sphere of influence and establishing the port of Banten as the staple for the reexport of pepper to China.30 When the Dutch reached Banten at the end of the sixteenth century, from four to six China junks, each of around 300 to 400 tonnes burden,31 usually made the annual voyage to Banten with cargoes of porcelains, small coin (picis), linen, silks, needles and thread, combs, ‘and thousands of other trifling things too many to mention.’32 Chinese intermediary traders settled at Banten accumulated local products for export to China: pepper, the item of major importance, along with Moluccan spices, sandalwood, camphor, ivory, tortoise-shell.33 The growth of this trade was also an attraction to traders from across the Indian Ocean, principally Gujeratis, who brought in Cambay cloths and ‘many other trade goods’34 to exchange for a share of the sandalwood, spices and pepper which found their way to Banten, and for the silks and porcelain which the

junks brought down from China. Large numbers of traders and mariners – Javanese, Malays, Gujeratis, Arabs, Abyssinians and others – were engaged in the business of ‘fetching and carrying from one town to another’35 along the trading networks which spanned the Indonesian Archipelago from Sumatra to the Moluccas. Chinese wares imported into Banten were shipped out again to East Java to exchange for local textiles, and to Makassar to exchange for rice which was in turn carried on to Banda, Amboina and the Moluccas, there to be exchanged – along with Chinese porcelains, Indian textiles, local cottons and a great variety of other goods – for cloves, nutmeg and mace. Banten imported rice from Makassar and Sumbawa, and from parts of Sumatra, partly for local consumption and partly for re-export, much of it to Portuguese Melaka. Salt came from East Java to be re-exported, together with rice and Chinese wares, to Sumatra to exchange for camphor, benjuin, tortoise-shell and the all-important pepper, which also reached Banten from the West Java hinterland. In addition to these items of export to China, Banten attracted imports of a wide variety of other products which figured in the redistributive trade through the region: coconuts and coconut oil from East Java, honey and beeswax from Borneo and Sumatra, sugar from Jakarta and Japara, dried fish from Jakarta and Borneo, iron from Karimata, resins from Borneo and Bangka, lead and tin from the Malay Peninsula, and probably also female slaves from Bali.36 At the end of the sixteenth century Banten was a commercial city and a commercial port of the first importance among the ports and cities of the region.37 The functions of port and city imply the presence of a mercantile society and the institutions and values of mercantile society. But what sort of mercantile society? And to what extent were its values and institutions able to imprint themselves on the larger society? As we have seen, Banten was both a centre of commerce and a centre of political and military power, the latter being deployed to maintain the pre-eminence of the entrepôt port. It was thus political power, and the interests of the wielders of political power, which determined the conditions under which commerce was conducted and the life of the mercantile community of the port was carried on. The implications of this for the development of commercial society come into view when we consider the physical and social structure of the port-city complex.

Banten City Detailed descriptions of Banten date from the end of the sixteenth century, when the first Dutch ships arrived. In addition to the written accounts of members of the first two Dutch expeditions to the Indies (the First Voyage of 1595–7 and the Second Voyage of 1598–1600), two early Dutch maps of the city are especially valuable for the information they contain. The earliest physical representation of Banten is a map

published in Amsterdam in 1598.38 This map of 1598, though obviously schematic and not to scale, is nevertheless generally accurate in its identification of those features of the city which caught the attention of the Dutch. Moreover, it contains information on the layout of the port-city complex not found in any other source. The second map dates from between 1636 and 1651, and probably from around 1640.39 This is a much more elaborate representation of the city and its environs, drawn to scale and with considerable attention to detail, in which the general proportions of the city are captured with a fair degree of accuracy.40 The Dutch of the First Voyage found a walled and moated town which they judged to be perhaps as big as the old walled city of Amsterdam.41 In reality, Banten was considerably larger. In the early seventeenth century Banten within the city walls had roughly the form of a quadrilateral measuring 1450 by 1350 by 730 by 1100 metres on the north, south, east and west sides, respectively, enclosing an area of approximately 130 ha.42 By comparison, neighbouring Jakarta occupied about 45 ha.43 Gauging the size of the population is more problematic. Contemporary European estimates are at best imprecise and often ambiguous. It is not always clear whether they refer to the population of the town alone or are meant to include the inhabitants of rural areas outside the city. Moreover, some figures refer to the population as a whole, others to the number of fighting men at the ruler’s command. The Dutch were at first told that Banten could put 10,000 armed men into the field within a short time, ‘by a great drum being sounded’44 which (a later informant tells us) could be heard ‘for some leagues into the hills.’45 The same figure of 10,000 is reported in an English source from the 1670s,46 so perhaps we are dealing here with a stock expression simply meaning a great number (‘a myriad’). From the 1670s also comes a Dutch estimate which puts the fighting strength of the whole kingdom at 55,000 men.47 At the top end of the range of population estimates we have Christopher Fryke’s assertion, which is not to be taken seriously, however, that Banten had a population in the 1680s of some 700,000 - not counting foreigners, whom he put at ‘perhaps half as many more’!48 At the beginning of the seventeenth century van Neck formed the impression that Banten was indeed ‘very populous’, which he attributed to the presence of the many foreigners of all nations who came to trade at Banten.49 What might ‘very populous’ mean in this context? The statements of other European observers of the period give some clue. Lodewycksz, who was with the First Voyage, notes that the Chinese at Banten amounted to ‘a great number.’50 This should be compared with the statement of the German traveller, Johann Verken, a few years later (when the Chinese population was probably increasing), to the effect that the Chinese amounted to some ‘several thousand.’51 Moreover, according to Heemskerck, who accompanied the Second Voyage, the Chinese were the most numerous of the foreign traders settled at Banten.52 If the Chinese, who contributed substantially to the ‘very populous’ character of the city, amounted to no more than several thousand - ‘a great number’ according to

Lodewycksz – we should beware of placing too high a figure on the likely population of city. All things considered, there appears to be no good reason to suppose that the urban population of Banten was above about 20,000 at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Even so, this would have been a sizeable city by the standards of the age.53 Simple size, however, is just one aspect of the demographic picture, and not the most important for understanding the nature of the urban community. The settlement which colonists from Demak established at the mouth of the Banten river in the 1520s developed as two separate and distinctly different urban communities. Banten’s city walls, which were probably erected as a defence against Mataram in the second half of the sixteenth century, served also to separate the inhabitants of Banten ‘intramuros’ from the cosmopolitan population of foreign traders who were required to live outside the city walls. The foreign traders had their settlements on the north side of the city, along the sea shore, where all the business of the port was conducted and the main market was located. To the south of the city lay rice-fields, orchards and plantations, and a narrow ribbon of rural settlement which followed the course of the Banten river into the interior. Where the land was not cultivated dense forest pressed in on all sides.54

Banten Intramuros Banten intramuros was divided by the main stream of the Banten river into an upper and a lower town. These in turn were bisected by secondary canals which had probably formed their western and eastern boundaries, respectively, when the city was much smaller in size.55 Probably also the old upper town, covering an area of approximately 40 ha, was the site of the original royal foundation of the 1520s. Later a tract of country to the south and west of the canal shown on the map of c. 1640 was added to the upper town, part of which appears to have been intended for a royal park. The lower town also evidently grew by stages, beginning with the cutting of a canal (shown on the the map of 1598) to drain and enclose an area of about 25 ha between the upper town and the foreshore. The sixteenth-century Portuguese historian Couto provides some details of the city as it was after the lower town was laid out between the old upper town and the sea shore, but before the city was extended as far as the Karangantu river: The city has a length of 850 fathoms. On the sea side it is 400 fathoms long.… A fine river flows through the middle of the town, up which junks and galleys can sail. Along one side of the city lies an arm of this river, which is smaller and up which only small vessels can go.56

To one side of the town – probably at the river’s mouth, on the site of the toll-house (pabean) which appears on the map of 1598 - there was a fort with brick walls ‘seven palms thick’ and high bulwarks of earth and timber with cannon mounted on them. Couto makes no mention of city walls. It is likely, however, that both the city and the Chinese quarter were protected on their landward sides by bamboo or wooden palisades.57 Be that as it may, by the end of the century the city was surrounded by a brick wall 2.5 metres high,58 built in zig-zag fashion, with projecting bulwarks which served as platforms for mounting artillery.59 Neither walls nor bulwarks were equipped with towers or parapets.60 Banten’s city walls were, in fact, not much more than a replication in brickwork of the typical bamboo or wooden stockade of the classic Javanese fortified ‘city’ (kota), which was intended principally as a physical barrier to the advance of an attacking force. For actively engaging the enemy, Banten’s defenders made use of high wooden watch towers (panggung) set back from the walls, from where a stream of missiles could be directed down upon the enemy below.61 Security was the paramount concern which is apparent in the internal organization of the walled city. The whole town was divided into wards, each under the superintendence of a Javanese nobleman and each with its own designated role in the defence of the city. Members of the ruling class never moved about inside the town without their own personal retinue of armed followers and servants in close attendance.62 Guards were stationed at all the city gates and at various points throughout the town. At night the city was closed up completely. The boom was lowered across the mouth of the river, all traffic on the waterways ceased within the city, and a guard of 50 men kept watch on the city square. Every nobleman’s residence also had its own night watch of ten or a dozen men on duty in the outer courtyard.63 The fear was not just of enemy attack from without. The Javanese did not trust each other, was Lodewycksz’s observation: ‘not even brother will risk speaking with brother unless he has his keris by his side and three or four dozen lances and shields in the entrance hall.’64 In Banten the early Dutch voyagers were confronted by an urban agglomeration with a character and appearance very different from the cities of northern Europe with which they were familiar. Like the old cities of Europe, Banten was enclosed by walls which proclaimed its city status, but what lay within appeared strangely uncity-like.65 There were few streets. The buildings were mostly flimsy structures of bamboo and matting, perched on poles and scattered about in no apparent order among groves of fruit trees and coconut palms.66 The Europeans marvelled at the cheapness and simplicity of building materials and the speed with which whole districts were rebuilt after the devastating fires which swept through the town with alarming frequency.67 In its lack of order and general air of having been set down temporarily in the countryside, Banten appeared to European eyes ‘as like an army camp as a town.’68 Moreover, whereas in the mercantile cities of Europe the main centres of commercial

life were located inside the city walls, while the suburbs carried the overspill of residential development, in Banten the situation was rather the reverse. The walled town was entirely given over to the purposes of government and to the accommodation of the ruling class. With the exception of a small daily market where household provisions were sold, merchants and traders found no place for their activities within the bounds of the city proper.

Figure 3.1 Banten in 1596 ‘Sketch of antam Town’, first published in william Lodewycksz’s D’ Eerste oeck, Amsterdam 1598; reproduced here from De eerste schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oast-Indie onder Cornelis de Houtman 1595–1597; Journalem, documenten en andere besceiden, ed. G.p. Rouffaer & J.W. Ijzerman, vol. 1, The Hague, 1915.

In the Sajarah Banten, a history of Banten composed in the seventeenth century,

the laying out of the town as a royal kota is credited to the future second ruler, Pangeran Hasanuddin (reigned c. 1546–70), who built the palace (dalem, keratun) and laid out the town square (alun-alun) and the market place (pasar) in accordance with the instructions of his father, Sunan Gunung Jati (c. 1525–46), the founder of the dynasty.69 The alun-alun or paseban (‘audience place’) was the ritual centre of the kingdom, where the state palladium, the watu gigilang (‘luminescent stone’), was set up, and where the ruler held court under a sacred banyan, the waringin kurung (‘king’s tree’).70 The alun-alun was the venue for important state ceremonies, such as the circumcision of the young king which Europeans witnessed in 1605,71 and for the weekly tournament in which the ruling class indulged their passion for the equestrian and martial arts.72 The alun-alun was the centre from which four main streets radiated out in the four directions of the compass, and around which all the important buildings in the city were grouped. On the south side, facing directly onto the royal square, was the palace. The alignment of the palace buildings on a north-south axis and in this position in relation to the alun-alun and various other structures of symbolic significance – in particular the city mosque and the royal mausoleum, to the west of the alun-alun – was in conformity with traditional Javanese conceptions of the royal city as a magic centre of sacred kingship.73 To the east of the alun-alun were a number of other buildings of a more mundane character: a guardhouse, which was also the gaol, the state arsenal, a storehouse or treasury, and stables for the royal elephants. On the north side of the alun-alun, where the square was bounded by the river, boatsheds housed the king’s warboats.74 Further along on the same side, close to the mosque and to the bridge linking the upper and lower towns, was the town market, the pasar tumenggung.75 The pasar tumenggung was one of three markets with different functions in the local economy. This and another market, the pasar kapalembangan, which was situated in the Chinese quarter, were retail markets for the supply of provisions to the local inhabitants.76 Banten’s third and largest market was the pasar gedé, the ‘Great Mart’, which was the market of commercial exchange for the trade of the port, ‘where are found the traders of all nations’77 Both the pasar gedé and the pasar kapalembangan were situated outside the city walls. What we see worked out in the spatial arrangement of the various components of the port-city complex – the walled city of the Javanese, the extramural settlements of the foreign communities, and the three daily markets – is a determination on the part of Banten’s rulers to ensure that no challenge to their authority should arise from the presence of a powerful merchant class ensconced within the city walls. In laying out the royal city Pangeran Hasanuddin and his father followed Javanese tradition in establishing a market on the north side of the alun-alun. But in their concern to prevent the pasar from becoming a focal point for the development of a countervailing

centre of wealth and power, they allowed it only a limited role. In essence the pasar tumenggung was simply a facility for provisioning the walled city, and in this respect comparable, perhaps, to the small markets located within the precincts of the citadel in some Islamic cities of the Middle East. But whereas in the Middle East the great commercial market – the sukh al-kabir – usually occupied space within the walled city which lay under the domination of the ruler’s citadel, in Banten this was not the case. Here the city was itself the citadel of a ruling authority which excluded the mercantile community and relegated the commerce of the port to sites outside the city walls.

Banten Extramuros Banten extramuros – the city beyond the walls – consisted of a number of separate residential and commercial quarters. The foreign Muslim quarter, the pakojan, where the Muslim traders from South and West Asia were settled, was spread out along the foreshore between the Banten and Karangantu rivers in the early years of the seventeenth century.78 To the south and east of the pasar gedé were further areas of residential settlement, where the various Indonesian ethnic groups (Muslim and nonMuslim) and other South and Southeast Asian non-Muslims probably had their own separate locales.79 At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Chinese quarter, the pacinan, occupied a palisaded enclosure known as the kapalembangan,80 situated to the west of the walled city, across the river from the tollhouse (pabean). The kapalembangan was also where a small Portuguese settlement, the pratokalan, and, from 1602, the lodges of the Dutch and the English, were located.81 Subsequently, probably in the late 1620s,82 after the English had taken the place of the Chinese as the major purchasers of pepper at Banten, the Chinese quarter was shifted further inland, to the location shown on the map of c. 1640, and the area of the old pacinan was taken over by the English for their warehouses and cultivations.83 The pacinan was both the residential precinct and the central commercial district of the Chinese at Banten. A small canal running into the centre of kapalembangan from the river, which assisted in the drainage of this marshy area, also enabled lighters to ferry goods to and from the Chinese junks riding at anchor in the roads. The Chinese merchants of the pacinan who received goods from China had their own agents and employees whom they sent out in search of pepper and other items for the return cargo of the China junks.84 Most of the pepper and perhaps also the greater part of the sandalwood and Moluccan spices, which together formed the bulk of the exports to China, was accumulated by the Chinese in this way, through their own trading networks, rather than through purchases in the local market place.85 In addition to the merchants and the many smaller traders, porters and peddlars who depended on them,

there were also artisans and other urban workers of one sort and another among the Chinese population at Banten.86 The pasar gedé, Banten’s Great Mart, which Lodewycksz describes in some detail,87 occupied an area fenced in on three sides, to the east of the city walls, in the angle between the Kali Karangantu, which gave access by water to the hinterland behind the city, and the sea shore, where the small Indonesian vessels engaged in local trade could be drawn up onto the beach.88 Here, along the line of the seashore, was where the local products of the region were sold: honey and sugar in pots, ‘all kinds of confectionary’, rice, salt, coconuts and coconut oil, bamboo, basketware, bags, and jars. This was also where the spice and pepper market was situated, ‘where women sit, having their stalls with all kinds of spices’, which, Lodewycksz significantly adds, ‘they sell in retail’. The pasar gedé was in fact a place where much trade on a small scale took place, with sales by small measure,89 for this was the meeting ground for transactions between the local shopkeepers and the many small traders who traded by sea through the islands. The pasar gedé was also in touch with pepper producers in the West Java hinterland, part of whose output was brought to market by country folk,90 though the greater part appears to have been collected upcountry by the agents of the Chinese merchants and conveyed directly to their warehouses in the pacinan.91 In the centre of the pasar gedé was an open space where the cloth market was held. This was also where goods and money were given out by Malay and South Indian Muslim merchants, in commenda and at interest, to the maritime traders who carried goods in small lots through the Archipelago.92 Beyond this area, to the south, were rows of stalls where traders from across the Indian Ocean – Persians, Arabs, Bengalis and others – sold jewellery and cheap fancy goods from India. Behind these again were the stalls of the Chinese, where a great range of Chinese wares were offered for sale – including silks and swords, looking-glasses, combs, parasols, almanacs, writing paper, sulphur, quicksilver – but above all, the cheap Chinese porcelains which were in great demand throughout the region. We know little about the internal organization of the congregations of foreign traders settled at Banten in this period. It is possible that both the Chinese (as was later the case in the colonial cities of the region) and the Indians (as appears to have been the case in an earlier age) made use of gild organizations to regulate the internal affairs of their local communities,93 though in the absence of positive evidence this must remain a matter of conjecture. Of some aspects of social organization we do catch a glimpse. The pakojan possessed its own mosque, situated near the bridge leading to the Great Mart,94 which served as a centre for the spiritual and social life of the foreign Muslim community. The Chinese also had their own temple in the pacinan, which provided a focal point for the festivities marking the coming and going of the annual trading fleet from China.95 The leading figures among the Chinese, according to the Dutch of the early

voyages, were converts to Islam, the so-called ‘shaven Chinese’. The most prominent of these Chinese converts with whom the Dutch had dealings was Lim Lakmoi, a leading merchant with extensive maritime trading interests.96 Lim Lakmoi had some of the attributes of a ‘noble’.97 In his quasi-official capacity as a Chinese headman, he enjoyed the privilege of a bodyguard of spearmen (penumbak).98 This was an exceptional privilege, allowed only to the chosen instruments of the Ruler’s control over the activities of the foreign traders. Moreover, in contrast to the position of the Indian Muslims co-opted into the government as port officials, who resided inside the city of the Javanese, the leading Chinese were all confined to the pacinan, where every effort was made to keep the alien population in a state of complete physical subjection. In particular, buildings with any degree of defensive capability were not tolerated. The warehouses of the Chinese, while they were of brick on the ground floor, had only a flimsy superstructure of bamboo and thatch for living quarters above, which offered minimal protection to life and property.99 By such means Banten’s rulers sought to ensure that the Chinese should gain little opportunity to convert their commercial wealth into political power.

The ruling élite and the commercial community A distinctive feature in the layout of the walled city of the Javanese, which is clearly detailed in the map of c. 1640, is the grouping of individual dwellings in palisaded residential complexes.100 This pattern of residential clustering reflects the importance of relationships of dependency in the social order of the city. Banten intramuros was a city completely dominated by the presence of its ruling élite. In the absence of an independent class of traders and merchants, virtually all of the inhabitants were either nobles or the dependants of nobles. The ‘mansions’ of the nobility, incorporating family, followers, servants and slaves in one great patrimonial establishment, each within its own fortified enclosure,101 were the principal units of social organization within the Javanese town. Although the founder of the dynasty was a Muslim merchant from Pasai, Banten’s royal house, like the rulers of foreign Muslim or mestizo extraction who came to power in the pasisiran in the preceding century, were thoroughly assimilated to the ways of the old Hindu-Buddhist aristocracy whom they displaced. Cultural assimilation ensured that in the cosmopolitan trading ports of the newly-Islamized pasisiran, no less than in the agrarian hinterland, Java’s rulers conformed to the pattern of a warrior aristocracy which saw its reflection in the satriya heroes of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Pires, who observed them in the process of change in the early sixteenth century, notes:

the pates who are along the sea-coast of Java and who do not yet feel so noble as those inland – because they were slaves and merchants a couple of days ago – are so proud that all of them are respected as if they were lords of the world. Each of them goes out hunting or pleasure-seeking in such exalted style. They spend all their time in pleasures, with retinues with so many lances in holders of gold and silver … so richly inlaid, with so many harriers, greyhounds and other dogs …102 The picture which Pires presents, of a ruling élite thoroughly imbued with the ethos of a warrior aristocracy, chimes with Dutch accounts of the Banten nobles, which speak of their haughty disposition,103 and of their passing their days in idle entertainments, in the company of their numerous wives and concubines, or riding out to hunt in the neighbouring countryside.104 The wealth and power of the Bantenese nobility was measured in terms of the amount of manpower at their disposal. As in other situations where land was plentiful, labour was the scarce resource over which rights of property were exercised. Hence the prevalence of debt bondage and other forms of servile dependency, both voluntary and involuntary, and the trade in bought slaves to meet the demand for manpower.105 Every noble aspired to a great retinue of men-at-arms,’106 for ‘he who has the most soldiers is held the richest and most powerful.’107 Soldiers were generally hirelings or bonded servants, ‘who take service on account of need or from a desire to go on an expedition … and because service under a lord is the best way to become rich in Java.’108

Figure 3.2 Banten c. 1640 From a photograph of the map ‘Bantam’ (vel. 1175) in the Department of Maps and Drawings, Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague, reproduced here by kind permission.

Figure 3.3 A Bantenese noble From Willem Lodewycksz’s D’Eerste Boeck, Amsterdam 1598; reproduced here from De eerste schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië onder Cornelis de Houtman, 1595–1597: Journalen, documenten en andere bescheiden, ed. G.P. Rouffaer & J.W. IJzerman, vol. 1, The Hague, 1915. A band of soldiers was one prop to the position of a great noble. Banten’s ruling élite also had need of a dependent force of productive labour to support this military power.109 This was a role assigned to slaves and bondsmen, who were made to contribute to the upkeep of the nobles’ establishments in a variety of ways. Some were given responsibility for the care of groves of fruit and coconut trees, which in effect they leased for a fixed sum, selling the produce in the local market and working also as day labourers to maintain themselves and pay their dues.110 Some had occupations – fishing is singled out for mention by Lodewycksz – in which they worked alternately six days for the master and six days for themselves. Others simply served in the master’s household.111 There were also great numbers of female slaves and bondswomen. According to one report, there were as many as ten women for every one man within the city.112 While this is no doubt a great exaggeration, other evidence also suggests that females may indeed have made up the major part of the population of Banten intramuros.113 A great many of these women were attached to the households of the nobles. Many were also engaged in productive labour: Some sit in the Basar, and sell all sorts of wares in order to earn some money, and daily give over a certain sum. Others sit at home and spin and weave. Thus

all are busy with work to win the means of support for themselves and their masters.114 Even the men-at-arms were put to work in idle moments. ‘They are seldom unoccupied,’ says Lodewycksz, ‘always having something in hand, as making scabbards for swords, or cleaning their weapons.’115 Vander Hagen, when he visited the royal palace in 1600, noted of the guards there that they practised ‘all kinds of handicrafts.’116 Production for the market thus played an important part in the household economy of the Bantenese nobility. Did the nobles also invest in overseas trade? It is certainly possible that, as in other parts of Southeast Asia, individual members of the nobility may have profited from trade through shipowning or through patronal relations with client traders. There is, however, nothing to show that the Bantenese nobility were in fact involved in these or other forms of direct participation in the maritime trade of the port. In this connection it is noteworthy that Lodewycksz, who identifies the suppliers of trading capital as Malays and South Indian Muslims, makes no mention of such a role for the nobles, whose economic interests he gives solely as investment in land and slaves.117 Similarly, Edmund Scott notes that ‘their wealth lyeth altogether in slaves.’118 The testimony of these European observers is consistent with what is known of the social ethos of the ruling élite. Clearly it was not one that favoured the accumulation of capital through commercial enterprise. What came to hand tended to be quickly dissipated in conspicuous consumption. The amassing of wealth typically was a matter of adding to the number of slaves and bondspersons.119 Since large retinues (of females as well as males) were valued as much for show as for military purposes, this meant extra mouths to feed but not necessarily extra hands to set to productive work. As Scott observed, ‘the gentlemen of this land are brought to be poore by the number of slaves that they keepe, which eat faster than their pepper or rise groweth.’120 It was the function of this warrior élite to maintain the military force which enabled the power of the state to be projected through its maritime hinterland – the coastal waters of the South Sumatran and West Java regions where the pepper originated upon which Banten’s trade with China depended. Under these circumstances, the stability of the political system was bound up with the Ruler’s ability to minimize the independent power of the nobles without impairing their capacity to fulfil this essential military function. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the government of Banten was in the hands of a chief minister, the Mangkubumi, who ruled as regent for the previous Ruler’s infant son. The Mangkubumi made use of Indian Muslims in key administrative positions. The most important of these were the Syahbandar and the Tumenggung, who had responsibilities in connection with the trade of the port, including the collection of port and market dues.121 The Syahbandar was an Indian Muslim from Maliapur who rose from nothing to become a leading figure at Banten in the 1590s.

Van Neck calls him a subtle and wily counsellor whose advice was much valued by the Mangkubumi.122 The Syahbandar and the Tumenggung belonged to an inner circle of trusted advisers and officials which was composed in part of outsiders like themselves, who lacked a power base of their own within the political system, and in part of the regent’s personal allies among the Javanese nobility.123 As members of the Ruler’s (i.e., the Mangkubumi’s) cabal, these two leading officials were among the small group of foreigners who were permitted to reside inside the city walls.124 Each had his own palisaded ‘mansion’ and kept a great retinue of slaves and men-at-arms, after the manner of the Javanese aristocracy.125 These concessions to foreigners who appear to have been his personal clients provided the Ruler with a useful counterweight to the independent power of the nobles.126 The nobles themselves could not be denied the privilege of maintaining their own armed retinues, since these formed the basis of the military power of the state. Nor could they be refused the resources necessary for their upkeep. The Ruler was able to ensure that the nobles did not enjoy their possessions and privileges as a matter of absolute right, however. It appears to have been an established principle that, if not all property, then at least that which was conferred by the Ruler or acquired in the course of carrying out official duties, was held at the Ruler’s pleasure. In particular, there was evidently no unconditional right of inheritance. Even women and children were included in the category of possessions which might be resumed by the Ruler at death or earlier.127 These rules were no doubt able to be applied with less difficulty to foreigners than to the native Javanese aristocracy, who were generally in a position to mobilize extensive kinship networks in defence of their vital interests. Certainly it was the case that the Ruler often preferred to have foreigners in those administrative positions which provided the greatest opportunities for self-enrichment, no doubt because as outsiders they were more easily cast aside and their wealth expropriated when their usefulness was at an end. Expropriation under these circumstances was in accord with a conceptualization of the patrimonial Ruler’s relationship with his servant-officials in which the possessions of the latter were viewed as being perquisites of service, allowed for their temporary enjoyment, but ultimately the property of the master himself and always subject to revocation.128 The situation in which successful traders found themselves in relation to the Ruler was not so very different. In entrepôt ports throughout the region trade was by tradition considered to be the prerogative of the Ruler, who regularly exercised a right of pre-emption in order to acquire luxury goods for the use of the court, or simply to take a windfall profit from exceptional circumstances (as when Europeans arrived to trade for the first time). The admission of a merchant class to participation in the trade of the port was thus by favour of the Ruler, and this circumstance placed the trader in a position somewhat analogous to that of the royal official. Each performed a function

which was carried out on behalf of the Ruler. The merchant’s role was to conduct the commercial operations which, in theory, the Ruler chose not to carry out in person or through the instrumentality of members of his personal entourage. Nobles, officials, and merchants thus stood ultimately on much the same footing where property was concerned, even though they might be treated differently as a matter of practical policy, for in each case the possession of property could be deemed to be contingent upon the performance of a function delegated from the Ruler. As in the case of nobles and officials, death was the notable occasion for the exercise of the Ruler’s right to resume property acquired by members of the resident mercantile community.129 Merchants who wished to leave Banten likewise faced the prospect of expropriation.130 Moreover, it was enough merely to incur the Ruler’s displeasure for traders to find themselves stripped of all they possessed.131 It seems likely also that the merchants at times had to contend with the demands of importunate nobles for ‘loans’and ‘presents’ which were in addition to the regular taxes on trade.132 Edmund Scott speaks with feeling of the troubles which the English experienced with a number of high-ranking Bantenese nobles, described as ‘a sort of beggerly poore men’ who would ‘seeke the spoyle of all such merchaunts as wee.’133 Lack of security was a fundamental characteristic of the environment in which the activities of the trading communities were conducted. The consequences of this for the day-to-day conduct of trade should certainly not be exaggerated. It was obviously not in the interests of the Ruler – nor of the ruling class as a whole, for that matter – that the predatory disposition of the nobles should be allowed to bring the commerce of the port to ruin. Nor was the Ruler himself totally arbitrary and unpredictable in his dealings with the traders, as European observers were only too ready to believe. Port dues and taxes on trade were levied according to fixed schedules which appear to have been generally adhered to. Formal procedures clearly existed for settling disputes and dealing with offences in accordance with well-understood rules.134 Islamic law and the commercial usages of the various trading congregations probably also had an important part to play in regulating the commercial life of the port.135 At the same time, however, the underlying conditions of insecurity with respect to property rights were inimical to the long-term accumulation of commercial capital by a local mercantile establishment. Van Leur’s judgement that the Chinese traders at Banten constituted a ‘bourgeois patriciate’, comparable to the ‘merchant gentlemen’ forming the upper class in the great trading cities of early modern Europe, is certainly wide of the mark.136 With the exception of certain individuals who performed a specific service for the Ruler – and who remained totally at the Ruler’s mercy – it is clear that the Chinese accepted their role as transients, lived modestly, and repatriated their profits against the day of their eventual return to China.137 It was because these conditions were tolerable to the Chinese, and to other expatriate traders who were also in the habit of sending their profits home in the course of business, that Banten could be made

to function as a major centre of regional trade without this giving rise to the formation of a wealthy merchant class capable of challenging the political power of the ruling élite.

Conclusion Banten was a port city of a particular kind. It did not owe its rise to economic development in a large and populous hinterland. Nor does strategic location in relation to maritime trade routes alone explain its commercial success. Banten’s pre-eminence was above all a function of its Rulers’ ability to deploy a formidable military power to constrain the flow of trade within the area of its maritime hinterland. State power resided with a ruling class which was strongly imbued with the values of a martial aristocracy and which was essentially predatory in its attitude to trade and traders. The seigneurial life-style of this ruling élite was sustained by an economic order which was in some degree distinct from the mercantile economy of the port, though as components in a larger network of economic relationships which took in the port, the city and its immediate hinterland (where the nobles had their rice-fields and plantations), and the pepper-producing districts in the interior, the two were intimately connected. The basis of the economy of the walled city of the Javanese and its immediate hinterland was servile labour attached to the households of the élite. In addition to supplying the ruling class with the means of subsistence, this ‘inland’ or ‘Javanese’ sector of the local economy vented the products of nature and artisanship onto the market. There is, however, nothing to show that the Javanese élite had a substantial involvement in the maritime trade of the port. So far as the external trade of the port was concerned, the ruling class appears to have confined itself to skimming off a share of the profits in the form of taxes and tolls, though some degree of passive participation in maritime trading ventures through shipowning and patronal relations with privileged traders is a possibility which cannot be ruled out.138 Moreover, it is quite evident from the Sajarah Banten (where the commercial function of the port receives the barest acknowledgement) that the values of commercial society made no impression on the Javanese ruling class. On the contrary, it was rather the leaders of the expatriate trading communities, to whom the Ruler delegated certain administrative functions, who tended to assimilate to the life-style of the Javanese aristocracy, so far as it was open to them to do so. The policies pursued by Banten’s rulers, which are manifest in the layout of the port-city complex and in the rules (intended in the first instance to strengthen the position of the Ruler vis à vis the nobles) relating to property and inheritance, were designed to ensure the supremacy of the Javanese ruling class and guard against the

formation of a counter-élite based on commercial wealth. The expatriate character of the trading population also militated against the accumulation of local mercantile capital on a significant scale. Under these conditions, it is not to be expected that commerce should have given rise to a socially secure and politically influential mercantile establishment. How far can we say that Banten was typical of port cities in pre-colonial Southeast Asia? All the evidence suggests that the aristocratic temper of the government was characteristic of port cities generally throughout the region. This must have been especially true of the handful of pre-eminent port cities which dominated regional trade by military means. The importance of slavery and other forms of bondage was likewise characteristic of port cities and their immediate rural environs throughout the region. The high proportion of females in the (largely servile) population of Banten intramuros was probably also typical of urban centres under the domination of aristocratic élites in the pre-colonial period.139 In other respects there was less uniformity. Not every town possessed a city wall, though many of Java’s coastal towns were walled at this time.140 The ethnic mix among the urban trading populations also varied. The exclusion of the trading community from the walled city was particularly a feature of the situation at Banten, where an unassimilated Chinese population made up an especially large proportion of the trading community. At Jakarta, also, the Chinese were made to live outside the city limits.141 Banten, however, was evidently unusual in the rigour with which the whole mercantile population (with individual exceptions) was excluded from residing within the city proper. In some of the other major ports of the period, notably Aceh and Patani, where the Malayo-Muslim element in the trading population was stronger, the history of relations between the traders and the ruling authority took a rather different course. In none, however, do we find the values of commercial society winning out against the interests and ethos of the traditional aristocratic élite. The insubstantial character of port cities in pre-colonial Southeast Asia is well illustrated by the case of Banten. There was relatively little investment in the physical structure of the city, apart from the city wall, though even this was a fairly simple structure, and poorly maintained.142 Housing was cheap and simple.143 Investment in an urban infrastructure was minimal. The few streets were unpaved. River and canal served the needs of transport, water supply, sewerage and refuse disposal. All land was at the Ruler’s disposal and in principle subject to resumption without compensation.144 For the mercantile population of the port the construction of warehouses and dwellings was simply one of the unavoidable costs of doing business – constantly recurring, it would seem, in view of the frequency of fires in the town – rather than a secure investment in urban real estate. When trade routes shifted, there was little to hold a transient trading population in port cities sliding into economic decline.

NOTES 1 See Anthony Reid, ‘An “Age of Commerce” in Southeast Asian History’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 24 (1990), and ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 11, part 2 (September 1980). 2 Reid, ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia’, p. 237. 3 For an overview of the impact of Islam on Javanese society through the centuries see D. Lombard, Le carrefour javanais: Essai d’histoire globale (3 vols, Paris, 1990), vol. 2, chs 2, 3 and 5. 4 J.C. van Leur, Indonesian Trade and Society: Essays in Asian Social and Economic History (The Hague, 1955), pp. 201–4. See also p. 350, note 43. 5 Ibid., p. 204. 6 Ibid., pp. 133–4 and 204–8. 7 Van Leur cites examples from Banten: the syahbandar, ‘a principal Chinese’, Andamohi Keling, Simsuan, and Chetty Maluku (see ibid., pp. 133, 139, 201–2 and 384, note 123). Of these only Chetty Maluku (Sancho Moluco, for whom see notes 124 and 138 below) does not clearly fall into one of the above-mentioned categories. 8 Reid, ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia’, p. 247. For a fuller development of Reid’s argument see his ‘Trade and the Problem of Royal Power in Aceh. Three Stages: c. 1550–1700’, in A. Reid & L. Castles, eds Pre-Colonial State Systems in Southeast Asia: The Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Bali-Lombok, South Celebes (Kuala Lumpur, 1975), and ‘Trade and State Power in the 16th & 17th Century. Southeast Asia’, in Proceedings, Seventh International Historians of Asia Conference, Bangkok, 22–26 August 1977 (Bangkok, 1979). 9 Reid, ‘Trade and the Problem of Royal Power’, and ‘Trade and State Power’, pp. 403–7. See also J. Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Royal Authority and the Orang Kaya in the Western Archipelago, Circa 1500–1800’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 17 (1986), and K.R. Hall, ‘The Opening of the Malay World to European Trade in the Sixteenth Century’, Journal of the Malayan Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 53, part 2 (1985), p. 96. 10 Recent studies of Banten include F. Colombijn, ‘Bronnen voor het zeventiendeeeuwse Banten’, Jambatan: Tijdschrift voor Indonesische geschiedenis, vol. 6 (1988), ‘De vroege staat Banten in de zeventiende eeuw’, Antropologische Verkennningen, vol. 8 (1989), and ‘Foreign Influence on the State of Banten, 1596– 1682’, Indonesia Circle, no. 50 (November 1989); C. Guillot, ‘Banten en 1678’, Archipel, vol. 37 (1989), ‘La nécessaire relecture de l’accord luso-soundanais de 1522’, Archipel, vol. 42 (1991), ‘Les Portugais et Banten (1511–1682)’, Revista de

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Cultura, vol. 13/14 ( January/June 1991), and ‘Libre entreprise contre économie dirigée: guerres civiles à Banten, 1580–1609’, Archipel, vol. 43 (1992); C. Guillot, in association with Hasan M. Ambary & J. Dumarcay, The Sultanate of Banten ( Jakarta, 1990); J. Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Banten: A West Indonesian Port and Polity During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in J. Kathirithamby-Wells & J. Villiers, eds The Southeast Asian Port and Polity: Rise and Demise (Singapore, 1990). For the role of naval power in Srivijaya and Johor see Nik Hassan Shuhaimi bin Nik Abdul Rahman, ‘The Kingdom of Srivijaya as Socio-political and Cultural Entity’, in Kathirithamby-Wells & Villiers, The Southeast Asian Port and Polity, and L. Andaya, The Kingdom of Johor, 1641–1728 (Kuala Lumpur, 1975), pp. 44–52. For Fo-lo-an and Kalah see P. Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Peninsula before AD 1500 (Kuala Lumpur, 1961), pp. 68–70 and 216–28. For a comment on the elusiveness of ‘Srivijaya’ see B. Bronson, ‘The Archaeology of Sumatra and the Problem of Srivijaya’, in R.B. Smith & W. Watson, eds Early South East Asia: Essays in Archaeology, History and Historical Geography (New York, 1979). Although Srivivaya never fully recovered from the Chola raid of 1025 (see K.R. Hall & J.K. Whitmore, ‘Southeast Asian Trade and the Isthmian Struggle, AD 1000–1200’, in K.R. Hall & J.K. Whitmore, eds Explorations in Early Southeast Asian History: The Origins of Southeast Asian Statecraft [Ann Arbor, 1976], pp. 306–7), Chau Ju-kua indicates that the Melaka Straits were safe for shipping in the early 13th century (Chau Ju-kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the twelfth and thirteenth Centuries, entitled Chu-fan-chï; transl. & annot. by F. Hirth & W.W. Rockhill [St Petersburg, 1911], p. 62). Srivijaya’s final decline may date from around 1275, when the Javanese conquered Jambi/Malayu. For this period see O.W. Wolters, Early Indonesian Commerce: A study of the origins of Srivijaya (Ithaca, 1967), pp. 250–3. The Chinese junks sailing to India were large and heavily armed to deal with the constant danger of pirate attacks, for which see Tao i chih lio in W.W. Rockhill, ‘Notes on the Relations and Trade of China in the Eastern Archipelago and the Coast of the Indian Ocean During the fourteenth Century’, T’oung Pao, vol. 16 (1915), p. 132. The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires: An Account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512–1515, transl. & ed. by A. Cortesão (2 vols, London, 1944), pp. 159–60 and 192–3. Before this the capital of the Sundanese kingdom was at Galuh, further to the east, in the interior borderlands between West and Central Java. See H.J. de Graaf, Geschiedenis van Indonesië (The Hague, 1949), p. 65. Pires, Suma Oriental, pp. 165 and 180.

18 For the broader context of these developments see K.R. Hall, ‘Trade and Statecraft in the Western Archipelago at the Dawn of the European Age’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 54, no. 1 (1981). 19 I estimate that European imports of Moluccan spices increased roughly threefold, from about 35 to just over 100 tonnes p.a., between 1400 and 1500 (taking Venice’s imports to be 75% of the total through the century). See C.H.H. Wake, ‘The Changing Pattern of Europe’s Pepper and Spice Imports, ca 1400–1700’, Journal of European Economic History, vol. 8, no. 2 (Fall 1979), tables 3 and 4, and p. 393, note 101, and ‘The Volume of European Spice Imports at the Beginning and End of the Fifteenth Century’, ibid., vol. 15, no. 3 (Winter 1986), tables 1 and 2. See also Reid, ‘An “Age of Commerce”’, pp. 12–3, and table 1, for the estimate of a fivefold increase in Venice’s imports over the century. 20 In the first half of 16th century trade between the Moluccas and Java was observed to be mainly in the hands of Bandanese and Ambonese (P. A. Tlele, ‘De Europeërs in den Maleischen Archipel. Tweede Gedeetle: 1529–1540’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, vol. 27 (1879), p. 23). The terminus for Chinese voyages to Java remained, as before, Surabaya-Gresik, for which see ibid., pp. 45–8 and 55. For the history of the direct Chinese trade with the Moluccas see R. Ptak, ‘The Northern Trade Route to the Spice Islands: South China Sea – Sulu Zone – North Moluccas, (14th to early 16th century)’, Archipel, vol. 43 (1992). For the cessation of Chinese voyaging to Malabar see Asia de João de Barros: Dos feitos que os Portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente, ed. & annot. by H. Cidade, with historical notes by M. Múrias (6th ed., 4 vols, Lisbon, 1945–46), Dec. IV, livr. V, cap. 3 (pp. 262–4 in this ed.). 21 Hirth & Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua, pp. 70, 77–8 and 222–4. 22 Pires, Suma Oriental, pp. 140 and 144. 23 On the importance of pepper see ibid., p. 123. 24 Ibid., pp. 158–63 and 170–3. According to Pires (ibid., pp. 172–3), ‘The merchandise from the whole kingdom [of Sunda] comes here to this port [of Kalapa]’, and traders came from Melaka, Palembang, Makassar, Java, Madura and elsewhere. 25 Ibid., pp. 170–1. 26 H.J. de Graaf & Th.G.Th. Pigeaud, De eerste moslimse vorstendommen op Java: Studiën over de staatkundige geschiedenis van de 15de en 16de eeuw (The Hague, 1974), pp. 118–9. Guillot (‘La nécessaire relecture de l’accord luso-soundanais de 1522’) proposes a reinterpretion of these events, arguing that the dealings of the Portuguese were with Banten, not Sunda Kalapa. 27 The settlement at Banten Girang (‘Banten Upriver’) dates from at least the 11th or 12th century, judging from the archaeological evidence. See Guillot, The Sultanate of Banten, p. 12.

28 Some indications of Banten’s naval strength are provided by the early Dutch accounts. About 200 vessels of various descriptions are said to have taken part in the Bantenese attack on Palembang in 1596 (De eerste schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië onder Cornelis de Houtman, 1595–1597: Journalen, documenten en andere bescheiden, ed. G.P. Rouffaer & J.W. IJzerman, 3 vols [The Hague, 1915–29], vol. 1, p. 130). In September 1596 the Dutch were attacked in Banten Bay by more than 20 large war-boats, each carrying around 50 fighting men armed with ‘long spears, swords, shields, keris, and also some firearms’ (‘De eerste Schipvaerd der Hollandsche Natie naer Oost-Indien’, fol. 49, in I. Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie, 2 vols [Amsterdam, 1646]. See also Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, Plates 27 and 28). In 1604 Edmund Scott witnessed the nobles’ war-boats progressing proudly out to sea, all ‘trimmed in verie warlike manner, having their colours and shieldes hanging rounde about them.’ See Edmund Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse of the Subtilties, Fashions, Pollicies, Religion, and Ceremonies of the East Indians…’ (London 1606), as reprinted in W. Foster, ed. The Voyage of Sir Henry Middleton to the Moluccas, 1604–1606 (Cambridge, 1943), p. 134. Pires’ remark (Suma Oriental, p. 167), that ‘Sunda is [land of] chivalrous, seafaring warriors’, thus applies equally to the Banten period. 29 See W.P. Groeneveldt, ‘Notes on the Malay Archipelago and Malacca copied from Chinese Sources’, Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, vol. 39 (1880), p. 134. 30 According to tradition, the pepper-exporting regions of Southeast and Southwest Sumatra were brought under Bantenese suzerainty in the reign of Pangeran Hasanuddin, c 1546–70. See Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Critische beschouwing van de Sadjarah Banten: Bijdrage ter kenschetsing van de Javaansche geschiedschrijving (Haarlem 1913), pp. 118–25. On Banten’s sphere of influence at this time see also Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Banten’, p. 110. In 1596, when the Dutch arrived, Banten was at war with Palembang, which controlled the main East Coast outlet for the pepper production of South Central Sumatra (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 130, and vol. 2, p. 17). 31 For the best evidence on the size and number of the China junks voyaging to Banten see Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 72, and vol. 3, p. 17; W. Foster, ed. The Journal of John Jourdain, 1608–1617 (Cambridge, 1905), p. 316; and Jan Pietersz. Coen: Bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indië, ed. by H.T. Colenbrander & W.Ph. Coolhaas (7 vols, The Hague, 1919–25), vol. 1, p. 65. 32 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 122–3, and vol. 2, p. 308; J. Keuning, ed. De tweede schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië onder Jacob Cor-nelisz. van Neck en Wybrant Warwijck, 1598–1600: Journalen, documenten en andere bescheiden (5 vols, The Hague, 1938–49), vol. 1. p. 87.

33 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 121–4 and 145–50. 34 Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 87. 35 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 121. For an Indian Muslim encountered at Banten whose business was sailing to the Moluccas with trade goods to exchange for cloves see Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 52–3. 36 ‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 63, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh; Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 101–5,118–20, 127, 164–5 and 189–90, and Plate 16, and vol. 2, pp. 216–21; Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 87–8, and vol. 3, pp. 201–2. See also Thomas Astley, A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels (4 vols, London, 1745–47, reprinted London 1968), vol. 1, p. 309. 37 ‘The best and greatest harbour in the whole of Java, where the greatest amount of trade is carried on with all the neighbouring towns and islands’ (‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fols 63–4, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh). 38 This map illustrates Lodewycksz’s account of the First Voyage, published in April 1598 (reproduced as Plate 11 in Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1). The presumption is that the engraver worked from a drawing or sketch made by Lodewycksz or some other eye-witness (ibid., p. xxv). While buildings are represented in conventional European style, an effort has been made to portray important features of the scene more accurately. Compare the two maps in Verhael vande Reyse and Journael vande Reyse, published in November 1597 and March 1598, respectively (reproduced in Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 2, Plates 4 and 12). These show the northern sector of the city, along the line of the seashore. The map in Journael is a revised version of the one in Verhael, with changes which make the city wall look almost exactly the same as in Lodewycksz’s map. 39 This map exists in several versions. The original may be the map ‘Bantam’ held in the Department of Maps and Drawings, Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague, and reproduced here by kind permission. I am indebted also to Cynthia Viallé for assistance with this map. For the dating of the original see J.W. IJzerman, ed. Cornelis Buijsero te Bantam, 1616–1618: Zijn brieven en journaal (The Hague, 1923), pp. xix-xx. A coloured version of the same map, dated c. 1670, is reproduced in Guillot, Sultanate of Banten, pp. 46–7, and in A. Reid, ‘Southeast Asian cities before colonialism’, Hemisphere, vol. 28 (1983), p. 144. Yet another version is the bird’s eye view of Banten in François Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien (Dordrecht & Amsterdam, 1726), vol. 4, pt 1, facing page 214 (reproduced in Guillot, Sultanate of Banten, pp. 56–7). The letterpress to Valentijn’s version follows (with minor changes and some errors) the key to the earlier map. 40 Though less so in the southeast corner, where the drawing in of the city bounds has been exaggerated. See note 42 below. 41 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 2, p. 23. 42 These dimensions are derived from a comparison of the map of c. 1640, a sketch

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map of 1659, for which see IJzerman, Cornelis Buijsero te Bantam, p. xxii, a 19th century plan of the site reproduced in ‘Kaart van Oud-Banten (Bantam) in gereedheid gebracht door wijlen Mr L. Serrurier (Met eene inleiding van Dr J. Brandes)’, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 45 (1902), facing p. 262, and the site plan in Guillot, Sultanate of Banten, p. 60. On the map of c. 1640 the length of the north and west walls appears to be underestimated by about 16% and 20% respectively, and of the south and east walls by about 25%. See the contemporary maps in [F. de Haan], Oud Batavia (3 vols, Batavia, 1922– 23), vol. 1, p. 27 and facing p. 46. According to one source (in J.K.J. de Jonge & M.L. van Deventer, eds De opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag in Oost-Indie, 13 vols, The Hague, 1862–88, vol. 3, p. 182), Jakarta in 1605 was not half as large as Banten. ‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 65, in Commelin, Begin ende voortgangh. Wouter Schouten, cited in J.A. van der Chijs, ‘Oud-Bantam’, Tijdschift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 26 (1881), p. 45. Elias Hesse states that this drum was eight foot high (ibid.). For this and other 17th century estimates see Guillot, ‘Banten en 1678’, p. 150. Ibid., and source cited therein. Guillot mistakes the statement in the source concerning 55,000 soldiers as refering to the city alone and infers from this a total urban population of about 150,000. In 1786 Rovere van Breugel put the population of the whole country at 45,000 in 84 settlements along the north and west coasts and another 45,000 in inland districts. See J. de Rovere van Breugel, ‘Beschrijving van het Koningrijk Bantam’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indie, vol. 5 (1856), pp. 320 and 343. Compare Valentijn’s computed figure of 40,850 for the inhabitants of ‘twenty villages and two or three towns’ along the coast, but not counting Banten city (Valentijn, Oud en Nieuw OostIndien, vol. 4, pt 1, p. 5). 90,000 appears to have been a generally accepted figure for the population of the kingdom in the 18th century. See also [I.J.X.] Pfijffer von Neüeck, Schetsen van het Eiland Java en deszelfs onderscheidene bewoners (Amsterdam, 1838), p. 2, citing C.P. Thunberg in 1774. Christopher Fryke, ‘A Relation of a Voyage made to the East Indies, by Christopher Fryke … from the year 1680 to the year 1686’, in C.E. Fayle, ed. Voyages to the East Indies (London, 1929), p. 80. Fryke’s lively account of his personal experiences during the Dutch conquest of Banten is full of spurious detail, after the manner of Fernão Mendes Pinto’s picaresque Peregrinaçao, with which he was acquainted. Tweede Schipvaart, vol 1, p. 87. Eerste Schipvaart, vol 1, p. 99. ‘Very populous’ is also Lodewycksz’s description of Pontang and Tanara, which were large villages (ibid., p. 160). Lodewycksz also calls Jakarta ‘a large town of about three thousand houses’ (Ibid., p. 163). According to another source (‘Historische Verhael vande treffelijcke Reyse … door

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54 55

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den Manhaften Admirael Cornelis Matalief’, fol. 53, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh, vol. 2), the ruler of Jakarta had about 4000 men in the city in 1607. Johann Verken, Molukken-Reise 1607–1612, ed. S.P. l’Honoré Naber, vol. two in the series Reisebeschreibungen von deutschen Beamten und Kriegsleuten im Dienst der Niederländischen West- und Ost-Indischen Kompagnien 1602–1797 (The Hague, 1930), p. 66. Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 4, pp. 42–3. The size of pre-colonial urban centres in Southeast Asia is a matter of controversy. Reid, who argues for a high degree of urbanization in pre-colonial Southeast Asia, places Banten in the category of largest Southeast Asian urban centres, those with populations in the range 50,000 to 100,000 in the 17th century. See Reid, ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia’, p. 237, ‘Southeast Asian cities before colonialism’, p. 145, and ‘An “Age of Commerce’”, p. 3. On the size of pasisiran towns in an earlier period, see J. Wisseman Christie, ‘States without Cities: Demographic Trends in Early Java’, Indonesia, vol. 52 (October 1991), p. 24. For some remarks on the size of pre-industrial cities generally, see G. Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City: Past and Present (Glencoe, III., 1960), pp. 80–3. On the wilderness around Banten see Glanius [J. Struys], A New Voyage to the East Indies, containing An Account of several of those Rich Countries, and more particularly of the Kingdom of Bantam (London, 1682), pp. 73–4. The map of 1598 shows only the canal through the lower town, which was evidently filled in in the first half of the 17th century, since it does not appear on later maps. The absence of the canal bisecting the upper town from the map of 1598 is probably due to oversight or ignorance rather than that the upper town had not yet been extended on the western side. Diego do Couto, Decadas da Asia, que tratam dos mares, que descrobriram… escritas por Diogo do Couto (3 vols, Lisboa Occidental, 1736), Dec. 4, livr. III, cap. 1 (p. 57 in this ed.). The figure of 400 fathoms (880 m) for the length of the town along the sea front from the ‘small arm of this river’, which formed the eastern boundary, evidently includes the Chinese quarter, which was situated to the west of the city proper, on the far side of the Banten river (‘up which junks and galleys can sail’), where the Portuguese factors also resided. The figure of 850 fathoms (1870 m) is excessive for the distance along the west side of the city but is about right for a measurement taken diagonally up through the town, following the course of the river, which is probably what was meant. According to the Sajarah Banten, Maulana Yusuf (reigned c 1570–80) added ‘bulwarks of brick and coral stone’ (Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Critische beschouwing, pp. 36 and 146). Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 85. The walls are variously described as being ‘about two foot [half a metre] thick’ (Van Neck in ibid., referring to the north wall), ‘not

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73

more than two foot’ (‘Verhael vande Reyse … naer Oost-Indien’, in Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 2, p. 23) and ‘more than one arms’ span’ [about 1.7 m] (Lodewycksz, in Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 105–6). The 1598 map shows 12 bulwarks with artillery on them. Lodewycksz (ibid., p. 106) refers to ‘flanckeringhe’ bearing cannon. When an attack by Mataram was expected in 1596 the decision was made to build a wooden gallery up against the wall to provide a footing for the defenders, in effect making the wall itself into a parapet. See ibid. For similar towers in the walled city of Arosbaya, on Madura, see Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 3, p. 45. See Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, Plate 14 and letterpress, and Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 88. Compare the statement in ibid., vol. 3, p. 36, that the nobles of Tuban ‘never go out of doors without ten or twelve servants in their train.’ Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 107. Ibid., p. 118. The division of the city into closely-guarded wards is also remarked on by later visitors. See Guillot, ‘Banten en 1678’, p. 135. For the rural character of Southeast Asian cities in general see Reid, ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia.’ Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 108; Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 169. Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 108. The nobles had brick storehouses (gedung) for their valuables, as a protection against fire (ibid.). In 1603, Scott (‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 99) notes, ‘in three moneths space the towne on the east side of the river was burnt five times’ (see also ibid., pp. 97–8); in one month alone there were two major fires on the other side of town (ibid., p. 105). Firefighting was a job for female servants; the men stood by, arms at the ready, to prevent looting (‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fols 70–1, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh). Guillot (‘Libre entreprise contre économie dirigée’, p. 62) attributes the great frequency of fires at this time to political strife among the Bantenese élite, which may well have been a contributing factor. Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 86. Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Critische beschouwing, pp. 34 and 130; also pp. 53–4. ‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 70, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh; Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 127–8. For descriptions and illustrations of the alun-alun and archaeological remains in the vicinity see Guillot, Sultanate of Banten, pp. 61–4. Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, pp. 152–9. The tournament at Tuban is described in Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 3, pp. 37–40. See also A. Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680. Volume One: The Lands Below the Wind (New Haven, 1988), pp. 183–9. See the discussion in Guillot, ‘Banten en 1678’, pp. 121–7. Compare the similar layout of the centre of pre-colonial Jakarta, for which see S. Abeyasekere, Jakarta:

74 75

76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84

85

A History (Singapore 1987), p. 10). For the traditional Javanese city see Lombard, Le carrefour javanais, vol. 3, pp. 99–115. As Lombard indicates, the overall layout of the pasisiran cities approximated less closely – at least in some cases – to the ideal model than was the case with royal capitals in the agrarian interior (see ibid., pp. 183–93). The layout of the city centre did not change much during the 17th century, though some of the buildings were replaced or enlarged. See Guillot, ‘Banten en 1678’, pp. 127–34. The town (midday) market is identified as being the ‘bazaar Tom-mogon’ in de Rovere van Breugel, ‘Beschrijving’, p. 326. So called because under the Tumenggung’s jurisdiction, it may, however, have been generally known in the early 17th century as the ‘small market’ – its designation on the map of c. 1640 - in contrast to the ‘great market’ (pasar gedé), which was under the jurisdiction of the Kiyahi Senapati in the 1620s (Coen, Bescheiden, vol. 1, p. 774, and vol. 4, p. 96). Eerste Schipvaart, vol 1, p. 113, and Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 66. The pasar tumenggung was also the place where some pepper was sold to the Chinese (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 113). Ibid., p.110. See ibid., Plate 11 and letterpress, where ‘Y’, marking ‘the houses of the Gujeratis and Bengalis’, is omitted from the engraving; the editors’ deduction that this should be located to the east of ‘E’ is supported by the 19th century map in Serrurier, ‘Kaart van Oud-Banten’, facing p. 262. No extramural settlement is shown along the foreshore in the map of c. 1640, perhaps because the pakojan had been included within the city walls, a possibility suggested by the map in Serrurier, ‘Kaart van Oud-Banten.’ See editors’ discussion in Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 2, p. 25, note 3, and p. 416, note 13. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 108 and Plate 11, and vol. 2, pp. 415–6. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 415. For the few Portuguese at Banten see ibid., vol. 1, pp. 125–7. For the ban on Chinese and Portuguese residing within the city walls see ibid., p. 127. In any case before the death of Simsuan (c. 1630), as appears from the several versions of the map of c. 1640. See IJzerman, Cornelis Buijsero te Bantam, p. xix. For the pacinan in the latter half of the 17th century see Guillot, ‘Banten en 1678’, pp. 142–5. ‘They have … hirelings and bought servants (ghecochte knechten) whom they send out in all directions to buy up pepper and other wares, or hire out the same to go on voyages, always giving them some capital to employ for their profit’ (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 125). The Chinese obtained small amounts of pepper in the pasar tumenggung and had agents at the entrance to the pasar gedé to intercept pepper brought to market by

86 87

88 89

90 91

92

93

country folk (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 110 and 113). Contrary to van Leur’s conclusion (Indonesian Trade and Society, p. 200) that it was through the pasar gedé that pepper passed into the world trade system, the Dutch experienced difficulty in accumulating pepper through retail purchases in the market in 1596 (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 3, pp. 201–5) and in 1604 (Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 144, note 2). Scott (ibid., pp. 112–13, 117 and 121) mentions in passing the occupations of bricklayer, goldsmith, victualler, and toddy brewer. Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 110–3. For the contemporary illustration, first published in 1598, see ibid., Plate 12 (reproduced with translation of the letterpress in A. Reid, ‘The organisation of production in the pre-colonial Southeast Asian port city’, in Frank Broeze, ed. Brides of the Sea: Port Cities of Asia from the 16th-20th Centuries (Sydney-Honolulu, 1989), pp. 70–1, and in Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Banten’, p. 112). For an early 17th century reference to ‘Indies Fairs’ held right on the seashore see Indonesian Sociological Studies: Selected Writings of B. Schrieke. Part One (The Hague, 1955), p. 20. Lodewycksz (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 110–1 and 113) mentions two versions of the common small measure: the gantang for pepper, holding around 3 to 3.25 pond of pepper and a larger gantang for rice, salt, beans, etc, which held 4 pond of pepper. Ibid, p. 110. Ibid., p. 122. For the Dutch and English buying pepper from Chinese merchants at their warehouses in the pacinan see Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, pp. 132–3 and 144–6. Both the Dutch (after some unhappy experiences with Javanese intermediaries) and the English soon adapted to the system of advancing payment to the local Chinese for the delivery of pepper in bulk. Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 111 and 120–1, and letterpress to Plate 18. Lodewycksz (ibid., p. 121) notes that the ‘poor men’ who took money and goods at interest and on bottomry were Gujerati seamen. Possibly this should read ‘Abyssinians’ (see ibid., note 4, and letterpress to Plate 7), in which case the reference will be to Abyssinian slaves imported by Gujeratis and employed as agents for their masters in trade. For the use made by Chinese of servile dependants in their trading operations see note 84 above. For Indian merchant associations or gilds in Java and Sumatra see J. Wisseman, ‘Markets and Trade in Pre-Majapahit Java’, in K.L. Hutterer, ed. Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from Prehistory, History, and Ethnography (Ann Arbor, 1977), p. 208, and K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, ‘A Tamil Merchant Guild in Sumatra’, Tijdschrift voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 72 (1932).

94 The mosque is shown on the east side of the Karangantu river in Lodewycksz’s map of 1598 (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, Plate 11), and on the west side in the map in Journael vande Reyse; it is omitted altogether from the map in Verhael vande Reyse (for these last two maps see note 38 above). Possibly the Dutch became confused over the existence of two separate mosques north of the city walls (see the 19th century map in Serrurier, ‘Kaart van Oud-Banten’, which shows the sites of two ruined mosques, ‘the mesjid Karangantu’ and ‘the mesjid of the kojas’, east and west of the river, respectively), though the probability is that there was in fact only the one mosque north of the city wall at this time (see also Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 86). 95 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 124–5; Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 175. For the same festival in colonial Batavia see Abeyasekere, Jakarta, p. 17. 96 See Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 2, pp. 42–3. Lim Lakmoi provided warehouse accommodation for the Dutch of the First Voyage (ibid., vol. 1, p. 96). 97 There are occasional Dutch references to foreign merchants settled at Banten as ‘noblemen’, notably Sancho Moluko (see note 124 below), and a ‘Chinese nobleman’ with ‘several 100 slaves under him’ (‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 52, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh) who is not Lim Lakmoi but may be Lim Lakko, a shaven Chinese with the Muslim name Abdul Gaffar ( J.E. Heeres, ed. Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando-indicum: Verzameling van politieke contracten en verdere verd-ragen door de Nederlanders in het Oosten gesloten [5 vols, The Hague, 1907–38], vol. 1, p. 152). Lim Lakko removed with 120 other Chinese, plus women and children, to Batavia in 1623, took the name Schoenmaecker and eventually became the Chinese Captain there. See Coen, Bescheiden, vol. 1, p. 776, and L. Blussé, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (Dordrecht, 1986), pp. 55–6, 60 and 63–5. 98 See Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 2, p. 43, note 1. Under Pangeran Rana Manggala, regent from 1608 to 1624, Chinese converts replaced Indian Muslims as the Ruler’s closest collaborators. Evidently Lim Lakmoi was given the post of syahbandar, with the title Kiyahi Ngabehi (‘Journael van die belegeringe van’t fordt Jacatra 1619’, in de Jonge, Opkomst, vol. 4, pp. 147 and 154; Heeres, Corpus Diplomaticum, vol. 1, p. 152). 99 Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’ pp. 169–70. According to Scott, the Chinese had recently begun building in brick up to the second storey, following the example of the Europeans. When the Bantenese became concerned about the strength of the Dutch and English lodges, many of these Chinese shop-houses were pulled down. See ‘Algemeene Missive van Jacques l’Hermite aan de Kamer van XVII’, 10 November 1610, in de Jonge, Opkomst, vol. 3, p. 343. 100 A similar pattern is indicated for Tuban. See Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 3, p. 39. 101 The Dutch term for these residences, hof, usually translated as ‘court’ also had the meanings ‘enclosure’, ‘garden’, and

‘orchard’, all of which are apposite. 102 Pires, Suma Oriental, pp. 199–200. Compare Pires’ comment on the ‘lords captains’ of the non-Muslim ports of West Java (ibid., p. 173). 103 ‘Their gait is excessively proud … their visage fierce and arrogant’, says van Neck (Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 88). 104 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 2, pp. 27, 29–30 and 306–7; Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 90; ‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 68, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh; de Rovere van Breugel, ‘Beschrijving’, p. 332. 105 For an in illuminating discussion of servile dependency see A. Reid, ‘“Closed” and “Open” Slave Systems in PreColonial Southeast Asia’, in A. Reid, ed., with assistance of J. Brewer Slavery, Bondage and Dependency in Southeast Asia (St Lucia, Qld, 1983). On the importance of manpower see also Reid, ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia’, pp. 243–5. 106 Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 88–9. 107 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 117. 108 Ibid. 109 For a discussion of artisanal production by servile labour in Southeast Asian urban centres see Reid, ‘The organisation of production in the pre-colonial Southeast Asian port city.’ 110 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 129. The nobles also had pepper gardens outside the town (ibid., vol. 2, p. 30); according to Scott (‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 171) these were tended by Chinese. De Rovere van Breugel (‘Beschrijving’, p. 342) also refers to the magnates living in the town owning pepper gardens in the countryside in the late 18th century. 111 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 129. 112 ‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 68, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh. 113 For the large numbers of concubines and female slaves in noble households see Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 170, ‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 68, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh, and the parallel passage in Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 2, pp. 29–30 (where the ratio of 10 women to one man is omitted), and 306–7. For the ratio of female to male servitors in the Syahbandar’s son’s dowry see note 125 below. The Dutch also noted a preponderance of females in the population at Surabaya. See ‘Verhaal van eenige oorlogen in Indie, 1622: Uit het Archief van Hilten’, in Kroniek van het Historisch Genootschap te Utrecht, 27 (1871), p. 534. 114 Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 129. 115 Ibid., p. 117. For a more jaundiced view of Javanese industry see Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, pp. 170–1 and 173. 116 ‘Historisch Verhael van de Voyagie der Hollanderen … naer de Oost-Indien Onder het beleydt van den Admirael Steven vander Hagen’, fol. 9, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh, vol. 1. 117 See Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 121 and 129, and letterpress to Plate 18, and vol. 2, p. 30. 118 Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 142. 119 Ibid., pp. 124 and 137. 120 Ibid., p. 171. See also p. 95. 121 For the Syahbandar and Tumenggung see Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 73–4, 89 and 114–5, Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 45 and 48–9, and Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, pp. 88, 124 and 174. 122 Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 48–9. 123 This is not the place for a discussion of the complex internal politics of the Bantenese state, which passed through several crises in the quarter century following the accession of an infant ruler in 1596. A recent interpretation of the politics of the period is Guillot, ‘Libre entreprise contre économie dirigée.’ 124 The map of 1598 shows the residences of four foreign members of the Banten establishment. The Syahbandar resided in the upper town, on the east side of the alun-alun, near the royal treasury, the Tumenggung in the lower town, across the river from the pasar tumenggung, an Indian Muslim called Andamohi Keling in the northwest corner of the upper town, and a mestizo merchant of part-European descent, Sancho (or Satra) Moluco, by the side of the canal bisecting the lower town. Little is known of Andamohi Keling, though the mention of him in the Sajarah Banten (Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Critische beschou-wing, p. 42) suggests he was an important figure. This is supported by Guillot’s identification (‘Libre entreprise contre economie dirigée’, p. 71, note 34) of andamohi as an ancient Javanese title of office. Sancho Moluco, ‘a nobleman of Banten’, according to the Dutch, who had dealings with him at Banten and also encountered him with his junk at Gresik (Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 62, and vol. 4, pp. 54–7), was a trader on a large scale. 125 Lodewycksz notes that the Syahbandar’s second son received from his father 50 men, 50 women and 40 young women on the occasion of his marriage (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, pp. 114–5). 126 The Syahbandar and the Tumenggung each had personal retinues of some 300 men. The Mangkubumi was said to have

127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144

300 or 400 men directly under him. See ‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 50, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh, and Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 3, p. 95. ‘Eerste Schipvaerd’, fol. 68, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh, and Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 3, p. 149, where the fear of confiscation is given as the reason for the early marriage of females. The situation had not changed in the 18th century. See J. de Rovere van Breugel, ‘Bedenkingen over den Staat van Bantam’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch Indië, vol. 5 (1856), p. 164. Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 176. For the case of Sancho Moluco (see note 124 above), deterred by fear of expropriation from accompanying the Dutch to Europe in 1599, see Tweede Schipvaart, vol. 2, pp. 21 and 33. For the case of the Chinese merchant Simsuan, imprisoned and (temporarily) expropriated in 1615, see M.A.P. MeilinkRoelofsz, Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago between 1500 and about 1630 (The Hague, 1962), p. 251. See Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 125. Ibid., p. 142. For a report of Javanese firing the pasar gedé in order to despoil the Chinese, and for the activities of Pangeran Mandalika, especially hated by the Chinese for his depredations, see ibid., pp. 90, 124–5, and 136–7. See Ibid., pp. 93–4 and 109. Leaders of the Muslim trading communities (Malays and Arabs are specified) also attended when the Ruler held court on the paseban (Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, letterpress to Plate 22). See also Hoesein Djajadiningrat, Critische beschouwing, p. 63. See Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, p. 123, for the influence of Islamic law. For Makassar, where the foreign Malay community enjoyed privileges of self-regulation, see Reid, ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia’, p. 247. Van Leur, Indonesian Trade and Society, p. 138. Nor did the Chinese dwell ‘within the [city] walls’, in ‘stately houses’ (ibid., pp. 138 and 139). See Scott, ‘An Exact Discourse’, pp. 174 and 176, and John Jourdain to the East India Company, [c. 20] December 1615, in F.C. Danvers, ed. Letters received by the East India Company from its Servants in the East (6 vols, London, 1896– 1902), vol. 3, p. 275. Sancho Moluco (see note 124 above) is possibly an example of a foreign merchant enjoying privileged status as a client of the Ruler or some leading noble. By contrast, males greatly outnumbered females in the servile population of colonial cities. See, e.g., G.J. Knaap, ‘A City of Migrants: Kota Ambon at the End of the Seventeenth Century’, Indonesia, vol. 51 (April 1991). Jakarta, Ceribun, Tuban, Sidayu, Surabaya, Jaratan, Balambangan, and Panarukan were all surrounded by walls of some description. So were Arosbaya (Madura) and, in an earlier period, the Srivijayan capital, but evidently not Aceh or Melaka. See de Haan, Oud Batavia, pp. 12 and 27. Eerste Schijvaart, vol. 2, p. 308. Though elaborate woodcarvings typically decorated the houses of the nobles. See Eerste Schipvaart, vol. 1, p. 108, and ‘Historisch Verhael van de Voyagie der Hollanderen … naer de Oost-Indien Onder het beleydt van den Admirael Steven vander Hagen’, fol. 9, in Commelin, Begin ende Voortgangh. See de Rovere van Breugel, ‘Bedenkingen’, p. 125.

4

PENANG 1786–1832 A Promise Unfulfilled Kenneth McPherson Indian Ocean Centre of Peace Studies University of Western Australia-Curtin University

In August 1786, Captain Francis Light, a former opium trader on the Kedah coast, took possession of the island of Penang on behalf of the British East India Company under lease from the Sultan of Kedah. Accompanied by a fleet of three ships (two of them Company vessels and the other his own trading vessel, the Speedwell), 150 sepoys, their five European officers and two assistants, Light renamed the island, ‘Prince of Wales Island’ in honour of the future Prince Regent. The decision to establish a new commercial base in Southeast Asia was taken in the context of the Company’s traditional commercial and strategic interests. But its foundation coincided with the beginning of a new trade era in Southeast Asia, which came of age in 1819 when Stamford Raffles established the free port of Singapore. The history of Penang can only be understood in the context of a rapidly changing era of commerce and strategy, as the major European powers underwent profound economic transformations and competed for ascendency on the world stage. Singapore was a spectacular commercial success and marked the triumph of the doctrine of Free Trade over monopolistic forms of mercantilism which had dominated European commerce with Asia from the sixteenth century. But the idea of a free port did not originate with Raffles, for in 1787 Sir John Macpherson, then Governor-General of India, wrote that: If the situation is favourable, the merchants will find their advantages in resorting with their goods to it, and as an inducement to them, we desire [to] refrain from levying any kind of duties or tax on goods landed or vessels importing at Prince of Wales Island [Penang], and it is our wish to make the port free to all nations.1

From its foundation, Penang was envisaged as a free port which held promise of opening the door to the China trade. Its establishment was both a precursor to a new age and the last gasp of the old. Its early years mark the break between traditional European commerce in Asian waters and the emergence of free-wheeling capitalistic enterprise which was given such vibrant form in Singapore after 1819. Indeed, if the experiment at Penang had not been undertaken ‘it is unlikely that Singapore would have been founded a generation later to become the great crossroads of Asian trade’.2 The settlement of Penang was undertaken without any detailed planning and in the desperate hope that a free port in Southeast Asia would link the India trade with China. The Company was ill-prepared for such a venture, and it was simply concerned that the base should pay for itself as well as providing ready access to the highly profitable China tea trade. There was no model for the establishment of such a port, and ultimately the promise of Penang was to fall victim to changing imperial commercial and strategic concerns. Penang was founded in the years of transition for British trade in Asia. It flourished very briefly as an entrepôt for the China trade in the last years of the Company’s monopoly of British trade in the East, and then metamorphosed into an entrepôt for a much more geographically restricted area of Southeast Asia and the Bay of Bengal. Its enduring trade with China, was based on the export of Southeast Asian commodities, rather than on any substantial linkages with the export trade of India for which it was initially conceived.

The foundation of Penang The reasons for the establishment of a British settlement at Penang were straightforward and related directly to the financial and political state of the East India Company. During the second half of the eighteenth century the Company was being transformed from a monopolistic trading concern to the ruler of vast tracts of territory in the Indian sub-continent. This acquisition of territory made many individual fortunes but it also created a resource problem which stretched the finances of the Company to breaking point. The Company’s profits were further undermined by declining demand in Europe for Indian cargoes, and the opposition of the French, Dutch and Spanish on the waters of the Indian Ocean and in many Asian markets. The great hope of the Company in the 1760s and 1770s was that it would break into new markets, the largest and most profitable of which was thought to be the burgeoning China tea trade. But the China trade was problematical insofar as the main Company exports from India – cotton goods and opium – were not in great demand in China or were illegal imports. In order to obtain silver for purchasing tea in China, the Company had to find alternative markets for its Indian goods which would return

either specie or commodities, such as pepper and tin, that could in turn be sold in China. The one potential market which attracted the Company was insular Southeast Asia. In this area there was a growing demand for Indian cloth and opium, and plentiful supplies of pepper, Spanish dollars and exotic commodities such as rattans, stick lac (used for dying) and bird’s nests which fetched good prices in China. Insular Southeast Asia, however, was largely barred to Company trade. The British had an unprofitable base at Bengkulu (Bencoolen) on the west coast of Sumatra. But Bengkulu was far from spice producing areas, and the best route to China lay on the eastern coast of the island through the Strait of Melaka. Elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago, the Dutch on Java and the spice-rich Moluccas jealously guarded their expanding empire, whilst in the Philippines the Spanish were generally hostile to the Company and its agents. On the Malay peninsula and along the Tenasserim coast, however, Dutch influence had not stretched northwards beyond their great fortress at Melaka, and local rulers were keen to involve the Company as a counterweight to the Dutch pretensions and the growing power of the Burmese and Thai kingdoms which had counter claims to the Tenasserim coast and the northern Malay states. In addition, agents of the Company and individual British merchants – such as Light – reported that local trading groups and rulers in insular Southeast Asia, from the Riau islands to Sulawesi, were keen to escape the Dutch trading monopoly by dealing directly with the Company to purchase Indian cargoes in return for commodities which could be traded profitably with China. From the 1760s the Company was courted by the rulers of Riau and Kedah who were coming under increasing pressure from the Dutch. As early as 1768 an anonymous Company agent was approached by the Sultan of Riau to have an English resident to reside on Pulo Byang, for the convenience of carrying on Trade with the English, and would be very glad to contract a nearer acquaintance and friendship with that nation for several reasons, first for the advantage of Trade and Manufactures on the island of Byntang [Bintan] where he resides, secondly he is an independent King, as yet unmolested by any European Nation, and of late years his Port is become a place of considerable Trade particularly frequented by the English, which occasions the Dutch to look on this Port as their rival; they have already insulted several Pires [prahus] belonging to that Port, this gives the King a great deal of uneasiness and makes him apprehensive that they will soon go further [and] he asked me seriously what method he should take to prevent his being molested by that Barbarous Nation as he calls the Dutch.3 The writer went on to note that Bintan was frequented by a great number of vessels from Borneo, Bali, Java, Thailand, Cambodia and Cochin-China and would be a fine

port to link into the China trade, given demand for Indian goods and the possibility of purchasing cargoes for sale in China. Despite this enthusiastic report, and its recommendation that the Company accept the offer of the Sultan, nothing was done until the early 1780s. In September 1780, Captain James Scott, a ‘Country Trader’ (an independent British merchant who traded under licence from the East India Company) and partner of Francis Light, reported to the Company that the island of Penang should be equipped as a naval base, given the growing hostility of the Dutch at Melaka astride ‘the thoroughfare of our Europe, Madras, Bengal, Bombay and China ships’.4 Scott noted that the nearest British naval base was at Bombay leaving British interests in the Bay of Bengal entirely unprotected, and that Penang was a superior harbour to that of Melaka as well as being blessed with stands of timber suitable for shipbuilding. The strategic alarum was calculated to provoke the Company to action. Since the 1740s the British and the French had been locked into a global power struggle which involved the Indian Ocean region as well as many areas elsewhere in the world. After the French had been forced to cede Canada to Britain, the latter had lost the thirteen colonies which soon would create the United States of America – which in turn had been actively supported by France. The French had unsuccessfully challenged the Company in India, but they possessed a substantial naval and military establishment on Mauritius, and continued to seek ways to increase their influence and presence in Southeast Asia. During the early 1780s, strategic considerations loomed large as the Company grew increasingly concerned that both the Dutch and the French were expanding their interests to the detriment of British commerce in Southeast Asia. Fears were voiced that the French were determined to secure the tin trade of the Tenasserim coast, and that the Dutch were expanding into the Malay peninsula to ‘entirely prevent any other Nation from having any share in the Trade of these countries’.5 In addition, the Company was growing more desperate to ‘secure a market for the disposal of the Opium produced in Bengal’.6 Advocates of a base veered between sites on Phuket ( Junk Ceylon), Riau and Penang, but by 1785 Penang was the favoured site. The establishment of a base at Phuket or Riau would have involved the company in disputes with either the Thai or Burmese, who claimed the coast north from Penang, or the Dutch, who were at war with Riau, Penang, on the other hand, was sparsely populated and was offered to the Company by the Sultan of Kedah, who was angered by increasing Dutch pressure to enter into exclusive trading agreements and who was nervously watching Thai expansion southward. By early 1786 the Company had decided to establish a base at Penang which it regarded as ideally suited for the China trade and as a penal settlement for Indian criminals. It was also believed that possession of Penang would guard against Dutch

opposition, which had been well illustrated by their connivance with the French in the most recent bout of Anglo-French warfare in the Bay of Bengal, when Bengkulu had been sacked by the Comte d’Estaing.7 In resolving to accept the offer of the Sultan of Kedah, the Board of the East India Company noted that an Establishment properly secured at this place will connect the Bengal trade with that of China and is much wanted as well as for the promotion of that valuable Commerce as to afford a windward port of refreshment and repair to the King’s, the Company’s and the Country Ships. The Harbour of Pinang will be particularly convenient to the Company’s ships which proceed from Madras, Bombay and [the] Ganges for China and it will afford a station from which His Majesty’s Squadron may at any season proceed to the support of the Company’s settlements upon either Coast and as the Dutch have taken possession of Rhio, in fact of all the Malacca ports, Pinang, will afford a mart for the praus of the Eastern Seas and the sale of our opium.8 No mention was made of the French. However, in his letter to the Secret Committee of the Company’s Board of Directors in January 1786, concerning the acquisition of Penang, the Governor-General, Sir John Macpherson, noted that ‘I have long had my eye to the movements of the French at Pegu and Cochin China’ where they had recently obtained permission to establish factories.9 In the treaty signed between the Sultan of Kedah and the East India Company on 2 March 1786, the Company agreed to keep armed vessels permanently in the area to guard the island and coast and to promote ‘Free trade for all nations’.10

From port to Presidency: 1786–1805 During the first thirty years of its existence, Penang developed into a substantial port whose population grew from 986 in 1786 to c. 30,000 in 1805, comprising Chinese, Chulias (Tamil Muslims), Malays, Arabs, Europeans and various other communities from areas across Southeast Asia.11 Although Penang was sparsely inhabited when the Company took possession, the Kedah coast had long been frequented by indigenous vessels from the Coromandel coast, Burma and the Indonesian archipelago. Kedah merchants were active in the tin trade throughout the peninsula and insular Southeast Asia, Bugis brought spices from the Moluccas, Chinese junks came annually and Sultan Jiwa Abidin Shah (c. 1720s–78) of Kedah ‘was by the 1750s equipping his own vessels to send to India, to the annoyance of the Dutch’.12 Like many Malay sultans, the Sultan of Kedah drew much of his wealth from trade and the export of local commodities, to the extent that

agriculture was neglected and the states’ finances were based perilously on the continuation of trade through his ports. Tin was the major export item along the coast from Phuket to Kedah, and considerable quantities were carried in indigenous craft, most operated by Chulias, to British ports in India for re-export. In return, Chulias – whose vessels sailed from a string of minor ports such as Porto Novo, Nagore and Nagapattinam to the south of Madras – traded Indian cotton piece goods and tobacco. The Chulias had been active on the eastern seaboard of the Bay of Bengal for many centuries.13 They had been based in Melaka, until that port fell to the Portuguese in 1511, and had then shifted their attention to lesser ports stretching from Pegu to Kedah. Their adherence to Islam facilitated commerce with Malay Muslims, and they were often found in responsible positions in the courts of Malay sultans.14 The Company was interested in attracting them to Penang, along with the many other indigenous traders who flourished along the coast and into the Indonesian archipelago. Within days of its proclamation as a Company settlement Penang attracted a polyglot collection of inhabitants: Malays and local Christians fleeing from turmoil in Kedah and Phuket, Chinese driven by the same fears from river settlements, Eurasians, Chulia merchants who established the first bazaar and the Dato of Kuala Muda, ‘a Malay chief from the mouth of the Muda river, who came with a fishing net and hopes of settling’.15 To bring order to this influx, Light immediately appointed ‘captains’ (headmen) to keep peace among the various communities. By 1792 there were captains for the Chinese, Indian (mostly Tamil) and Malay communities. Francis Light, the settlement’s first superintendent, had been one of the most enthusiastic advocates of the establishment of a commercial base on Penang. Made a captain in the Company’s Marine on his appointment, Light had formerly been a trader on the Kedah coast and had married into a large Eurasian Roman Catholic family from Phuket. Seeking to capitalize on his local knowledge and connections, Light immediately tackled the question of financing the Company’s China trade, particularly as the Company was still not certain that they would retain the Penang base if it did not quickly return a profit.16 He noted that many of the Company’s China-bound vessels arrived at Penang in ballast and suggested that local goods should be stockpiled at the port for carriage to China as profitable alternatives to ballast. To obtain local goods, Light requested regular supplies of the Company’s opium, and he moved to encourage the settlement of indigenous traders by making land grants for the construction of dwellings and godowns (warehouses). Light also, but in vain, proposed selectively to abandon the principle of a free port by imposing trading licences upon Chinese junks. He was concerned that the failure to do so would encourage the Chinese to abandon the Dutch ports of Jakarta (Batavia) and Melaka where they ‘pay handsomely’ to the authorities. An increase in Chinese tonnage at Penang would enable them to supply Malay ports with cheaper goods than the Company could supply and to purchase local cargoes cheaply. The cumulative affect of

this would be to undercut his plan to purchase local goods for the China market and to market Company cargoes at Penang.17 From the beginning, Light was under pressure to make Penang pay its way. The Company was loathe to subsidize the new settlement, but would not permit Light to occupy Phuket, an island to the north of Penang, whose tin revenues he considered would have amply repaid the Company’s initial investment.18 Under pressure from Lord Cornwallis, who succeeded Sir John Macpherson as Governor-General of India, Light was forced to consider imposing duties on all maritime trade, although he protested that ‘to levy a general duty on all goods which come to this port would defeat the intention of Government in making remittances to China by the barter of the manufactures of India for the produce of these countries’.19 The company agreed to postpone the imposition of customs duties, but in 1801 it forced the issue and Penang was made a customs port. Export duties were placed on pepper and other locallygrown produce. They were not abolished until 1827, after Penang had failed to force similar duties on the free port of Singapore, established in 1819.20 Light bombarded the Governor-General with reports protesting at the Company’s faint heart and penny pinching, and eventually he was left in peace to develop the new port without interference, although he never received the naval protection he thought the island warranted or the financial support he requested. The only defensive capability Light had to hand was a modest garrison and a small sloop.21 In addition, Light had no administrative experience and only two assistants to run the new colony: in the absence of any substantial financial support or any administrative directions from the Company, he had to concoct the rules for establishing a self-supporting free port. Between 1786 and his death in 1794, Light through a variety of means struggled to make the islands’ official establishment self-supporting. To avoid the imposition of customs duties, he encouraged the development of rice and pepper growing and instituted various revenue farms. Land was cleared for rice growing, and by 1790 approximately 2,500 acres was under crop, along with ‘great quantities of fruit trees, coconuts, pepper, gambier and sugarcane’.22 Apart from the revenue which Light hoped to raise by taxation upon cultivated land, rice production was encouraged to make the settlement independent of external supplies, especially from Kedah whose ruler was disillusioned with the treaty he had entered into with the British. The Sultan believed that the British had entered into a defensive alliance which he felt that they had not honoured, especially when he came under mounting pressure from the Thai. Light also encouraged the establishment of pepper plantations to give the Company access to the spice trade from which the Dutch had largely barred it, and by 1796, more than 2,000 acres were under cultivation.23 Light’s major concern was to raise revenue ‘from the lands and not from trade’, although this proved impossible, as his ‘liberal land policy, granting land away in perpetuity for a nominal quit rent … resulted in little cultivation as greedy settlers [including Light and his friend Scott]

grabbed more land than they could manage’.24 In addition to land clearances, Light attempted to finance his administration by establishing arrack, opium, pork and gambling farms which he leased for monthly rentals.25 This system of revenue farms lasted until 1804 when it was abolished, due to inefficiencies brought about by smuggling and the activities of Chinese secret societies and European merchants, such as Light’s former partner Captain Scott, who combined to form monopolistic cartels to lower the bidding on revenue farm leases.26 Despite the failure of Light’s revenue raising efforts the port flourished. There was a steady influx of settlers ranging from Bengali convicts to Chinese artisans, and Light laid out a network of roads and building sites, as well as a small fort, which still determine the morphology of Georgetown, the main settlement on Penang. From the first days of its existence, the most prosperous, if not the most numerous, section of the population were Chinese, whose activities as artisans and shopkeepers were highly praised by the British. In 1787 it was noted that The shops in the Bazaar … are principally kept by Chinese. At present they are Sixty families and many more are expected to settle on the island soon: this very industrious and quiet People are spread all over the Malay Countries and exercise almost all the handicraft Professions and carry on most of the retail trade.27 Such sentiments were echoed by Light in 1794, when he reported that the Chinese, who then numbered about 3,000, ‘constitute the most valuable part of our inhabitants … they possess different trades [and] they employ small vessels and prows and send adventures to the surrounding countries’. Light was less complimentary about the Chulias, who formed a slightly smaller group than the Chinese on the island, and were ‘all shopkeepers and Coolies’ but whom he found not ‘worthy of much confidence or fear as subjects’.28 Unlike the Chinese, many of the Chulias were seasonal visitors, and ‘the vessels from the coast [of India] bring over annually 1,500 or 2,000 men’, as did prahus from Sulawesi bringing Bugis who came ‘annually to trade and remain two or three months on shore to the number of one or two thousand’.29 The largest group resident on the island comprised Malays, but they rarely warranted the attention of the British who regarded them as feckless and of little importance in the Company’s (and Westerners’) scheme of things. Apart from visiting fleets of prahus, various Malay sultans attempted to enter into trading agreements to deliver pepper and tin to the Company. These overtures were all politely refused, as both Light and the Company saw them as a ploy to draw the British into local wars and conflict with the Dutch, who were harassing indigenous shipping and actively preventing prahus reaching the island.30 Despite Dutch opposition, Penang rapidly developed into a flourishing commercial

base, and the Company held high hopes that it would soon evolve into a major entrepôt for the China trade. Records relating to trade are patchy, but it certainly seems that the port soon attracted a large number of substantial indigenous- and Europeanowned sailing craft, plus literally thousands of prahus annually. In 1786–87, for example, out of 42 ships that called at Penang, 17 came from Pegu, Mergui, Aceh, Melaka or eastward; 6 from Nagore, Nagapattinam, Porto Novo, Tranquebar and Pondicherry; 11 from Bengal, 7 from Canton and Macao and 1 from America.31 In addition to these listed vessels, fleets of Bugi prahus arrived annually (1,836 in 1799 and 3,328 in 180232) with each bringing 20,000 Spanish dollars to be exchanged for Bengal opium and south Indian piece goods.33 Throughout the 1790s, the number of country craft and prahus visiting Penang increased rapidly, as did the total volume of trade. Imports increased nearly eightfold between 1789 and 1792, and exports rose from 2.71 million to 31.74 million Spanish dollars. In this period, Light was able to sell large consignments of Company opium, and remitted several hundred thousand Spanish silver dollars to China for the purchase of tea.34 By 1794, on the eve of open war with the French and the Dutch, Penang was flourishing – but not quite in the manner the Company had envisaged. Penang had become a trade centre, although it was visited more frequently by country ships and prahus than by the Company’s ships. The Company was accruing silver dollars and exotic cargoes for sale in China, but the true prosperity of Penang was based on trade operating independently of the Company’s needs. Penang had grown into a major entrepôt for local rather than international trade. The greater volume of its commerce was with adjacent indigenous-controlled ports, ranging from Sumatra to Burma and southern India, rather than directly with the Company’s ports in India and with China. Few Company ships picked up substantial cargoes at Penang, and the Company was increasingly concerned that its official establishment on the island was still in debt to the Bengal treasury. The outbreak of war between Britain, France and The Netherlands, temporarily banished the Company’s growing concern at its failure to reap large profits in Penang. After years of prevarication, fear of the French prompted the Company to reinforce its small garrison, and to revive plans for a naval base at Penang in 1795. But these were shelved in 1796, when Melaka was captured from the Dutch and French privateers were driven from the coast of Sumatra.35 Nevertheless, the British Indian government had marked Penang as a major frontier post in Southeast Asia. In 1800, the first Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George Leith, was appointed and the colony was enlarged when the Sultan of Kedah ceded a strip of land (Province Wellesley) on the Kedah coast opposite the island to form a buffer against increasing warfare on the mainland. In 1801 the first magistrate arrived and in 1805, significantly, the port was raised to the rank of a Presidency on a par with Bengal,

Bombay and Madras. The settlement now had to support a governor (Philip Dundas) with a considerable and expensive, official establishment and it was finally decided to establish a naval base and a shipbuilding yard. The motivations for these developments were mixed: strategic concerns and the lingering dream that the commercial future of the island was still tied to the China trade.36 By 1805, Penang was one of the greatest ports in Southeast Asia. In reality, its prosperity was based on local commerce, bounded by the Bay of Bengal and linkages into the Indonesian archipelago, and not on the China trade as the Company had originally envisaged. Opium never became the prime object of commerce in the area, and from 1786 it ranked below local products such as pepper, tin and betelnut, and Indian cotton piece goods in value in the trade of Penang.37 The war with France had heightened the port’s strategic importance in the eyes of the British and had encouraged hopes of it returning huge profits to the Company as the key to the China trade.

Hopes dashed The British occupation of Melaka in 1796, its evacuation in 1801, its re-occupation 1807, and the subsequent British invasion of Java temporarily pushed Penang to the forefront of British strategic concerns in Southeast Asia. A shipbuilding yard was built on the island, a small naval squadron under Admiral Troubridge was based in the harbour, and Light’s small fort was considerably enlarged and rearmed.38 In 1806 the shipyard launched the 112 ton Margaret, which was followed by the 960 ton Penang in 1809, and the 1,200 ton Inglis in 1811. But the fortunes of both the fort and the shipyard were anti-climactic. The French and the Dutch had been effectively neutralized in the Bay of Bengal and insular Southeast Asia, with the result that the forts’ expensive armaments were never used. In 1806 the naval squadron was withdrawn, and in 1807 it was decided to abandon the shipyard, which finally closed in 1811, shortly after the British forces for the invasion of Java made their rendezvous at Penang. Shipbuilding had proved an expensive venture, given mismanagement, the shortage of skilled labour locally and the need to import Burma teak, when it was found that local timber was unsuitable for shipbuilding.39 Penang no longer fitted into imperial strategy. With the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the re-occupation of Melaka in 1807, the capture of the Mascarenes in 1810 and of Cape Town, Sri Lanka and Java by 1811, the French and the Dutch had been neutralized as naval threats: the Indian Ocean was to remain a British lake until World War II. Whilst the war may have stimulated building, industry and the establishment of a newspaper, The Prince of Wales Gazette, in Penang, it adversely affected the Company’s plans for the port. The Napoleonic Wars led to a shortage of British

shipping in Asian waters, in addition to which continental European markets for Penang’s home grown and re-exported pepper were lost.40 Also the pattern of British trade with China was changing. Following the occupation of Java by the British, most Company ships used Batavia rather than Penang. Moreover, an increasing number of Company ships sailed with full cargoes from India and no longer called at Penang to pick up goods for sale in China.41 In part, this was due to declining demand in China for Southeast Asian produce and a growing demand for the exports of India, and in part also to the imposition in 1801 of export duties on pepper at Penang which encouraged smuggling and discouraged legitimate Chinese traders.42 The figures for trade at this period are so scanty that clear conclusions are not possible, but by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Penang’s links with China were greatly weakened in terms of the Company’s trade with that country. In addition to Penang’s increasing irrelevance to the Company’s China trade, serious concerns were being voiced that Penang was located too far from the major maritime trade routes in Southeast Asia to continue as the major British commercial base in the area. Stamford Raffles, then a young Assistant Secretary at Penang, was, for example, by 1808 advocating that Penang be abandoned in favour of Melaka which he claimed was a much better anchorage.43 Penang was indeed too far from the major centres of commercial activity. It had no hinterland, as Kedah and the Kra Isthmus were in chaos due to Thai aggression and warfare between various Malay sultanates. Thai aggression resulted in their occupation of Kedah which they ravaged in 1821. The Sultan was driven into exile, where he remained until he accepted Thai suzerainty in 1842. Another argument for the relocation of Britain’s major base in Southeast Asia was that there was little demand for Penang’s produce, or its re-exports, beyond the modest arc of ports stretching around the Bay of Bengal from northern Sumatra to southern India. But dreams were slow to die. In 1813 the Company lost all its trade monopolies except for the tea trade with Britain and lingered on as little more than the managing agency of India for the British government, but it was loathe to alter radically its establishment in Southeast Asia once peace was agreed with the Dutch and Melaka and Java were returned to them. The harsh reality was, however, that Penang was still losing money and in 1819 Stamford Raffles had established an alternative commercial base on the island of Singapore which immediately attracted Chinese settlers from Penang and elsewhere, the annual fleets of Bugi prahus which had formerly patronized the port, private British merchants, and Chulia and Arab traders. Penang’s fortunes were further depleted by 1819 as the Chinese demand for opium increased and for Penang’s re-exports declined.44 The India-China trade was no longer posited upon the entrepôt functions of Penang, whose inhabitants prospered on a much more geographically restricted range of commercial transactions. Despite the fact that Penang was not a financial success from the Company point of

view, it had developed an important bureaucratic role in British Southeast Asia which it was slow to relinquish. In 1824 it acquired Melaka as a dependency when that port was exchanged with the Dutch for Bengkulu, and in 1826 it was made the capital of the Straits Settlements, acquiring administrative primacy over Singapore. In 1830, however, Penang was reduced from a Presidency to a Residency dependent upon Calcutta, and in 1832 the capital of the Straits Settlements was moved to Singapore.

Postscript Ironically, the establishment of Singapore affected Penang in much the same way as the establishment of Penang had affected Kedah. The British occupation of 1786 drew both people and commerce away from Kedah and greatly impoverished the state at a critical time in its history when it was exposed to threats from the Thai.45 Penang did not suffer the physical impoverishment and devastation that was the fate of Kedah in the 1820s, but it did lose its trade south of the Strait of Melaka and ceased to be a port of call for ships sailing eastward en route for the Indonesian archipelago and China. Singapore was much better situated for the China trade and for the great expansion of British trade with Southeast Asia, China and Australasia which occurred from the 1830s. Penang fought back by attempting to remove Singapore’s free port status, but itself was forced to abolish customs duties, and by 1832 it was no longer the major British entrepôt in Southeast Asia. Thus, despite its continued significance for indigenous shipowners and traders, it could not avoid having to acknowledge Singapore’s commercial and maritime primacy. Penang had been an experiment cast in the mould of British Asian commercial policies in the eighteenth century. It had been promised as the halfway house to China, but historically and commercially it was a venture halfway between the last gasp of monopolistic trading practices and the Free Trade policies which came to dominate British economic thinking in the early nineteenth century. Penang’s prosperity in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century was not built on its functions as a great entrepôt for the Company’s China trade, but rather on its function as an entrepôt for the localized commerce of the northern reaches of the Strait of Melaka. The radical changes which occurred in the China trade and in British imperial strategy in the early nineteenth century made Penang irrelevant to both British commercial and strategic interests. By the 1820s it had – quite independently of British actions or intentions – become a flourishing regional port, servicing local trade between Sumatra and Burma along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal.46 The patterns of local trade which were evident from its early days, with the exception of the annual fleets of Bugi prahus which favoured Singapore, survived into the twentieth

century. A vigorous trade continued with Sumatra and ports on the Malay peninsula. With the rapid growth of regional Arab shipping from the 1820s thousands of Sumatrans each year took ship from Penang on the hajj.47 In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, with the British occupation of much of the Malay peninsula and the development of modern tin mining and rubber plantations, Penang developed an economic hinterland and underwent another change in character as it became less a sub-regional entrepôt and more an international port and gateway, servicing colonial Malaya and later the independent state of Malaysia.

NOTES 1 Sir Frank Swettenham, British Malaya. An Account of the Origin and Progress of British Influence in Malaya (London, 1906), p. 54. 2 George Woodcock, ‘Penang: Britain’s First Settlement in Malaya’, History Today, vol. 19 (1969), p. 832. 3 India Office Records, G/34/1, Straits Settlements 1769–95 (hereafter referred to as SS), Miscellaneous Papers, unsigned report, Fort St George (Madras), 1 February 1769, ‘Of the trade of Rhio and the Establishment of a Factory on Pulo Byang’. 4 India Office Records, G/34/1, SS, Miscellaneous Papers, extract of letters from Captain James Scott, September 1780. 5 Ibid., letter from Light, copy dated 18 March 1784, Fort St George (Madras); ibid., ‘Information from Captain Light in respect to the late attack of the Dutch on Rhio, the attempts of the Malays against Malacca and the establishment of a Factory at Poolipinan [Penang]’, 10 April 1784, Fort St George. 6 Ibid., extract of a General Letter from Bengal, 23 August 1784. 7 India Office Records, G/34/1, Bengal Consultations, 1786–87, (hereafter referred to as BC), Bengal Council Meeting, 2 March 1786, enclosed letter from Light, 15 February 1786 and comment by J. Price (Calcutta) 23 February 1786. 8 Ibid., 2 March 1786. 9 Ibid., letter from Macpherson, 26 January 1786 and letter received from Light, 25 January 1786. 10 Ibid. 11 India Office Records, G/34/3, BC, Bengal Council Minute, 13 December 1786; ibid., Miscellaneous Documents and Reports, ‘Report on Lieutenant Governor R.T. Farquhar on his term of office’, 18 September 1805: Farquhar estimated the population at c. 30,000 but Tregonning estimated it at c. 20,000 in 1811 (K.C. Tregonning, The British in Malaya. The First Forty Years 1786–1846 [Tucson, 1965], p. 57). 12 Dianne Lewis, ‘Kedah – the Development of a Malay State’, in Anthony Reid &

13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34

Lance Castles, eds Pre-Colonial State Systems in Southeast Asia (MBRAS Monograph No. 6, Kuala Lumpur, 1975), p. 40. Susan Saints Bayly, Goddesses and Kings. Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 93–4. Kenneth McPherson, ‘Chulias and Klings: Indigenous Trade Diasporas and European Penetration of the Indian Ocean Littoral’, in Giorgio Borsa, ed. Trade and Politics in the Indian Ocean (New Delhi, 1990), pp. 33–46; India Office Records, G/34/2, Bengal Consultations, Bengal Council Meeting 9 October 1786, letter from Light, 12 September 1786. Tregonning, British in Malaya, pp. 43–5. John Bastin & Robin H. Winks, comps Malaysia. Selected Historical Readings (Nendeln, 1979), pp. 125–6. India Office Records, G/34/2, BC Bengal Council Meeting 13 December 1786, letter from Light, 15 September 1786. Ibid., letter from Scott, 4 October 1786. Swettenham, British Malaya, pp. 54–5. Mills, L.A. British Malaya 1824–67 ( JMBRAS, vol. 33, pt 3, 1960), p. 225. Woodcock, ‘Penang’, p. 834. Quoted in Bastin & Winks, Malaysia, p. 126. Ibid., p. 127. Wong Lin Ken, ‘The Revenue Farms of Prince Wales Island 1805–1830 [sic]’, Journal of the South Seas Society (1965?), pp. 58–9. Ibid., p. 59. Ibid.; Woodcock, ‘Penang’, p. 836; Sir Richard Winstedt, Malaya and Its History (5th ed., London, 1958), p. 78. India Office Records, G/34/1, SS, Miscellaneous Papers, report of Captain Kyd, 1 September 1787. India Office Records, G/34/6, BC, Bengal Council Minute 1 August 1794, enclosing a letter from Light dated 25 January 1794. Ibid. Ibid.; [Light letters] Bengal Council Meeting 25 January 1788, dated 6 October 1787; Bengal Council Meeting 6 February 1788, undated; Bengal Council Meeting 13 February 1788, dated 10 January 1788; Bengal Council Meeting 21 August 1789, dated 17 July 1789; Bengal Council Meeting, 14 January 1790, undated. Tregonning, British in Malaya, p. 110. Ibid. p. 119. India Office Records, G/34/5, BC, Bengal Council Minute 13 February 1788, letter from Light dated 10 January 1788. India Office Records, G/34/5, BC, Bengal Council Minute, 5 April 1793; ibid., 15 October 1788, as an example of sums remitted.

35 India Office Records, G/34/5, BC, [Light letters] Bengal Council Minute 7 October 1793, dated 27 August 1793; Bengal Council Meeting 25 October 1793, dated 12 September 1793; Bengal Council Meeting 9 December 1793, dated 12 November 1793; G/34/6, BC, Bengal Council Meeting 3 January 1794, dated 11 December 1793; Bengal Council Meeting 18 July 1794, dated 2 May 1794; G/34/1, SS, Miscellaneous Manuscripts, ‘A Memoir on Prince of Wales Island considered politically and commercially’, anon. 36 India Office Records, SS, Miscellaneous Manuscripts, undated letter from Leith, c. 1803. 37 Tregonning, British in Malaya, p. 123. 38 Ibid., pp. 135–8 39 Ibid., 137–41; J.R. Logan, ed. The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia (Nendeln, Kraus Reprint, 1970, orig. Singapore, 1852), pp. 521–44, ‘Notices of Pinang. Extracts from various Documents and Correspondence connected with the construction of Docks, Shipbuilding, and other Marine subjects.’ 40 Wong Lin Ken, ‘Revenue Farms’, p. 65. 41 Tregonning, K.C., British in Malaya, p. 124. 42 Wong Lin Ken, ‘Revenue Farms’, pp. 70–1. 43 India Office Records, G/34/9, Miscellaneous Documents and Reports, letter from Raffles dated 7 November 1808. 44 Tregonning, British Malaya, p. 124. See also Dan Sprod, ed. The Tregurtha Log. Relating the Adventurous Life of Capt. Edward Primrose Tregurtha [1803–1880] (Hobart, 1980), p. 54, describing a visit to Penang in 1821. 45 Lewis, ‘Kedah’, p. 41. 46 T. Puvanarajah, ‘Early Penang Trade Missions to East Sumatra 1818–1823’, The Historical Journal (University of Singapore), 1963/64, pp. 11–7. 47 Tregonning, British Malaya, p. 116.

5

BOMBAY AND THE FAMINE OF 1803–6 The Food Supply and Public Order of a Colonial Port City1 Mariam Dossal Department of History University of Bombay Because it is so workaday, and yet a matter of life and death, food supply provides a valuable field for observation of the state’s penetration into the daily routines of its subject population.2

In Bombay Island, the English East India Company until the middle of the eighteenth century possessed but a toe-hold on the west coast of India. From the 1740s the Company’s growing commercial and political interests in the region raised Bombay’s status to that of an important urban settlement and a jewel in the crown of the EIC.3 A vivid description of the port and town of Bombay in these years is provided by James Forbes, intrepid traveller and author of the famous Oriental Memoirs. Forbes, who lived in Bombay and neighbouring places for seventeen years between 1766 and 1783, emphasized that Bombay’s greatest asset was its excellent harbour. He termed it ‘one of the finest in the world, accessible at all seasons and affording a safe anchorage during the most tempestuous monsoons …’ Bombay’s safe harbour, its many landing bays and docking sites made the island-town by the late eighteenth century, ‘one of the finest marts in India (which) employed a great number of vessels in its extensive commerce’.4 A thriving trade was carried on between Bombay and ports in China, Indonesia, East Africa, the Red Sea, as well as with the many ports which dotted the Indian shoreline. But the greater part of Bombay’s coastal and overseas trade was controlled by Indian and European private traders rather than the EIC and by that time the administration of the Company, which functioned as a colonial state, was riddled with problems and weaknesses. The 1770s saw the beginning of the Anglo-Maratha conflict over control of western India. This conflict, in which Bombay was expected to serve as a base for the

Company’s military and political forays into the Indian mainland, did not end until 1818 with the defeat of the Marathas. These years also witnessed an intensification of trade rivalries between the British, Marathas, Angrias, Sidis and Portuguese for control of the Indian seas. Also here the British emerged victorious which resulted in a greatly enlarged Bombay Presidency with Bombay town as its headquarters. Indeed, the period between 1780 and 1820 constituted a critical phase in the history of both the British colonial state and of Bombay itself. State-making and city-building involved processes which were dependent on each other and their histories are closely interwoven. The extension of authority and territory required the successful junction and implementation of both visions. Trade alone could not ensure urban development. As long as political order in Bombay’s hinterland remained problematic, the security and stability essential for the regular flow of commodities would be in jeopardy. At the same time, successful expansion of the colonial state into Bombay’s hinterland meant the securing of a source of export produce which, in turn, provided the fiscal means to support that territorial growth. Many studies have detailed the dramatic rise of the cotton and opium trades which flourished from the late eighteenth century and brought prosperity and economic dynamism to Bombay.5 Much less, however, is known about the more prosaic trades in essential commodities such as rice, wheat, other coarser grains, lentils, ghee and firewood. Indeed, it is inconceivable that Bombay, or for that matter any urban settlement, could have survived, let alone grown, without a stable and continuous trade in these goods. But no trade could be assured, unless the state which governed the region was itself in control. State policies had to ensure that procurement and distribution flows of commodities were regulated and encouraged. An assured system of food supply was the hallmark of an effective and well-functioning state. It could be argued that the important component of ‘order’ in the concept of ‘law and order’ fundamentally concerns the provision of an adequate food supply. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the nature and functioning of the colonial state in western India in this transitional period from two converging viewpoints: the relationship between Bombay as a port city and its political and economic hinterland, on the one hand, and the relationship between the leaders of the city’s maritime economy and its state authorities on the other. While private entrepreneurs were riding high, the colonial state in this period exercised a tentative authority and was deeply riddled with problems ranging from the financial and political to those related to an inadequate civic infrastructure. But no problem threatened to undermine it as much as a frequently fractured system of food supply. The years 1780 to 1820 were punctuated by a series of crises which threatened to overwhelm the British. Among the most serious of these problems were the famines of 1803–06 and 1812, and the Great Fire which devastated a quarter of Bombay’s central business district in February 1803. Unless effective steps were taken to deal with these

crises, British rule in western India as much as Bombay itself was faced with the prospect of political and economic collapse. No episode demonstrates this better than the calamitous famine of 1803–06.

An alarming scarcity of grain Periods of grain scarcity and the occurrence of famine on Bombay island can be traced back to at least the seventeenth century when the local Portuguese authorities, resentful of the handing over of the island to the British King, Charles II, forcibly prevented the transport of vegetables, fruits and other essential commodities reaching Bombay from the mainland, via neighbouring Salsette Island, which remained under their control.6 Intense political rivalry for control of the western Indian seaboard between the Marathas, Moguls, Angris, Sidis, Portuguese and British, added to the vagaries of the monsoon, made for an uncertain food supply through much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 1737, 1758, 1774, 1780, 1784 and 1799 were years of severe food shortage. Among the most serious, however, was the famine of 1803–1806. The dislocation caused in these years by famine compounded the havoc caused by the Great Fire of February 1803.7 Table 5.1 Monthly consumption of rice in Bombay, September 1803

The government’s continuous preoccupation with trying to keep food supply lines in order meant that the grain question remained a dominant concern in the political discourse of the time. The erratic supplies of food reaching the Bombay markets threatened to negate longstanding claims of the British that they, unlike any of their political rivals, were able to offer at Bombay a secure haven where trade, manufacturing and other activities could be carried on without fear of destruction.8 In short, food logistics stood at the heart of both Bombay’s import and export trades and its existence as a regional leader. The failure of the monsoon of 1803 affected the whole of western India, from Kutch in the north-west to Canara in the south-west. The threat of famine loomed large over the entire region. Senior British officials feared most for Bombay. Bread shortages and a decline in the purchasing power of people were known to be closely linked to widespread public disorder, urban riots and even revolution. Even here the events of

1789 in France continued to haunt British public memory. If supply lines of essential commodities to Bombay from the hinterland were disrupted, life in Bombay was seriously affected. This in turn would jeopardize the military engagements and programme of territorial conquest under way in the Deccan, where British troops led by General Arthur Wellesley were fighting the Marathas. The combustible possibilities inherent in the grain shortage had to be dealt with as quickly and effectively as possible. The first intimation of the impending crisis is contained in the correspondence of the Customs Master at Bombay, Robert Henshaw. In September 1803 Henshaw reported on the decline in the quantity of grain available in the government warehouses at Bombay. The stocks of rice, which was the main staple food of Bombay’s inhabitants, had fallen to the very small quantity of twelve thousand six hundred bags and of Batta to the insignificant amount of one hundred Morahs.9 The monthly consumption of rice at Bombay in September 1803 was calculated as shown in Table 5.1.10 Henshaw urged that an immediate ban on the export of all essential items such as rice, wheat, ghee (clarified butter) and every other sort of grain be placed on the port of Bombay.11 A government order was issued to this effect the very next day which suspended the export of all major food items to ports in the Red Sea, East Africa, the East Indies and other British settlements in India. Simultaneously, serious efforts were begun to procure whatever possible quantities of grain were available from the neighbouring regions. The main varieties of rice which figured in Bombay’s export and import trades included Bengal rice, coast rice, Maratha country rice and batty. South Canara and Bengal served as Bombay’s primary rice hinterland and the various districts of Gujarat were Bombay’s main suppliers of wheat. The trade was carried on in indigenous sailing boats such as pattamars and baghelas. Merchants and tindals engaged in financing this trade and navigating these country boats included Hindus, Muslims and Indian Christians. The frequent occurrence of names like Hansraj, Parmanand, Waljee Baloobhai or Noor Mohomed in the lists of merchants, and Rama, Posha, Mawa, Abdul Kader, Mohammed Ali and Gulam, Pascal and Lorez in the list of tindals, strongly suggest that the grain was not controlled by any one community.12 In a letter requisitioning all available quantities of rice from South Canara, Secretary Grant referred to ‘the alarming scarcity of grain’, as well as ‘the present unprecedently high price of rice and all other descriptions of grain’. He spoke of the scarcity being more widespread at Bombay and ‘to a degree more alarming than has, at any former period, except, on the actual occurrence of famine been experienced’.13 The British were extremely reluctant to admit that famine prevailed in territories under their control. While the difference between periods of grain scarcity and the occurrence of famine can be said to be a difference in the degree of suffering and dislocation which

they caused, the official records frequently employ euphemisms. Thus while ‘famine’ frequently occurred in territories ruled by Indian kings, British controlled territories experienced ‘grain scarcity’. Thus, the extremely detailed records which were kept by the British to make sense of, and cope with, this period of famine (1803–6) are referred to as the ‘Grain Scarcity Diaries’. Following the southward track of Bombay’s maritime hinterland, Raveshaw was instructed to get rice at Mangalore or, if it was not available there, from any other port in Canara. The British resident in Mysore was also to be enlisted in the task of procuring supplies. Mysore rice was to be sent on to Mangalore from where it was to be shipped to Bombay. However, with British troops also fighting in the South under Major-General Campbell, precaution had to be taken that the additional supplies being sent on to Bombay would not affect the amount required for armies stationed in the south. If this was not possible, the Mysore resident was asked to ‘abandon the (procurement) effort altogether’14 – a dramatic example of ‘imperial overstretch’. Not everyone shared Henshaw’s and Grant’s fears. S. Halliday, Bombay’s Superintendent of Police and Clerk of the Market, was optimistic that if steps were taken in time, famine could be avoided. He argued that15 The quantity of Bangal and Country rice at present in the Bazaar is about 2,000 Candies and taking the daily consumption to be 80 Candies, this quantity will last 35 days and taking the other grain i.e. wheat, Bazree, Gram and Mung at 500 Candies, it will be 5 or 6 days more so that there is at least one month’s grain in the Bazaar, and taking the imports at 2,000 Candies per month, and stopping all exports, we shall have sufficient stock for two months at least, or until the new crop comes in, which will give sufficient time to import rice and other grain from Bengal … independent of the resources above mentioned, an Arab ship which left Bengal laden with 10,000 bags of rice early in August may be expected here in all this month, or certainly in the first week of (the) next. Halliday believed that if private merchants were encouraged and offered favourable terms by the Bombay government, substantial quantities of grain, adequate for the town’s needs and for the armies fighting in the Deccan, would be procurable. By late September 1803, it was evident that Halliday’s optimism was unfounded. Even as news kept trickling in of the scarcity being a region-wide phenomenon, it was clear that more concerted efforts were required to ward off the threat of famine. The Bombay government did what it had done on an earlier occasion, during the famine of 1780. It set up a Grain Committee, to centralize all decisions and pool all resources to fight a danger which threatened to undermine its position seriously. The Grain Committee consisted of Robert Henshaw, Custom Master, Captain Edward Moor, the Garrison Storekeeper and Simon Halliday, the Superintendent of Police.16 To provide

immediate relief to the inhabitants of the town, a decision was taken to remove town duties on a number of essential commodities temporarily. Henshaw believed:17 The measure of exemption from Town Duties of the articles of Ghee, Oil, Tumeric, Jagree, Molasses, Chilee, pepper and paun (pau? bread?) must produce the happiest effects on the market here, and prove ultimately a great benefit to the poor, the more especially, when all duties on imports from Caranjah and Salsette, to Bombay, are taken off, as well as the duties on all imports from the continent (mainland) to those islands. In further relief, I would recommend that the Petty Customs on several indispensably necessary articles used principally by the poorer classes on this island, and whose annual produce does not exceed two thousand rupees may be dispensed with for the present, and not collected during the present scarcity. To publicize the relief measures that the government was offering, information regarding this exemption from Town Duties was to be ‘promulgated by hand bills in English and Country languages, both here and at Mahim, and throughout Salsette and Caranjah and stuck up (on) all the Gates, Pagodas, Muzjids etc’.18 Of all the measures considered by the Grain Committee, Henshaw believed that the system of daily rationing of food would be the most effective. A daily sale of 200 bags of rice at fixed prices, with each individual not allowed to buy more than one adowly measure, would, he argued, go a long way in keeping down market prices, compel those who had hoarded grain to bring it onto the market and relieve the general scarcity.19 The Grain Committee recommended that the sale price of rice be fixed at

and that no more than one adowly measure be sold to any one person on the same day. In its all-out drive to procure grain from every possible quarter, orders were sent to the Collectors of Salsette and Caranjah, ‘to hasten the cutting of the Red Batty and receive the Company’s toka (share) in Batty, as far as possible, and forward it to Bombay with the greatest expedition, with a view to provide for the subsistence of the settlement till we can procure more extensive supplies from abroad’.20 The Bombay government also did its best to obtain additional supplies of wheat from its northern maritime hinterland at Broach, Gogo, Dhollera, Surat and Bulsar in Gujarat. Major Alexander Walker, resident at Broach, for instance, was instructed to procure at least 3,000 candies of wheat from the neighbourhood of Broach. This was to prove difficult for the Gaikwad (ruler) of Baroda had, anticipating the increasing dearth of grain in his own territories, issued orders preventing its export. Nevertheless, the

Bombay government was hopeful that Walker would be able ‘to persuade’ the Gaikwad and pay for the stocks acquired from the Broach revenue, thereby also giving temporary relief to the strained state of Bombay’s finances. These transactions were to be carried out as secretly as possible, ‘without occasioning any unnecessary alarm to the inhabitants of Surat, (Broach or any other town in Gujarat) or giving the interested dealers thence a chance to raise the price in the market’.21 The fear of public outcry and that of a spiralling price rise leading to further political protest was ever present. Attempts were also made to procure wheat, rice, bajri and any of the other coarser grains available in northern India, either by contract or any other mode of purchase. It was felt that the government’s involvement in these transactions should be played down as far as possible. By early October 1803, in spite of all its efforts, the Bombay government felt compelled to turn to European private agency houses for assistance to meet the crisis. 40,000 bags of rice at 7 Bombay rupees per bag was contracted for with two leading agency houses at Bombay, Bruce Fawcett & Co. and Forbes & Co. The contracted ‘Bengal Moongee Rice’ was to reach Bombay in January and February 1804. The credit terms on which the rice was to be supplied were stated by the authorities to be ‘very reasonable’.22 The Bombay government took pains to point out that the price at which rice was contracted for was no more than it had paid to the Bengal government as far back as January 1800. The terms of the contract were such that:23 These Houses will require no advance or ultimate payment of cash from us, but only a Credit in the Company’s Books for the whole value of the rice they may deliver, inclusive of freight and all other charges excepting only that this Government must grant them Bills on Bengal for a proportion of two Rupees per bag to the extent of their Contract upon Condition that the amount thereof be reaccounted for in the event of their failing to produce the rice of good mercantile quality; upon which terms a bargain has, with the approbation of the Board been concluded with Mr Law [one of the partners of the House of Bruce Fawcett & Co.] to the extent of 20,000 bags at the rate of 7 Bombay rupees per bag. If required, the agreements would make possible 100,000 bags of Bengal rice being shipped to Bombay by the two agency houses in the future. No matter how hard the Bombay government tried to convince itself and the authorities in London that turning to private merchants for additional supplies of grain was but an economic measure necessitated by the unusual circumstances of the day, its predicament revealed both the inability of the state to manage on its own and the important links between the Bombay government and the European agency houses which had developed since the 1780s.24 The contracts made plain that the authorities’

control over direct procurement was inadequate and in times of distress it felt compelled to turn to private capital for assistance. The system of deferred payments by means of treasury bills made out on Calcutta and accepted by the agency houses, enabled the Bombay government to tide over its financial difficulties. The problem of insufficient ships faced by both the Bombay and Bengal governments was met by entering into agreements with private shipowners, such as Lawrence Shaw, owner of the ship Margaret. Shaw agreed to freight 20,000 bags of Bengal rice at Rs.7/- per bag of 168 lbs gross or 164 lbs net.25 Ships owned by the agency houses, too, were used in transporting Bengal rice to Bombay. This was said to be one of the important incentives which made these houses anxious to contract for grain. A problem which was more difficult to overcome was that of inadequate docking and warehousing facilities at Bombay. Increased trade and Bombay’s growing commercial importance since the 1780s had not been matched with improved docking and storing sites. The burning down of a large number of warehouses and offices in the Great Fire of 17 February 1803, in the heart of the northern Fort, had only compounded the problem.26 While the Town Committee set up after the fire planned for a better system of docks, roads and warehouses, building plans had to wait until the dislocation and distress caused by both the fire and grain scarcity were first attended to. The second consecutive failure of the monsoon in 1804 meant that the measures initiated by the Bombay government to tide over what it had hoped would be a temporary shortage of food during the lean months of 1803–4, now had to be grappled with even more firmly. The dependence of the Bombay government on the agency houses grew even greater. The Bombay government negotiated again in July 1804 for the supply of 1,000,000 bags of Bengal rice. The Bombay government owed Forbes & Co. Rs.6,00,000/- by July 1804. No matter the supposed liberal terms on which the Bombay government had procured the rice, Charles Forbes was keen to have an advance of Rs.2,00,000/- in Bengal bills before undertaking to transport the additional quantities of rice. Rs.2,00,000/- had already been paid to Forbes & Co. on this account and Forbes, aware of the government’s predicament, insisted on payment although diplomatically making sure not to put the contract in jeopardy. He assured the Bombay government that the transactions could continue ‘upon the same conditions as to eventual repayment, with interest, should unforseen accidents prevent the delivery of the rice to an equivalent value, for which I shall hold myself responsible to your Hon’ble Board’.27 Additional supplies of grain continued to be requisitioned until 1806 when famine conditions were deemed to be no longer there and special measures no longer required.

Distress migration and public order

The life blood of a bustling and ambitious port city such as Bombay was its constant flow of immigrants. But already at the outset of the crisis, in late September 1803, a proposal was made to place a curb on ‘distressed’ immigrants entering Bombay town from the outlying regions. It was suggested that the town be cordoned off and undesirable elements such as ‘vagrants, beggars and fakirs’ be prohibited from entering Bombay island. Responding to this suggestion, Robert Henshaw cautioned the authorities from acting upon it as the war for control of the Deccan and other Maratha territories in western and northern India required large numbers of Indians to man the Company’s ‘native battalions’. If migrants were not allowed into Bombay, recruitment would be reduced drastically. Such a measure would be extremely harmful to British military interests and Henshaw called it ‘an Evil which in the present Hour would be almost incalculable in its consequences’.28 Henshaw’s advice was heeded and the Bombay government instead initiated developmental projects in Bombay island and other territories under their control. Employment was to be provided to the able-bodied, and for the infirm, infants and the aged ‘Humane Hospitals’ were opened up at Thana and Surat. In Bombay Captain Crozier was put in charge of the men, women and children employed in building a new road at Salsette. Crozier submitted daily reports to the authorities of the number of persons employed under him and the quantities of rice and money paid to them. The figures show that on average 2,500 persons per day were employed on these projects. By August 1804 work was already under way to level the Esplanade. This involved the cutting down of trees and clearing space of 800 yards around the fort to create a distance between the European quarter and the growing ‘native’ town situated outside the fort walls to the North of it.29 With Salsette and Caranjah islands also under British control and also affected by grain scarcity, the Bombay government had thought of extending daily rationing of 200 robins of rice to these areas to be retailed by government officials at controlled prices. But because of the dispersed nature of these rural populations, daily rationing which was feasible in Bombay itself would be of little benefit. John Spencer, Judge and Magistrate of Salsette, argued that assistance would have to be provided in a different form to these areas, such as Salsette and Caranjah. Rather than the sufferers having to travel long distances to reach the retail centres each day, which they neither could nor would do, Spencer suggested that in the Cusbahs of each island there was held a weekly fair, where all the inhabitants of the various villages could buy grain sufficient for their families needs.30 By July 1804 it was evident that famine conditions would not abate and that measures to cope with the crisis had to be taken for many places outside Bombay. In towns like Surat, too, able-bodied destitutes were to be employed in improvement works, such as in the cleaning of ditches and the construction of roads. These labourers were to be paid in rice. The old and infirm, as well as the very young, were to be put in

the new hospitals. The authorities were quick to add that these measures were only to ensure survival and not really intended to improve the well-being of the people. Rice, for instance, it was said, was not to be paid out in ‘any super abundance, as the intention is not to attract idlers but merely to save from dying by famine those who have no other means of support’.31 In spite of its ongoing political confrontation with the Maratha government, the Bombay government was willing to consider reducing the price of rice proposed to be exported from Bombay to feed the poor living in these territories. Henshaw, for instance, suggested the Moongy rice exported from Bombay to these regions be sold at Rs.9–2–0 per bag and Patcherry rice be sold at Rs.11–0–0 per bag.32 The Bombay government was prepared to back down on its earlier decision to ban exports from Bombay to its interior hinterland as it was afraid that, if food was not available, distress migration would know no limits and hordes of poor and hungry people would find their way into Bombay. It was thus better to reduce profits, lift the ban and make some provision for the supply of food to people whose hunger did not recognize territorial barriers and give a lower priority to the power struggle going on with the Marathas. In Bombay itself the situation was grim. In spite of work, money and some food being provided to those in dire need, S. Halliday, Superintendent of Police, informed the authorities in late July 1804 that starvation deaths on Bombay island were a daily occurrence and that in the previous fortnight more than thirty persons had been found dead on the streets. Some prominent Indian businessmen volunteered to help the government in providing relief measures to those affected. They suggested that the solution lay not merely in making daily food rations available, but in supplying cooked food, for the poor also lacked fuel to cook the rice. Parsi and Bania seths offered to cook the rice before distributing it.33 For the relief of the poor at Poona the Bombay government opened a subscription list at Bombay on 19 July 1804. The original idea came from Lady Mackintosh, wife of Recorder, James Mackintosh. By 10 August 1804 Rs.19,550/- had been collected. Governor Duncan, Lady Mackintosh, Charles Forbes, Sorabjee Muncherjee, Hormusjee Bomanjee, Nemchund Amichund, Ardaseer Dady, and Gopaldass Manordass were among the leading officials and merchants who contributed to this subscription list.34 The serious consequences of famine were evident to all and the elite of Bombay could not afford to ignore them. It was not enough to leave everything to government departments and committees to take care of, individual initiative and assistance were also called for urgently if Bombay and its inhabitants, as well as the long term economic and political interests of the port city, were to be protected. The Grain Committee recognized that the continuing state of crisis had to be met with more stringent measures than they had earlier considered. Greater efforts had to be made to limit the numbers of the poor entering Bombay. But for those who were already on the island, they recommended that additional supplies be provided Cooked

food and canjee (gruel) were to be supplied in the morning as well as some tobacco was recommended for distribution. But huts too were required to house them.35 Captain Crozier strongly objected to the proposal and argued that the existing system of government relief was the best. This relief came in the form of rice in fixed quantities being provided to those individuals who had worked on the developmental projects. As matters stood, rice was paid at 4 o’clock in the afternoon to those workers who had performed the day’s labour. If rice was distributed in the morning, Crozier believed such a measure36 would be attended by most injurious consequences, for the following reasons. First, after having received their rice, they would undoubtedly eat it, and immediately afterwards go to sleep; and as to expecting any performance of work, after this circumstance, it would be totally out of the question, for after first receiving their price of labour, it appears but a natural conclusion that they would with great reluctance go to any kind of labour afterwards; and in the second place they would be liable after getting their rice of wandering over the island, in quest of more provision and if not obtainable by begging, they would, I am apprehensive, secure it by stealing. The act of containment was as important as the necessity of relief, and Crozier was quick to point this out to any official whose sympathy on seeing such distress and misery had made him temporarily forget that the business of the state was to rule with a firm hand, carefully maintaining the distance between itself and its subjects. As the numbers of distress migrants swelled, disease became rampant and starvation deaths increased, the Bombay government became more acutely aware of the lack of information at its command. Not knowing the exact numbers of distress migrants entering Bombay city and island made them ill-equipped to deal with the situation. As the famine showed no signs of abating, temporary measures were felt to be increasingly inadequate. It was believed that these migrants reached Bombay by the boats that plied between the mainland and the various bunders of Bombay. Guards were posted there to prevent them – from landing. It soon became clear that the main entry port was at the channel at Sion. Migrants also reached Bombay via Salsette by crossing over from Bhandup or Thana at low tide. They often carried wood and dry leaves for manure collected in the jungles of Salsette to enable them to pay the toll tax. Henshaw believed that they were ‘prompted to quit their own country to avoid perishing by famine there, and from the reports of charity here’.37 Frequent references to the ‘charity’ provided by the Bombay government are found in the records where the liberal and humanitarian nature of the British was contrasted with the lack of concern shown by the Marathas and other Indian rulers. Attaining ideological legitimacy was an important component in the act of ruling and the officials frequently

addressed this issue. By late August 1804 famine could no longer be hidden. Reports reached the authorities that a number of deaths had occurred in the streets of Bombay and in the Humane Hospital at Thana. Members of the Medical Board, William Moir and Helenus Scott along with Superintendent of Police Halliday visited the hospital on 23 August 1804 to study the situation there. They attributed the large number of deaths to the fact that by the time the destitutes arrived in the hospital they were in such a famished condition that they ‘hardly lived to be laid down in the hospital and in general so exhausted, that they do not survive above a very few days7.38 Moir and Scott further observed that ‘such an extensive scene of misery we have never before beheld and we hope it will never be our lot to see anything that resembles it again’. They praised the Bombay government for its charity without which, they believed, the number of deaths would have been far greater. They also emphasized that this ‘charity’ had to be continued and extended for a long time to come, for as they saw it, there seemed no end to the problem. As they put it, ‘it gives us the greatest pain to say that we do not think that the number of these diseased wretches is likely to be diminished on the Island for some time to come. We think on the contrary, from the general appearance of the poor that we see in the street that they are becoming more emaciated and more sickly and we find that the numbers received in the hospital are increasing’.39 Meanwhile Surat, too, made pleas for urgent assistance. Magistrate N. Crow appealed to the Bombay government for yet another allotment of Bengal rice to keep the supply of daily provisions steady and to provide some sort of buffer from the activities of the hoarders. It was difficult, Crow admitted, for the Surat authorities to keep the hoarders in check, for they were lured with the prospects of substantial profits, even as the state of the countries surrounding the Company’s territories grew more miserable. Crow spoke of ‘the inundation of starved fugitives from those unhappy parts (who) have filled the city, and increased its consumption’.40 While intending to deal firmly with those who hoarded grain in the villages nearby which came under the Peshwa’s or the Gaikwad’s rule, Crow ruefully admitted that considerable hoarding was also done by their own subjects. Ten thousand bags of rice were sent to Surat from Bombay more or less immediately on the request being received. Underlying all government’s efforts lay the fear that widespread disorder and serious economic dislocation was in the offing if urgent steps were not taken to deal with the widespread hunger. Crow had said as much when on 20 August 1804 he asked for ten thousand more bags of Bengal rice which he said was ‘absolutely necessary to save us from Famine and Insurrection’. While the authorities in Surat believed that there were considerable quantities of grain in the outlying districts, the grain was hidden and government stores were so depleted that they had scarcely six days’ supply to feed the inhabitants. Crow did not wish to imagine what would be the situation in

Surat after these six days, if the Bombay government did not come to his rescue.41 The Bombay government was torn by the demand for food supplies in Bombay itself, Surat and all the other territories under its control as well as by the continuing demands for supplies by the troops fighting in the interior. As though it did not have enough on its hands, reports began now also to reach the Bombay government of corruption in the Grain Department.

Robert Henshaw and the grain scandal As early as November 1803 Governor Jonathan Duncan had taken objection to a contract entered into between Custom Master Robert Henshaw and the owners of the ship Taz Buccuz for 10,500 bags of rice at Rs. 8–12–0 for which the Bombay government had to pay Rs. 60,000.42 Henshaw justified the price and his taking the initiative in contracting for this rice by saying that it was of very good quality and required for General Wellesley’s army. He in fact had already ordered the Garrison Storekeeper to dispatch it for the use of the troops.43 The rice trade for long had been in the hands of Kacharas or rice agents and rice sellers appointed by the East India Company to sell grain in the public markets. Aware of rampant corruption in the Grain Department a Clerk of the Market had been appointed in 1741 to keep a watch on the trade.44 Malpractices continued nevertheless as there was room for profits by adulterating rice with bran, hoarding it in times of scarcity and selling it at a higher price than fixed by government. Trade in all other essential commodities was not regulated but free and the government frequently had to offer incentives to fishermen and vegetable sellers to bring their produce on to the Bombay market.45 Now, during the height of the famine, a major scandal rocked the Bombay government. It involved Custom Master, Robert Henshaw, leading member of the specially formed Grain Committee and the central figure in all of government’s efforts to deal with the famine. On 17 June 1805 Abbajee Gunnesh who had served as a Purvoe or peon in the Grain Department, testified against Henshaw in the Recorder’s Court of Bombay.46 A number of boats laden with grain and belonging to a number of Indian merchants of Bombay had been seized by the Custom authorities in Bombay harbour for illegally disregarding the government’s ban on all grain exports during the period of the scarcity. Manore Rowjee, a Hindu agent, acting on behalf of several of the merchants involved in these transactions persuaded Abbajee to mediate and get Henshaw to submit a favourable report and get the boats released with permission from Governor Duncan. The merchants were prepared both to pay the fine and make a ‘present’ to Robert Henshaw. By misrepresenting the facts Henshaw obtained the order from the Governor in Council which permitted the seized boats to be freed upon payment of a

fine of half a rupee per bag. For this Rs. 4,000 was paid as bribe to Henshaw, including a string of pearls costing Rs. 2,300. Through the months of March, April and May 1804, moreover, a number of Indian merchants, keen to take advantage of the high famine prices of grain, had wished to export rice and other essential commodities to places in the interior. Permission to do so could not be obtained without passes from the Custom Master. Henshaw, Abbajee Gunnesh alleged, had signed these passes for a ‘certain consideration’. Bribes amounting to Rs. 20,000 were paid to Abbajee Gunnesh who handed over the money to the Custom Master. Henshaw, it was said, ‘frequently assured this Deponent Abbajee that when the business of the Grain Department was at an end he would liberally regard him and strongly recommend him to the favourable notice of the Hon’ble Governor in Council….’47 In July 1805 Henshaw was suspended from the exercise of his official duties until the case was decided. But his prosecution raised difficulties of ‘rather an extraordinary nature’ for the colonial state. The Company’s legal counsel, S.M. Thriepland, complained to the government that Henshaw had tried to obstruct legal proceedings by inquiring, ‘in a very peremptory manner by whom [my emphasis, M.D.] he was prosecuted, without which being communicated to him he refuses to plead to the information conceiving that he cannot be compelled to do so…’48 With the legal system still undeveloped, the problem arose over the uncertainty of who was to serve as plaintiff in the case: was it to be the Company or the Crown? Thriepland had no doubt that the Company was the suitable body as ‘… it is for the honour of the Company, and highly essential to the reputation of their service, that government should stand forward in this manner’.49 The Bombay government itself, too, was anxious that ‘a fair and honorable’ termination of the case take place which was ‘conducive to the ends of justice’.50 The case came up in the Recorder’s Court where James Mackintosh decided the matter. Henshaw was found guilty, but the case had been filed in the name of the King of England. A noticeable change is evident here in the functioning of the East India Company. The frequent reference to ‘justice’, ‘right’, ‘law’ and ‘the honour of the Company’, all reflect the legitimizing efforts of the British in India. Here in Bombay, however, the Wellesleysian thrust of the East India Company staked its claim as an imperial sovereign power and stand forth as a government firmly committed to upholding the law and handing out justice. Punishing one’s own when necessary only proved the point that no one was above the law. As in the case of the humanitarian efforts made by the Bombay government and shown to be in stark contrast to the lack of caring on the part of the Maratha government, this upholding of the law was to serve as an illustration of the superiority of the British in India over their Indian rivals.

Conclusion By 1806 the food situation had eased somewhat and the special measures required to deal with the state of emergency were no longer considered necessary. The Grain Committee was dissolved but a large number of immigrants stayed on in Bombay and the island’s population registered a growth from approximately 115,000 in 1780 to 235,000 in 1812, of which at least 20,000 were said to be famine refugees who had not returned to their villages.51 The famine of 1803–6 is intrinsically important for the enormous scale of human suffering it produced as casualties ran well into the thousands if not far higher. But, as this chapter aims to demonstrate, it also provides sharp insights into several vital elements of the existence and functioning of Bombay as a British colonial port city in a period of transition. First, without adequate food supply the very existence of the city and all that depended on it could be thrown in doubt. Whereas a few years earlier bad harvests in Britain had enabled private agency houses to export large rice cargoes and thus invade the trade with Britain with their India-built ships,52 now Bombay had to tap all the resources of its maritime hinterland and to import large cargoes of grain from Bengal in order to survive. In the process of attempting to stave off starvation several severe conflicts within Bombay became visible. Two of these related immediately to the sphere of government and the double function of Bombay as an immigrant-driven and economically diversifying port city, on the one hand, and as the military support base for inland warfare against the Marathas, on the other. In consequence, scarce food resources had to be prioritized. The fact that inland expansion was not just a function of EIC state making but also necessary to broaden the economic foundation of Bombay’s commercial and maritime supremacy on the west coast adds a good deal of spice to this dilemma. Second, within the apparatus of the state, the cancer of corruption and fraud had yet not been rooted out. The fact that it was the Custom Master himself who sinned, suggests how immense and deep-seated that problem still was. Henshaw’s meretricity, however, also points in another direction: the nascent EIC state was not yet able to subordinate the private merchants and shipowners who ‘made’ Bombay what it was to its rule. Even if the Bombay government tried hard to demonstrate that it was humane in their approach to the famine in comparison to, for example, the Maratha rulers, it could not break the power of the hoarders who successfully resisted the full implementation of any such emergency measures. Then, as later (for example during the next famine, of 1812),53 the city’s private sector would only grudgingly make concessions to the state and, as the symbiosis between public authorities and private business interests during the ‘golden age’ of Bartle Frere shows, power in the port city continued to be shared for much longer.54

NOTES 1 I am extremely grateful to Narendra Panjwani for his comments and suggestions and to G.H. Prasad for his help in preparing the maps. 2 Charles Tilly, ed. The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, 1976), p. 61. 3 This was true inspite of the fact that Bombay’s finances continued to be bedevilled for a long time to come. See Pamela Nightingale, Trade and Empire in Western India, 1784–1806 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 24. 4 James Forbes, Oriental Memoirs. A series of Familiar Letters Written During Seventeen Years Residence in India, (4 vols, London, 1813), vol. I, pp. 153–4. Basrah, Masqat, Ormuz, and other ports in the Persian Gulf supplied Bombay with pearls, raw silk, Carmenia wool, dates, dried fruits and several other products. From Arabia came coffee, gold, drugs and honey. Ships brought to Bombay tea, sugar porcelain, and silk from China, From Java, Malacca and Sumatra were imported spices, perfumes, arrack and sugar into Bombay. From Madagascar, Mozambique and other ports on the coast of East Africa were imported ivory, slaves and drugs. A considerable export trade in cotton and bullion was carried on from Bombay. 5 See, for example, Laxmi Subramanian, ‘Bombay and the West Coast in the 1740s,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review, [hereafter IESHR], vol. 18 (1981); Amalendu Guha, ‘More About the Parsi Sheths: Their Roots, Entrepreneurship, and Comprador Role, 1650–1918’, in Dwijendra Tripathi, ed. Business Communities of India (New Delhi, 1984), pp. 109–50; V. Ashok Desai, ‘The Origins of Parsi Enterprise’, IESHR, vol. 5 (1968); Asiya Siddiqi, ‘Money and Prices in the Early Stages of Empire: India and Britain 1760–1840’, IESHR, vol. 18 (1981), and ‘The Business World of Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy’, IESHR, vol. 19 (1982). 6 Campbell, James, Materials Towards a Statistical Account of the Town and Island of Bombay, vol. II (Bombay, Government Central Press, 1894). Campbell noted that ‘the supply of provisions, (was) one of the greatest difficulties which early Bombay had to deal with’ (p. 17). 7 Ibid., pp. 21–2. 8 S.M. Edwardes, Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island (Bombay, 1909), vol. 1, pp. 150–3. 9 The term Batta or Batty refers to unhusked rice. Weights and measures varied considerably depending on the commodity traded and the place where the transactions took place. Bags, morahs, candies (Khandies), robbins and seers were among the most important measures in use, 30 pice made 1 seer, 40 seers made 1 maund, 20 maunds made 1 candy (560 lbs). These were the standard gross rates at

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26

Bombay, but in actual transactions the ratios varied considerably. For details see Gazetteer, vol. 1, pp. 329–30. Robert Henshaw to T.A. Grant, Secretary to the Bombay government, Maharashtra State Archives, Miscellaneous Records, Grain Scarcity Diaries [hereafter GSD], vol. 317, 20 September 1803, p. 10. Ibid. Ibid., p. 142. A.G. Grant to J. Ravenshaw, 18 September 1803, Ibid., pp. 3–4. J. Malcolm, Resident Mysore, to J.H. Piele, Secretary to the Resident Mysore, n.d. [September-October, 1803], Ibid., pp. 26–7. S. Halliday to J. Duncan, Governor of Bombay, Ibid., 18 September 1803, pp. 6–7. Grain Committee to J.A. Grant, Secretary to Bombay government, 29 September 1803, Ibid., p. 23. R. Henshaw to J.A. Grant, 27 September 1803, Ibid., p. 16. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 16–7. Government Notification dated 14 October 1803, Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., pp. 53–4. Agreements signed between the Bombay government and Bruce Fawcett & Co. and Forbes & Co., Bombay, 14 October 1803. See Ibid., pp. 45–6. Ibid. Nightingale writes, ‘Bombay was extraordinary in that its civil servants were allowed to [engage in private] trade until 1806. This meant that men who held high office in the Presidency and were responsible for its policy, were deeply involved in private trading activities which could conflict with the Company’s public policy … Bruce Fawcett and Company, with Forbes and Company and Alexander Adamson, were the most important agency houses in the settlement at the time, John Forbes and his nephew Charles were never in the Company’s service, but Henry Fawcett was the accountant-general, and his partner, PC. Bruce, was mayor of the town. This one agency house, therefore, controlled the government’s financial policy and was in charge of the judiciary’ (Trade and Empire, pp. 24–5). Government Order dated 14 October 1803, GSD, vol. 317, pp. 34–5. See also Siddiqi, ‘Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy’. More than 400 buildings or one-third of the total built-up area of the Fort had burnt down. Damage to trade was extensive and estimated at Rs.2 crores. Details of urban developmental plans for Bombay Town are available in the Town Committee Diaries, Maharashtra State Archives, Bombay. What these Diaries clearly bring out is the insufficient information available to government regarding the complex land tenures existing on Bombay island at this time. The East India

27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48

Company’s land rights were being constantly eroded by Bombay’s inhabitants who were conducting land transactions and selling what the authorities claimed to be government land without government’s knowledge and to its detriment. For details of the Great Fire see Campbell, Materials, vol. II, p. 19. Forbes to Bombay government, 14 July 1804, GSD, vol. 319, pp. 862–3. R. Henshaw to A. Grant, Secretary to Bombay government, 27 September 1803, GSD, vol. 318, p. 18. Detailed reports are available in Ibid., vols 318 and 319. J. Spencer to H. Shank, Secretary to Bombay government, 20 October 1803, GSD, vol. 318, p. 111. Order of Bombay government to the Town Committee at Surat, n.d. [1804], GSD, vol. 319, p. 992. Henshaw to J. Grant, Secretary to Bombay government, 12 July 1804, Ibid., p. 856. Among the prominent banias who proposed to assist Captain Crozier were Kimjee Wasta, Purshotam Bhowan, Hira Poonjea, Suresser Dhunesser, and Luckichund Punjeraze; prominent Parsis who offered their help included Sorabjee Muncherjee, Ardaseer Dady, Pestonjee Bomanjee, Hormusjee Bomanjee and Nusserwanjee Monackjee (Minute of Governor Duncan, 31 July 1804, Ibid., pp. 913–4). Forbes & Co. to Bombay government, 10 August 1804, Ibid., pp. 995–8. Henshaw to Governor Duncan, 23 August 1804, Ibid., pp. 1034–5. R.B. Crozier to Governor Duncan, 24 August 1804, Ibid., pp. 1057–8. Henshaw to Governor Duncan, 23 August 1804, Ibid., p. 1032. W. Moir and J. Scott to Bombay government, 23 August 1804, Ibid., pp. 1036–9. Ibid., p. 1037. N. Crow to Bombay government, Surat, 20 August 1804, Ibid., p. 1040. Governor Duncan to Henshaw, 8 November 1803, GSD, vol. 317, p. 120. Henshaw to Governor Duncan, 7 November 1803, GSD, vol. 318, p. 119. Petition of Govind Wisswanath and the Inquiry by Mr Diggle, Civil Servant, Thane, 17 July 1804, GSD, Vol. 319, pp. 868–73. Edwardes, Gazetteer, vol. I, pp. 450–1. Petition of Govind Wisswanath and the Inquiry by Mr Diggle, Civil Servant, Thane, 17 July 1804, GSD, vol. 319, pp. 868–73. The Recorder’s Court was established in 1798. The Recorder acted as the King’s judge who was appointed by the Crown in its capacity as ‘absence landlord’ and was expected to enforce justice on its ‘powerful tenant’, the East India Company. N. Vatal, ‘Sir James Mackintosh and His Contribution to Developments in Bombay, 1804–1811’ (M.Phil. dissertation, Bombay University, 1991). Affidavit of Abbajee Gunnesh, Bombay, 17 June 1805, GSD, vol. 321, pp. 623–7. S.M. Thriepland, Company’s Counsel, to F. Warden, Secretary to Bombay government, 16 August 1805, Ibid., p. 178.

49 Ibid., p. 720. 50 Government Resolution regarding action against Robert Henshaw, Bombay Castle, 24 August 1805, Ibid., p. 727. 51 S.M. Edwardes, The Rise of Bombay (Bombay, 1902), p. 234. 52 T.S. Sanjeeva Rao, The History of Modern Indian Shipping (Bombay, 1965), pp. 173–80. 53 Governor Nepean did not consider it ‘advisable … to take any step whatever to obstruct the free operations of mercantile speculations in respect to Grain.’ (Government Minute, 26 September 1812, MSA, Selections). 54 For an account of the struggle of government to gain the initiative in some areas of this contest see Mariam Dossal, Imperial Designs and Indian Realities, The Planning of Bombay City, 1845–1875 (Bombay, 1991).

6

KUWAIT BEFORE OIL The Dynamics and Morphology of an Arab Port City Frank Broeze Department of History University of Western Australia

Until oil virtually overnight transformed Kuwait into one of the most affluent and modern cities of the Middle East and Asia, the city’s economic, social and political life was founded on maritime activity.1 Fishing, pearl diving, shipping, seafaring, ship- and boat-building and, last but not least, trade, constituted the economic base of its population and the mainstay of the financial and fiscal power of its amirs. The historical development of Kuwait’s maritime economy since the town’s foundation in the early 18th century by Anizah tribesmen was circumscribed by the interaction of three geographical factors: the topography of its site, its gateway position as intermediary between the sea and the desert area of northeastern Arabia, and its location in the northwestern corner of the Gulf.2 Kuwait Bay with the island of Qurain and a series of reefs provided sheltered space for Kuwait’s sailing vessels and established the town’s suitability as a shipping centre and regional market. How far Kuwait’s influence as a market could actually reach depended on many variables in the economic and political situation of its region, but key factors were its gateway position vis-à-vis northeastern Arabia, especially Nejd and the Jabal Shammar, and its strategic location close to the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab with its access to the river systems of Iraq and Persian Arabistan. Of crucial importance for the growth of its maritime enterprise were also significant stocks of edible fish (especially the zubaidi) and the large number of pearl banks stretching southeastward to Bahrain, Qatar and beyond. But none of these factors can, in themselves, explain the phenomenon which was Kuwait; ecological and geographical advantages remain just that, if they are not utilized by business enterprise and human labour. Kuwaitis became shipowners and seafarers to exploit the opportunities offered by their location and soon they were able to expand into

providing shipping services for others. Shipping remained Kuwait’s strategic industry as it enabled its merchants to service its market, to diversify its local economy into shipbuilding and even to draw advantage and strength from the very weaknesses of Kuwait’s ecology such as the total absence of fresh water and building timber. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the development of urban Kuwait from the perspective of its identity as a port town and, with the growth of time, port city. The essential elements of such an analysis are, first, the recognition of the primacy of the city’s port in its morphology and economic life and, second, the tracing of the broader physical, social, political, cultural and other influences which emanate from the port function and give a very particular character to the city’s life in general.3 Two elements need to be stressed here. First, Kuwait with its extensive active participation in shipping and seafaring and, conversely, its less than hegemonial role in the market and port system of the northern Gulf region, cannot easily be compared to many other port cities whose main function was that of ‘gateways through which particular regions of the world are connected with overseas’.4 Whereas elsewhere, for example at Basrah or Bahrain, commercial functions took precedence over shipping and ancillary maritime industries, in Kuwait the reverse was true. This, inevitably, had significant consequences for the city’s physical appearance, economic organization and social structure. Second, Kuwait, by contrast with most if not all other ports in the Gulf, for a long time remained more exclusively local in character. As the Danish traveller Raunkiaer, who visited Kuwait in 1912, commented: ‘Quite apart from the great political importance of the town, it [i.e. Kuwait] claims no ordinary interest because, with the exception perhaps of Makallah, on the south shore of Arabia, it is the least disturbed by foreign civilization of the few “independent” Arab coast towns of any importance.’5 In other words, in both its cultural life and its physical appearance, Kuwait represented the unadulterated essence of ‘the Arab city’. This suggestion that Kuwait may be viewed as the archetypal Arab city raises two general questions. First, as was suggested by Shiber, one of the planners of modern Kuwait:6 [a] thin but definite filiality links all Arab towns, making their basic anatomy, form and architecture, as well as the aesthetic images they evoke in the mind of the beholder, akin in many respects. Arab countries as far removed from each other as Kuwait and Morocco, Yemen and Tunis, Jordan and Sa’udi Arabia contain cities, towns, villages and hamlets that show striking resemblances to one another which characterize them unmistakably as Arab. Similarly, ‘Arab-inspired houses with courtyards … [were] used uniformly and undistinguishably from the almost alpine climate of the Lebanese mountain village to the almost oven-like climate of Kuwait…’7 But even if, indeed, a common character

dominated, and perhaps still dominates, the appearance and ambience of Arab cities and towns, irrespective of any ecological or geographical differences, questions remain as to just what differences can occur and in what ways, and why each city could be different. Thus, for example, Shiber himself noted not only the direct impact of ecological differences but also that in Kuwait, by contrast to older cities such as Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and others, there were but ‘few large religious, historic or architectural structures’ which could have served as starting points for modern planning.8 In other words, while Arab cities may have important common features, there are also significant differences caused by local circumstances. Rather than emphasizing the overall Arab character of Kuwait, the purpose of the following analysis will be to show just how much of Kuwait’s character and morphology was shaped by its own unique location and historical-economic development. Second, there is the historiographical controversy over the Islamic city and its historical role. By contrast to the European medieval city with its significant autonomy, the Islamic city, in the absence of strong internal government, is often seen as the vehicle of dynastic power rather than the dynamic and proto-democratic source of opposition to autocratic and territorial rule. In turn, this political passivity of the Islamic city has been seen as one of the major reasons for the absence of Western-style democracy in the Middle East. Whatever one wishes to make of this sharp juxtaposition of European and Arab urban society and the failure of historians to discuss adequately the centuries after the ‘great age’ of Islam,9 the fact remains that on the western littoral of the Gulf a remarkable series of small port-city-states (or, according to the terminology current in the Southeast Asian context for this phenomenon, port-polities)10 developed which, ipso facto, did not conform to the Islamic city model and thus requires special consideration.11 Indeed, some observers have gone so far as to claim that ‘[by] 1946, it is clear that a distinctive community had evolved in Kuwait united by its commercial mores but typical of many city states of Europe in the later Middle Ages’12 Both the political role of Kuwait’s merchants and the oligarchic-democratic tendencies which have been visible throughout its history are important indicators of the particular path of its historical development which, again, may best be appreciated by adopting the port-city approach. The following analysis of Kuwait will evolve in four stages reflecting the distinct but interlinking elements of the port city model. First, the economic base of Kuwait’s maritime economy will be outlined. As this relates to the city’s market functions as well as maritime enterprise itself, it will also require a consideration of the terrestrial communications which linked Kuwait to its interior hinterland. Second, there follows a social and demographic analysis of Kuwait on the basis of its occupational and ethnic structure. Of particular importance will be the necessity to relate immigration into Kuwait, both for seasonal and for more permanent purposes, to the network of the port’s foreland and hinterland relations. Third, there will be a brief discussion of the

superstructure of Kuwait’s cultural and political life – spheres in which, just as in those pertaining to the city’s economy and society, internal and external dimensions are vitally interconnected. The fourth and final element is the morphology of Kuwait as it was shaped and influenced by the city’s port and its maritime economy. It should be stressed that the concept of morphology refers not only to changing spatial organization but also to architecture, building materials, style and decoration; besides the material ‘city scape’ this may also be said to include the human element of ‘ambience’ and ‘atmosphere’.

The maritime economy of Kuwait Kuwait’s maritime economy rested on five main pillars: fishing, pearl diving, shipping, shipbuilding, and trade, all of which industries, to a remarkable degree, were mutually supportive. Merchants were often involved in several enterprises and there was, for example, a finely-tuned symbiosis between pearling and the long-distance trades in which Kuwait’s larger sailing ships were involved. The boat- and shipwrights of Kuwait provided the instruments with which fishing and pearling, shipping and trade could be maintained. Conversely, the traders were responsible for importing not only water, food and building timber for the city’s population but also the teak, hemp and sailcloth from India, and the fish oil from the Hadhramaut, with which the ships were built, equipped and maintained. The ordinary seamen of the city were equally at sea in the pearling fleet as on the regional and long-distance sailers. It was probably well before the mid-nineteenth century that they had gained the reputation that ‘[a]mong all the seamen who ply the Persian Gulf, the mariners of Koweyt hold the first rank in daring, in skill and in trustworthiness of character.’13 The lack of long-term and systematically-kept statistics makes it impossible to trace the development of Kuwait’s maritime economy in convincing detail, but the broad outlines can be reconstructed from the accounts of travellers and other circumstantial evidence before, at the beginning of this century, more hard data become available. These make it clear that maritime activity must from the beginning have been part of Kuwaiti life while, as late as 1939, Kuwait could without exaggeration be described as ‘Port of Booms’.14 During the 1760s, according to Niebuhr (who, contrary to what some authors maintain, did not visit Kuwait),15 the town counted some 10,000 inhabitants who were principally occupied in pearling and fishing.16 Its fleet may have been as large as 800 vessels and during the pearling season the absence of many thousands of seamen caused the town’s population to fall to about 3,000; this, however, also included the effect of others being absent with caravans travelling to Syria and elsewhere. Ten years later, during the Persian occupation of Basrah (1775–9), Kuwait enjoyed a commercial boom by attracting many merchants from Basrah and becoming the

temporary seat of the British East India Company’s agency which could thus maintain its overland caravan communications with Aleppo and the Mediterranean. This may have off-set the demographic loss incurred when the al-Khalifah left Kuwait and established themselves on Bahrain. Kuwait’s rising star was confirmed in the 1790s, when Turkish intransigence led, again, to the EIC factory being moved to Kuwait. Significantly, it was soon the Wahhabis who became a danger to the mails and caused the EIC to return to Basrah; Kuwait has always had to play a very cautious game between the powers controlling Iraq, on the one hand, and the interior of Nejd and the Arabian peninsula, on the other. Shaikh Abdullah was indeed so hard pressed by the Wahhabis that he, in 1809, offered to join the British in an expedition against the Jawasmis (or Qawasim) on what became known as the Trucial coast and is now part of the United Arab Emirates.17 The existence of regular caravan communications suggests that Kuwait by this stage had some functions as a regional market. The legend of Amir Abdullah’s refusal to allow his daughter to marry the shaikh of the Bard Ka’b in Persian Arabistan is strong evidence of the existence of commercial ties with the land east of the Shatt alArab as well. Around the turn of the century Kuwait ‘had begun to share in the commercial prosperity which the capture of Bahrain had brought to the whole Utub tribe by drawing them into the carrying trade; and goods were imported from Masqat, Zubarah, Bahrain and Qatif’18 The offer of maritime assistance to Britain clearly signifies the existence of a sizeable fleet. Its strength became a factor in another regional power-play, when Egypt’s viceroy Muhammad Ali in 1838–39 mounted his famous campaign to the Gulf. While Amir Jabir al-Sabah was forced to accept an Egyptian representative at his court, Kuwaiti ships were reportedly intended to transport Egyptian troops and supplies from the Red Sea port of Hodaidah to Qatif in the Gulf.19 By the mid-nineteenth century the British consul at Basrah, Taylor, observed the rise of Kuwait as a regional centre as well as its fierce sense of independence:20 [although] nominally under Turkish rule, [its inhabitants] acknowledge no other authority but that of their elected shaykhs … Its port [is] accessible to ships of the largest burden, [and] is free to every flag … [Kuwait’s] merchants are large ship-owners and from the perfect security of life and property, its resident traders are among the wealthiest in Iraq. From the entire absence of any import dues, they are enabled most advantageously to compete with the Basra merchants, and their goods, from the comparative lowness of their price, have always the preference of the Suq al-Shuyukh market. Ten years later, when Palgrave recorded his testimony to the reputation of Kuwaiti seamen, the British Political Resident in the Gulf Pelly referred to Kuwait as a clean,

active town of some 20,000 inhabitants which attracted Arab and Persian merchants from all quarters.21 By now Kuwait was well-established as the export gateway for the Jamal Shammar (‘like Trieste for Austria’) from which many articles, in particular horses, were regularly shipped overseas to Bombay.22 Doughty in the 1880s visited an old merchant at Anaiza whose interests eloquently illustrated the regional function of Kuwait. From humble beginnings this man had risen to great wealth as a ‘coast merchant’ dealing with Basrah and many other places. He had sons positioned at several of these, including Kuwait, from where he imported significant consignments of textiles and probably other commodities.23 It is evident that Kuwait during the remaining years of the 19th century benefited from the general rise of pearling and commercial activity in the Gulf area. The Turkish occupation of the Hasa and the lack of other suitable ports gave it a virtual monopoly as the commercial gateway to central Arabia, while ties with Iraq and Persia remained strong. By 1905 Kuwait’s population had increased to some 30,000 to 35,000, but this number may have swelled to some 70,000 when all ships were in port.24 The pearling fleet numbered over 450 boats, while some 50 booms were engaged in the coastal trades. Just prior to the Great War, when the pearling business was booming worldwide, some 12,000 Kuwaitis were directly employed in it.25 Up to 3,000 or so of those during the off-season worked on the Ceylonese grounds.26 As a considerable part of the harvest of the Kuwaiti pearling fleet was sold on the banks themselves and/or exported via Bahrain, pearling directly contributed little to Kuwait’s role as a commercial entrepôt, although the profits of the business of course flowed back into the town. Kuwait’s position as a regional market, which included a considerable amount of smuggling, was based on the trading activities of its commercial fleet, supported by the visits of numerous foreign sailing craft. These hailed mostly from Arabistan but also from Kharag Island, Bahrain and Oman, and from 1903–4 included the regular calls made by the steamers of the British India Steam Navigation Company. The latter quickly replaced dhows as the carriers of imports of high value. Already in 1905/6 over 57 per cent of all Kuwait’s imports was carried on steamships. India was Kuwait’s main supplier of imports, with 31 per cent, just ahead of Turkish Iraq (27 per cent) and well clear of Britain herself (15 per cent) and Persia (9 per cent).27 Kuwait in 1905/6 also possessed 36 larger sea-going vessels, including 11 bagghalahs. These ships were used in the long-distance trade which by now had assumed the pattern, if not yet the extent, which it was to enjoy throughout the interwar period and which stood quite separately from commerce and distribution within the Gulf. The foundation of this annual round voyage (the safar or sifr),28 was the export of dates from southern Iraq. Although an increasing share of this trade was in the hands of Western merchants and carried by steamers, exports to other ports of the Gulf and, beyond, in the rest of Arabia and also ports on the non-Arab littoral of

the Arabian Sea, largely remained the preserve of indigenous shipowners. It was here that Kuwaiti dhows had particular competitive advantages. Another important factor was that both the al-Sabah family and several of the major merchants of Kuwait themselves possessed significant date plantations around Basrah and on the Fao peninsula.29 The trading season started around September, when the dates became available for shipping. The outward voyage could take the dhows to two traditional destinations. Eastward they travelled to the Makran coast, Karachi and India, where they also found their homeward employment, mostly with teak, tiles and other bulk commodities in ports ranging from Cochin and Calicut to Mangalore and Bombay. Alternatively, the dhows sailed southward via Oman to the Hadhramaut (esp Makallah), Yemen or also the Benadir coast of Somalia. From the latter ports they continued their voyages, laden with diverse trading goods and passengers, to the ports where they were to load home for the Gulf. Broadly speaking then, homeward voyages were made from two geographical regions: the ports on the west coast of India which were also reached by direct outward voyages, and the east coast of Africa, where Zanzibar and especially the Rufiji delta were prominent. From the latter came most of the mangrove poles used for roof construction throughout the Gulf and Kuwait itself.30 Although no specific evidence is available for this period, it may be confidently suggested that the diaspora of Kuwaiti merchants through the region began or was already well under way in the pre-1914 period. A contemporary Indian observer commented: ‘Kuwait is growing rapidly and has spread far outside its old walls. Its trade is steadily increasing and the Shaikh is waxing rich. He is reputed to be able to put 10,000–15,000 fighting men in the field.’31 Also, for the neutral Danish visitor, Raunkiaer, in 1912, it was ‘[b]eyond question [that] Kuweit is the most important trading town on the east coast of Arabia, Muscat not excepted.’32 It was, of course, during – and because of – Kuwait’s rise to regional prominence that its political status became the subject of a complex yet subtle international powerplay. Usually, the main emphasis in this episode has been put on the British interest in hiving off Kuwait from the Ottoman Empire, and hence by extension from Iraq. But probably even more important was the desire of Amir Mubarak and the Kuwaiti mercantile elite to maintain the de facto autonomy of their town and, indeed, to turn this into effective political independence from its powerful neighbours. As that independence could not be achieved without accepting some British protection, the latter was keenly sought. But it should be clearly understood that the British connection was a political means and not the ultimate objective of Mubarak and his successors. Thus, by astute diplomacy, Kuwait was able to confirm and maintain its separation from its two main neighbours. The Turkish Empire and, after the Great War, Iraq were fended off by diplomacy. Military force, however, was necessary in 1920 to protect Kuwait against the attack from Ibn Sa’ud’s Ikhwan who desired to incorporate it in their rapidly expanding Wah-habite state. The impact of these international conflicts on

the morphology of Kuwait will be discussed later but what needs to be stressed here is that it was, above all, the port function of Kuwait which, first, made its leaders uncompromising in their desire to maintain its independence and, second, made the town attractive as an object of expansion for Turks, Iraqis and Sa’udis and as a pawn in the geopolitical strategies of the British and British-Indian governments.33 During the Great War the commercial spirit of Kuwait was so much in evidence that the British actually declared a blockade on the port in order to prevent smuggling operations which could have supplied the Turks. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, however, came neither peace nor well-defined territorial control for any polity in the region. While the British became instrumental in delineating the modern boundaries of Iraq, Kuwait and Nejd (and thus its successor state, Sa’udi Arabia), the latter from 1923 put an embargo on Kuwait in order to force the city-state to accept fiscal integration into the Arabian kingdom or, alternatively, to divert its traffic to the Sa’udi-controlled ports on the Hasa coast such as Uqair, Qatif and Jubail. Trade with central Arabia, which was estimated to have exceeded £1 million per year, dropped to no more than one-tenth of that figure.34 Despite considerable hardship resulting from the stoppage of the caravan trade with its immediate hinterland, where many Kuwaiti merchants had relatives or close connections in oasis towns such as Unaizah and Buraidah, Kuwait refused to make any concessions until, finally, in 1939 the Sa’udi embargo was lifted. Similarly, all moves which could have led to a greater political influence on the part of either Iraq or Persia were firmly resisted. The 1920s and ‘30s were, indeed, extremely trying decades for Kuwait, as it was hit by the effects of the rapid rise of the Japanese cultivated pearl industry as well as the Sa’udi embargo. Total trade dropped from just over £1 million in 1924/5 to £629,000 three years later.35 Such losses could not be fully compensated by the growth of Kuwait’s deep-sea fleet and the tenacity of the city’s merchants in maintaining their entrepot function vis-à-vis Iraq and Persia. The importance of Kuwait’s market place becomes evident from the arrival, in 1926/7, of no less than 1,300 Iraqi and 1,200 Persian sailing craft.36 Kuwait’s own carrying fleet by that season had grown to some 250 vessels, of which 60 were of more than 100 tons burden, including 8 of over 300 and 20 of over 250 tons.37 In the 1937/38 season well over 100 ships were engaged in the deep-sea carrying trade and this level of activity was maintained until the early 1950s.38 Not least as a result of the recent arrival of several thousands of immigrants from Persia, the city’s population in the early 1920s was boosted to c. 50,000 inhabitants, which figure rose, punctuated by a terrible smallpox epidemic in 1936, to over 60,000 by the outbreak of World War II.39 While an influx of immigrants (now also from India) during the late 1930s can already be ascribed to the nascent oil industry, an important factor in this demographic change was the continued heavy demand for labour in the port and shipyards of Kuwait. It cannot be stressed enough that the

demand for ships and boats to sustain Kuwait’s maritime economy throughout the period was very largely met by its indigenous ship- and boat-building industry.40 This industry, in turn, stimulated Kuwait’s shipping industry not only by supplying highquality vessels but also, in consequence of the total lack of local materials, as it actually required considerable freight space for the carriage of timber and virtually all the other goods necessary for their construction, rigging and maintenance such as rope, sailcloth and nails from India and fish-oil from southern Arabia. The Great Depression made further inroads on Kuwait’s commercial opportunities and the discovery of oil, in 1938 in the Burgan field, was welcomed enthusiastically, even if the first crude was not shipped until after World War II.41 While many merchants went out of business, hundreds of boats were sold to shipowners elsewhere or left to rot on the Kuwaiti foreshore.42 In 1939 150 vessels went pearling from Kuwait,43 a considerable increase on the figures of preceding years but still a far cry from the heyday of the industry. If it had not been for the growth of the black economy – in such various articles as tea, sugar, arms and gold44 - and the rise of long-distance shipping and trade Kuwait would have been in a very precarious situation indeed. As a result the Kuwaitis were able to limit the damage and active merchants were able to establish or strengthen their ties with overseas ports such as Karachi, Bombay, Calicut and Aden. Several leading families had relatives living abroad in a more or less permanent diaspora. Perhaps the most active and most successful of these were the sons of Abdul-Latif al-Hamad, of whom in 1939 Khalid ran the Aden branch, Ahmed the house in Basrah, Abdullah was in India, and Yusuf managed the headquarters in Kuwait.45 Abdul-Latif’s grandson, also named Abdul-Latif, in due course became Chairman of the United Bank of Kuwait, Managing Director of the Kuwait Investment Company, and Director-General of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development and one of the financial experts of Kuwait ‘after oil’.46 Although Kuwait in the northern Gulf never achieved anything like the hegemony or turnover of Bombay, Singapore or Hong Kong in their respective regions, throughout its pre-oil period it was a regional hub of major importance and vitality. The basis of the city’s growth was the maritime activity of its shipowners and merchants. Collectively they demonstrated how much space and opportunity there still was for operations with indigenous sailing craft in the non-western sector of the dualist economic system of international trade in Southwest Asia and the western Indian Ocean. Entrepreneurial astuteness and initiative were at least as responsible for their success as sound management and strict financial control.47 At most times this maritime economy was strongly supported by the policies of the al-Sabah amirs. Kuwait’s reputation for low commercial duties, religious tolerance, security of life and property, and the reliability of its traders was already well-established by the middle of the 19th century and remained an intangible factor of great importance. In fact, within its particular economic context Kuwait had just as much to offer to international

commerce and shipping as the colonial or semi-colonial port cities of Asia during the same period. In order to understand Kuwait’s obvious external success it is necessary to investigate and explain its social structure and political culture. These, in turn, determined both the identity and physical appearance of the city.

Social structure and immigration The economic activity of Kuwait was reflected in, and sustained by, the occupational structure of its population. Its elite was composed of a small tightly-knit group of merchant families which, throughout the period, controlled much of the city’s economic, social and political life. Prominent besides the al-Sabah, whose legitimacy as the ruling family remained unchallenged, were their companions from the earliest hour such as the al-Zayid (later known as al-Ghanim), al-Saqar, al-Badr, al-Qatami and alSaif (which included the al-Rumi and al-Shamlan families).48 They were later joined by a small number of others such as the al-Bahr and al-Hamad families (both from Zubair in southern Iraq) and the Bedu pearl merchant Hilal al-Mutairi. The sudden fortune of the latter and his rapid rise in social status (he was a close friend of both Kuwait’s Amir Salim al-Sabah and the Ikhwan leader Faisal al Dhuwish)49 shows that Kuwaiti society was not closed and that social status was related to economic success.50 This is not surprising in view of the ecological conditions of the settlement at Kuwait, which resulted in the vital importance of maritime activity and trade for its very existence and the relative insignificance of agriculture (only the minor oasis at Jahrah) and pastoralism in the Kuwaiti economy. Indeed, as Field has stressed,51 the early fortunes of Kuwait were not so much made in trade but in shipping and seafaring.52 In due course, of course, profits from pearling and shipping were not just ploughed back into the business itself and into the building of socially appropriate residences, but also into commerce, real estate and landed property. The al-Sabahs led the way by investing in large holdings of date plantations in southern Iraq which were, at least partly, designed to make them more independent from the commercial fortunes of Kuwait and the wishes of the city’s leading merchants. Nevertheless, maritime business continued to be the dominant factor in Kuwait’s life and outlook. By the early twentieth century Kuwait had expanded so far that fourteen merchants could be classified as ‘wealthy’, i.e. possessing a capital of over 25,000 Rupees (c. £2,000). Ten of these were Arab, two Persian and another two Jewish. While the latter two, however, had accumulated their capital in local trade, the former twelve were all involved in ‘general trade’.53 Significantly, and by sharp contrast with virtually all other port cities in the Gulf region,54 such as Masqat,55 Bushire, Bahrain and Basrah, there were no Indian merchants at Kuwait.56 Although an increasing share of its imports was drawn from India, especially after the establishment of a direct steamer

service from Bombay and Karachi, commercial control over these links remained firmly in the hands of the Kuwaiti merchants themselves. As late as 1936, Shaikh Ahmad showed his aversion to the settlement of prosperous Indians, specifically because he feared Indians would drive indigenous merchants out of business which, in turn, would cause severe political tensions between him and the commercial elite of Kuwait.57 His policy stood in sharp contrast to the ‘free entry’ policy followed by Bahrain, Muscat and the Trucial shaikhdoms. Significantly, when it came to the importation of Indian labour for the new oil fields, Ahmad held no such objections. There also were no European business establishments, besides the agency of BISN and, much later, that of Cable and Wireless. An attempt by the German firm of Robert Wönckhaus & Co,58 independent merchants and agents for the powerful and politicallymotivated Hamburg-America Line, to establish a branch at Kuwait was thwarted by Amir Mubarak who did not want to endanger his good relationship with the British.59 The tiny number of Westerners at Kuwait comprised mainly the British Political Agent, who from 1904 represented the interests of Britain as well as British India, and the small group of Americans (and the occasional Britisher, like Dr C.S.G. Mylrea) who staffed the American Mission.60 The Political Agent’s position was directly related to Britain’s overwhelming interest in Kuwait’s port, as was the post-office which grew from it. In the 1930s the weekly service of Imperial Airways through Kuwait did not lead to the establishment of an agency and the only other Westerners who stayed for more than a brief sojourn were those who, like Haji Abdullah Williamson, Major Frank Holmes and his rival, Archie Chisholm, were involved in the search for oil and oil concessions. By the late 1930s, their success was beginning to add a new dimension to the Kuwaiti economy and, with that, to the state’s financial and social life. As most of the oil business was transacted well away from the city, however, as yet little of its impact was felt there. Amongst retail traders and small-scale merchants Persians were also well represented, but besides them there were also some smaller minority groups. As so many other cities in the Middle East, Kuwait had a small Jewish community. By the early 20th century it counted between 100 and 200 members who probably descended from the large Jewish community of Baghdad. Two amongst them were wealthy merchants, others goldsmiths and cloth retailers. Some were ‘notorious chiefly for the distillation of spirituous liquors’,61 a practice which was never effectively prosecuted and thus added to Kuwait’s reputation as a relatively libertarian society. Finally, two Armenians lived at Kuwait, sole representatives of the Asia-wide diaspora of that particular ethnic group which largely devoted its energies to trading and other service activities. It was, of course, not only the existence of merchants and traders which testified to Kuwait’s commercial and maritime role. An occupational census taken in 1904 enumerated a multitude of professions which any city of the size of Kuwait would have

required, such as leather workers, tailors, quiltmakers, haberdasherers, bakers, butchers, ghi sellers, fruiterers and tobacconists. But there were also many others whose businesses in either their number and/or specialization derived directly from and, at the same time, contributed to Kuwait’s port city function: 36 dealers in piece goods, 21 goldsmiths, 11 blacksmiths, 12 tinsmiths, 11 fishmongers, 32 date merchants, 24 rice merchants, 15 wheat dealers, 2 oil pressers, 147 grocers and druggists, and 132 ‘dealers in Beduin requisites (such as carpets, cheap ‘Abas or cloaks, nails, horse shoes, lead and shot)’.62 There were, moreover, no fewer than 35 male and 32 female brokers of private goods on commission who had fixed places of business, 12 tea shops, 7 cafes, 70 business offices, 250 warehouses for the storage of grain and 6 stores for the material needed for oil pressing. A few years later, a totally different business opened which, however spiritual in purpose, just as much derived its location in Kuwait from the city’s port function: the American Mission’s bible shop.63 Many of the business establishments mentioned were small-scale with only a handful of employees. But the maritime pillars of Kuwait’s economy were extremely labour-intensive and throughout this period accounted for the bulk of its working population. They gave employment to some 300 ships’ carpenters who annually, with the assistance of uncounted general labourers, built 20 to 25 boats and ships.64 The fleets of fishing boats, pearlers and merchantmen required hundreds of nakhodahs to command their vessels and many thousands more to sail them (although there was rationalization as a number of deep-sea sailors joined the warm-season pearling). Lorimer estimated that over 9,000 Kuwaitis were involved in pearling.65 Villiers observed, in 1939, that 10,000 alone were employed in the deep-sea trade, when Kuwait’s total population was about 70,000.66 The other main field of employment was Kuwait’s port and market. All cargoes were loaded and discharged by hand and many thousands eked out their existence as wharf labourers, water carriers and general porters. A clear majority of Kuwaiti adult males found their calling at or on the water. It is difficult to establish how many Kuwaitis were involved in the caravans which connected the city with its Arabian hinterland. Most probably, while they may have been numerous amongst the donkey-men and other stockmen inside the city, they formed but a tiny fraction of the carrying industry of the desert which was largely controlled by Beduin tribes from the interior who, in turn, formed just a negligible part of the city’s work force.67 The ethnic composition of Kuwait reflected partly its location, partly its character as a port city and partly the fact that in times of expansion the indigenous labour force was insufficient to meet demand and had to be supplemented by immigrants who arrived, virtually without exception, along the trade routes linking Kuwait with its well-established hinterland and foreland. Of the population at large, throughout the period, by far the greater part was and remained Arab. Most of these were native-born and descended from the first settlers, but there were also some more recent immigrants

who had travelled to Kuwait along the trade routes from southern Iraq, Bahrain, Hasa and the interior of Nejd. This applied, in the first instance, to the leaders of Kuwait’s economy and, here, the significant presence of southern Iraqis, Persians and Jews amongst the city’s merchants and shopkeepers has already been noted. A special group of Arab immigrants was the almost ‘aquatic’ Jana’at tribe which had come from Bahrain and were occupied as merchants, sailors and boatmen.68 Two non-Arab communities became numerically important in the general population during the latter half of the 19th century: Persians and black Africans. While the former originated from Kuwait’s immediate hinterland across the Gulf, the Africans hailed from the city’s foreland. By the early twentieth century the Persians numbered about 1,000 and were represented across the full economic spectrum of the city, including a good number of merchants, over 100 shop-keepers and several hundreds of general labourers. The wealth of the leading Persian merchants was matched by the expenditure at Kuwait of Shaikh Khaz’al al-Khan of Muhammerah in Arabistan who in the 1890s chose Kuwait as the location for his summer residence.69 The number of Persians increased rapidly after 1910 and by 1926–7 it reached the 10,000 mark.70 It seems that most were employed on land, as porters, dock labourers, water carriers and in other unskilled but physically demanding jobs.71 In this they worked probably side by side with those blacks who were not in domestic employment. Africans, of course, had almost exclusively come involuntarily, as slaves from East Africa. Black slaves had been brought to the Gulf region for many centuries, but they probably did not become a significant factor in Kuwait itself until Kuwaiti ships established direct relations with the east African coast during the second half of the nineteenth century. At least, this is suggested by the absence of references to them in earlier accounts and by Lorimer’s description of their situation: ‘The negroes are a very conspicuous element in the population; they number about 4,000 altogether, and have social clubs of their own which are distinguished by peculiar sky-signs; about one-third are Ma’tuq or emancipated, while two-thirds ar Mamluk or enslaved.’72 If they had arrived much earlier, there would most likely already have been at least a limited degree of racial mixing, as was so prominent a feature in other Arabian port cities such as Aden, Jiddah or Masqat. Soon, also in Kuwait there was a considerable amount of Arab concubinage with black women,73 but as a group the blacks remained, until well beyond the period under discussion, an underclass serving as soldiers, sailors, porters and general labourers. Significantly, virtually the only blacks figuring in the texts and photographs of books dealing with Kuwaiti society were members of the amir’s bodyguard.74 An integral and often characteristic part of the social life of Kuwait, as of that of other port cities, was the presence of temporary residents. Some of these were members of foreign merchant communities and institutions such as the British Political Agency and the American Mission, others were short-term visitors from the city’s

hinterland and umland whose business was directly related to its port and market. Thus, besides the Beduin under Kuwait’s own authority making their regular purchases there were always Nejdis and other central Arabian merchants, camel drivers and travellers in transit. Every season there also was a considerable number of Beduin from Nejd (besides others from southern Iraq and Persians) who sought work on the pearling fleet.75 As a result, Kuwait throughout the year had a fluctuating number of Arabs from the interior as well as Persian and Arab seamen from elsewhere in the Gulf as visitors, all of whom added considerable variety to its ambience. Cosmopolitan would be too grand a word for the mixture of ethnic groups achieved in this way, but it made Kuwait stand out in sharp contrast to, for example, the desert and oasis towns of central Arabia. Of an even more temporary nature was the presence at Mubarak’s court of ‘Levantine’ musicians and dancing girls from Basrah.76 The main reasons for people’s permanent or temporary moves to Kuwait were material, but there is no doubt that Kuwait’s political climate was congenial to the conduct of trade and tolerant to the cultural practices of foreigners. Often quoted are Palgrave’s words which, albeit not based on personal observation, reflected general opinion in the Gulf:77 [Kuwait’s] chief … enjoys a high reputation both at home and abroad, thanks to good administration and prudent policy; the import duties are low, the climate healthy, the inhabitants friendly, and these circumstances, joined to a tolerable roadstead and a better anchorage than most in the neighbourhood, draw to Koweyt hundreds of small craft which else would enter the ports of AbooShahr or Basrah. But equally important was, as Palgrave next remarked, that the Sunni people of Kuwait were ‘tolerant to others and not over-rigid to themselves; Wahhabeeism is carefully proscribed, and all the efforts of Nejed have never succeeded in making one single proselyte at Kuweyt.’ With extremists kept at bay, Shfites from Persia, Bahrain and Hasa were as welcome as Sunnis from there and elsewhere. Too few sources are available to testify in detail about the religious routine and outlook of Kuwait’s rulers and merchants, but several significant indicators, besides the resistance to Wahhabism, demonstrate the more pragmatic attitude which so often is the corollary of maritimecommercial environments. Perhaps the most dramatic testimony was the presence of the American Mission and the apparently trouble-free relations between the few Christian foreigners and Kuwait’s population, whilst the continued incidence of illicit liquor-distilling is of more than anecdotal significance. Of more profound importance, however, was the small influence played in Kuwaiti affairs by its ulama,78 the little interest displayed for the hajj in Kuwait (although the figure of hajis quoted by Lorimer was certainly depressed as a result of the fighting then taking place in Nejd),79 and the,

literally, low profile of the numerous mosques in Kuwait.

Political culture The tolerant ways of Kuwait were as much a product of the promotional policies of successive amirs as the city’s favourable tariff and its general legal and business climate. Crucial to an understanding of Kuwaiti politics is, indeed, the relationship between the al-Sabahs and the leaders of the city’s merchant community. Although the legitimacy of the al-Sabahs as rulers of Kuwait was never seriously contested, the position of the amir resembled far more that of primus inter pares or as ‘prince amongst merchants’ (in view of their own limited participation in trade and shipping a more appropriate description than Risso’s ‘merchant-prince’)80 than that of autocratic rulers. It was clearly understood that no amir could rule absolutely and harm the interests of Kuwait’s maritime and commercial elite. There were always enough male members available in the al-Sabah family to make the position of any amir potentially vulnerable while, conversely, the murderous accession to the throne by Shaikh Mubarak was legitimized by his reversal of the pro-Turkish policies of his brothers and, subsequently, his success in promoting the interests of his ‘state’ and its leading inhabitants – a policy of which the gaining of British ‘protection’ was an integral part. Crucial to the formulation and implementation of such commerce-friendly policies was a close understanding between amir and merchants.81 Such a de facto political partnership could never be permanently stable and always contained inherent tensions as the amirs naturally tended to autocratic rule. By contrast, the merchants’ position implied a form of oligarchic democracy, in which there was, of course, no general suffrage but a process of consultation with the leaders of society which was not merely nominal but actually conductive to the adoption of the policies they desired to see in place. Thus, the Kuwaiti political system represented a delicate balance between the inclinations and requirements of the amirs, on the one hand, and those of the merchants, on the other. From all accounts it appears that an effective working relationship existed between the al-Sabahs and Kuwait’s leading families, which only began to show signs of stress when Muhammad (1892–6) began to adopt strongly proTurkish policies which, it was feared, would lead to the incorporation of Kuwait into the Turkish Empire and, with that, the strangulation of its maritime and commercial wealth.82 Ironically, the most serious troubles came under Shaikh Mubarak (1896–1915), Muhammad’s half-brother who so decisively kept Kuwait out of Turkish hands. Zahlan has suggested that, during the period of consensus, the merchants waxed rich, while the al-Sabahs were not able to reap financial gains from the expansion of Kuwait’s economy and that, when the amirs found financial independence in their date plantation of the Fao peninsula, they could afford to distance themselves from the

political demands of their wealthier subjects.83 While this explanation is plausible and, up to a point, acceptable, it overlooks the fact that opposition to Mubarak did not arise until he began to levy heavy taxes on the Kuwaiti merchants – an obvious sign that his private income was no longer sufficient to ensure a greater degree of political independence. Closer to the events of the time, Lorimer observed that Mubarak’s objectionable taxing policies were more inspired by his spending needs and, especially, his craving for an expensive steam yacht,84 than by a conscious policy designed to shift the balance of internal power in his favour. There is much to commend this view, as Mubarak had, until then and as the commercial turnover of Kuwait increased rapidly, fully enjoyed the support of the mercantile élite for his economic policies and his deft playing of ‘the British card’. Even so, it seems undeniable that the forceful Mubarak, who came to the throne by murdering two of his half-brothers and presenting himself boldly after the act to the daily majlis, desired to shift the balance of power between himself and the merchants and thus to establish a more autocratic form of régime. As long as he maintained the traditional majlis, did not change Kuwait’s fiscal régime and produced results, the merchants did not need or wish to oppose him, but when he suddenly imposed his draconian tax on buildings, such acquiescence was bound to end. The reasons for Mubarak’s new fiscal policy may indeed have partly resided in his enthusiasm for steam launches. But, above all, they were related to his regional and territorial ambitions – in which he was encouraged by both the rise of Kuwait to economic prominence and his ‘special relationship’ with the British. At one stage, Mubarak even proposed a broad division of northeastern Arabia between himself, Ibn Rashid of the Jabal Shammar and Ibn Sa’ud, his former protégé and the future king of united Sa’udi Arabia.85 In short, instead of being satisfied with playing the role of primus inter pares of an oligarchic maritime republic, Mubarak began to view himself as a dynastic ruler whose destiny lay in Kuwait’s Arabian hinterland rather than in the fostering of the port city’s maritime economy. In 1910 Mubarak’s ‘continued … tyranny [and] demands for money’, which resulted from this expensive adventurism, induced Kuwait’s leading towashis (pearl merchants) not to return from the pearl banks to the city and to take their boats and sailors to Bahrain.86 Their permanent removal would, indeed, have been an economic disaster for Kuwait: the four leaders alone were estimated to be worth 250,000 to 300,000 Rupees and to control directly or indirectly 250 to 300 boats with 6,000 to 8,000 men.87 Mubarak, in the end, was able to persuade them to return but, significantly, only after disbanding his raiding party of camel men and thus signalling his retreat from territorial ambitions. Any restoration of the previous confidence and consensus, however, was not to be easily achieved. Matters came to a head during the rule of Mubarak’s second successor, Salim (1917–21), when political conditions in the region were extremely turbulent and the future of Kuwait correspondingly uncertain. Whilst the city’s Persian merchants complained that, for the first time, Shi’ites were being discriminated against, Arab

merchants were also greatly dissatisfied. The reasons for their opposition lay in both Salim’s commercial policy and his general maladministration. He may have had similar territorial ambitions as Mubarak (which may also explain his pro-Sunni leanings) and was more empathetic with the Beduin under his control than with the merchants whose various demands he thoroughly resented.88 Soon, however, the campaign of the Wahhabi Ikhwan against Kuwait overshadowed all other events. On 11 October 1920 this culminated in the battle of Jahrah, which, ironically, was won for Kuwait by the despatch, on one of Mubarak’s steam launches, of the kind of reinforcements which only its resources as a port city could have produced: ‘Persian coolies and “catch-’emalivoes” of all description.’89 Needless to say, had the battle brought defeat instead of victory, Kuwait would henceforth have been an integral part of Ibn Sa’ud’s domains. After the death of Salim, in 1921, the merchants insisted on a formal change in Kuwait’s political balance. Before the al-Sabahs could decide on Salim’s successor, the merchants demanded the introduction of a form of constitutional government through the election of a council, composed of members of the al-Sabah family and citizens of Kuwait, which was to advise the new amir on the conduct of national affairs.90 Before his accession, the leading contender for the succession, Ahmad al-Jabir (1921–50) accepted the terms of the merchants. The advisory council was duly formed, under the chairmanship of prominent merchant and dhow-owner, Abdullah al-Saqar. Ahmad, however, largely ignored the council and continued to dispense ‘personal justice in the market-place.’91 That his behaviour did not lead to large-scale trouble was only partly due to the economic troubles which hit Kuwait and which have been outlined earlier: Ibn Sa’ud’s blockade and the collapse of the international pearl market. More important was the performance of Ahmad’s popular nephew and future successor, Shaikh Abdullah, as a de facto prime minister and trouble-shooter. But, during the later 1930s, conflict once again broke out between the amir and the merchants. The opposition of the merchants against the immigration of Indian merchants from Iran has already been mentioned earlier; Ahmad refused to countenance such a move because of the harm it could inflict on the interests of Kuwaiti merchants. Another contentious issue was the importation of Indian tea, which in early 1938 led to a petition signed by sixteen merchants.92 Many other factors, including the Palestinian question and Italian anti-British propaganda, had by that time destabilized Kuwait’s political scene and thoroughly soured the relationship between Ahmad and the merchants. It would go too far here to discuss the details of the movement leading, in 1938, to the establishment of the Kuwait Administrative Council.93 But what must be stressed is that this majlis represented the city’s mercantile elite with members such as Muhammad bin Shahin al-Ghanim, Shaikh Yusuf bin Issa (head of the Jana’at tribe), Abdul-Latif al-Thunayyan al-Ghanim, Abdallah bin Hamad al-Saqar, Khalid AbdulLatif al-Hamad, and Mishari Hasan al-Badr.94 During the six months of its existence the

Council (composed of ‘experienced men, used to weighing commercial enterprises, and conducting the affairs of their large families’)95 embodied the true beginnings of what Ibn Sa’ud termed ‘encroaching, and uncontrolled, democracy in Arabia’.96 It passed a remarkable array of reform measures, most of which were designed to liberalize and facilitate trade and transport and to stamp out corrupt practices.97 Some of these measures also signified the modernist outlook of the merchants, such as the opening of Kuwait’s first school for girls and permission to play radios in public places. The very fact, however, that the Council represented only the families and followers of the Sunni commercial and social elite of the city (it had been elected by a 150-man strong assembly of Kuwait notables) was its downfall. Ahmad was able to use the loyalty of his own supporters as well as the concern of Kuwait’s moderates and 25,000 Shi’ites and, by late 1938, he dissolved the Council. It was replaced, through a slightly more general election, by a body of twenty members who, however, included no fewer than twelve members of the previous Council. Using the new Council’s refusal to accept his draft constitution and the intrigues of some council members with pro-Iraqi elements, Ahmad then dissolved this second council and replaced it with a nominated and purely advisory council. Before the nature and stability of the new balance of power could be tested, World War II intervened. The purpose of this cursory overview of the fluctuating political relationship between Kuwait’s amir and merchants is to suggest that Kuwait’s identity as an autonomous port city had extremely significant consequences for its political life. While the merchants, with the exception of the few who during the winter of 1938/39 worked for annexation to Iraq,98 never challenged the legitimacy of al-Sabah rule, the amirs were always understood to follow policies which were based on a clear understanding of the dynamics and interests of Kuwait’s maritime and commercial leaders. It was the latter who, in the absence of any other economic players of significance, could compellingly determine the city’s political economy. As long as their interests were served, the merchants accepted traditional forms of autocratic rule but, as their rebellion against Mubarak showed, they were not prepared to accept fiscal and dynastic policies which, directly or indirectly, threatened these interests. Even if, in 1938/39, their direct grab for power failed, because the amir was able to mobilize support amongst the urban populace and the Beduin for his position, the democratic tendency in Kuwait – however oligarchic at this stage – was sufficiently strong and so much an integral part of the city’s political culture that, on Britain’s departure in 1961, a National Assembly became part of the new dawlat’s constitutional structure. As Bahrain,99 Kuwait before the oil era (and, in different modes, afterwards as well) was the stage for a continuous tussle between ruler and economic elite in which the latter held much of the real power in the polity.

Morphology The physical configuration and appearance of Kuwait was, above all, the product of its ecology, local Arab architectural traditions and style, and the spatial requirements of its maritime economy. The favourable combination of its site and situation – the availability of a good natural harbour in a strategically favourable position in the northern part of the Gulf – had determined the original choice of Kuwait’s location and remained the city’s raison d’être. These qualities had more than compensated for its numerous deficiencies, amongst which the lack of water and timber were the most severe. The off-shore waters at Kuwait, however, were deep enough to allow access by the largest booms and bagghalas. Without that access Kuwait could not have existed and grown into the region’s maritime centre. Equally, Kuwait’s morphology was determined by the specific location and configuration of the harbour on the southern shore of Kuwait Bay. The most immediate consequence was that the shimaal, the predominant northerly wind of the region, came to Kuwait across the water. In winter Kuwait Bay’s width was insufficient to temper the wind’s bitter coldness, but in summer it had a cooling effect which made Kuwait more attractive than other ports in the region. At all times, however, the shimaal spread the smells of the seafront throughout the city, amongst which not so much the salty spray but the fish oil of the shipyards and the excrement on the beach were dominant. It is not surprising that the amir’s Dasman Palace was built at the easterly end of the city. With the waterfront as its baseline, urban Kuwait grew southward into the interior in the shape of a rough oval. As maritime activity expanded, so did the baseline, the urban population and the city itself. Starting from the beach, three morphological sectors can be distinguished: the seafront itself; the roofed suq with its many specialist markets and multitude of shops and, adjacent to it, the permanent residential area where most Kuwaitis lived; and the outer area with the open market and the mostly temporary dwellings for immigrant workers and visiting Beduin.100 The focal point of this early urban development was the amir’s old Sif Palace, situated in the middle of the waterfront beside his own wharf and the Customs House. Originally, a wall with seven gates had surrounded Kuwait, but in the city’s expansionary surge during the late nineteenth century it was demolished. To relieve the demographic pressures on the old centre, Shaikh Mubarak made land freely available to speculators for new housing construction. It was these buildings which were the main subject of the fiscal conflict between him and the merchants who, of course, were the major beneficiaries of this real-estate boom. The Ikhwan scare of 1920, however, led to the fast-tracked building of a second, almost semi-circular, wall of much greater length. From beach to beach it ran for about five miles and was pierced by four main gates. This wall, in turn, fell victim to modernization in the early 1950s and, as has happened with so many urban

fortifications elsewhere in the world, made its permanent mark on the shape of Kuwait by becoming the site of the city’s first ring road and inner green belt. Besides the palaces and residences of the shaikhs the main public buildings in Kuwait were its mosques.101 Their denominational distribution reflected that of Kuwait’s population itself. As the great majority of the Kuwaitis were Sunnis, so most of the city’s mosques (by the 1930s over sixty) belonged to that community. Immigrants from Bahrain, Hasa, Iraq and Persia in the course of time built about a dozen mosques for their Shi’ite communities. The old mosques of Kuwait were largely of the design which was customary in Arabia and Iraq and not even the jamis, or Friday congregational mosques, had ‘any architectural pretensions’.102 They had prayer halls with roofs supported by timber pillars and a columned porch opening up to a courtyard. Epstein has suggested that the lack of ornamentation in Kuwait’s mosques was due to the very strong influence of the Wahhabis,103 but he stands alone with this opinion. It is far more likely that this austerity was caused by the more tolerant and utilitarian outlook of the otherwise profoundly devout Kuwaitis. Indeed, as Palgrave had recorded,104 at least until the 1860s Wahhabism had been specifically proscribed. This outlook was not only apparent in the relative unimportance of Kuwait’s Sunni ulama and the tolerance shown to Shi’ites and others in the city, but also found expression in the design of the mosques’ minarets. These were such low structures that they were hardly visible above the houses of the city. Not even Kuwait’s great mosque, close to the suq, possessed a dome or prominent minaret; instead, it had a kind of architraved gate-tower over its entrance. The dimensions of Kuwait’s waterfront (the sif) were largely determined by the space needed for its sailing vessels and the yards where these were built and repaired. Around 1800 perhaps no more than one km long, the waterfront – the baseline of the town – gradually increased in span. Raunkiaer estimated it to be two km long and by World War II it extended for more than three km.105 Shoal water extended off Kuwait for about a mile and at low tide the landing of goods and passengers was most cumbersome. At high tide, by contrast, the water almost washed up to the houses on the beach front. A number of low coral walls acted as breakwaters and thus created tidal basins in which bobbed the dhows and other craft which had not been hauled onto the shore.106 There were many wharves, the largest that of the amir, which covered about an acre of land and was situated besides the Customs House. Little can surpass the evocative qualities of Villiers’ description of Kuwait in June 1939:107

Figure 6.1 Aerial view of Kuwait, c. 2950 All along the waterfront running east and west along the shore of the shallow bay … almost from wall to wall of the town, the big ships and the little ships jostle one another. On the beach, on the tidal flats, and in the sea they lie cheek by jowl. Long lines of them stand behind stone breakwaters facing the sea, six or eight in a row, square on their long keels with their bows pointing to the sea, their rudders unshipped, their sides skirted and their decks protected with mats. The big ships stand on the tidal flats and the small ships high and dry on the beach. But the seafront was as much human as it was material: here could be witnessed ‘the craftmanship and sheer hard labour which had gone into making and maintaining Kuwait as the finest boat-building port of the Gulf’.108 On the datshas (benches made out of mud, timber, or stone and mortar) in front of their homes the sea captains during the season engaged or paid off their crews, and at all times old sailors sat reminiscing, gazing out to sea and commenting on the bustle around them.109 A few miles further west was Shuwaikh harbour, in the shelter of Qurain island, which the British at one stage leased as the projected terminal of the Berlin-Baghdad-Gulf railway. In due course the location of Kuwait’s modern general cargo port, it was until then only used by fishermen. Along the beach ran the sandy road which, after World War II, was transformed into Arabian Gulf Street. Usually cluttered with all kinds of gear, sails, ropes and other

materials, its land side was built up with both numerous godowns, warehouses and stores and also many private houses. Mixing small and large, the latter belonged to boatbuilders, sailors and fishermen as well as prosperous merchants, shipowners and nakhodahs. Indeed, with the exception of some of the palaces and residences of the alSabah family, the largest houses of Kuwait were all built on the sea front.110 They belonged to merchants like Yusuf al-Badr, the wealthy exporter of horses who, in the 1860s, received regular social visits from Amir Sabah (II) and where town and desert Arabs called without ceremony,111 the al-Hamad and al-Ghanim families or nakhodahs like Shaikh Abdul-Qarim al-Nejdi, who commanded the dhow on which Villiers travelled. Bait al-Badr, built around 1840 and only slightly younger than Kuwait’s oldest preserved house, Bait al-Nasf, later became Kuwait’s National Museum. Two houses of the al-Ghanims had originally been palaces built by Mubarak’s friend, Shaikh Khaz’al of Muhammerah. A significant facet of Kuwait’s social life and built-up environment was the large number of its coffee and tea houses. Many of these were on the waterfront and constituted ‘one of the most characteristic features of life in Kuwait before oil’.112 Others were located in the market area, including one where, according to Raunkiaer, the ‘high society’ of Kuwait used to meet to drink their coffee and tea and smoke their waterpipes.113 The suq, Kuwait’s covered market, was the central part of the old city. Located directly behind the seafront, it was full of many narrow and twisting lanes. Unfortunately, the street plan of old Kuwait has never been recorded,114 but an impression can be gained from the few aerial photographs still in existence.115 The layout of Kuwait indeed resembled that of many other towns and cities in the area but its market function, and in particular the immense volume of traffic generated by the market, may well have given it a unique ambience. In 1912, according to Raunkiaer, Kuwait’s ‘streets and lanes…. vary from two to six metres broad and in the main are laid out at right angles to the coast, with little-frequented linking crossways, and by Oriental standards are not particularly crooked.’116

Figure 6.2 Kuwait waterfront, c. 1950

Figure 6.3 Kuwait, the city wall just before demolition In their general appearance, Kuwaiti houses had no features which distinguished

them significantly from those in other urban centres in the region. The largest houses contained several courtyards. The Bait al-Badr counted five: the reception court, adjacent to the men’s reception room; the living or family court; the business court; and, finally, the kitchen and animal courts.117 Here the extended families with their many servants and slaves lived and worked. By contrast to many other cities in the Middle East Kuwait’s prominent houses very rarely had more than one storey; if there was a second storey, it usually contained only a single room.118 Smaller houses on the beach road or in the innercity typically had one courtyard, around which domestic life evolved. On the streetside, most houses offered white-washed bare walls with one or two entrance gates or doors. As a result of Kuwait’s relatively more favourable local climate, the use of wind-catchers was less prominent there than in other Gulf or Red Sea towns.119 All houses had flat roofs, surrounded mostly by parapet-walls from which long gutter pipes protruded across the street. Equally typically, the outer corners of Kuwaiti roofs formed triangular, cat’s ear shaped, projections.120

Figure 6.4 Kuwait tea house, c. 1950 In many respects the Kuwaiti townscape hardly differed from that of Arabia and the region as a whole. But, as the example of its roofs suggests, there were some distinguishing details which made its buildings stand out. Partly this was due to dire necessity, partly to taste. As much as possible, Kuwaiti builders used local materials. While the larger houses usually incorporated some coral, of which far less was available than, for example, in Jiddah, the walls of most homes were constructed of baked mud bricks held together with a mortar and plaster made of locally-found and burned gypsum. The clay for the houses was dug out at random from the area south and east of the city where ‘in consequence the ground is all uneven and full of holes.’121

But all building timber had to be imported from Kuwait’s forelands: teak from India for pillars, and mangrove poles from East Africa for roofs. The size of the latter poles effectively determined the maximum width of Kuwaiti rooms.122 The roofs were constructed with Iraqi date mats and thick layers of baked mud and plaster over the mangrove poles. In consequence of the use of baked mud, Kuwaiti houses were extremely vulnerable in heavy rain; hence the long spouts which characterized the streets and lanes of the city and which were intended to drain maximum quantities of water from the roofs (these roofs, actually, were not flat but slightly sloping). Nevertheless, in heavy and prolonged rain, neither roofs nor walls stood up. In one such downpour, as late as 1937, some 2,000 houses collapsed.123 Equally characteristic for Kuwait was the style of its front doors – the public face of the houses whose inhabitants’ privacy they protected.124 Constructed of vertical teak planks, they were held together by horizontal crossbars on the inside. The planks were fastened by closely-spaced heavy nails with dome-shaped bosses on the outside. The nails were struck in particular patterns, usually consisting of five horizontal rows, each ending in a flower-like cluster of four bosses. Further, the doors were richly decorated with carvings of, again, unique patterns and representations. By contrast to, for example, the Turkish impact in Baghdad or Indian influences on the doors of Jiddah, Kuwait’s indigenous traditions gave this active trading centre its own distinct identity. Inevitably, there were also influences from Kuwait’s maritime hinterland and foreland as materials and cultural goods were imported from abroad and immigrants did not entirely forsake their own traditions. One house on the waterfront revealed its Bahraini origins with a distinct roof room and gallery.125 The influx of Persians led to other variations in design, such as those represented in the two surviving houses of Shaikh Khaz’al.126 The British Political Agency, based on an Indian design, and the American Mission clearly stood out as foreign cultural implants. Indian teak, as opposed to East African mangrove poles, provided the structural support for larger buildings and rooms, such as the suq, the halls of mosques and the reception room of the amir’s palace. These overseas influences were perhaps most generally present in furniture and other large household items. The main bedroom in the larger houses often had a large four-posted Indian bed, while the women’s best clothes were usually kept in a large brass-bound chest of equally Indian origins. Carpets and rugs, understandably, came largely from Persia, although some were imported from Afghanistan through Karachi.

Conclusion From the foregoing it should not be concluded that Kuwait, as a port city, was a purely maritime implant existing in splendid isolation from its surrounding territory. The Utub

and other original settlers of Kuwait, after all, were Beduin themselves and, however much their economic activity was determined by the maritime face of their city, the desert remained a strong force. In the first instance, there were the various Bedu tribes in the immediate neighbourhood who put themselves under the protection of the amirs of Kuwait; their number always made up some 10 to 20 per cent of the total population of the polity. In fact, as all the amirates of the southern Gulf testified, no urban settlement existed which did not have control over some surrounding land. But, more importantly, in Kuwait a degree of symbiosis between urban and desert dwellers and dwelling always remained in existence. Perhaps even more than the urban populations of the oases of central Arabia, for example, many Kuwaitis retained a mixed lifestyle, in which temporary sojourns in the desert alternated with residence in the port city or travel at sea and abroad. The sports and other pastimes of urban Kuwaitis retained much of their desert character, especially visible in the enthusiasm for falconry. Conversely, throughout the period the Beduin of the region remained dependent on Kuwait for their supplies and in consequence, provided a fluctuating but virtually permanent presence in the city. Amongst the Beduin arriving from the desert, there always were some who remained, if not as permanent immigrants, for temporary employment. Much of the popular culture and handicrafts of Kuwait reflected the continuous and substantial interaction between desert and sea. Nevertheless, it was the primacy of its port which gave Kuwait and Kuwaiti society its distinct character: its maritime economy; its occupational and social structure; the pattern of its immigration and ethnic-religious diversity; its religious and cultural life; its domestic and international politics; and, finally, its morphology – physical appearance and ambience. For most Kuwaitis of all classes, from the poorest coolies and fishermen to the wealthiest merchant princes, it was the combination of their maritime and urban environments which shaped their lives and attitudes. It would, of course, be foolish to insist that its identity as a port city made Kuwait totally different from other Arab or Islamic cities. In many aspects of its social and cultural life Kuwait’s distinct identity was more a matter of nuance than of a radical departure from common values and a common inheritance. Conversely, comparisons with, for example, Jiddah, Makallah, Masqat, Dohah, Bahrain or Dubai (and probably also Muhammerah) would show that maritime influences were, of course, not limited to Kuwait but existed in many other Gulf centres. Indeed, the sea was as integral an element of Arab life and society as it was of that of northwestern Europe or Southeast Asia. Yet, in the final analysis, Kuwait stands out in the pre-oil period because it, more than any other such Arabian city or community was committed to maintaining its relations with the outside world on its own terms. The extent of active shipowning and trade and the Kuwaiti opposition against incorporation into Turkish Iraq, Mubarak’s dynastic policies, the immigration of Indian merchants, and Wahhabism, provide eloquent examples of this desire for independence. Thus, Kuwait’s needs as an active port city provided the main

dynamics of its internal outlook and behaviour; as has been shown, the same factors very much determined its external relations as well. By contrast to the shaikhdoms of the lower Gulf, Kuwait entered the sphere of Britain’s imperial power and protection only at a relatively late date. That Mubarak’s acceptance of the protectorate came during Britain’s zenith as imperial power and as a result of the latter’s paranoid defence of its strategic interests against Russian or German encroachments, should not conceal the fact that, from Kuwait’s perspective, this policy was as much a part of the city’s desire for independence. It was designed as a strategy for survival: to keep both the Turks and the Arabian rulers of the interior at bay in order to maintain Kuwait’s existence and identity as a prosperous port city. Ironically, by this stage, the city’s very location in the northern Gulf which had contributed so much to making Kuwait what it was, also contained the seeds for its destruction as an independent polity. More than any of the other Gulf shaikhdoms, it lay within the spheres of expansion of several powerful territorial powers which all aspired to annex it. As the extinction of the shaikhdom of Muhammerah in the early 1920s showed, such threats to independence could never be taken lightly. During the imperial and territorial wash-up after World War I Kuwait itself had to fight off a determined challenge from the Sa’udis who in 1920 were beaten at Jahrah. Only the British-imposed Uqair settlement of 1922 forced Ibn Sa’ud to accept the legitimacy of Kuwait’s existence as an independent state, which was achieved at the expense of a considerable part of its territory. The challenge which came from Iraq during the interwar period and especially between 1938 and 1941, was of a different kind, as it rested on the spurious claim that Iraq should be regarded as the successor state to the Turkish Empire as well as on some discontent elements within Kuwait itself. In both cases, however, Kuwait’s maritime elite clearly perceived its interests and those of its port city, to be best served by continued independence. Conversely, the legitimacy of Kuwait’s political independence was rooted in its identity as a unique maritime citystate with a leadership committed to fostering both the reality and the ideology of that self-image.

Figure 6.5 Kuwait city, c. 1970. The city wall is now repalced by a green belt, surrounding the area of the pre-oil city. Its almond-shaped extension from the waterfront can still be recognized. After the discovery of oil, strong links of continuity with the past remained. Kuwait’s élite proved itself remarkably effective and capable of adapting to the requirements of the new age. Their maritime state had given them an excellent apprenticeship for financial management and pragmatic modernization. But caught between the demands of pan-Arab nationalism, popular politics and fierce local patriotism, they had to walk many tightropes to retain their legitimacy.127 Most importantly from the perspective of this essay, three elements of the Constitution of 1961 may be highlighted: the National Assembly, which was to give substance to the democratic tendencies which for so long had de facto curbed the powers of the alSabah; the adoption of the concept of the Kuwaiti state of the Arab nation with its new flag displaying the four pan-Arab colours to replace the former red flag (based on that of Turkey rather than the Kharijite red of the lower Gulf states); and, especially, the adoption of the national coat-of-arms whose dominating symbol is a dhow under full sail on the high seas. And just as much as Kuwait in the 1950s took a leading role in the transition into modern shipowning, so the collection of its National Museum and the theme of its first feature film, ‘The Cruel Sea’,128 demonstrated how much a collective memory of the maritime past was cherished and cultivated as a vital element in selfperceptions of identity. The ravages of the recent war with Iraq have done little if anything to change that situation.

NOTES 1 Significantly, also after oil Kuwait retained a great commitment to maritime enterprise and heritage, as can be seen from its enthusiastic entry into modern tanker and cargo shipping, the dhow in the coat of arms adopted by the Dawlat alKuwait in 1961, and the rich collection of its National Museum. 2 J.G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf Oman and Central Arabia (4 vols in 8, Calcutta, 1908–15; rep. London, 1970), Historical, part I B, ch. vii. 3 Peter Reeves, Frank Broeze & Kenneth McPherson, ‘Studying the Asian Port City’, in Frank Broeze, ed. Brides of the Sea. Port Cities of Asia from the 16th–20th Centuries (Sydney-Honolulu, 1989), pp. 29–53; also Rhoads Murphey, ‘On the Evolution of the Port City’, in Ibid., pp. 223–45. 4 Frank Broeze, ‘The External Dynamics of Port City Morphology: Bombay 1815– 1914’ in Indu Banga, ed. Ports and Their Hinterlands in India 1700–1950 (New Delhi, 1992), p. 245. 5 Barclay Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland on Camelback (ed. and introd. by Gerald de Gaury, London, 1969), p. 33. Cf. also S.G. Shiber, The Kuwait Urbanisation: Documentation, Analysis, Critique (Kuwait, 1964), p. 18. For a description of Makallah see H.W. Ingrams, Arabia and the Isles (London, 1942), parts i-ii; Freya Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia (London, 1936); and Alan Villiers, Sons of Sinbad (New York, 1940), ch. iii. 6 Shiber, Kuwait Urbanisation, p. 15. 7 Ibid., p. 17. Cf. G.E. Ffrench & A.G. Hill, Kuwait. Urban and Medical Ecology (Berlin, 1971), p. 17. 8 Shiber, Kuwait Urbanisation, p. 15. In fact, it was the very absence of such buildings which may well have led to the almost complete demolition of old Kuwait; contrast that with the survival and, in more recent years, the restoration of old Jiddah. 9 See, e.g., Ira M. Lepidus, ed. Middle Eastern Cities (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1969), and A.H. Hourani & S.M. Stern, eds The Islamic City (Oxford, 1970). 10 Cf. J. Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘Introduction’, in J. Kathirithamby-Wells & John Villiers, eds The Southeast Asian Port and Polity. Rise and Demise (Singapore, 1990). 11 Besides Kuwait there was, to name only the most prominent of these states, Bahrain (with the twin cities of Manamah and Muharraq), Qatar (with Dawhah), and Dubai. 12 Ffrench & Hill, Kuwait, p. 17. 13 W.G. Palgrave, Narrative of a Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862/63) (London, 1865), vol. ii, p. 386. 14 Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, ch. xviii.

15 See, e.g., H.V.F. Winstone & Zahra Freeth, Kuwait Prospect and Reality (London, 1972), p. 62; cf. B.J. Slot, The Origins of Kuwait (Leiden, 1991), p. 103. 16 Carsten Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien (ed. by D. Henze, Graz, 1969), pp. 341– 2. 17 Often depicted as ‘pirates’ these Jawasmis were most likely seafarers and traders like so many other tribes on the Arabian coast, such as the Kuwaitis, Bahrainis and especially the Omanis who were the most successful in enticing the British to assist them in their internecine rivalries. See Sultan Muhammad Al-Qasimi, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf (London, 1986). 18 Lorimer, Gazetteer, Historical, part I B, p. 1004. 19 R. Bayly Winder, Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1965), pp. 128– 9. 20 Taylor to Foreign Office, 1 May 1852, Public Record Office, FO 78/907, quoted in Hala Mundhir Fattah, The Development of the Regional Market of Iraq and the Gulf, 1800–1900, PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1986, pp. 180–1. 21 Lewis Pelly, ‘Remarks on the tribes, trade, and resources around the shoreline of the Persian Gulf’, Bombay Geographical Society Transactions, vol. 17 (1863), p. 73. 22 C.M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta (2 vols in 1, London, 1926), vol. ii, pp. 20, 46, 311–2 and 389–91. 23 Ibid., pp. 420 and 438–91. 24 Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1051; A. de L. Rush, Records of Kuwait (London, 1989), vol. 4, p. 748. 25 Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, p. xxii. 26 Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1053. 27 Ibid., p. 1057. 28 Winstone & Freeth, Kuwait, p. 94. 29 Cf. Rush, Records of Kuwait, vols 2, p. 132 (Confidential report from Political Agent at Kuwait, G.S. de Gaury, 22 May 1938), and 4, p. 762 (Report of the Economic Conditions in the Persian Gulf, April 1929). The question of the al-Sabah plantations for a long time remained a continuous point of friction between Kuwait, Iraq and the British; see Winstone & Freeth, Kuwait, pp. 111–8. 30 See Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, for a most perceptive and incisive account of the trade, based on his voyage, made in 1938–9, in the Kuwaiti boom The Triumph of Righteousness. A brief account is also contained in Rush, Records cf Kuwait, vol. 4, pp. 206–7 (Confidential report from Political Agent at Kuwait, G.S. de Gaury, 20 December 1937). 31 L. Fraser, India under Curzon and After (London, 1911), p. 102. 32 Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, p. 46. 33 Ravinder Kumar, India and the Persian Gulf Region 1858–1907 (Bombay, 1965), remains the classical study on these international problems, but see also Briton C.

34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47

48

Busch, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1894–1914 (Berkeley, 1967), and Winstone & Freeth, Kuwait, chs 4–5. Eliahu Epstein, ‘Kuwait’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, vol. 25 (1938), p. 602. Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, p. 757 and 763. Ibid., p. 759. Ibid., p. 755. Cf. also Epstein, ‘Kuwait’, p. 601. Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, p. 200; Fatimah H. al-Abdul-Razzak, Marine Resources of Kuwait (London, 1984), p. 148. Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, pp. 754 and 765; Epstein, ‘Kuwait’, p. 595; and Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, p. 358. Kuwait seems, however, not to have suffered from outbreaks of cholera and bubonic plague as happened at Bahrain, Najaf and Basrah (Ffrench & Hill, Kuwait, p. 27). See, e.g., Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1054, and Rush, Records of Kuwait, pp. 756 and 766. Ibid., p. 766; see also Winstone & Freeth, Kuwait, ch. 7. Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, p. 372. Ibid., p. 371; Winstone & Freeth, Kuwait, give a figure of 330 pearling boats for the end of the decade, but this cannot refer to the vessels in actual service. See Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, chs 7–9. Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, p. 366; cf. also Villiers’ undated report in Rush, Records of Kuwait vol. 4, p. 200–1, and Michael Field, The Merchants. The Big Business Families of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States (Woodstock, 1985), pp. 128–9. Ahmed was, evidently, deeply involved in the gold business, see Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, p. 371 (Political Agent, Kuwait, to Collector of Customs, Karachi, 7 February 1942, Confidential). Robert Stephens, The Arabs’ New Frontier (London, 1976), ch. 3. See Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, Appendix 2, for an incisive expose of the economics of the deep-sea dhow trade. For a discussion of similar conditions in the pearling industry see Lorimer, Gazetteer, Historical, I B, pp. 2232–40, and Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, ch. xix. Villiers’ account of the financial affairs of the Kuwaiti merchantshipowners was, apparently, so revealing of the manner in which the nakhodahs were financially dependent on the merchants that several of the latter, despite the obvious appeal of his book to them as an empathetic explanation of Arab society to Western readers, were less than happy with it on that score (Personal communication from Mr Cliff Hawkins, Auckland, New Zealand). H.R.P. Dickson, Kuwait and her Neighbours (London, 1956), pp. 40–1; Winstone & Freeth, Kuwait, p. 94; Rosemary Said Zahlan, The Making of the Modern Gulf States (London, 1989), p. 25; and Michael Field, A Hundred Million Dollars a Day (London, 1975), p. 94. Cf. also the lists used in Abdul-Reda Assiri and Kamal al-

49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56

57 58

59 60

Monoufi, ‘Kuwait’s Political £lite: The Cabinet’, Middle East Journal, vol. 41 (1987), pp. 48–58. Dickson, Kuwait and her Neighbours, pp. 255 and 327. See also Violet Dickson, Forty Years in Kuwait (London, 1971), p. 101. Hilal’s ‘rags to riches’ story is told in Zahra Freeth, Kuwait Was My Home (London, 1956), pp. 102–3. Here I disagree with Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge, 1990), p. 39. Field, Hundred Million Dollars, p. 94; for prominent maritime entrepreneurs of preoil Kuwait see, e.g., Freeth, Kuwait Was My Home, pp. 56 (Abdul Wahhab alQatimi), 105 (Ali al-Shahin), and 105–6 (Haji Ahmad, the Shi’ite shipbuilder). It is probably because of that reason, too, that after World War I no new families gained access to Kuwait’s élite. Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1055. In Dawhah, Qatar, the entry of the el-Thani rulers into pearling buying had put an end to the business of the Indian merchants established there (Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II A, p. 490). Calvin H. Allen, ‘The Indian Merchant Community of Masqat’, Bull-etin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 44 (1981), pp. 39–53; also Patricia Risso, ‘Muslim Identity in Maritime Trade: General Observations and Some Evidence from the 18th-Century Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean Region’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 21 (1989), p. 387, and R.G. Landen, Oman since 1856 (Princeton, 1966), pp. 143–4. The only Indian with a commercial occupation was the manager of the Kuwaiti branch of Gray Paul & Co, the local agents of the British India Steam Navigation Company, the ‘capable young Sindhi Muhammadan, named Mirza Muhammad, who speaks English and Persian fluently and is rapidly acquiring Arabic while Hindustani is his mother tongue.’ (Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, p. 745 [Notes on Kuwait harbour prepared by Political Agent, Kuwait]). Ibid. pp. 710–7; the immediate cause of the issue arising was the pressures in Iran and Iraq on resident Indian merchants who, in consequence, wished to relocate. E. Staley, ‘Business and Politics in the Persian Gulf: The Story of the Wonckhaus Firm’, Politics Science Quarterly, vol. 48 (1933), pp. 367–83, and Olaf Brodacki, ‘Hamburg und der Persischer Golf. Ein Kapitel wilhelminisch-deutscher Wirtschaftsgeschichte’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, vol. 77 (1991), pp. 45–76. See the correspondence reproduced in Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, pp. 699–709; cf. Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, p. 45. See Freeth, Kuwait Was My Home, ch. 7. Its full name was the Arabian Mission of the Dutch Reformed Church in America. Founded in 1889, mission posts were opened in Basrah (1891) and Bahrain (1893) before they, on the invitation of

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79

Shaikh Mubarak established a hospital in Kuwait. When Violet Dickson arrived, in 1929, there were only eleven Westerners in Kuwait (Dickson, Forty Years in Kuwait, p. 89). Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1051. Ibid., p. 1054. Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, p. 49. Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1054. Ibid, p. 2259. Villiers’ memorandum in Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, p. 201. Ibid., p. 750 (Notes on Kuwait harbour, 1907), and Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1058; cf. also the anecdote related in Freeth, Kuwait Was My Home, pp. 70–1. This is largely based on Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1051. Kuwait may, in the 17th century, have been used for similar purposes by the shaildis of the Bani Khalid, see R. Lewcock, Traditional Architecture in Kuwait and the Northern Gulf (Kuwait-London, 1978), p. 12. Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, p. 754; cf. also Ibid., vol. 2, p. 201, giving the same figure for 1938. An as-yet unresearched factor in this immigration is the failure of Mubarak’s friend Shaikh Khaz’al of Muhammerah, who as late as 1916 was a political factor of importance in the region, to maintain his political independence. By 1953, the number of Persians had mushroomed to 30,000, many arrivals coming during the previous two years, in which Iran’s then-nationalized oil industry was paralysed as a result of the boycott by the Western oil companies. See, e.g., Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, p. 353. Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1051. See, e.g., Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, p. 360. E.g., see H.V.F. Winstone, Captain Shakespear (London, 1976), ill. 7: ‘The members of Kuwait’s palace with negro guard on the roof…’, and Freeth, Kuwait Was My Home, p. 114–6. Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, pp. 40–1. Ibid., p. 38. Palgrave, Central and Eastern Arabia, p. 386. They very rarely figure in the political history of Kuwait; for one of these rare occurrences see the promise made by Shaikh Ahmad on his succession in 1921 to abide by their decisions in disputed legal cases, hardly a major concession (Zahlan, Modern Gulf States, pp. 26–7). Because of their invisibility in the sources, it is impossible to gain any clear impression of the commercial role of Kuwait’s ulama. Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1051. Cf. also Dickson, Kuwait and her Neighbours, p. 40.

80 Risso, ‘Muslim Identity in Maritime Trade’, p. 383. It was (and still is) also of far more than just symbolic importance that the al-Sabahs called themselves the ruling and not the royal family. 81 Cf. Crystal, Oil and Politics, pp. 20–1. 82 In this context, it is significant that, although Basrah was a major source of employment for Kuwaiti and other ships, Basrah merchants themselves did not own any vessels of significance. 83 Zahlan, Modern Gulf States, pp. 24–30 (based on Salem al-Jabir al-Sabah, Les émirats du Golfe: histoire d’un peuple, Beirut, n.d.), esp. pp. 25–6. 84 Lorimer, Gazetteer, Historical, I B, pp. 1047–8. 85 Ibid., p. 1044. It may be recalled that Ibn Sa’ud from 1890 to 1902 lived in exile in Kuwait. 86 Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 1, pp. 543–61. The four leaders of the opposition included the legendary Hilal al-Mutairi as well as Shamlan bin Saif and Ebrahim bin Mathaf. 87 Ibid., p. 550 (Note from the Political Agent, Kuwait, 2 September 1910). 88 Ibid., pp. 693–5 (Report by Political Agent, Kuwait, 19 September 1918). 89 Ibid., p. 708 (ms. report by Dr C.S.G. Mylrea). 90 Zahlan, Modern Gulf States, pp. 26–7; see also Crystal, Oil and Politics, pp. 41–2. 91 Ralph Hewins, A Golden Dream. The Miracle of Kuwait (London, 1963), p. 209. 92 Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, pp. 436–7 (Petition from merchants of Kuwait, 14 Dhil-Qa’ada 1356 [15 January 1938]). 93 For brief overviews see Winstone & Freeth, Kuwait, pp. 118–21, Zahlan, Modern Gulf States, pp. 27–30, and Peter Mansfield, Kuwait. Vanguard of the Gulf (London, 1990), pp. 34–6. 94 For the full list of members see Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, p. 149 (Appendix to Report, Political Agent, Kuwait, 6 July 1938). Especially significant are the descriptions given in this list of the business interests of each of the members chosen: ‘a merchant trading with India’, ‘a landowner and merchant trading with India’, ‘an importer’, ‘an owner of large sailing-ships’, ‘landlord and transport contractor’, ‘an exporter with a branch in Aden’, etc. Of the fourteen members of the Council at least seven had signed the tea petition. In a later report the British Political Agent, Captain G.S. de Gaury, made it clear that the Council consisted only of ‘townsmen merchants’ (Ibid., p. 180, 17 August 1938). 95 The judgement of De Gaury, dated 6 July 1938, in Ibid., p. 148. 96 Quoted by De Gaury, in Ibid., p. 223. 97 By November, De Gaury listed no less than 31 ‘Improvements introduced by the Kuwait Council since its formation.’ (Ibid., pp. 208–9). See also Crystal, Oil and Politics, pp. 44–55. 98 De Gaury suggested strongly that these merchants were motivated by the hope to

get out of heavy debts which they owed to Shaikh Ahmad (Confidential, 17 March 1939, in Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 2, pp. 274–5). 99 See, e.g., M.G. Rumaihi, Bahrain, Social and Political Change since the First World War (London, 1976), ch. 10. 100 See, esp., the vivid description in Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, pp. 48–9. 101 There was, from 1911, also the American Mission, while the Jewish inhabitants had a kanisah or synagogue. 102 Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, p. 1050; see also Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, p. 50, and, especially, Lewcock, Traditional Architecture, ch. 3. 103 Epstein, ‘Kuwait’, p. 597. 104 Palgrave, Central and Eastern Arabia, p. 386. 105 Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, p. 30; Dickson, Kuwait and her Neighbours, p. 37. 106 A detailed assessment of Kuwait harbour for military purposes was prepared by the British Political Agent, Colonel S.G. Knox, in 1907, see Rush, Records of Kuwait, vol. 4, pp. 731–53. For other descriptions see, e.g., Lorimer, Gazetteer, Geographical and Statistical, II B, pp. 1048–9, Freeth, Kuwait Was My Home, ch. 10, Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, ch. 18, and Zahra Freeth, A New Look at Kuwait (London, 1972), ch. 5. 107 Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, p. 352. 108 Winstone & Freeth, Kuwait, p. 93. 109 Freeth, Kuwait Was My Home, p. 105; cf. Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, p. 355. 110 Lewcock, Traditional Architecture, pp. 2 and 15. 111 G.F. Sadlier, Diary of a Journey Across Arabia (Bombay, 1866), pp. 9–10. 112 Lewcock, Traditional Architecture, p. 31. 113 Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, pp. 48 and 53–4. 114 Stephen Gardiner, Kuwait. The Making of a City (London, 1983), p. 39. 115 See, e.g, those in Shiber, Kuwait Urbanization, and Ffrench & Hill, Kuwait. 116 Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, p. 51. 117 Lewcock, Traditional Architecture, ch. 2. 118 Villiers’ nakhodah, al-Nejdi, had a fully two-storeyed house (Sons of Sinbad, p. 358). 119 Lewcock, Traditional Architecture, pp. 40–1. 120 Ibid., p. 3. 121 Raunkiaer, Through Wahhabiland, p. 51. 122 Dickson, Forty Years in Kuwait, p. 77. 123 Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, p. 358. 124 Lewcock, Traditional Architecture, pp. 36–7. See also the illustrations on pp. 88–99. 125 Ibid., pp. 66–7. 126 Ibid., pp. 34–5. 127 Cf. Michael C. Hudson, Arab Politics. The Search for Legitimacy (New Haven, 1977), ch. 1 and pp. 182–9. 128 Zahlan, Modern Gulf States, p. 67.

7

COLOMBO AND THE RE-MAKING OF CEYLON A Prototype of Colonial Asian Port Cities Rhoads Murphey Department of History University of Michigan

This is an account of how Colombo became the pre-eminent central place and service center for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), a country small enough to be transformed by overseas trade. Especially after about 1840 that island’s economy came to be dominated by the growing of commercial export crops which were shipped almost entirely through the port of Colombo. In return, Colombo spread both its commercial net and its colonial cultural model throughout the island. The story of economic transformation begins, however, already much earlier with the establishment of the first Portuguese base at Colombo in 1505, even if the process described did not acquire full momentum until the boom of plantation production under the British in the second half of the nineteenth century. Colombo was the first permanent Western foothold in Asia, slightly antedating Goa and Melaka. Although Portuguese power remained confined to Ceylon’s southwestern coast, their mercantile presence began the process of transformation which by independence in 1948 had altered the landscape and culture of the whole island more than any part of Asia was changed by interaction with the West. Less than 400 kms long and 250 km wide, it was subjected to overwhelming pressures by a series of colonial overlords for longer than any other Asian area. Moreover, the Portuguese arrived at a time when Ceylon’s domestic social order was in total disarray, its polity destroyed, and its culture and economy in retreat and confusion. Colombo was from the beginning the chief focus of this Western-managed transformation, and although it cannot be said that it was founded by Westerners, it quickly became a more thorough-going agent and representative of the Western drive for commercialization and economic development, and more dominated by Westerners and their Asian collaborators, than any of its later parallels among the colonial ports.1

As the Colombo-based drive for commercialization of the Ceylon economy progressed, with production funneled out for export through the chief (and later the only practicable) port, Colombo virtually monopolized all urban functions for the island as a whole. It became the only ‘real’ city, with the entire island as its hinterland, including the other urban places (towns) as its direct satellites. Colombo’s commercial development occurred later but in a similar manner. By far the most important trade good for the first three centuries of colonial rule was cinnamon, which in turn helps to explain why urban and port development centered on Colombo. The cinnamon tree, whose bark provides the spice, grew wild in southwestern Ceylon which was for long the major producer. It is a tree of the wet tropical forest, and in Ceylon its bark was gathered in the wild. Plantation agriculture was not introduced until much later, under the Dutch. The largest output in the 16th century came apparently from the vicinity of Colombo, although this may have been merely a reflection of local population density or surplus labor to be spared from subsistence agriculture, combined with the incentive offered by a market and willing buyers at Colombo. Colombo’s harbor was far from attractive – merely a shallow lagoon with but scant protection from the sea and fully exposed to the southwest monsoon of spring-summer. A dangerous bar posed a further hazard. This remained so until the beginnings of largescale plantation development and the growing size and draft of ocean shipping demanded better facilities, in the 1870s. Until then, an 1812 description remained appropriate: ‘Strictly speaking there is no harbor at Colombo, for the little bay which affords shelter to small craft does not deserve that name.’2 At Galle, further south near the tip of the island, there was a better natural harbor, a small bay rather than lagoon, whose entrance was protected against all but the worst monsoonal storms by rocky islets. Until the belated dredging and breakwater construction at Colombo, beginning in the 1870s,3 shipping used the two ports alternately and for several periods there was greater traffic at Galle. Cinnamon kept Colombo viable and ensured that it remained the chief commercial center for foreign as well as domestic trade, so that ships had perforce to call there despite the difficulties of the port site. This is of course a common pattern; land-sea exchange takes place where trade demands rather than where ships find it physically convenient, as even a casual listing of major ports of Asia, or of the world, will indicate: Karachi, Madras, Calcutta, Rangoon, Bangkok, Batavia-Djakarta, Shanghai, Tianjin (Tientsin), Rotterdam, Hamburg, London, Lagos, Accra, Freetown, Haifa. Surf boats and lighters serve until the volume of trade and the size of ships combine to force, and to pay the costs of, artificial harbor construction and docking facilities. This happened at Colombo once the boom in coffee and tea had gathered full momentum, with roads and railways lacing the island to concentrate its commercial flows on its one major port. It may seem a tardy response, and yet even so it was a decade earlier than the similar response at

Madras, which had all along been a larger center and with the additional stimulus of naval and Presidency needs; harbor improvements there, in the form of a nevertheless inadequate breakwater, did not begin until 1881, although Madras was even more exposed than Colombo, lacking even a small embayment and with a tiny and shallow lagoon.4 Cooum Creek, the small tidal entrance to the lagoon, was not navigable for ships of more than about fifty tons, and virtually all cargo had to be loaded and unloaded by lighter a mile or so off the the beach, as the weather permitted. As at Colombo, this meant that the port was in effect unusable during the monsoon and periodically at other times. Lighterage was still the principal means of cargo handling at Tianjin up to the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, although it had long been the second port of China and a major port by world standards of cargo volume. The Portuguese impact was heavy in the Colombo area and along the relatively narrow coastal strip of the lowland wet zone from Puttalam, on the west coastal edge of the dry zone in the north, to Galle and Matara at the southern end of the coast. Their presence as traders and overlords in this littoral area stimulated greater production and increased commercialization of cinnamon and other goods, including commodities and services for their own use, as they opened up a greatly extended market for exports overseas. The inhabitants of this coastal zone were the first to absorb and adjust to the Western impact, and their response foreshadowed in many ways not only the subsequent development of colonial Ceylon as a whole, but also the more general Asian response to Western colonialism. A very small Portuguese force had apparently minimal difficulty in sacking Kotte in 1551 but in their several efforts to conquer highland Kandy they encountered the as yet insurmountable problems of tropical disease in the wet zone jungles and the overwhelming natural advantages of the defenders, surrounded by impressive mountain walls with only a narrow pass allowing for infinite ambush opportunities along the route.

The Dutch and the British By the end of the sixteenth century the Portuguese in Asia were giving way to the rapidly rising power of the Dutch. Dutch ships were faster, more able, and more than a match for Portuguese ships, which had literally grown fat, the better to serve as carriers of loot. By the 1630s, Dutch ships dominated the Indian Ocean and were even able to blockade Goa. Ceylon was an obvious prize, the more so since Portuguese profits earned there had become notorious. Galle fell to the Dutch in 1640, Colombo, more heavily defended, in 1656, and Jaffna in 1658. The Dutch also built forts and established a permanent Western presence for the first time at Batticaloa and Trincomalee on the east coast. The Portuguese had earlier introduced papaya and manioc, New World crops from their Brazilian holdings. They had intended these as commercial crops for

export, but they contributed far more to subsistence and doubtless helped the population to begin to grow again after the lean years since the thirteenth century. Colombo and Galle were already in existence as Western-style commercial centers where for the first time profit-minded individuals could flourish, allowing a system of indigenous as well as foreign entrepreneurship to develop. The Dutch merely continued these trends, spreading their commercializing influence more widely over the island, building roads to facilitate trade flows, and establishing the first plantations for coconuts as well as for cinnamon trees. Both of these crops, and especially cinnamon, were still heavily concentrated in the Colombo area. The city as a result began to grow more substantially. New occupational groups, linked to the Dutch colonialists as servants, providers, transporters, agents and artisans supplying the growing population and rising living standards of Colombo, began to appear whose economic role and status tended to override caste origins. The Dutch too failed in their attempts to conquer the Kandyan kingdom, nor did they exercise effective control over much more than the coastal areas, though these now included the north and east as well as west coasts. And although they began the plantation system, it remained a small sector during their period of control and involved only the tiniest of areas. Massive transformation of the Ceylonese economy, landscape, and culture were not to come until the second half of the nineteenth century. The magnificent natural harbor at Trincomalee, fortified by the Dutch, was well known to the British, who saw it as ideal for their naval purposes in the Indian Ocean. The French invasion of Holland gave the British their opportunity, and in 1795 they occupied Trincomalee, subsequently taking over all the other Dutch holdings in Ceylon. Trinco never flourished as a trade center; on the edge of the dry zone, its hinterland was barren and unable even to feed its garrison. Indeed, one of the first British projects in Ceylon was the building of a road from Trinco to Colombo to bring in supplies from the far more productive southwest coast. This in turn involved the British in an effort to penetrate the Kandyan kingdom. An expedition stormed the mountain capital in 1803 but, weakened by disease, it was massacred in ambush by the Kandyans, as had happened so often before to Dutch and Portuguese. An attack in 1815 finally succeeded and British control over the entire island was further cemented by the suppression of a Kandyan rebellion in 1817–18. The British had in effect approached Ceylon by the back door, and had sought it for what soon became an irrelevant, or at least a very minor, advantage. It was recognized that Colombo, the commercial capital, was the only possible administrative capital, and it was from there that the new road pattern radiated, into the Kandyan realm and on to Trinco, and north and south along the coast. British rule drifted from these beginnings into a more direct involvement with the economy, and with the entire institutional system of the island.

The nineteenth-century transformation In the years following the establishment of complete British control and as new industrial markets and booming populations in Europe generated growing appetites for tropical products, the example of productive Dutch development of Java and the beginnings of British economic investment in India led to acceptance of the desirability of ‘opening up’ Ceylon and of putting its potential resources, as yet barely tapped, to profitable commercial use. This meant more roads, railways, and investments to stimulate the production of trade goods. Both ends of this process of penetration focused on Colombo, the source of investment, planning and management, and the funnel through which new production could be drained out for export. Ceylon was a small country and hence the more easily manipulated. It was also still remarkably thinly populated, both by comparison with the probable population total of the nineteenth century, variously estimated as about four million,5 and with the totals it proved able to support by the twentieth century. A national census was begun at the time as in India, with the first statistically reliable figures probably not until 1881, when 1.7 million inhabitants were counted. It seems certain that at the time of the British takeover the total was well under one million and did not pass that mark until some time in the 1830s; the total at independence in 1948 - corollary to the British withdrawal from India – was approximately seven million.6 Ceylon’s indigenous economy, landscape, and population as late as 1800 were only a faint and unrecognizable shadow of what they had been in the more glorious past. They had been reduced to a level perilously close to subsistence but with extensive areas, indeed the majority of the island, either unused or used only very lightly or spasmodically in a combination of hunting-gathering and shifting cultivation. Its foreign trade, though profitable to the small Portuguese and Dutch establishment, was relatively speaking tiny. William Milburn, writing in 1812, gave Colombo a population of about 50,000 and remarked ‘The island produces a few articles of commerce, exclusive of cinnamon, the great staple … the whole trade of the island is but trifling.’7 There had been virtually no change outside the Colombo area in the existing system of production or in the goods produced. Successive Western colonialists had recognized the value of the gem trade, and had taken over as a monopoly the pearl fisheries, primarily at Mannar, for which Ceylon was noted, but nothing was ever done to alter the primitive technology or to increase pearl yields.8 And yet the island became one of the commercially most productive and profitable pieces of colonial property anywhere in Asia. It was in particular ideally suited to plantation production of tropical or sub-tropical tree and bush crops, all of them native or suited to the wet zone’s tropical environment, indifferent to its very low natural soil fertility and steep slopes beyond the coastal littoral, and yielding very well in its

climate of heavy and virtually daily rainfall and high temperatures throughout the year. Cinnamon ceased to be important or profitable after about 1830, primarily because the Dutch had by then taken over the market with their plantation production of cinnamon in Java. From 1812 grants of land to Europeans of up to 4,000 acres were permitted, suggesting that the colonial government here, as elsewhere, was beginning to be concerned both for immediate and longer-term revenue bases and for the more general economic development of the colony, if necessary at the expense of less productive traditional landholding and land use. Coconuts had long been grown for subsistence, along the southwest coast and in the other lowland portions of the wet zone, but by at least the beginning of the 19th century they and their products (coir, copra, oil) were increasingly entering trade and export channels on a small scale, as new entrepreneurs responded to new circumstances. The first crop to succeed cinnamon was coffee, and it was in part with coffee in mind that the law was changed in 1812 to permit European land purchase. After the absorption of the Kandyan kingdom in 1815, coffee cultivation rapidly spread from the Colombo area upcountry and onto the lower slopes of the central hill area, where conditions, especially drainage, were in fact better suited to it.9 But in 1869 a catastrophic leaf fungus, previously absent, began to attack coffee plantings, the same disease that later spread to Java and wiped out coffee production there; both production and acreage had largely disappeared by the end of the century. Despite its ultimate failure, the coffee boom began the large-scale transformation of the Ceylon landscape and economy and laid the basis for their commercialization, funneling ever larger amounts of export produce into Colombo, which thus became for the first time the center of an island-wide web of transport, trade, and commercial exploitation. It was coffee that stimulated the extension of an originally sparse military road network and sparked the beginnings of railway building, and it was coffee that provided both the revenues and the need for construction, at last, of proper harbor and port facilities at Colombo. Two things (apart from investment capital) were needed to create a plantationbased commercial economy: low-cost bulk transport with routes focused on Colombo, and wage labour to work the estates and provide the supporting services. The solutions to both of these needs completed the transformation of Ceylon, in the Colombo image. Having begun road-building as a measure of military security, the first road to Kandy was completed in 1821. Two more were finished by 1832, along which, incidentally, the first regular mail coach service in Asia was opened between Colombo and Kandy in 1832.10 The colonial government came to recognize that a dense network of roads through the growing plantation areas was essential to the success of the new commercialization objectives. By 1840 the first skeleton of such a network was complete; it wound through the wet zone hills of the old Kandyan kingdom where new estates were feeding growing volumes of coffee down to Colombo, out across the dry

zone to Trinco and northward to Anuradhapura and Jaffna, north and south from Colombo along the coast to Puttalam and Galle, and around eastward to Hambantota. The beginnings of a dense sub-network of feeder roads also developed to serve individual plantations. All routes centered like the spokes of a wheel on Colombo, which financed, planned, and managed the road-building and the new economy thus served, and which absorbed, redistributed, and exported its fruits. English was established as the language of government, giving a great advantage to the Colombo wallahs and their allies, who already knew it, but also indirectly encouraging the spread of English language education, which was soon to engulf most of the country. A single system of administration and law was also decreed for Ceylon as a whole, in large part to ease the way for the creation of a single market and production system. By 1860 3,000 miles of the road network had been macadamized, decades before such a scale of paving had been reached in any other country, thanks to the wet zone climate. By 1846, road-building was absorbing 15 percent of total government revenues, and for the period 1837–1886 roads and railways together accounted for 24 per cent, although much of the building was privately financed.11 Feeder roads continued to be built, but in 1858 the Colombo-Kandy railway line was begun and the telegraph line to Kandy, Galle, and Mannar completed. In 1870 direct cable communication was opened with London, whose market determined the fortunes of Colombo and of the commercial Ceylon it served. The railway proved to be a greater challenge, as great in its way as the earlier Western efforts to penetrate the Kandyan kingdom. Mud and rock slides, disease, and the engineering problems of driving a line through that wild mountain landscape slowed the work and in the end dictated a long tunnel enclosing a double curve as the only practicable way of negotiating the final steep climb to the Kadugannawa Pass, where generations of Kandyans had defied efforts to conquer them. The line was opened in 1867, and the conquest of Kandy was at last complete, its isolation finally broken.12

Map 7.1 Ceylon Subsequent road and railway building were planned in a complementary fashion, the roads, nearly always surfaced, as capillaries to an arterial rail net. By the early 20th century the rail system had been extended to every major town except for the isolated east coast south of Trinco and Batticaloa, and included a train-ferry connection at Mannar linking it with the Indian railways across the narrow and shallow Palk Strait. Rail lines pushed farther up into the mountain core, as far as Nuwara Eliya, the chief center of what became the prime tea country in the cool rainy uplands over 5,000 feet above sea level, from which an intricate network of paved roads radiated to tea estates, snaking impressively over this convoluted but highly productive landscape. Along

nearly all of these major and minor routes went also telegraph and ultimately telephone lines, linking the hinterland instantly to Colombo and to London, the markets and service centers that had built this commercial economy and now controlled its life, at the daily or even hourly bidding of brokers in Chancery Lane. It was a new pluralistic society embedded in a new market economy which was taking shape. Both Europeans and Singhalese were involved, as planters and agents of the transformation, but more important in the longer run were the far larger numbers of Indian Tamils as workers. By the 1870s they were pouring in at an average annual rate of 100,000, heavily concentrated in the plantation areas but at the bottom of the heap there and elsewhere. They had little in common with the so-called Ceylon Tamils of the Jaffna area, most of who had lived there for nearly two millennia in a largely separate agricultural enclave, with the barrier of the now empty dry zone between them and the centers of Singhalese population. Some Ceylon Tamils had been attracted into the rapidly growing commercial world of Colombo, but, like the Singhalese, they were less interested in wage labor and especially not in plantation labor. It was only the Singhalese nationalist fervor, which began a decade after independence, that Tamils in general, by then about a fifth of the total population, became a common target, and an explosive issue.

Commercialization and the plantation economy But the great agents in the Colombo-directed transformation of Ceylon, and hence in the growth and changed character of Colombo itself, were tea and, later, rubber, the two trade staples on which the economy of Ceylon and the fortunes of Colombo still depend. Experiments with tea as a crop were made as early as 1841, but this was China tea, and it was found unsuited to the climate, expensive to produce, and far less profitable than coffee. The early success of plantations in Assam, based on a slightly different tea shrub native to India and better adjusted to heavy rainfall and high temperatures, led to the resumption of experiments and in 1854 plantings were begun at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya. However, tea remained a minor and less profitable venture until the coffee leaf fungus changed the shape of reality after 1870 and in effect opened the way for the modern development of Ceylon as a vast tea garden, and of Colombo as a tea port, for it was closer to the tea areas than any rival. By 1882 15,000 acres had been planted to tea, much of it on old coffee estates, and 1890 tea production of 35 million pounds from over 235,000 acres was accounting for a third of total exports by value.13 The shift to tea required both capital and a waiting period of four to six years for new plantings to come into bearing, so that growth was slow at first. By the end of the century, with over 400,000 acres under tea and nearly 150 million pounds of output, it provided 55 per cent of Ceylon’s exports by value, all

through Colombo. At its pre-independence peak about 1932, tea acreage totaled over 450,000 acres, and although rubber and coconut acreage became greater after about 1920 in a new boom, tea remained consistently from 1890 the chief money earner, both as a proportion of exports and as the leading commercial employer and user of transport and services. Coconuts had been a cash crop of the coastal lowlands since before Portuguese times. Until the middle of the nineteenth century production was mainly casual and almost entirely from smallholdings or as a sideline. After about 1850 it too began to expand rapidly, and to be supplemented by plantation production, predominantly under Ceylonese initiative and ownership. Given the mix and shifting proportions of smallholder and estate production, there are no reliable figures either for the growth of acreage or for output, but cultivation appears to have expanded very rapidly in the second half of the century, as the overseas market expanded, as Ceylon became more and more a commercial system, and as Colombo, the agent of it all, increased its impact on landscape and economy. Coconut production remained heavily concentrated in the vicinity of Colombo, where the market was situated, even though the tree grew well everywhere along the wet zone coast. Estimates suggest 600,000 acres under coconuts by 1900, only 10 per cent of it in estates, and over a million acres by 1931, still mainly in smallholdings along the southwest coast within fifty miles of Colombo.14 By 1910 coconuts and their products accounted for a quarter of the value of Ceylon’s exports, a position that has been very roughly retained until the present. Like the other two staples, tea and rubber, coconut exports depended on the vagaries of a fluctuating market in the West, but since so much of total coconut production continued to come from smallholdings it was easier for producers to expand and contract their output in response to market shifts with less jeopardy to their investments. Rubber became an important crop late, as in Malaya catapulted into prominence by the automobile age of the twentieth century. Experimental plantings from Brazilian stock were begun at the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens in 1876, but there was no significant commercial cultivation until after 1900. The rise of rubber thereafter was meteoric, while its economic importance was further stimulated by declining tea prices. By 1920, 400,000 acres were planted with rubber trees, and by 1929, 540,000.15 Although an import to Ceylon and to the Old World as a whole, the rubber tree also proved ideally suited to the hot wet climate of the lowland wet zone and especially, by comparative advantage, to the lower hill elevations fringing the southwest coastal plain, where as a tree crop it found no disadvantage on the mild slopes or in the poor soils that tended to discourage other crops. The higher elevations were already occupied by tea, the coastal zone by coconuts or rice. Rubber, introduced the last of all, fitted conveniently into an ecological niche as yet unoccupied by commercial crops or even to any large extent by subsistence food production. This locational pattern, with the great majority of rubber plantings within fifty miles of Colombo, was also ideally

convenient for a crop that was almost entirely exported. Late arrival tended to give a relative advantage to Ceylonese planters and investors, many of who had by now been able to accumulate capital earned in the commercial economy of the late nineteenth century, as well as experience and technical knowledge. Approximately half of the rubber estates were therefore Ceylonese-owned almost from the start, and the Ceylonese share continued to increase. At independence, the production of export crops (of which tea, rubber, and coconuts, in that order, accounted, as they had in 1900, for over 90 percent of total export values) employed an estimated 783,000 people, half of them in tea alone, while only some 404,000 were employed in traditional rice and garden agriculture.16 Ceylon had ceased to feed itself after about 1850; as population grew rapidly, it became increasingly dependent, especially on rice imports. Until the 1950s about half the rice consumed was imported, in part as the price of enabling Ceylon, despite its small size, to become the world’s second largest tea exporter (after India), accounting for about a third of total world tea exports. Low-cost rice from Burma became available in large amounts, especially after about 1875, and it was not economically attractive to invest either labor or capital in increasing domestic rice production to feed the growing population when tea, coconuts, and later rubber offered very much more profitable and competitive alternatives. To this degree and in these ways, Ceylon was transformed into a plantation economy and landscape, controlled by Colombo and concentrated in its near hinterland. In fact, the plantation phenomenon was superimposed on a subsistence agricultural landscape, which was itself very little altered; growth was concentrated in the new commercial sector, leaving traditional agriculture and peasants affected only to the extent they chose to grow or market casual crops of coconuts and occasional rubber from small holdings. But that sort of development too was concentrated in the Colombo area, as was the small commercial fishing industry and market garden sector, to feed the booming city.

Colombo: Access, growth, and Westernization To explain the rise of Colombo one needs only to remember its central position to serve the wet zone as a whole, and the fact that virtually all commercial production and export crops came from the wet zone, within a 120-km radius of Colombo. Kandy itself was only 110 km from Colombo, by the easiest and for long the only practicable routes via the Maha Oya Valley and the Kadugannawa Pass, or via the Kelani Ganga Valley and the Ginigathena Pass. No other possible harbor could rival Colombo’s access, especially once the Kandyan highlands were penetrated and production of coffee and tea begun there. Galle, Colombo’s only potential rival, was by comparison hopelessly offside. Maps 1 and 2 make all of this unmistakably clear, and show also the

impact that Colombo made on the wet zone landscape of Ceylon. Table 7.1 Population of Colombo, 1816–195318

Source: Census of Ceylon The link between Colombo’s growth and the commercial transformation of the wet zone which it directed is revealed also in the timing of Colombo’s final and permanent overtaking of Galle as the chief city of Ceylon after 1825, more or less coincident with the first road into the Kandyan area and the beginning of coffee planting there. Until that time Colombo was a small seaport town and fort rather than a city, not essentially changed in its character from what it was when the Portuguese found it or from what it had been during preceding centuries when Arab and South Indian traders used it as Kolamba or when the ‘Moorish’ settlement described in early Portuguese accounts was established.17 Colombo’s size has consistently depended directly on the volume of Ceylon’s exports, at least until independence. The decennial spurts in Table 7.1 are easily related to what was simultaneously happening in the plantation and export sector of which Colombo was the nerve center. The plantation boom also coincided with a technological revolution in sea transport, the advent of steam and steel ships and the rapid increase in the average and most economic size of ocean carriers. The harbor at Galle was adequate under certain conditions for smaller shipping, but as ship sizes increased it became apparent that enlarging and deepening the harbor there, with its rocky islets and foreshores, would be prohibitively expensive. Trinco was even further offside, and there were no harbors worth the name at Jaffna or Batticaloa, which were even more isolated in any case. Nevertheless, it took the over-powering logic of coffee, tea and coconuts, concentrated in Colombo’s hinterland and sending out a growing flood of exports to the West, to impel the beginnings of harbor improvement. Breakwaters could enclose and protect an area which could then be kept dredged. The first breakwater was constructed between 1873 and 1882, partially enclosing a very minor embayment slightly to the south of the original lagoon with its shifting sandbanks at the mouth of the silt-laden Kelani Ganga. Much larger additions plus new dock facilities were constructed between 1896 and 1906.

The harbor remained inadequate, as it still is, and ships often had to lie outside the breakwaters waiting their turn to load or unload. Once inside, much of that process still took and takes place inefficiently by lighter in the absence of sufficient alongside dock space. But traffic continued to flow, as at so many equally poor harbors which nevertheless remained major ports. Traffic grew as production of export crops grew and as markets in the West demanded them even if ships had to wait in line. In most of the years following 1900, Colombo ranked as the seventh or eighth largest port in the world measured by ship tonnage entered and cleared, but this is misleading since freight or passengers to or from Ceylon were usually only a small part of each ship’s lading; Colombo was better described as a hub at the heart of major world routes, from Europe to Southeast and East Asia and Australia via Suez and India.19 Much of the enormous volume of shipping called at Colombo for coaling purposes, since all routes between Suez and Asia east of Bombay necessarily passed by the entrance to Colombo harbor. This pattern of sea routes linking Colombo with overseas markets was paralleled in microcosm landward as the road and rail networks grew to link it with the new commercial hinterland it had created. By the 1920s, no point in this commercial sector, concentrated within 120 km of Colombo and containing 65 per cent of the island’s population plus three quarters of its towns and market centers, was more than eight km from a motor road, 25 from a railway, or 30 from a major trade center, all draining to Colombo. Although the rest of Ceylon was less closely tied in with the Colombo world economically and even mechanically, the entire country became the hinterland of Colombo, the island’s incontestable primate city. At independence, Colombo was the only urban place in Ceylon of more that 65,000 in population, but the second, third, and fourth largest towns after Colombo were in fact its contiguous suburbs, which were statistically separate, Colombo newspapers circulated on a daily basis in every town on the island; even the Tamil papers, read mainly in the Jaffna area, were printed and distributed from Colombo. All professional services were concentrated there, and Colombo set national styles in every respect for the island as a whole. Ceylon’s education system, comprehensive by Asian standards, began and spread from Colombo, and further hastened the remaking of Ceylon in the Colombo image. The first schools for Ceylonese (in English) were started in Colombo under Governor North in 1800, followed within a few years by several mission schools, also in Colombo. By 1848 there were some 60 English-language schools in Ceylon, all but a few of them still in the Colombo area.20 The Colombo Observer, the first of several English-language papers, began publication in 1834 and was joined by 1846 by three others, also in Colombo. By 1870, the colonial government was operating 156 English and vernacular schools, plus 229 operated by missions.21 After about 1850 the education network began to extend on a major scale outside Colombo, first to the Kandy and Jaffna areas, but increasingly to the rest of the island, until by the time of the First

World War its coverage was virtually complete. Most post-primary education was in English, and in the British colonial mode, as well as almost all publication, including that by Ceylonese. By the time of independence, most of the Ceylonese élite – political, economic, and cultural – were more at home in English and in the colonial world of Colombo than in Singhalese or in the indigenous village world; they were more familiar and identified more with English history, literature, art, music, and values than with what once had been their own but which was now largely forgotten or even once had been their own but which was now largely forgotten or even moribund, lacking both creators and spokesmen. The leading political figures, even in the decade following independence, knew only ‘house-boy’ Singhalese; their language, like their education and acculturation, was English.22 Ceylonese painters reproduced Western styles and techniques, Ceylonese writers modeled themselves on London and New York. Genuinely Ceylonese culture was preserved only in what remained of the indigenous little tradition of the isolated village, outside the commercial and plantation sectors. Harbor improvements, and the consequent boom development of the port and city as it absorbed most of Galle’s previous port business as well, brought great changes in Colombo’s morphology. Areas around the harbor which were not already occupied by the Fort, the governor’s residence, barracks, and parade grounds had developed a number of upper-class residential streets, in part to benefit from the sea breezes in this equatorial climate. New port development after 1880 took some of this area on the east and northeast of the harbor for docks, warehouses, storage yards, and cheap housing for workers. What remained of the élite residential streets was no longer so desirable, and most of the inhabitants moved out, to be succeeded by small shops and by slums, the present Pettah district. There were attractive areas for them to build in southward, along the still beautiful coast in neighborhoods such as Kollupitiya, Bambalapitya, and the more recently developed district back from the coast behind them called Cinnamon Gardens, where the colonial government had laid out a large park and built a museum in the 1870s. Cinnamon Gardens soon became Colombo’s fashionable address, as it still is. The Fort area on the west and south sides of the harbor remained the chief commercial district for upper-class shops, hotels, banks, and other services, and included the Secretariat, the Courthouse, and other government buildings. It was a layout typical of all the colonial port cities, although Colombo always remained a modest place by the standards of other Asian or colonial capitals or treaty ports, before the 1970s. Until then the city retained the spatial patterns just described, with some cumulative growth in suburban residential areas and attendant local commercial functions, as for example in Wellawatte, Havelock Town, Dehiwala, and Mt Lavinia. One feature reminiscent of Singapore and Shanghai was the large open space preserved on the southern edge of the Fort area, open to the sea, called the Galle Face Green. This was originally kept free of all buildings as a military glacis and parade

ground, to give the Fort a free field of fire. By the 1860s the British were no longer concerned about possible rebellion or invasion, and at the end of the decade the walls and outer fortifications of the Fort were dismantled. The green, now even more extensive, was kept as a promenade area where the British gentry walked in the cool of the evening and the last of the sea breezes of the diurnal monsoon, bands played on regular occasions, and the ceremonies of the colonial government were held. Colombo was built in the British image; its primacy within the country for virtually all urban functions and its dominance of national culture, as of the national economy, insured that its patterns would remake Ceylon in its image – for the educated group. What the Anglicized, commercialized, professionalized, educated, and economically successful Ceylonese tended to forget was that Ceylon remained primarily a peasant country, rural, Buddhist, poor, and involved with the culture and structure of the Colombo-dominated world only tangentially Most knew some English, thanks to the excellent island-wide education system but even in Colombo poor workers living in slum-level areas on the fringes of the Fort area or in the ragged outskirts of the city were of course far more numerous than the new middle class, let alone the British whom they imitated. From the point of view of Singhalese nationalism, Colombo in fact succeeded too well. The sense of distinctive Ceylonese national-cultural identity grew fainter and fainter through the colonial centuries as more and more of its expanding educated group collaborated with or became dependent on the Western-dominated world created by Colombo. The government to which sovereignty devolved in 1948 was led and staffed predominantly by such collaborators, men who had lost touch with their own indigenous cultural heritage, or what remained of it, and even with its language. They had been created by ‘British’ Colombo and only incidentally represented peasant Ceylon outside the commercial sector of Colombo’s hinterland. And they were wide open to the charge of running-dog-ism, chasing Western goals and values, sycophantically aping Western ways, and running Ceylon for the benefit of the Western-style commercial sector rather than serving or even being aware of the real needs and values of the submerged rural sector, still a large numerical majority. Sir John Kotelawala, Prime Minister from 1953 to 1956, not only knew no Singhalese beyond the ‘house-boy’ level, but served and ate beef at public political rallies; it was not done as a defiant gesture or to demonstrate his ‘progressiveness’, since this was commonplace Colombo behavior, but in genuine ignorance of the Buddhist values of forgotten rural Ceylon. A decade of independence gave time for second thoughts and for what has been called ‘second-wave nationalism’ to surface. Ceylonese, especially rural voters, could be appealed to politically to press for a more appropriate voice in a more appropriate government, but all Ceylonese could be and were stimulated to seek at last some gesture toward realizing and expressing their own national-cultural identity. What

began as a carefully organized political campaign in 1956 and the election of the Bandaranaike government could not be confined merely to electoral politics. Nor, in their search for a new identity, could newly politically conscious Singhalese confine their efforts to political re-shufflings. The tragedy of post-independence nationalism has been its focus on communalism, the use of the Tamil community as a convenient scapegoat for Singhalese frustrations and as an unholy vehicle for Singhalese nationalist expressions. This too is part of the colonial legacy. It was the Colombo-centered commercial world that generated the need for immigrant workers and directly recruited them. And it was that world that, with the passing of colonial control, left the Singhalese with a feeling of lost identity and a need to re-create it. Colombo continues to grow, but now more as a theater of political struggle than as a re-shaper of Ceylon in the Western image. The legacy of the colonial port was suffocatingly heavy; it will take time for that legacy to blend viably with the life of modern Sri Lanka and for Colombo to become, as the country’s only real city and only conceivable capital, something that expresses and serves a new Sri Lanka.

NOTES 1 Cf. Rhoads Murphey, ‘Traditionalism and Colonialism: Changing Urban Roles in Asia’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 29 (1969), pp. 67–84. 2 William Milburn, Oriental Commerce, vol. 1 (London, 1813), p. 340. 3 K. Dharmasena, The Port of Colombo, 1860–1939 (Colombo, 1980), chs 1–2. 4 Cf. Frank Broeze, Peter Reeves & Kenneth McPherson, ‘Engineering and Empire: The Making of the Modern Indian Ocean Ports’, in Satish Chandra, ed. The Indian Ocean. Explorations in History, Commerce & Politics (New Delhi, 1987), pp. 254– 301. 5 For further discussion, see R. Murphey, ‘The Ruin of Ancient Ceylon,’ Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 16 (1957), pp. 181–201. 6 Census of Ceylon. 7 Milburn, Oriental Commerce, p. 342. 8 There is an interesting early-20th-century account of the traditional Mannar pearl fisheries by Leonard Woolf, who served for seven years as a district officer in the Ceylon Civil Service from 1904 to 1911, including two years in the Jaffna-Mannar district, in the second of his five autobiographical accounts, Growing (London, 1961). 9 For more detail see G.C. Mendis, Ceylon Under the British (2nd ed., Colombo, 1948); I.H. Vandendriesen, ‘Some Trends in the Economic History of Ceylon in the Modern Period,’ Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies, vol. 3 (1960), pp.

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22

1–17; and S. Rajaratnam, ‘The Growth of Plantation Agriculture in Ceylon,’ vol. 4 (1961), pp. 1–20. Mendis, Ceylon Under the British, p. 20. Figures from Mendis, Ceylon Under the British, p. 54; and Vandendriesen, ‘Some Trends’, p. 11. For an account of this and other railway projects see G.F. Perera, The Ceylon Railway (Colombo, 1925), esp. pp. 98–100. Figures from Rajaratnam, “The Growth of Plantation Agriculture’; and Mendis, Ceylon Under the British, p. 77. Rajaratnam, ‘The Growth of Plantation Agriculture’. Ibid. B.H. Farmer, ‘Peasant and Plantation in Ceylon’, Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 4 (1963), pp. 9–16. The earliest recorded mention of Colombo is in AD 932 as a small settlement dominated by ‘Moorish’ traders; see H.W. Codrington, A Short History of Ceylon, (rev. ed., London, 1929), p. 82. It is also briefly described, as Kolamba, by Ibn Batuta about 1330, see Travels in Asia, ed. H.A.R. Gibb (London, 1936), p. 234. Based on the table in B.L. Panditharatna, ‘Colombo City: Its Population Growth and Increases, 1824–1954,’ The Ceylon Geographer, vol. 14 (1960), pp, 1–16. K. Dharmasena, ‘Colombo: Gateway and Oceanic Hub of Shipping’, in Frank Broeze, ed. Brides of the Sea. Port Cities of Asia from the 16th–20th Centuries (Sydney/Honolulu, 1989), pp. 152–72. Mendis, Ceylon Under the British, p. 53. Ibid., p. 73. For this and the following passages see also Michael Roberts, ‘The Two Faces of the Port City: Colombo in Modern Times’, in Broeze, Brides of the Sea, pp. 173–87.

8

BANGKOK IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES The Dynamics and Limits of Port Primacy Malcolm Falkus Department of Economic History University of New England

Geography and history have determined the development and characteristics of Bangkok, the leading city and port of Thailand. From a national perspective the outstanding feature of Bangkok must surely be its dominance. From the city’s foundation in 1782 until the present, Bangkok has held a remarkable concentration of the nation’s wealth, trade and industry, and in terms of size has dwarfed all other Thai cities. In 1950, for example, the population of Bangkok was around one million while the second largest city, Chieng Mai in the north of the country, was scarcely 40,000. Today Bangkok is a teeming and explosively-growing city of some eight million; the second city, Korat, has yet to reach 250,000. This primacy is echoed in economic statistics, and as far as trade is concerned Bangkok in the 1970s accounted for around 95 per cent of all imports entering the country and 85 per cent of exports. Bangkok is often referred to as the world’s most primate city and, except for those countries which are in effect cities themselves (like Hongkong, Singapore, Brunei or Kuwait) it is difficult to find a country where one city’s predominance is so great in so many spheres; social, political and economic. Nor is this dominance recent. Stretching back to its eighteenth century foundations Bangkok has always been the leading city and during the course of the nineteenth century this role was consolidated and enhanced.1 While Bangkok’s establishment as royal city was one cause of this primacy, the other was trade. Port and city developed together and trade gave to Bangkok many of its social and physical characteristics which remain to the present. We may observe here two further significant influences on the city’s history. First, Thailand was the only country in Southeast Asia to remain free from colonial rule, and so Bangkok remained the seat of an independent court and government; until 1932 the King ruled as absolute

monarch and such concentration of royal power naturally fortified the role and influence of Bangkok. Nevertheless, Bangkok could not remain aloof from Western influence at a time when, in the nineteenth century, Western technology, Western trade and investment, and Western colonial ambitions were transforming all corners of the world. Independent Siam, especially under its two sagacious kings, Rama IV (King Mongkut, 1851–68), and Rama V (King Chulalongkorn, 1868–1910), met the West’s challenge largely by accepting a measure of Western influence and interference, and this in turn involved opening up Bangkok as a modern commercial port city. The second feature is the long-standing impact of Chinese immigrants on Bangkok’s development. The Chinese have been influential at all levels, as traders, shopkeepers, financiers, tax gatherers, industrialists, skilled craftsmen and coolie laborers. Most estimates of Bangkok’s population put the proportion of those ethnically Chinese or of Chinese origin at roughly one-half at all periods between the opening of the nineteenth century and the Second World War (although assimilation and intermarriage makes the distinction between Chinese and non-Chinese rather blurred). For our purpose the important points are two: the fact that Bangkok, as the leading port, was the great receiving-center for immigrants, and that these immigrants who clustered in Bangkok make a notable impact on the development of city and nation. By contrast to its domestic pre-eminence, Bangkok presents a rather different picture in the international arena. On the world scene the Thai capital has always been a rather modest port; in the 1920s it handled roughly the same volume of cargo as Belfast, and in 1938 received a similar shipping tonnage to Newcastle, in New South Wales. Indeed, in 1938 Bangkok ranked rather lower (in terms of shipping tonnage) than Rangoon, Saigon, Penang and Semarang; much lower than Batavia and Hongkong; and was dwarfed by Singapore. It was on a par with Makassar.2 The internationally modest role of Bangkok is not hard to explain. Until recent times Thailand was a sparsely-populated, poor country, with little basis, therefore, for a large import trade and only limited exports (above all rice, until the 1950s). The port lay away from the major eastern sea routes and was not placed to develop a large entrepôt trade; indeed the facilities of the port, as we will see, were scarcely adequate for the existing volume of trade. Bangkok is a river port. It lies on a bend of the great Chao Phraya River (often called the Menam in old European accounts, though that word simply means ‘river’ in Thai), some 20 miles from the river mouth where it enters the Gulf of Thailand near Paknam. To the north, the river flows through the fertile central plain and, together with its tributaries, the Chao Phraya provided both the irrigation (through the annual monsoon floods) and the navigable highways upon which the rice trade depended. The old capital of Siam (as the kingdom was called before the permanent change to Thailand in 1947), Ayutthaya, some 30 miles north of Bangkok, had also been able to tap the rich river-drained central plain. Not only rice but a large variety of other

products could be transported to the capital by river and land. These imperatives of geography put an indelible stamp on the commercial character of Bangkok. On the one hand, old Siam was a village-based peasant rice economy. Even in 1950 some 85 per cent of the population lived and worked on the land, some nine-tenths of whom were engaged in rice production. On the other hand Bangkok developed as both the only considerable urban market and the chief export and import point for virtually all commodities. In 1860 the American Consul, Townsend Harris, put it thus: ‘Bangkok, situated on the river Menam, is the great center of the commerce, inland, coastwise, and foreign, of the kingdom. This river is the most important commercial channel in Siam, it provides the greater part of the kingdom, and monopolizes the heaviest share of its navigation and commerce. The principal articles brought down this river from the upper provinces are: rice and paddy, cotton, teak timber, sapan-wood, lac, gum benzoin, ivory, and beeswax; while the districts east and west of the Menam furnish gamboge, cardamums and sugar. The Malay provinces contribute to the commerce of Bangkok tin, zinc, cotton, etc. The most extensive foreign trade is with China and the British East Indies …’3 What the consul might have added was that Bangkok’s significance was magnified by the almost total absence of roads in Siam. Waterways were complemented only by rough elephant tracks, no town was linked to another by road, and even within the city itself there was no road or street outside the royal palace compound in 1860. Water transport, by river and canal, was all-important, and Bangkok’s situation, near the mouth of the main navigable river, made the city’s dominant commercial role inevitable. Furthermore, the most populous parts of Siam, in the center, north and northeast, had no coastline and so no natural sea outlet. The numerous ports on the Gulf of Siam and the Malayan peninsula, while of local significance (or more than local significance in the case of the southern tin trade), could not challenge the supremacy of Bangkok. The port of Bangkok, then, developed as the nation’s major center of internal, coastal, and foreign trade. As a river port, its history was influenced by the sandbar at the river mouth, which prevented large or heavily laden ships entering the river. It was not until the 1950s that dredging operations transformed the port. Bangkok, as we know it today, was founded on the east bank of the Chao Phraya by the first king of the Chakri dynasty, Rama I, in 1782. Siam was then a sparsely settled country. Probably no more than four million lived in an area the size of France, and the country could boast of few towns of any significance outside Bangkok. Rama I’s new capital was built on the opposite side of the river to the former capital of Thonburi. Thonburi had been established by King Taksin in 1767, following the destruction of Ayutthaya by the Burmese. Thonburi was often mentioned by European travellers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as ‘Bancock’ (with various spellings) and evidently a town of some significance had existed there since the sixteenth century at least. The Europeans continued to call Rama I’s new capital

‘Bangkok’, while the Thais came to refer to their city as Krungthep, ‘City of Angels’. Thonburi, during its brief reign as capital, had developed a significant overseas trade with China, a trade based on the former Ayutthaya systems of royal monopoly and tribute. King Taksin, himself of Chinese blood, encouraged Chinese merchants and craftsmen to settle in Thonburi and sent a number of tribute, quasi-commercial, missions to China. Rama I inherited this already well-developed trade, and clearly the history of the port of Bangkok straddles the elevation of the ‘City of Angels’ to royal capital in 1782. Bangkok at the opening of the nineteenth century may be imagined as a sizeable and lively city ( just how sizeable is a matter of conjecture, but some tens of thousands probably resided on the two river banks, within the walled royal palace area which was very much a city in itself, and in ‘floating houses’ on the river itself), with an active river and canal trade with the interior and a significant local trade with other Siamese ports. Some of this movement was not strictly trade, for it included the gatherings by the royal family of taxes in kind, suai, and consisted of a variety of regional specialisms. The royal trading expeditions overseas, in particular the China junk trade, relied on these goods for many of the export commodities of the time. The picture of Bangkok at the opening of the nineteenth century may well be contrasted with that of the port at the close of that century. By 1900 a remarkable transformation had taken place. Bangkok was now a significant international port, with around 200,000 inhabitants, one of the three great rice ports of Southeast Asia (the others were Rangoon and Saigon). The royal trade monopoly and the old Chinese junk trade had long disappeared. Most of the trade was now carried in Western steamers, and in place of former monopolies and restrictions trade was largely unfettered. Siam had become a part of the international economy. In 1900 rice was the great export staple, around three-quarters of total exports by value. Most of this rice went to Asian markets, with Hong Kong and Singapore taking the bulk (around 70%), and by comparison with rice other exports were of little consequence. Teak was now Bangkok’s second most important export, the teak logs being processed in the Bangkok sawmills and exported mainly to European and Indian markets. The only other important Siamese export in 1900, tin, was exported almost entirely from the southern ports, proximate to the local mines. The steamers that entered Bangkok carried a multiplicity of manufactured goods, products of the Western industrial revolution such as cotton textiles with which local producers could not compete. They also brought large numbers of Chinese immigrants who added to Bangkok’s swelling population and also distributed themselves in other centers throughout the land. What factors helped transform Bangkok into a large and dominant city, a major international rice port and a magnet for Chinese immigrants? A significant step in the process was the Bowring Treaty of 1855, negotiated by Sir John Bowring on behalf of

the British government with the Siamese. This ‘treaty of amity and commerce’ was quickly followed by similar treaties with Western powers, and effectively ‘opened up’ Siam to Western trade. The treaty obliged Siam to relax many former restrictions on the movement of goods into and out of the country, guaranteeing foreign merchants the right of residence in Bangkok, and abolishing some of the former royal monopolies over trade. Henceforth Siam was to be part of the burgeoning international economy, the free trade economy governed by forces of world demand, world competition, and the flows of foreign capital and technology. Bangkok, as the country’s only significant port, was naturally at the forefront of the new developments. The significance of the Bowring Treaty, however, should not be exaggerated. Before 1855 Bangkok’s trade with the outside world had expanded and diversified, with an active commerce not only with China but also with ‘Western’ centers in India, Singapore, and elsewhere. Slowly, from the 1830s, Western-style square-rigged vessels replaced traditional junks, and a few intrepid Western merchants settled and traded at Bangkok in the 1820s. Numerous Chinese, entrepreneurs and laborers, came to Siam in the early nineteenth century, and they were well entrenched in many sectors of the economy at this time. Nor did the Bowring Treaty bring a sudden transformation. The international rice trade developed on a large scale only from around the 1870s; the really substantial influx of Chinese coolie laborers came in the 1880s; the significant presence of Western labor and capital was also largely confined to the last quarter of the century. It is arguable that it was not so much the Bowring Treaty, but rather an amalgam of economic, political and technological forces in the last quarter of the century (above all the ocean-going steamships, the Suez Canal, the flows of international capital and the tide of colonial expansion) which swept the Siamese economy along with them. Here, then, are some of the principal themes in the history of the port of Bangkok: the early China junk trade, the growing diversification of trade in the early nineteenth century; the growth of the international rice trade after the 1850s; the emergence of Bangkok as a rice-exporting port; the influx of Chinese migrants, many to work as laborers in the port itself as well as in such related activities as warehouses, rice mills and saw mills; a growing Western presence, felt in countless ways, in the establishment of trading houses, banks, hotels, industries and urban services; and the ever-widening contacts of the port of Bangkok with various regions of Siam, as the Bangkok market and demands of overseas trade pushed the frontiers of commercial activity further and further. But it would be wrong to see the growth of Bangkok purely as a result of these new, largely external, forces. Before the coming of the Western steamship and building upon the Thonburi legacy, Bangkok’s foreign trade had already expanded significantly during the first half of the nineteenth century. The point is worth emphasizing, for many accounts give a contrary impression. Francis Hyde, in a well-known study, wrote that ‘from the end of

the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, Siam, like China and Japan, was completely cut off from the outside world’.4 The statement is untrue for China and Japan, and it is certainly untrue for Siam. The chronicles of the first reign (1782–1809) tell us that ‘the greatest revenues in that era came from the junk trade’ and during the second reign (1809–24) overseas trade expanded further. In Hong Lysa’s words, ‘foreign trade was the lifeline of Thonburi and early Bangkok’.5 Many details of the organization and development of Bangkok’s early trade, and of the growth of the port itself, remain obscure. There seems little doubt that until the 1820s foreign trade was conducted principally by the king himself or by members of the royal family. Rama II (1809–24) seems to have been a successful merchant-king, building his own junks and sending them to China and occasionally to other Asian countries. John Crawfurd estimated in the early 1820s that there were then some 140 junks, Siamese and Chinese, engaged in the China trade, and estimated the total tonnage of these vessels at around 35,000 tons. Apart from the China trade he thought that there were around 200 junks (28,125 tons) engaged in Bangkok’s coastal trade, both with other Siamese ports and with Indo-China and the Malayan peninsula (including Singapore and Penang).6 Even at that early period, around 1824, Singapore was the second most important branch of Siam’s overseas trade, and one source records that 35 Siamese junks in that year bought British and Indian goods worth nearly 250,000 Mexican dollars.7 Some of the principal Siamese exports, as mentioned earlier, were obtained by the king as suai, taxes in kind, and Crawfurd noted that the ‘great object’ of the coastal trade was ‘to collect produce for the Chinese market’.8 In this way the royal trade monopoly and the China tribute trade combined to concentrate trade in Bangkok. Crawfurd also noted that Bangkok acted as an entrepôt port, receiving commodities from India, the Malay Peninsula, and elsewhere for shipment to China.In Crawfurd’s words, ‘The inland and coasting trade is very considerable; the principal part of this domestic traffic is carried out on the Menam and its branches, and the procedure is carried in flat boats or on large rafts of bamboo. The upper part of the Menam where it begins to be navigable, is practicable in the months of August and September. Boats which quit Lao in these months, do not arrive at Bangkok until November and December, when the river is crowded with them. Grain, salt, cotton, sapan wood, oil and timber are brought to the capital by this mode of conveyance.’9 (The term Lao was then used for the parts of the country which now constitute the northern region of Thailand.) ‘As far as the coastal trade was concerned,’ Crawfurd added, ‘the traffic between the countries lying on the shores of the Straits of Malacca and Bay of Bengal, with the Siamese capital, is conducted by three different routes over the mountains of the peninsula … when the goods reach the shore of the Gulf of Siam, they are shipped in boats for the capital. By these routes are brought to Bangkok tin and ivory from Junk-Ceylon, esculent swallows’ nests, opium, Indian and British cotton goods, with

some miscellaneous British manufacturers.’10 From the mid-1820s the direct role of Siam’s monarchs in Bangkok’s trade seems to have declined, and members of the Siamese nobility and wealthy Chinese merchants controlled an increasing share of the trade. Not that royal trade disappeared. Tribute missions to China continued until 1852 while the king built and traded with Europeanstyle square-rigged vessels from the mid-1830s. But the state increasingly came to rely on revenues from tax farms, many of which were granted for monopolies of products traded overseas. A further important source of revenue came from port dues levied on ships entering Bangkok harbor. Jennifer Cushman has noted the significance of Chinese tax farmers in the period: ‘While Chinese functioned as monopolists, they also served as middlemen in the interior to supply the Bangkok market for goods required for the China junk trade … it is reasonable to suppose, however, that the Chinese who came to control the tax farms during the Third and Fourth Reigns combined these enterprises with overseas commercial activities.’11 A number of British merchants sought their fortunes in Bangkok in the 1820s, although the only one to stay any length of time was one Robert Hunter. Hunter settled in Bangkok in 1828 and, together with his partner James Hayes, conducted a thriving import-export business under royal patronage until a dispute with the king led Hunter to leave the country in 1844. The well-known English traveler George Windsor Earl visited Siam in 1833, and traveled with Hunter on a trading voyage from Singapore to Bangkok. Earl gives us a fascinating account of Bangkok in those days. He recorded, ‘About an hour before daybreak we arrived at the lower part of Bankok, and notwithstanding the earliness of the hour, vast numbers of Chinese blacksmiths were busily employed forging ironwork, probably for the junks which were building on the banks. We passed on for about two miles, when perceiving an European-built vessel among the junks, I went a board to enquire our way to the factory. The brig proved to be a native vessel from Madras, under English colours, and commanded by a Frenchman … We now threaded our way among junks, boats, and floating houses, jumbled together in glorious confusion, and totally concealing the banks from our view. Hundreds of small canoes, some not larger than clothes-baskets, were passing to and fro … the occupants of the floating houses were taking down the shutters which formed the fronts, expressing their wares for sale; printed calicoes, paper umbrellas, sweetmeats, fruits, pots, pans, etc this occupation was carried out entirely by the women.’12 Earl’s notice of Chinese craftsmen, junk building and the floating markets gives us a vivid picture of Bangkok harbor at that time, and his remarks of the role played by Siamese womenfolk is also interesting. In another passage he wrote, ‘The women, indeed, may be said to compose by far the most important portion of the community. They transact the greater part of the mercantile business, and are the principal cultivators of the soil, cheerfully undertaking the most laborious employments in support of their families. The Chinese, of whom there are about half a million in

Siam, engross all the mechanical employments. A considerable proportion of these people have taken up their abode in Bankok, where they are engaged in building junks, and making quallies or iron pans, which are exported in large quantities to all parts of eastern India.’13 Earl found that ‘many native Christians are to be found at Bankok, probably about five or six hundred … their communication with Europeans has enabled them to acquire a more extensive degree of knowledge than the natives, and some of them are consequently employed as interpreters and pilots, the captain of the port also belonging to this class.’14 The picture evoked by Earl, Crawfurd and other travellers is certainly one of growing, if fluctuating, commercial activity at Bangkok before 1850, but it was activity circumscribed within the traditional system of royal monopoly, and increasingly at odds with the commercial world opening up through the Western penetration of Asia. Western merchants and governments became increasingly dissatisfied with the restrictions and arbitrary dues placed on trade. Various official endeavours were made by Westerners to gain a toe-hold in Bangkok. In 1818 a commercial agreement of little consequence was reached between Siam and Portugal, while in 1821 John Crawfurd, on behalf of the East India Company, vainly tried to arrange a commercial treaty. In 1826 Captain Henry Burney led a further mission on behalf of the Company which did result in a limited and largely ineffective treaty. The United States sent Edmund Roberts in 1833, while in 1850 and 1851 the British and Americans tried once more to conclude treaties which would open Siam to free trade and allow Westerners to trade on an equal footing with the entrenched Chinese. These missions were failures, but the tide was turning. On the one hand Western influence, especially British, was becoming more powerful, aggressive, and difficult to resist. On the other hand, the year 1851 brought to the throne King Rama IV (King Mongkut, whose brief employment of Anna Leonowens as governess to his children led to the publication of Anna’s memoirs, which in turn formed the basis for the musical The King and I. King Mongkut, during 27 years in the Buddhist priesthood, had studied widely, had learned English, and was well aware of the dangers of opposing the colonial powers. He seems also to have been convinced of the benefits Western science and technology could bring to his country. In any event, in this more favorable atmosphere the mission of Sir John Bowring in 1855, on behalf of Queen Victoria’s government, was a notable success, resulting in a formal treaty of friendship and commerce. The treaty gave British merchants rights of trade and residence, gave consular jurisdiction over British subjects, and strictly limited the export and import duties which might be imposed (import tariffs, for example, were limited to 3%). This archetypal ‘unequal treaty’ was followed by similar treaties with other countries, including France and the United States in 1856, Denmark and the Hanseatic cities in 1858, Holland in 1860, Prussia in 1862 and Belgium, Italy, Norway and Sweden in 1868. In this fashion the Bowring Treaty paved the way for Siam to enter the full international economy, signaling an end to the old systems of royal

patronage and monopoly, and henceforth allowing Siam’s economy to develop largely on the basis of market forces. The Bowring Treaty marks a turning-point in Bangkok’s commercial history. Before Bowring the organization of trade was traditional,the export products mostly of high value and very miscellaneous, and with only a small Western presence in Bangkok. After Bowring the great staple of Bangkok’s export trade, rice, developed (rice did not appear at all on a list of Siam’s exports produced in 1850),15 and almost at once Western trading houses and steam rice mills made their appearance in the capital. We should, though, be careful not to attribute too much to the treaty, for as already suggested many of the circumstances which propelled Bangkok’s subsequent commercial expansion were unknown, or unheralded, in the mid-1850s. During the second half of the nineteenth century, and especially from the 1880s, a modern port city developed on the expansion of the rice trade. The rice trade stimulated the extension of cultivation into hitherto unsettled land and a steady stream of Chinese immigrants. The actual size of Bangkok in the nineteenth century is a matter of some dispute, but it was probably far less than is commonly claimed. Terwiel suggests that in the middle of the century the city may have had 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants, while the postal census of 1883 indicates a population of around 120,000.16 By the eve of the First World War the population was probably around 300,000 and the rate of growth was certainly much faster than that for the country as a whole (estimates of the national population suggest 4.7 million in 1825, 6.2 million in 1880, 8.3 million in 1910, and 13.1 million in 1932. Today the population is close to 60 million, around 8 million of whom are in Bangkok). Bangkok’s trade and shipping increased. Table 8.1 shows the numbers of ships entering the port of Bangkok and the registered tonnage of the vessels, over a long period and we can see two periods of rapid expansion, the thirty years or so before the First World War, and the decades following the Second World War. Both periods reflect fundamental changes in the kingdom’s economy. From the 1880s came the growth of rice exports, while from the 1950s economic growth, diversification of trade, and especially after 1970, industrialization altered the character of Thai trade. Imports now exceeded exports in value, reversing a century of generally favorable trade balances, a situation which reflected the needs of Thailand’s fast-growing population and industrializing economy. By the 1860s rice had become easily Thailand’s main export, and it retained its leading position until the 1970s. For most of this long period rice formed between twothirds and three-quarters of the total value of Thai exports; even in 1950 rice was still around one-half of all exports. The only other significant exports were teak, tin, and (after 1920) rubber. The two latter commodities were exported principally from southern parts, so that for much of the period prior to the Second World War rice and teak together formed around 90 per cent by value of Bangkok’s export trade. Table 8.2

shows the growth of Bangkok’s export trade. While there were wide fluctuations from year to year, and some years of disastrous harvests such as 1866 and 1918, there was a steady growth of volume. The bulk of these rice exports were destined for Asian markets, with Hong Kong and Singapore providing always the principal initial destinations. Table 8.1 Shipping entering the Port of Bangkok, 1856–1983 (excluding junks)

Sources: British Consular Reports, various years; and Statistical Yearbooks of Siam and Thailand, various years. Teak exports also grew rapidly from the 1880s, and sawmilling became a principal industry in Bangkok, much of it controlled by British and other European firms. Teak logs were cut in the northern forests, and moved by elephants to the tributaries of the Chao Phraya where the logs were formed into rafts and floated to the Bangkok mills. In the five years ending in 1887 an average annual export of 20,000 tons was recorded, while for the five years ending in 1910 the average was 85,000 tons. But by this stage, with many of the most easily-accessible trees cut and the Siamese government taking more active steps to control the activities of the European firms, the exports had reached their peak. During the 1860s and 1870s the junks and square-rigged sailing vessels still dominated Bangkok’s trade, but thereafter the triumph of the steamship, especially the British steamship, was swift. A few steamers had made an appearance at Bangkok before 1860, and in 1855 a small steam launch had been constructed there. The first regular cargo steamer to ply between Singapore and Bangkok was the 400 ton Chao Phraya in the 1870s, and by 1877 two British steamers and one Siamese steamer were making regular runs to Singapore, and two British steamships ran regularly between Bangkok and Hongkong.17 At the end of the 1880s the well-known Holt line of Liverpool also ran regular sailings between Bangkok and Singapore. Shortly afterwards

the Scottish Oriental Company opened a regular direct line between Bangkok, Swatow (the main center for Chinese migrants to Siam), and Hongkong. In the year 1880 349 sailing ships and 182 steamers entered the port of Bangkok (the steam tonnage, mostly British, was greater than the sail); by 1886 239 steamers entered the port and only 64 sailing vessels, while a few years later only a handful of sailing ships remained to trade at Bangkok.18 British ships continued to dominate Bangkok’s trade until the end of the 1890s, but in 1897 the North German Lloyd acquired both the Holt and Scottish Oriental fleets, and by 1914 the German flag accounted for more than half of Bangkok’s trade. Following the war the German flag all but disappeared, while the British firms, the Straits Steamship Company (based in Singapore) and the China Navigation Company (owned by Butterfield & Swire of Hong Kong) took over most of the former German routes and the North German Lloyd’s wharves and other facilities in Bangkok. Between the wars, again British companies and, in tramp shipping, the Norwegian flag predominated, but there was a growing Japanese presence, reflecting fast-growing trade between the two nations, until the late 1930s.19 Table 8.2 Growth of rice exports from Bangkok, 1857–1939 (annual averages, in 1,000 tons)

Sources: James Ingram, ‘Thailand’s Rice Trade and the Allocation of Resources’ in CD. Cowan (ed.), The Economic Development of South-East Asia (London, 1964), pp. 120–2 and David Feeny, The Political Economy of Productivity, Thai Agricultural Development, 1880–1975 (Vancouver, 1982), pp. 127–9.

Figure 8.1 Map of Bangkok [Source: The map is from Larry Sternstein, Portrait of Bangkok (Bangkok: Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, 1982), p. 25. The notes on the map are by Dr Sternstein, to whom the author is grateful for permission to reproduce the map here] Table8.3 Shipping lines at Bangkok, 1922

Source: Importers and Exporters Directory for Siam, 1924 (Bangkok, 1925), pp. 22–3. How much Bangkok had become a center of regional trade – and, by implication, was excluded from the trans-oceanic routes – appears from the list of shipping lines making regular calls for cargo and passenger services (Table 8.3). While rice formed the great outward cargo, a major inward cargo continued to consist of Chinese immigrants (a substantial number of Chinese returned each year to their homeland, too). The crucial role of the Chinese has been mentioned before, and the numbers of arrivals in Bangkok makes impressive reading: some 16,000 annually in the 1880s, 25,000 in the 1890s, 60,000 between 1900 and 1920, and over 100,000 a year in the 1920s.20 Most of these immigrants stayed in Bangkok, many becoming unskilled laborers connected with port and trading in some form. We can still see today numbers of Chinese temples, cemeteries, and other reminders near the old port and commercial center, and the large Chinese communities at Sampheng and Yarowat were products of nineteenth century Chinese settlement near the river. Warington Smyth in the 1890s noted how the Chinese dominated the waterfront; there were ‘no rules but one: “Thou shalt not rebuke or in any way inconvenience a Chinese coolie…” He is the master of the port. He may grapple on to a steamer with his cargo boat as she comes up river and seeks her moorings. He may refuse to cast off when the captain has to change her berth; he may, and probably will, refuse to load the ship in any way but his own, even to the peril of ship and cargo … and if an officer cuts his rope away, or a quarter-master kicks him over the side, there is a general strike and the captain is dropped on by the agents. For the Chinaman is a privileged person, and the port is run for his private edification and enjoyment. And Providence loads the ships; skippers do not interfere, or allow their officers to interfere; it could only mean trouble for them with the agents.’21 Bangkok, city and port, grew in largely unregulated fashion in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, but everywhere the influence of trade and port activity put an indelible stamp on the character of the city. Maps of the period show just how important the river was to city development. Strung along the banks of the river,

principally on the eastern but also on the Thonburi side, were the headquarters, warehouses, and private wharves of the Western trading companies, the rice and saw mills and their wharves, the custom house, and the principal consular buildings. Figure 1 shows a map of the port-city from around the opening of the twentieth century. The old commercial port was centered on the wharves of the Bangkok Dock Company, a private company launched in 1865 with British capital.22 Early in the twentieth century the company embarked on improvements and extensions. It then maintained two dry docks and three slipways and had extensive engineering works, as well as Bangkok’s principal wharves and storage facilities.23 The city itself grew in elongated fashion along the river, with little extension away from the river until well into the twentieth century. Such extensions as there were tended to be along canals cut from the main river, and in this way grew such well-known present-day thoroughfares as Silom, Sathorn, and Rama IV roads. Prior to 1860s no road existed in Bangkok outside the royal palace compound, but with mounting commerce and population, and under some pressure from the Western community, the king authorized the construction of the first major road, long known to Europeans as New Road (Charoen Krung is the Thai name), in the 1860s. This road stretched from the palace area, through the Sampheng ‘Chinatown’ district, and along the river through the commercial quarter. The road at once became the hub of commercial Bangkok and remained so until the 1950s, with the headquarters of many of the principal trading houses, banks, and other enterprises, and including most of the leading hotels. All ports have their seedier sides, of course, and Bangkok was no exception. The name of the old commercial quarter of the harbor, Bang Rak (which might be translated ‘love-making district’) may have been significant. And Bristowe wrote about one ‘Blue Funnel Mary in Bangkok who entered this sobriquet for assiduity in providing for the wants of officers in Holt’s Blue Funnel Steamers in the 1890s. There was also Red Funnel Meh … who mainly served the Red Funnel Line (Scottish Oriental). The sign in a corset seller’s ship in Fuang Lacon Street was completely innocent: “All sorts of ladies stays here”.’24 From the time of Bowring, Western influence has been marked in Bangkok. In the wake of the treaty several trading agencies established themselves on river sites, and a district Western commercial area evolved near present-day Silom and Bang Rak, British firms predominated, with the Borneo Company and D.K. Mason, both Singapore firms, opening offices in 1856. By the end of the 1850s American, French, and German agency houses had established themselves, and some operated modern steam rice mills.25 From the 1880s Western banks made their appearance, as adjuncts to the trading activities of Western firms; the first, in 1888, was the regional leader, the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank. The size of Bangkok’s Western community was relatively small, though, for independent Siam was never home to the large clusters of administrators and military found in colonized countries. This small community was

notable for its diversity, for although the British predominated (there were 160 Britons out of a total Western presence of 400 according to an estimate made in 1889)26 there were sizeable communities of Danes, Americans, French, Germans and Dutch. Individuals within the commercial communities were responsible for many changes of significance to the development of Bangkok. It would be beyond the scope of this chapter to attempt anything like a comprehensive list, but we may note the role played by Danish naval officers and merchants in bringing electricity and electric tramways to Bangkok in the 1880s and the initiative of British and Danish merchants in forming the first railway company, running a line from Bangkok to Paknam in 1893. Within the port itself, there was a strong Western, and especially British influence, in such areas as the customs house and quarantine inspectorate. The English influence was clearly seen by the appointment of the redoubtable Captain John Bush as Bangkok Harbour Master in 1859. Constance Wilson noted that ‘after lengthy discussions the Thai created the position of Harbour Master to meet the demand of the British Consul’.27 Bush had first come to royal attention in 1857 when he brought a cargo for the King’s brother, and he and his wife then stayed in Bangkok for the rest of their lives. Bush long remained Harbour Master, and was managing director and major shareholder of the Bangkok Dock Company from 1865 until his retirement in 1899. There still is a Bush Lane, running from New Road to the river near the Oriental Hotel, which commemorates his name. In the days of sail the bar at the mouth of the Chao Phraya had been a nuisance. Crawfurd’s ship, on his mission to Bangkok in 1821, had struck it, and many subsequent travellers bewailed the inconvenience of the bar. The American consul reported in 1871, ‘This bar is the great plague and pest of ship-masters, adds much to the expenses incident to commerce here, and, of course, hinders, among other things, the full development of Siamese products and resources.’28 He noted that only vessels drawing less than 14 feet of water could cross the bar at high tide, and so few ships larger than 500 tons came up-river to the port. Larger ships anchored at Koh Sichang, on the eastern seaboard, some 30 miles from the river mouth. There cargoes were loaded and unloaded from lighters, while such large vessels as did go on to Bangkok (it was possible for steamers of around 2,000 tons to cross the bar) did so with only part loads. The steam era made the problems of the bar increasingly pressing, and by the 1920s approximately half of Siam’s imports arrived by way of lighters from the outer anchorage. At this time the cost of lighterage to Bangkok was similar to that of passage through the Suez Canal, and skippers complained regularly of thefts, breakages and delays as well as the burden of costs.29 The question of dredging a channel through the bar was raised on many occasions. As early as the 1860s, some English merchants proposed to dredge a channel, while on the eve of the First World War the agents of the North German Lloyd offered to dredge and maintain a channel at no cost to the Siamese government. The lack of enthusiasm

to such proposals shown by the Siamese authorities has been variously interpreted as a wish to keep it impossible for large foreign naval vessels to journey to Bangkok, or opposition from the lighterage companies and pilots who fared well under the existing system.30 At any rate, by the 1930s the government was prepared to consider seriously the question of improving the port, and a League of Nations survey was commissioned. This survey, conducted by a Dutch expert, G.P. Nijhoff, proposed that the Siam government go ahead with a scheme to dredge and widen the channel and to build a modern new port at Bangkok. From this report, published in 1934, eventually took shape in the new deep water port at Klongtoey. The design for the port was developed by Dr Agatz of Germany, and construction started in 1939. The Second World War then brought work to a halt and not until 1954 was the port ready. Construction was helped by a $4.4 million loan from the World Bank in 1951, and in that year the Port Authority of Thailand was formed, under the Ministry of Commerce, to take responsibility for the Port of Bangkok. The new port, on a 900 acre site, was developed some 3 miles downriver of the old port. The original wharf was 1,660 meters long and could handle nine cargo vessels of 8.2 meters draught and 172 meters in length (the maximum for the dredged channel). With its new facilities Bangkok also became the port of entry for Laos, cargo for that country being moved further by rail and ferry. Almost from the first new facilities at Klongtoey proved inadequate, and by the beginning of the 1960s there was serious congestion and delays at the wharves. The port had originally been planned to handle mainly import cargo; exports (then predominantly rice) were sent from private wharves and from lighters to ships anchored midstream. The huge growth of exports other than rice increased demand for further port facilities. Moreover, the facilities had been planned to cope with an expected import of 1.5 million tons of cargo by 1975; in fact this volume was easily surpassed as early as 1966. By this date the container revolution was dawning, and since Klongtoey could accommodate ships no larger than about 12,000 tons, the much larger container ships which soon made their appearance could not journey to the port. Critics of the port also complained of the social consequences of the port: the salination of orchards and fields near the river mouth, the large slums which developed in the port area and, above all, the congestion which was brought to the inner city.31 Such congestion is the inevitable consequence of the rapid rate of urbanization which Bangkok shares with cities of a similar size like Seoul and Jakarta32 but was exacerbated by the fact that Klongtoey and the city’s Central Business District were located so closely to each other. Already during the 1960s a number of schemes had been drawn up to improve existing facilities at Klongtoey and to seek alternative locations for the construction of a new port. One study, published in 1965 by The Netherlands Engineering Consultants,

was the first to propose a new deep water port on the eastern seaboard at Laem Chabang. After much delay, and spurred by the remarkable surge of industrialization in the 1970s and 1980s which put Thailand among the world’s fastest-growing economies, the government realized the absolute necessity for creating port facilities with access for much larger containerships and bulk carriers than Klongtoey could ever be expected to handle. It finally committed itself to developing a new port as part of a huge development of the eastern seaboard area. Laem Chabang was officially opened at the beginning of 1991, and it is expected that over time this port, a stone’s throw from Koh Sichang, the old anchorage, will replace Klongtoey as the major port of Bangkok. Thailand, however, has not been able to escape being infected by contemporary port fever: while Laem Chabang has rapidly become the port-of-call for an increasing number of regional and also deep-sea container services, close-by Sattahip is also being developed for the same purpose. Besides these ports other sites on the eastern seaboard have been chosen as the location for bulk-importing harbors and port-industrialization.33 With the sudden and simultaneous development of all these deep-sea ports Thailand, after long being contained by the sandbar entrance to the Chao Phraya, finally and dramatically broke through to the open waters of the South China Sea. Revolutionary changes in merchant shipping size and design combined with Thailand’s accelerated integration into the world economy created an unstoppable demand for new port facilities. The specific topography of Bangkok put very specific limits to what was achievable in the port city itself and, following the dynamic pattern of so many other major world port cities, congestion in the inner city and demand for modern facilities resulted in the seaward migration of the port. This physical shift which ultimately will take the port out of Bangkok should, however, not be interpreted as eroding the commercial or functional significance of the port. The port will remain as central to the modern Thai economy as it was to the traditional trading and immigration business of the early nineteenth-century kingdom. But instead of having one clearly-identifiable location, embedded in the country’s primate city, there will be a number of more or less specialized facilities spread beyond Bangkok on Thailand’s seaboard east of the mouth of the Chao Phraya. Whether this massive relocation, not only of port facilities but of course also of domestic transport communications and industry, will help alleviate the congestion of Bangkok is another question.

NOTES 1 This contrasts with Rhoads Murphey’s classical dichotomy of Asian cities: see his ‘Traditionalism and Colonialism: Changing Urban Roles in Asia’, Journal of Asian

Studies, vol. 29 (1969), pp. 67–84. 2 F.W. Morgan, Ports and Harbours (London, 1952), pp. 18–21. 3 United States Consular Reports, Annual Report on Foreign Commerce, Siam for 1872, p. 991. 4 F.E. Hyde, Far Eastern Trade, 1860–1914 (London, 1973), p. 112. 5 Hong Lysa, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century: Evolution of the Economy and Society (Singapore, 1984), p. 48. 6 John Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China (London, 1828; reprinted Oxford, 1987), pp. 414–16. 7 J.W. Williams, British Commercial Policy and Trade Expansion, 1750–1850 (Oxford, 1972), p. 331. 8 John Crawfurd, Journal, p. 413. 9 Ibid., pp. 406–7. 10 Ibid., p. 407. 11 Jennifer Cushman, ‘Fields from the Sea: Chinese Junk Trade with Siam in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, (Ph.D. thesis, Cornell, 1975), pp. 154–5. 12 G.W. Earl, The Eastern Seas (London, 1837; reprinted Oxford, 1971), pp. 159–60. 13 Ibid., pp. 169–70. 14 Ibid., p. 173. 15 Quoted in James Ingram, Economic Change in Thailand, 1850–1970 (Stanford, 1971), p. 22. 16 B.J. Terwiel, Through Travellers Eyes: An Approach to Early Nineteenth Century Thai History (Bangkok, 1989), pp. 224–33. 17 W.A. Graham, Siam (London, 1924), pp. 99–100. 18 British Consular Reports for Siam, various years. 19 See W.L. Swan, ‘Japanese Economic Relations with Siam, Aspects of their Historical Development 1884#x2013;1942’ (Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, 1986). 20 G.W. Skinner, Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History (Ithaca NY, 1957), p. 173. 21 M. Warington Smyth, Five Years in Siam (London, 1898), Vol. I, p. 10. 22 Similar to developments in many other ‘Western’ ports in Asia, such as Bombay and Singapore; see Frank Broeze, Peter Reeves and Kenneth McPherson, ‘Imperial ports an the modern world economy: the case of the Indian Ocean’, Journal of Transport History, vol. 7 (1986), p. 4. 23 A. Wright and O.T. Breakspear (eds), Twentieth Century Impressions of Siam (London, 1908), p. 195. 24 W.S. Bristowe, Louis and the King of Siam (New York, 1976), p. 141. 25 Malcolm Falkus, ‘Early British Business in Thailand’, in R.P.T. Daven-port-Hines and G. Jones (eds), British Business in Asia Since 1860 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 128–

30. 26 British Parliamentary Papers, Consular Reports, Siam for 1889, p. 20. 27 C. Wilson, ‘State and Society in the Reign of Mongkut, 1851–1868: Thailand on the Eve of Modernization’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1970), part II, pp. 379–80. 28 United States Consular Reports, Annual Report on Foreign Commerce, Siam for 1872, p. 991. 29 Virginia Thompson, Thailand, The New Siam (New York, 1941), pp. 521–4. 30 Ibid., p. 521; Allister Macmillan, Seaports of the Far East (London, 1923), pp. 137–8. 31 See An Nimmanhaemindr, ‘Solutions to the Traffic Problem in Bangkok-Thon Buri’, in Larry Sternstein, Planning the Developing Primate City, Bangkok 2000 (Canberra: A.N.U., Department of Geography, Occasional Paper 9), pp. 203–4. 32 Mark Borthwick, Pacific Century. The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia (Boulder, 1992), pp. 535–6. 33 See, for example, Lloyd’s Maritime Asia, July 1992, p. 23.

9

KOBE AND NIIGATA Situation and Site in The Development of Two Japanese Port Cities1 Takeshi Yamasaki Department of Geography University of Kobe Kanae Tanigawa Asian Urban Information Center, Kobe Gayl D. Ness Department of Sociology, University of Michigan

Japanese port cities are both old and new. Some are of ancient heritage, dating to the eighth century when there was an active movement of Buddhists between southern Japan and China. Other port cities emerged from nothing more than small fishing villages to become major world trade centers only in the past century. For the most part the leading ports today are those that have emerged recently. Some older ports have retained their seaborne activities and have become modernized, but it is generally not they which today count as some of the world’s leading port cities. That role has been taken over by the new ports. Much of the explanation for this economic reversal lies in geographic conditions, especially the influence of situation, i.e. location with respect to production, consumption, and the lay-out of world trade routes. Such geographic influence, however, is not immutable as the significance of both situation and site can change dramatically over time as both location and site characteristics continue to have an impact on modern port city development. Although port cities can consciously and determinedly fight against deteriorating terms of site and/or situation, in the long term ‘objective’ circumstances will predominate in shaping their destinies. It would be difficult to find two ports that better illustrate the importance of such long-term

geographic conditions than Kobe and Niigata – two coastal cities of comparable size, situated at opposite sides of Japan’s main island Honshu, and with strikingly different patterns of development.

Situation and site Kobe faces the Pacific Ocean in Osaka Bay, at the eastern end of the Seto Inland Sea. It occupies a narrow shelf of land two to four kilometers wide, running east-west along the sea for about 20 kilometers. To the north the shelf is bounded by the sharp rise of the Rokko Mountains, a weathered granite chain that runs roughly east to west for about 25 kilometers. Its highest peak, Mt Rokko, rises to 931 meters. To the south the land drops sharply into the sea to form an excellent deep water harbor. Water depths reach 10 meters just 200 meters off the previously natural shoreline. The shoreline is now highly developed, with extensive reclamation projects that now give Kobe a deepwater port with a draught of 15 meters. Kobe is drained by more than 30 short rivers and streams (the longest the 65 kilometers long Mukogawa river) that flow in rather straight courses from the mountains to the sea. Niigata stands in marked contrast to Kobe in both situation and site characteristics. It is located across Honshu, about 400 miles north-east from Kobe, on the Japan Sea. Its coast is part of a broad alluvial plain that extends almost 200 kilometers along the sea, from Kashiwazaki to Murakami, and inland away from the sea for about 50 kilometers at its widest point. This is a rich, well-watered plain drained by scores of longer rivers running from the Echigo mountains into the Japan Sea. Niigata City itself currently extends roughly 32 kilometers along the sea, with a gerrymandered inland boundary 12 kilometers at its widest point. The Shinano river, with 367 kilometers Japan’s longest, runs through the heart of Niigata. Until the Meiji period it was joined at its mouth by a second more easterly river, the Agano. The Shinano’s mouth formed the city’s port until, in 1969, a new ‘East Port’ was developed.

Map 9.1 Kobe and Niigata For centuries Niigata was the port city of Nagaoka, the castle town capital of Nagaoka Han. Less important than Nagasaki or Shimonoseki, it still gave Japan one of its most important windows on the world. The Han’s rich and well-watered soils also provided the rice surplus on which a strong political system was built. In the 16th century it was one of the major bases for the rise of the Tokugawa family, which eventually brought an end to a period of warring states, and introduced a dramatically new chapter to Japanese history.

Tokugawa ports The Tokugawa era, 1603 to 1868, saw Japan internally at peace, but sealed off from the rest of the world. Only Nagasaki remained open to trade and external relations, which were themselves strictly limited. Tokugawa policy did, however, stimulate a lively domestic trade, much of which flowed through port cities. In part to reduce the threat of anti-Tokugawa alliances, the Han were prohibited from entering into direct trade with one another. This required a central market for the nation as a whole, and Osaka

rose to play that role. Since Nagaoka Han was one of Japan’s richest rice producing areas, an extensive export of rice and import of other goods flowed through Niigata. In addition, gold was discovered in 1601 on the Sado Island, some 55 kilometers off Niigata, increasing the traffic through the port. Niigata was also an important port for the trade between Hokkaido and the rest of Japan. The major sea route from Niigata led southwest to southern Honshu, through the Straits of Shimonoseki, then Northeast through the Seto Inland Sea to Osaka. Another route followed this, landing at Tsuruga, southwest of the Noto Peninsula, then overland to Lake Biwa and down river to Kyoto and Osaka. This came to be known as the ‘fish route’, since fish from Hokkaido and the Japan Sea were often transported over this combined sea-land-river route. A less favored route led northward through the Hokkaido Straits and down the exposed Pacific shore to Edo (Tokyo). Through the early part of the Tokugawa era when Osaka was growing to the position of the country’s central market, Kobe remained a small fishing village, far surpassed by Osaka and even by its nearer neighbor, Hyogo, now a part of the Kobe Port. As early as the eighth century the port of Owada, just to the west of Kobe’s present site, at the mouth of the Minatory river, was the major port of the region. Siltation ultimately closed the port, which was relocated to Hyogo in 1174. Lying to the west of Osaka, Hyogo was protected from the strong west winds of the Seto Inland sea by both the Rokko Mountains and what is now Wadamisaki point. This sheltered position gave it a considerable advantage, and it grew to dominate even Osaka itself. During the Tokugawa era more than 1,400 ships were registered in Hyogo Port and records show more than 1,400 ships entering the port each month. An 1852 map in the Kobe Municipal Museum shows the route from Edo to Kyushu leading to Osaka thence to Hyogo and on westward though the Seto Inland Sea. A minor triangular spur shows a base from Osaka to Hyogo with legs going northeast from Hyogo and northwest from Osaka to the coast at Inagawa, the site of present Nishinomiya town. Kobe was then just a tiny fishing village that was not even on the map. Perry’s Black Ships put an end to Japan’s seclusion and, in the process, to Tokugawa rule. Non-Tokugawa Han, the Tozama, had increased in wealth and power during the more than two centuries of Tokugawa rule, and in the 19th century posed a serious threat to the Tokugawa.2 In a series of political manoeuvers and military clashes, in which foreign powers played an important role, the Tokugawa were removed from power, and the Emperor Meiji was restored to a ruling position. Japan was now opened to the outside world and thrust onto a path of modernization. This thrust constituted a major watershed in the development of port cities. During the Tokugawa era, Japan Sea ports had been important for the long term exchanges with China and Korea, and had flourished with the domestic trade of the era. After 1868 the Pacific coast ports were to play the role of linchpins with the new European and North American locus of world development.

Modern growth Kobe and Niigata were both opened to external trade on 1 January 1868. For Niigata this involved merely opening an existing and well established port to trade. For Kobe matters were somewhat different. Rather than open the well-established port of Hyogo to the foreign barbarians, a smaller and less densely settled site just to the east of Hyogo was selected. This, it was believed, would help insulate the Japanese from foreign influence. Much the same strategy was being used as in Edo. The Americans demanded the opening of Edo port, but the Japanese feared having the foreigners so close to Edo castle, and gave them the more distant small port of Yokohama. In the next few decades Yokohama and Kobe would rise to dominate Japanese port cities. Within a century they would be two of the world’s largest ports. Although Kobe and Niigata were opened to external trade in the same year, their subsequent development took on very different characteristics. They are today strikingly different ports. The basic figures showing this contrasting development are seen in Table 9.1. Figure 9.3 also shows the population growth in more graphic detail. The populations of both cities have increased by a factor of ten in the one hundred years since they were opened and the first counts taken about a century ago in 1889. Kobe had a somewhat higher growth rate in the first half century, and a slower growth in the second half. Both cities have increased their area substantially, and this has contributed to the population growth. Kobe expanded earlier than Niigata, evidence of its greater economic expansion. Niigata’s more rapid recent population growth is closely related to the rapid expansion of the city area. Both cities have followed Japan’s demographic changes with little difference between them. Population grew fairly rapidly with the decline of mortality starting in the Meiji restoration. Fertility was still fairly high in the immediate post world war II period, but it declined sharply after 1950. Today Japan’s population is growing very slowly, and may register a gradual decline in the next decade. The two cities followed this trajectory of natural increase, though both have received rural migrants and thus have shown higher growth rates than the country as a whole. At present, neither city is growing very rapidly, however.

Figure 9.1 The Port of Hyogo, 1867

Figure 9.2 The development of the port of Kobe, 1872–1991

Table 9.1 Basic comparative statistics for Kobe and Niigata

Figure 9.3 Total population, Kobe and Niigata The table does not show the great difference in war time destruction, which will be seen later. Kobe was more than half destroyed by bombing in the war; Niigata was untouched. Two thirds of Kobe’s city’s population was evacuated during the war,

bringing the 1940 population of 1 million to a mere 400,000 in 1945. A rapid immigration followed the war, bringing the population back to 1 million by 1956. Niigata lost no population during the war. It did experience an upsurge of population after the war, but it was more modest, and the population did not return to a destroyed city.

Port development The economic growth is clearly seen in the port activity, where the divergence in growth rates is greatest. Kobe has become Japan’s largest port in ships arriving and volume of cargo. Niigata remains a very modest port by comparison. Figures 9.4Figures 9.6 show the numbers of ships entering port and the average size. The development of Kobe port has been the driving force behind Kobe’s development since the Meiji Restoration, and especially since the end of World War II. This can be seen readily in the number and size of ships entering the port, the volume of their cargo, and their origins and destinations. Port statistics were not kept for the first years of Kobe port’s activity. The first count available shows 576 ocean-going ships arriving in 1894. The number grew rapidly to over 3,500 in 1925. From that point records distinguish foreign and domestic ships. In 1926, there were already over 20,000 ships calling at Kobe, carrying some 11 million tons of cargo. The next eleven years saw continued increase to over 107,000 ships carrying almost 18 million tons of cargo in 1936/37. The number of foreign ships entering the port rose slightly then remained relatively stable at around 4,000, though their average size rose from 5,700 to 6,300 tons. The port offered greater stimulation to domestic trade, however, as the number of ships entering the port rose from 16,000 to 102,000 in those eleven years. This trade increase was taken up by smaller ships as their average size declined from 900 tons in 1926 to 250 tons in 1936. The greatest change took place in one year, when the number of domestic ships recorded entering the port rose from 20,000 in 1929 to over 77,000 in 1930, suggesting a new method of counting ships that had previously not been recorded. In that year the average size dropped from 905 to 280 tons. It was in this period that the feeder line pattern matured, with smaller domestic ships feeding both the import and the export traffic of the larger foreign ships. From the peak in 1936/7, port activity declined due first to the world recession and then to Japan’s war involvement. At the lowest point, in 1945, the records show only 26 foreign and 3,775 domestic ships, averaging 2500 and 302 tons respectively, and carrying an unknown amount of cargo. After the war port activity increased dramatically. The number of ships calling at the port rose to 25,000 in 1950, and to 146,000 in the peak year of 1970. Both foreign

and domestic ships took part in this rapid growth, with foreign ships rising to 10,300 and domestic ships to 135,500 in 1970. In both cases the average size of the ships increased steadily. Foreign ships rose in average from 2,500 tons in 1945 to 7,900 tons in 1970, while domestic ship size rose from 302 to 471 tons in the same period. Following 1970 the number of ships, foreign and domestic, has declined steadily, though their sizes have increased. A container terminal was opened and received the first of the container ships in 1967. Container shipment began in 1967, and contributed substantially to the increase in ship size, as did the port’s capacities to handle modern specialized ships. Foreign ship size increased to an average of 14,460 tons in 1989. Even domestic ships increased their average size to 1,485 tons by 1989, though they have not had a direct part of the container traffic. It is in the volume of trade, however, that we can see the steady and remarkable rise in port activity, especially in the past 40 years. In the early period of growth, from 1926 to 1937, the volume rose from 11.5 to 17.7 million tons, for an average annual increase of 2.6 per cent. Foreign volume rose from 5.1 to 6.6 million tons, registering a 2.4 per cent annual growth rate. Domestic volume grew slightly more rapidly, from 6.3 to 11.1 million tons, for an average annual rate of 5.3 per cent. The post war period saw far more rapid growth and for a longer period. From 1950 to 1989 the total volume grew from 6.8 to 167.2 million tons for an average annual growth rate of 8.6 per cent. Domestic trade grew slightly more rapidly, at 9.3 per cent per year, compared with 7.4 per cent for foreign trade volume. At the beginning of this period imports dominated both domestic and foreign trade, amounting to 75 per cent of the volume of foreign trade and 67 per cent of the volume of domestic trade in 1926. Exports have continued to grow more rapidly than imports throughout the period, however, until now imports and exports are almost evenly balanced for both foreign and domestic traffic. Early in this century there was only a modest difference between Kobe and Niigata in the size of their port activity. In 1915, when Kobe registered 2,501 ocean going ships entering, Niigata had 1,466. In 1926 Niigata’s number had risen slightly to 2,034, showing an average size of 508 tons. The number and average size continued to grow, reaching 2,467 ships and 935 tons in 1940. The numbers grew in the next decade to 4,425, but average ship size declined to 253 tons. From that point there is a continued rise in both figures. In 1989, the year of the latest available figures, 17,541 ships entered the port, and their average size was 2,743 tons. Both foreign and domestic ships showed the same pattern of growth, though figures are only available from 1956. At that time there were 453 foreign ships, averaging 6,596 tons, and 5,049 domestic ships averaging an even larger figure of 885 tons. Foreign ships then grew more rapidly in size than did domestic ships, so that in 1989 the 815 foreign ships entering the port averaged 14,703 tons, while the more numerous 16,726 domestic ships entering averaged only 2,160. Thus in the post war

period foreign ships only doubled their number, but they increased their average size by a factor of about 2.5. Domestic ships trebled their number and also increased their average size by a factor of about 2.5. That is, the growth was not inconsequential, but neither was it anywhere near the growth of Kobe’s port activity. The volume of cargo shows a similar contrast, with an additional point of interest in the difference between foreign import and export activity. The total volume of cargo grew from about 840,000 tons in 1926 to just over 2 million tons in 1940. After a decline at the end of the war, growth resumed, with a large spurt after 1960. By 1989 the total had reached 28 million tons. Both foreign and domestic trade cargo grew at about the same pace, slowly before the war and very rapidly especially after 1960. Domestic trade has grown more rapidly, however. Domestic cargo was just over twice the foreign volume before the war; both figures were almost equal through 1970, then domestic cargo grew more rapidly, reaching 1.7 times foreign cargo by 1989. The source of the cargo volume shows substantial foreign and domestic difference. In domestic trade, imports and exports are more nearly equal, and their relative positions have changed over the years. In 1926, imports were five times exports, only 40 per cent greater in 1940, and were nearly equal through 1970. Imports then grew slightly more rapidly until the ratio of imports to exports in 1989 was roughly 10:8 or 1.25:1. In foreign trade, however, Niigata has been almost exclusively an importing port. It receives oil and liquid petroleum, which comes in large volume, and sends little out to the rest of the world. Niigata has been primarily an importer of foreign cargo since records have been kept, but since 1970 the imbalance has become overwhelming, with imports now showing 53 times the volume of exports. This pattern of oil imports, however, has kept the average size of ships rising, very much as they have in Kobe, though for very different reasons. Kobe’s growth in the average size of foreign ships comes from the development of a modern container port handling both exports and imports. Niigata’s growth in average foreign ship size comes largely from its position as an oil importer. A new element may be added to Niigata’s export trade since the end of the Cold War has re-opened the port of Vladivostok (the ferry to Nakhodka was redirected there in 1993). As the whole of Siberia is becoming more accessible to foreign enterprise and Vladivostok is beginning to emulate the port industrialization strategies of so many other cities in Asia, Japan – and hence Niigata – is ideally placed to take advantage of these new opportunities. Although the shipping involved will still remain modest in comparison to the bulk of the city’s oil imports, the imbalance of traffic movements will be somewhat alleviated.

Summary comparison

The two cities show many similarities in internal population dynamics, but they differ substantially in their size and wealth, and in the historical process of their expansion. The populations of both cities have grown by a factor of ten since they were opened just over a century ago. Until the recent post World War II period, both became densely settled and highly congested in the inner city. More recently both cities have added substantially to their area, population growth has slowed considerably, and there has been a movement from the inner city out to surrounding suburban areas. Their inner wards have become older in age composition and they have lost the younger population to the newer residential areas outside the center. Both cities have expanded their area by large factors (17 times for Niigata and 26 times for Kobe), absorbing surrounding villages and towns. Kobe began this expansion in the early part of this century, accelerated it after the war, and had achieved its current basic size by 1955. Niigata expanded only by a small amount before the war, and experienced a very large expansion between 1954 and 1966. These similar patterns of population dynamics have given the two cities some of the same problems. Both have experienced a decline in the inner city wards, and now seek to revitalize them. Both have found industries moving out of the inner city in search of space for needed expansion, and both are trying to attract business back into the inner city. They have also both experienced substantial economic growth, and have actively participated in the nation’s overall growth. They have built up very substantial urban infrastructures and provided for their citizens a very high quality of life.

Figure 9.4 Total ships entering port, Kobe and Niigata Their differences are also substantial and instructive. Kobe’s population is more

than three times that of Niigata, and its area almost three times larger. Both are quite densely settled, but Kobe’s population density is about one fifth greater than Niigata’s. Kobe’s regular budget per capita is more than two times that of Niigata, and it has four times as many city personnel. Kobe’s port receives almost nine times as many ships, and handles almost six times the volume of cargo that Niigata handles. Further, Kobe’s port is more evenly balanced between exports and imports in both domestic and foreign trade. Niigata is far more an importing port. The difference in size and wealth is matched by legal differences. Kobe is designated a Port Administration Entity, giving it direct control over its port. Niigata’s port is controlled by the Prefectural government. This implies a substantial difference in the autonomy or independence and the influence of the city. This can be seen statistically in a comparison of the two cities relative to their surrounding prefectures. Kobe’s budget is almost equal that of Hyogo Prefecture; Niigata’s Prefectural budget is almost five times that of the city. Hyogo Prefecture has just over three times as many personnel as Kobe City, but in Niigata the ratio is 7.6:1. As a Port Administrative Entity with direct control of its port, Kobe is far more independent that Niigata, where almost everything done must be negotiated with the prefectural and national governments. As we shall see later, both cities must engage in extensive negotiations with both central and prefectural governments, but Kobe enters these negotiations from a position of far greater strength than does Niigata. It would only be expected that as Japan’s leading port city, Kobe has substantially more influence at the centers of national political and economic power than does Niigata.

Figure 9.5 Domestic ships entering port, Kobe and Niigata

Many of these differences can be traced to the difference in location. The modern opening of Japan stimulated the growth of the Pacific Coast ports, and left those of the Japan Sea in something of a backwater. There are also physical site differences, which will be seen to affect both the problems and solutions the two cities have experienced especially in the past four decades. Kobe is hemmed in by granite mountains, crowded into a narrow two to four kilometer corridor. But this also implies it has a sharply dropping sea floor, giving it a deep harbor. Further, its mountains are inhospitable to farming, thus its immediate hinterland is more open public land, with little claim upon it from politically influential groups. Niigata occupies the edge of a broad and fertile rice plain, with its port at the mouth of a long but slowly meandering river. This implies a low shelving beach and heavy siltation of its river mouth, both of which conditions hinder port development, especially for the much larger modern ships. Further, its rich rice fields are owned by many small farmers, who have gained a great deal of political influence, especially after the post war land reform. This implies far greater difficulties than Kobe would have in finding land for its expansion.

Figure 9.6 Foreign ships entering port, Kobe and Niigata

Urban problems and solutions In this section we shall provide a brief overview of typical urban problems the two cities have faced in the past four decades and some objective data to show to what extent those problems have been successfully addressed. Four sets of problems have been selected – basic infrastructure, social services, environmental quality, and sewers

– and the special projects the cities have used to deal with those problems.Many conditions and challenges were similar in the two cities as they derive from the general urban social and economic conditions of Japan, including rapid urbanization and industrialization with the consequent need to build the urban infrastructure and provide urban services. The problems also derive from demographic changes that have produced an increase in the age of the population. Many of these problems have been met in roughly the same manner by the two cities. In the next section, we examine modern port developments in greater detail. It is here that we again see substantial differences in the development of the two cities. Like most cities of the world, Kobe and Niigata have faced a series of similar problems. First, all cities must provide a basic urban infrastructure, including provision of drinking water, electrical power, sewage and garbage disposal, and housing for individuals and for industries. Second, they must provide some basic social services, including education and health. Third, the city must protect the environment for the citizens. All of this is done in part with the city’s financial and human resources, indicated in a city’s budget and official staff, as indicated earlier in Table 9.1. But government need not and usually cannot do everything a city and its citizens need. Often it is the task of a city government to mobilize a wide variety of other resources, from other government offices, from private corporations, and from private groups or associations of citizens. Thus when we speak of the city providing infrastructure and services, we need not necessarily mean the city government alone, though the government will, of course, have a rather heavy responsibility to provide what the city needs. Tables 9.2a-c provide some basic objective indicators of the extent to which Kobe and Niigata have met this set of basic problems, whether through government or other means. All problems and solutions involve complex conditions and activities, and the figures in Table 9.2 are only indirect indicators of these very complex conditions. Nonetheless they do provide us with some relatively objective and comparable measures with which to assess urban problems and solutions.

Urban infrastructure Despite their differences in size and wealth, both Kobe and Niigata have made substantial progress in meeting the basic infrastructural needs of the population. Both have full coverage of clean water and electricity. There is an interesting difference in the extent of sewage coverage, which will require more detailed examination later. Kobe has near full coverage of the population with its sewer service. Niigata is far behind, and its 31 percent coverage is even substantially below the national average of about 44 percent. The city sees this as a problem to which it is allocating much effort

and resources. Both cities have extensive garbage collection, covering all households, and both treat their garbage effectively. Kobe burns most and uses the heat for the municipal swimming pools scattered about the city. Kobe’s garbage growth rate is much higher than Niigata’s and is a source of serious concern for city officials. In this, of course, Kobe does not differ from any city in the world. The difference is with the developing countries, where population growth drives much of the increase in garbage. In Kobe, as in the developed countries, it is the high level and increase of consumption that drives garbage increase. This implies that the increase can be addressed through various environmental programs, such as recycling and source reduction projects. The populations of both cities are well-housed. The ratio of population to individual and family dwellings is very low, almost the same as the ratio of population to households, indicating what is clearly evident in both cities. Everyone is housed. There are both public housing projects for low income families, and an extensive private housing market. Finally, both cities have well-developed transportation systems, but there is an important difference between the two, which is largely the result of their locations. They have extensive internal road systems, with rough equality at about 10 kilometers of road per square kilometer of city area. The vehicular population is quite dense, with 90 vehicles per road kilometer in Kobe and 105 in Niigata. Here Kobe is slightly less densely packed with vehicles. It has other slight advantages as well in traffic. In passenger cars per household Kobe has 0.5 to 0.7 for Niigata. Despite this density, good roads and effective traffic management permit a relatively smooth and speedy flow of traffic, with a slight advantage in Kobe, where the average speed during the rush hour is 29 kilometers per hour, against about 24 in Niigata. Kobe also has more than twice as many parking spaces per car as Niigata. Congestion is, of course, a relative term. In comparison to many large cities in developing countries, the traffic of these cities moves rather well, but the residents may feel there is considerable congestion. Even the research team felt a greater sense of congestion in Kobe than in Niigata, despite the slight advantage Kobe has in the statistics. Table9.2a Urban physical infrastructure

In fact the figures showing Niigata with greater vehicular density are a bit misleading and understate the difference between the two cities. Kobe receives many cars, vans and trucks from surrounding towns and cities because its center is its port, located in a densely-built up industrial and residential area. Thus, Kobe’s morphology – similar to that of many if not most of North- and Southeast Asian port cities – gives it more actual traffic than is seen in the number of vehicles registered in the city. Niigata receives far less of this type of external flow into the city, thus it appears less congested than Kobe. At the same time,because Kobe is situated in this more densely built-up area, and because it is a more wealthy city, it has built up a more effective infrastructure for dealing with its traffic flow. In fact, Niigata is just now expanding its internal road system to ease congestion especially in connection with the East Port traffic. Kobe’s greater sense of congestion also comes from the larger population, and from the more complex and extensive rail systems to move that larger population. Niigata is served only by the Japan Railway system, while Kobe is served by both the Japan Railway and four other rail companies. There is even a fifth small rail company, an extra governmental company partly owned by the Kobe government, which serves to link together the four railways coming into the city. Further, Niigata is served internally

by a private bus company. The Kobe City government provides a municipal bus and subway system. Thus Kobe’s greater size and density and its central location in a densely built-up region have resulted in a much more complex transportation system than we find in Niigata which, by comparison, is a more isolated city. Kobe appears more congested because there are more vehicles and people flowing through the city. But it also has a slightly more developed transportation system so that those greater numbers actually flow a bit more smoothly than do the smaller numbers in Niigata.

Social services Both cities provide extensive social services. The enrollment rate for primary, middle and high schools is virtually 100 per cent.3 Class levels are regulated nationally, and both cities easily meet national levels. Both cities also have a number of universities and other tertiary schools, which provide professional and technical instruction to students from all over Japan and from many foreign countries as well. Here again we can see a difference in the two cities that results from their different locations. It parallels the transportation difference in that it reflects the greater centrality of Kobe and the relative isolation of Niigata. The ratio of Kobe to Niigata students is roughly 3 to 1 at the primary, secondary and middle school levels, but it is 4.6 to 1 for tertiary students. This is not due to a difference in the number of colleges and universities, for that ratio is also about 3 to 1. Further, both cities have about the same proportion of high school students who go on to college or university (35 per cent for Kobe and 28 per cent for Niigata). The difference derives from Kobe’s relatively greater centrality to all of Japan, and Niigata’s relative isolation. Kobe is more likely to draw college and university students from all over the country than is Niigata. Table 9.2b Urban social services

[* Includes dysentery, typhoid, paratyphoid, legally classified together by the Japanese

government under its diarrheal disease law.] Both cities also have an extensive medical and health infrastructure with a hospital bed for every 50–60 persons, and a medical doctor for roughly every 400 persons. There is also a very low incidence of diarrheal disease infection, which is used here as only one indicator of a more extensive and complex set of services the city provides to keep their citizens healthy. In all of these figures, however, Niigata shows a slight edge over Kobe.

Environmental quality Both cities have extensive systems of parks and open spaces, and providing parks and recreational space has been a high priority for both cities since the beginning of the Meiji period. Kobe appears to be somewhat better served than Niigata, but direct quantitative comparisons are difficult. Niigata has a long shore line that is essentially a high quality swimming and fishing beach, and it is surrounded by extensive open farm land. Kobe has a less developed recreational shoreline,though there are plans for a substantial extension of the shore in connection with the new Akashi Straits bridge being constructed to connect Kobe to the Awaji Island. But Kobe also has extensive forests in the Rokko mountains minutes north of the city center. These forests are part of the Seto Island National Park system, which gives the residents easy access to fine mountain forests. Thus the cities have very different natural recreational areas, but both are very well served. Both cities have had problems with industrial pollution in the past. Niigata, for example, was the second city experiencing Minamata disease. For both Niigata and Kobe, the increase of both industrial output and automobiles brought rising levels of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and floating particles. National and local governments began monitoring air quality in 1970 and have taken a series of measures to improve air quality. The figures in Table 9.2c show that both cities are well within the national standards for air quality, and both have seen declining levels of air pollution over the past year. As in health, Niigata has a slight edge over Kobe in air quality. Table 9.2c Urban environmental quality

[* The figures show the daily averages or the multiple monitoring points around each city. Figures in parentheses show the national maximum allowable standards.]

Sewers The sewage issue for the two cities deserves special attention for a number of reasons. First, Kobe has developed an extensive sewer system, which not only covers virtually all of its citizens, but is distinguished on special technical grounds as well. It is the only differentiated sewer-drain system among Japan’s large cities. The drain system is designed to carry surface runoff alone. This has a double advantage. The runoff can flow without treatment into the rivers and sea. Perhaps more important, however, is the fact that heavy rains do not overload the system causing sewers to backup. Kobe’s sewer system dates to the early days of treaty ports when an Englishman, Mr John William Hart, in 1872 designed a 1,900 meter brick sewer system, which is still in good operating condition. In 1950 planning began to extend the system, and in 1957 a Sewage Division was established. At that time only 1 percent of the households were covered by sewers. For the rest, the city picked up household waste, loaded it onto barges and sent it out to be dumped into the sea. From 1957 to 1969 coverage rose to 27 percent. In 1969 a new five year city plan aimed to have full coverage of specific areas. Within ten years coverage rose to 88 percent. Today it stands at 97 percent and the city has plans to complete coverage in a few years. The city is also adding a third stage to its sewage treatment to remove a series of chemicals to meet its own higher standards of environmental control. The extension of the sewer system was also accompanied by an increase in clean water provision and a series of other public health measures, including closer inspection of restaurants and markets, and better garbage treatment. The result was a marked decline in the incidence of diseases covered by the diarrheal disease law: dysentery, typhoid and paratyphoid. In 1950 the incidence stood at 64.1 per 100,000, rising to 115.0 in 1960, then falling drastically to 3.1 in 1970, and to 1.4 in 1989.

The second point of importance concerns the contrast in coverage in the two cities. Kobe has almost complete sewer coverage, as against only 31 per cent in Niigata. Niigata considers this an important problem and the city has active plans to increase coverage to 56.9 percent of the population by 1999. Despite the low level of coverage, however, Niigata does not have a high incidence of diarrheal diseases. Niigata also has a history of declining infectious diseases, which moves out ahead of its sewer extension. While waiting for sewer extension, the city government has a number of active projects to deal with the problem of these water-borne diseases. First, households without sewer connections use septic tanks, which a city inspector examines once every three months. The inspector advises of the need for pumping out a full tank, and the owner pays the city ¥10,000 (about Aus$150) for the service. The material is taken by tank truck to one of three sewage plants for treatment by biotic processes before being discharged into rivers or the sea. The city has an extensive educational campaign for household waste that includes the distribution of fine mesh screens for sink wastes, and special packets to absorb oil, which are then disposed of in normal garbage.

Recent port developments We have seen that Kobe became one of Japan’s leading ports through the first half of the twentieth century. It was heavily damaged during the war and had to undertake extensive reconstruction. By the late 1950s this had been largely completed but it was evident that the port needed considerable expansion. It had become a bottleneck in Japan’s development process, with ships waiting for long periods to load and unload cargo. In addition, the postwar flood of people back into the city caused excessive crowding in the old inner city. Thus the two problems of port congestion and urban population crowding were integrally linked together. With the adoption, in 1960, of Premier Takeo Ikeda’s ten year port-industrialization based Ten Year Plan (see Chapter 13, ‘Japan’s Seaports During the Era of High-Speed Growth, 1960–75’, by Rimmer with Taniuchi) it became imperative to find new solutions. Through the early 1960s city officials developed ambitious plans to expand the port. It was at this time that the idea of an artificial island just off the city emerged as the most promising solution, since it could solve both problems of port congestion and urban crowding. To build the island, the weathered granite of the Rokko Mountains could provide excellent fill.4 Shoveling off the tops of the mountains would provide space in which to construct new towns for residential as well as industrial and other specialized activities. The basic strategy was in part an extension, though on a much greater scale, of past work the city had undertaken in reclaiming land for port development on the city’s shoreline. This had begun in 1953 with reclamation for the expansion of the East and West ports. Together they involved the creation of 543

hectares of new waterfront, and required the movement of 60 million cubic meters of earth, taken from the mountains north of the city. Plans for the construction of a 436 hectare ‘Port Island’ took shape in 1963–65 and the excavation work began in 1965. To implement these plans the city engaged in extensive negotiations with the central government, which agreed to finance portions of the port development and housing projects. The central government built the sea wall. The city moved the earth and did all the land reclamation. Housing was provided by the central government, the city, and private developers. In order to rationalize expansion plans and build container terminals, the government created a new type of authority, the Port Corporation. Belatedly following the creation of similar bodies elsewhere, its formation required much negotiation but it proved to be highly effective. The City government was also permitted to offer municipal bonds on the international bond market to raise capital for the project. This proved to be especially beneficial, since the bonds were offered in the late 1960s, when world trade was expanding and prices were relatively stable. By the time the port facilities were ready to be sold or leased, world prices had risen sharply, due to the oil shocks of the 1970s, and Kobe realized substantial profits from its venture. The Port Corporation now leases most of the new terminals to private shipping companies while the city still owns the finger wharves as well as a set of container terminals along the shoreline. Building Port Island and the New Towns involved an immense engineering activity, in which the city gained a worldwide reputation for port development. Ultimately it required the movement of 80 million cubic meters of fill. Earth from the mountains north of the city was moved southward to the sea through the city in underground conveyor belts and loaded onto barges that dumped the fill in the sea to form the artificial island. Earlier, earth had also been moved for the Eastern Waterfront reclamation in a specially constructed lowered roadbed beside the Sumiyoshi River. Thus the massive north-south earth moving traffic did not interrupt the normal eastwest vehicle traffic of the city. Port Island was designed to hold a new modern container port facility, housing for 20,000 people, new commercial activities such as fashion and design industries, and recreational facilities. It was completed in 1981 and today ranks as a major landmark of the city. It is connected to the city center by a fully automated rail line, the Portliner, as well as by bridge and road. It has one of the city’s leading hotels, an international sports facility, and amusement park, as well as the port and housing facilities. Port Island was sufficiently successful to recommend the continuation of this seaward strategy. A new island, the Rokko Island, was planned and construction begun in 1982, to be completed in 1992. It is 580 hectares and will ultimately require the movement of 120 million cubic meters of earth, which is also being taken from the Rokko Mountains. In addition, the original Port Island is being extended by 390 hectares, requiring 92 million cubic metres of earth, to be completed by 1995. Finally,

the city has plans for an airport, to be located on another artificial island just off the Port Island, which will be 130 hectares in area and require the movement of another 70 million cubic metres of earth. The final decision to build the new airport was made by the central government in the fall of 1991.

Niigata Port development in Niigata has been undertaken by the national and prefectural governments over the past decades to address some of the basic physical limitations imposed by the city’s site conditions. For example, Niigata’s main port for the past three centuries has been at the mouth of the Shinano River, Japan’s longest river. The river flows northeastward out of the mountains, across the broad rice plain to the city. Roughly at the city boundary the river makes a broad turn to the northwest, then another turn to the northeast, running parallel to the coast for more than 6 kilometers before turning north to enter the sea. This meandering course has presented two major problems. One is siltation, requiring constant dredging to keep the port open, and imposing limits to the depth of the port. The other problem is flooding of the city during heavy rains or rapid snow melting in the spring. To meet the challenge of siltation, the government built another port, the East Port, about 12 kilometers northeast of the Shinano River mouth. This port was constructed on the shoreline away from the mouths of the two rivers entering the sea at Niigata. This precluded the need for continual dredging and permitted the construction of a deeper port. The older West port on the Shinano River mouth is only 10 meters at its deepest whereas the East port reaches a depth of 14 metres. At present the port has two container terminals, and the prefecture is now proposing that it build a third. The flooding problem was solved by the central government digging a short cut to the sea where the Shinano river turns to the northwest. This canal runs is about 1.5 kilometres long and 200 metres wide. This permits heavy runoff to flow directly to the sea and prevents flooding of the central city. With a new mayor in 1990, Niigata is attempting to expand its trade and port activities under a broad vision for greater internationalization. Many of the projects the city undertakes to promote internationalization can be considered service and planning projects, rather than physical infrastructure projects. For example, the city’s department of labor and commerce undertakes market analyses and other information gathering activities, and proposes increasing collaboration with Russia on trade information. Vladivostok, after all, is located just opposite Niigata on the northern shore of the Japan Sea and, as is emphasized elsewhere (see Chapter 10), is keen to become the portdriven center of a vibrant Russian Far East and the gateway of Siberia. The city now collects extensive data on the companies that engage in trade, and acts as a middleman

to encourage more companies to increase productive and trade activities. The city also organizes trade fairs for the Japan Sea Rim Countries. There have been seven since 1972, or almost one every two years. In 1991 the city held two trade fairs, in July and November. City officials consider Russia to be the major partner in this development, also because it is Japan’s oldest trading partner in this part of the world. In 1993 about 200 Russian ships entered the port, about one-quarter of all shipping. The development of the Japan Sea Rim is the major idea being promoted at this time. Niigata is taking the lead in organizing local and international study groups to consider possibilities of development of the Rim countries. This includes China, Japan, North and South Korea, and Russia. The city supports an active interdisciplinary study group at Niigata University, which is undertaking studies and organizing joint meetings with scholars and city officials in the Rim countries. The city is also planning for a periodic meeting of mayors of some of the major Rim country cities. Here there is an emphasis on using nongovernmental organizations to develop links between citizens as well as officials of the countries. All these initiatives in Niigata and in many ways intersect happily with Vladivostok’s ambitions; whether North Korea can be equally responsive is still highly uncertain.

Comparative analysis The major difference between Kobe and Niigata is clearly not that of population growth. Both cities have increased their populations by a factor of ten over the past century. Both experienced very much the same historical trajectory in population growth. They increased through areal expansion, immigration and natural increase. Both had a period of rapid growth following World War II, which caused problems of crowding. These were readily solved through urban planning and development, which was probably made easier because in both cases the population growth rate slowed drastically in two decades. By 1965 the cities had expanded areally as much as they would; fertility declined as it did in all of Japan, and the immigration slowed. The real difference thus lay not in population growth, but in the growth of the ports. Kobe’s port grew very rapidly and continues to do so. Niigata’s port growth has been much more modest. It is clear that the major cause of this difference lies in the location of the two cities with reference to world trade. Kobe’s location on the Pacific coast is largely responsible for its becoming Japan’s largest port in number of ships entering and volume of cargo. By contrast, Niigata became relatively more isolated as it lay away from the major trade routes that sprang out of the growth stimulus of the Western World. What now have been the consequences of this difference in port growth rates? In summary, these consequences have not been very serious and indeed there have been

some substantial advantages of that growth. It is difficult to see major disadvantages. In general it is possible to say that the consequences of the difference in growth rates have not been very serious or striking. Neither city has experienced the kind of rapid growth that overwhelms urban administrators in the developing countries. Further, both the cities and Japan as a whole have experienced sufficient economic growth to give them the economic power and human resources to address their problems relatively easily. They have both been able to afford the urban development needed to provide a high quality of life for their citizens. Both cities have experienced some decline of their inner city, the aging of the population, and the exodus of some industrial activities. Both have been able to address these problems and it is easy to predict a future in which the next generation of problems will be effectively solved. In addition to the resources the cities can mobilize because they are part of a wealthy industrialized nation, there is another characteristic of the administration that appears to be highly advantageous. Both cities have officials of long tenure in city government. This is, of course, a common characteristic in Japanese organization, both government and private. City officials in both cases have lived in the city for a long time. Their lives and careers are committed to the city, and over the years they have gained a great deal of experience with the city’s problems and how best to deal with them. We cannot test this theory with great rigour, but it is difficult not to gain the impression that the long tenure of city officials has helped greatly to make city administration highly effective. Unlike many cities in the developing world, Kobe and Niigata have greatly benefited from the rapid growth of their ports. This has made Kobe a very wealthy city, with substantial independence and influence in national political and economic circles. The city’s wealth lies not only in finances, however, but in its administration and the human resources it can bring to bear on problems. Niigata’s slower growth has made it more dependent on external centers of power, both in the prefectural and national governments. Often in our interviews with Niigata city officials, we heard them speak of the need for more people. Niigata needs 800,000 to a million people to give it the critical mass that will give it more power, wealth and influence in the nation. It needs more people and more development to give it the kind of independence and autonomy that Kobe already has. If it is easy to see the advantages of growth, it is not easy to see the disadvantages. It is possible that Niigata is somewhat less congested than Kobe. Although the streets and the shops are full, there is less traffic and the crowds are smaller. Citizens of Niigata enjoy somewhat cleaner air, and a wide expanse of natural shoreline, with a broad vista of the sea untouched by ships, wharves and cranes. Behind the city they also enjoy the broad vistas of rice fields undisturbed by factories and belching smokestacks. This may be an advantage for the city, though it must be admitted that Kobe’s citizens also have access to wide expanses of natural forests and mountains.

Thus if there is an advantage to slower growth, it is not a striking one. The mountains hemming in Kobe to the sea and the broad alluvial plane stretching out behind Niigata offer striking contrasts of physical conditions. At first glance it might appear that Kobe is somewhat disadvantaged by the rugged terrain that crowds it into a narrow belt of land. But it may also be that the opposite is the case. In effect, Kobe has been faced with major physical challenges, which have been met largely with engineering solutions. The mountains have to some part been cut away to provide fill for islands in the bay and level space for the construction of new towns. Finding the capital and the engineering skills to transform this landscape was not by any means an easy task, but it was one that Kobe, and Japan, could manage readily, and in the process Kobe gained for itself an enviable worldwide reputation for technological know-how and excellent problem-solving decisions. Niigata’s physical challenges were somewhat easier to meet. The broad alluvial plain implied problems of flooding and siltation of the port at the river mouth. These could be met rather easily with less capital and less demanding engineering, simply by digging new canals to the sea to relieve flooding and building a new port outside of the river systems to avoid the problem of siltation. The human implications of these physical conditions, however, may have given Kobe a set or problems more easily managed than those of Niigata. The sharp rise of Kobe’s Rokko mountains implies a lack of habitation. Niigata’s broad alluvial plain implies centuries of rice production. Especially since the postwar land reform, the small farmers of Japan have gained an immense amount of political influence. This means that the farmers can obstruct land acquisition, which the city needs for expansion. In addition to their political influence, the independence of the small farmer means a city would have to deal with hundreds or thousands of individual, influential, decision makers. Both political influence and fragmentation have posed serious obstacles to city officials who need more land for housing and for the industries that provide employment and revenues. Kobe has faced little of this obstructive force; it has been a constant source of battle for Niigata. Thus what first appears to be a disadvantage for Kobe may well have been an advantage. The capital acquisition and engineering problems may well have been easier to solve than the problems of inducing farmers to give up land that the city needs. Thus in both direct and dramatic ways, and in less direct and more subtle ways, location and site characteristics have had a profound influence on the development of these two important Japanese port cities.

REFERENCES Dore, Ronald, Land Reform in Japan (London, 1959).

Hane, Mikiso, Modern Japan, A Historical Survey (Boulder, Co, 1989). Kobe Kaiko Sanjiyusu-nen Shi [The 30 years Anniversary of Kobe Port] (Kobe, 1989). Kobe Kaiko Gojyusyu-nen Shi [The 50 years Anniversary of Kobe Port] (Kobe, 1921). Kobe Kaiko Hyakusu-nen Shi [The 100 Years Anniversary of Kobe Port] (Kobe, 1970). Kobe Kaikou Hyakunen Shi [The 100 Years Anniversary of Kobe Port] (Kobe, 1972). Kobe Ko Taiikan [Kobe Port History] (Kobe, 1991). Kobeshi Tokeisyo [Kobe Statistical Yearbook] (1990). Kobe Urban Problems Institute, 1986, Kaiajyo Toshi Heno Riron to Jitsusen, Keiso Syohou [The Theory and Practice of Urban Port City] (Kobe, 1986). Kobe Shi, Kobe Shiritsu Hakubutsukan, Sogo Annai [Annual Review of the Kobe Municipal Museum] (Kobe, 1991). Niigatashi, Niigata Kaikou Hyakunen She [A One Hundred Year History of Niigata Port] (Niigata, 1969). Zusetsu Niigata Shishi [Pictoral History of Niigata City] (Niigata, 1989). Niigatashi Tokeisyo [Statistical Yearbook of Niigata] (Niigata, 1990). Shishi Niigata, no. 6 [History of Niigata City] (Niigata, 1991). Shishi Niigata, No. 8 [History of Niigata City] (Niigata, 1991). Nihon University Population Research Institute, Final Report: Population Redistribution in Planned Port Cities (Tokyo, 1986). Nishikawa, Koichi, Kobeko No Rekishi [A History of Kobe Port], (Kobe, 1982). Ochiai, Shigenobu, Kobe No Rekishi [A History of Kobe]. (Kobe, 1980). Smith, Thomas C., The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan (Stanford, CA, 1959). Torii, Yukio, Kobe Ko 1500 Nen [Fifteen Hundred Years of Kobe Port] (Tokyo, 1982).

NOTES 1 This study was supported by the Asian Urban Information Center of Kobe and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as part of a larger set of comparative studies of Asian port cities. 2 Ports played an important role in the rise of the Tozama. Hokkaido seaweed came south through Niigata and Tsuruga over the fish route through Osaka then to Kagoshima in Kyushu. From there, the seaweed went to Okinawa and then to China where it was traded for herbs. These were shipped back to Kanazawa, which had already a long tradition of herbal medicine production. Kagoshima was a port of the Satsuma, one of the non-Tokugawa Han most directly involved in the overthrow of the Shogunate. Kagoshima, and thus the Satsuma, grew wealthy from the seaweed trade, adding to the resources it would use to arm itself against the Tokugawa.

3 Primary and middle school attendance is compulsory. It is not compulsory for high school, but both cities have almost complete enrollment, nonetheless. This is true for most of Japan, so the cities are merely taking part in the general high rate of school enrollment found throughout the country. 4 The story of the development of Port Island and the joint solution of housing problems and port development are treated in detail in NUPRI, 1986, which provides a comparative analysis of Singapore and Kobe. Both faced the same problems of port obstruction and population crowding in 1950. By 1980 both had solved these problems with similar development plans that were financed in very different ways.

10

VLADIVOSTOK ‘City and Ocean’ in Russia’s Far East Robert B. Valliant School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies University of Hawaii at Manoa

Russia east of the rural mountains is the second largest political unit in Asia, 60 per cent the size of China and twice that of India.1 Russian fur trappers reached the Pacific as early as the mid-seventeenth century but for a long time the expansionary tendencies of St Petersburg were directed into and across the North Pacific rather than southward. Petrovavlovsk Kamchatkii remained a small and miserable backwater. A dramatic shift in policy and direction only came in the 1850s and culminated, for the time being, in the capture of the Amur valley and the Maritime Province (1858–60). With the foundation in 1860 of Vladivostok (the ‘Sovereign of the East’), 9,877 versts East of St Petersburg at the southernmost tip of the newly conquered territory the foundation was laid for the growth of a unique port city and Russia’s powerplay in the Far East. (Ironically, Russia, at the same time, abandoned its Pacific interests – negative policy which culminated in the sale of Alaska to the United States.) Vladivostok is a classical example of a port city whose location was chosen as the result of a unique coincidence of site and situation conditions, but its development has been influenced by many human and man-made - ‘historical’ – as well as geographical factors. It is these historical factors which have shaped the many maritime functions of the city. Amongst these have always stood central: first, the mission of the armed services, especially of the (in chronological order) Russian, Soviet, and Russian navies, and their place in the overall context of central strategic thinking and both domestic and international power politics; second, its economic functions as a commercial port (and railway terminus) and home base of a merchant marine of fluctuating size and a fishing fleet; and, third, as the center for educational services to supply qualified personnel required to fulfil the first two, military and commercial, functions. Vladivostok is located at 43° 09’ North latitude and 131° 50’ East longitude. That

puts it at about the same latitude as the Niagara Falls, Toulon, or in terms of the Southern Hemisphere just south of Hobart, Tasmania. Its situation, in the southernmost part of the newly captured Maritime Provinces and on the northern shore of the Japan Sea gave Russia the closest possible ocean site to what soon was to become the fulcrum of imperialist rivalry; much later, its location in respect of the Pacific Ocean was to take precedence over its propinquity to Korea and China. As for its site, the city was initially built on the northern shore of the Zolotoi Rog (Golden Horn) and has grown today (c. 650,000 inhabitants in 1989) to encompass that bay, the Shkot, Goldobin and MuravevAmurskii peninsulas and more. The inner bay, Zolotoi Rog, is about 4.8 kilometers in length with an average width of about 800 meters. Its depth ranges from 11 to 22 meters.2 In spite of its good natural harbor Vladivostok had several disadvantages. The fact that it is not ice-free not only hurt its development, but also involved Russia in a war with one of its neighbors ( Japan, 1904–5) and enmeshed it in the internal affairs of another (China, 1896–1950s). The head of Zolotoi Rog is frozen over for no less than some 100 to 110 days of the year. Freezing usually starts just before Christmas and the ice breaks in early April. Around the shores and at the head of the harbor the ice is sometimes half a meter thick. The first rather futile ice-breaker arrived in January 1895. Today the port is kept ice-free by the exhaust water from the power plants churning water in the bay. During the summer southeast winds bring the monsoons from the East China Sea and typhoons generally reach the city toward the end of summer or early autumn. The extremely dry winter winds blow from the northwest. Spring brings sea fogs which begin in April and occur most frequently in May, June and July. The latter is the foggiest month of the year, with an average of 15 days of thick fog and 8 days of thin fog. All total there are about 50 heavy foggy and 25 thin foggy days. October to March are fog-free. Visitors to the city today almost inevitably compare it to San Francisco: an image in landscape which, at the same time, constitutes an enormous economic and social challenge. In terms of its identity the city of Vladivostok presents a paradox. Is it a European city in Asia, or an Asian city peopled by Europeans? If Asia is defined in terms of geography, Vladivostok lies between Japan and China. It is further south than Harbin or Changchun, two cities in Northeast China, and it is only slightly further north than Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. Thus its geography places if firmly in East Asia. However, if Asia is defined in ideological or racial terms, as it frequently is, then Vladivostok is a European city. Ever since its foundation in 1860, at the culmination of Muraviev’s southwards drive towards Korea and China, the Europeans were always in command and always in the majority in Vladivostok. Asians made up the minority population. However, in the early years they made up as much as one-third and possibly more of the population,

particularly in the summer. So the city took on an Asian flair. Over the years, as the city’s maritime functions became more pronounced, its population became more European and in the 1930s Asians ceased to be an important factor. Today the ethnically Asian population in the city and in the surrounding areas is very small indeed. From the beginning Vladivostok was a naval and military base and that navyport function has colored its development ever since. For Russian officers and personnel it always was a hardship post and that skewed the population in favor of men. The Navy controlled most of the land around the bay, and the civil government had to fight to get land for its own needs. The development of the shipping and trade of its port made the city by far the largest in Imperial Russia’s Far East. It provided the home for a number of large trade firms and later, in the Soviet period, also for the development of a large fishing industry. But this development was always hampered by the local Navy authorities and the bureaucracy of the center (first St Petersburg, then Moscow). The latter have traditionally taken profit and goods out of the city and put little back into it. It was also the Navy that had the city closed to foreigners and foreign shipping after World War II; commercial shipping was diverted to Nakhodka so that no TransSiberian travelers could catch a glimpse of the city’s massive naval establishment. Only very recently, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this isolation has been abandoned and Westerners, businessmen and artists, people from Canberra as well as Niigata, have been welcomed. But, whereas the Russian merchant marine has been the scene of quite revolutionary liberalization, the large fishing enterprises have not yet been freed up and are still controlled by the center. Table10.1 Population of Vladivostok, 1868–1989

Education has been intertwined with all the above elements. A journalism professor at Far Eastern State University complained in 1989, ‘If we take our town, we see two forces determining its life: sailors, fishermen and shipyard personnel. Two corresponding higher educational institutions – the Far Eastern Higher Naval School and the Far Eastern Polytechnical Institute – propel their graduates into the highest cultural armchairs.’ These two institutions and several others have provided an educated workforce for the city and port and made the city a research center for the Academy of Sciences. In the early years, another institution prepared people for dealing with the cultures that surround the city. The Oriental Institute (Vostochnyi

Institut) had a well-deserved reputation as a leading institution for the study of East Asia. This was lost when the Soviet government changed and later abolished it, but today the Far Eastern State University is trying to regain some of the luster of its ancestor.

Population The Russian population of the city grew steadily over the years with two big spurts of growth in the first twenty years and between 1897 and 1907 (Table 10.1). The early figures should be taken as estimates only. They almost certainly underestimate the number of non-Russians. In summer seasonal workers from China, Japan and Korea swelled the city’s population. In terms of ethnic make-up, another estimate for 1884 shows a population of 13,000, of which about 3,900 were Chinese who were regular residents, not summer laborers.3 That means that about 30 percent of the city’s resident population was Chinese. Add the Koreans and a few Japanese and at least one-third of the population was Asian. By contrast, in 1979 the population was 89.1 percent Russian, in 1989 88.6 percent. The Europeanness of the city was even more pronounced than that as Russian was used as a separate ethnic category. Soviet citizens of the Ukrainian, White Russian or Baltic republics were not included in these figures. Table 10.2 Population of Vladivostok, by sex, January 1901

[Source: United States, Department ot State, Bureau ot Foreign Commerce, Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries, 1901 (Washington, 1902), vol. I, p. 982] The character of the city as a naval base and an outpost of the Russian Empire skewed the population during the first 30 years and perhaps longer. Men far outnumbered women. This was true for both Russian and Asian populations, with the exception of the Japanese.

This heavy demographic skewing in favor of males is found only in Vladivostok. The South Ussuri District surrounding the city exhibited a more normal pattern. Omitting the Chinese, the balance between the sexes was almost normal, with 56 percent being male. In the city there were constant complaints about the precariousness of family life, and this population imbalance led to a quality of life that was poor at best. In the early 1880s most residents were unmarried. Of 3,678 military ranks, only 360 had wives and families. Of 2,743 foreigners, only 143 were women. The majority of these women was not wives but Japanese prostitutes. Prostitution was such a thriving business that in January 1882 the owners of the brothels in the city joined together and opened a 15bed hospital exclusively for their employees.4 Table 10.3 Papulation of South Ussuri District, by sex, January 1901

The lack of women led to a pronounced coarseness in public life. Drunkenness was common. Drunks roamed the streets, fighting and accosting people. Suicide and insanity were a daily occurrence, a sign of the difficult conditions, and everyone complained about the lack of housing. Many of the lower military ranks who were discharged in Vladivostok lost all hope of finding a job. They constantly pestered the authorities demanding to be sent home on one of the ships of the Volunteer Fleet.5 To this day the housing problem has not been solved. Drunkenness remains widespread, although perhaps not as common as it once was, and according to anecdotal evidence the suicide rate in Vladivostok is still high. As the demographic statistics show, by 1900 Chinese made up 30 percent of the city’s population. During the summer the proportion was even larger. The Russian authorities faced a dilemma. On the one hand they wanted to discourage Chinese settlement, on the other, the city needed Chinese labor. Chinese laborers began flowing into the city for summer jobs in the mid-1870s. Later, when construction began on the Trans-Siberian Railroad the flow became a flood. In 1892 as many as 10,000 unskilled Chinese came to Vladivostok. This forced the administration to take measures to halt any further influx. The Chinese returned the following year, and at the beginning of May there were already 10,000 in the city. The same number came in 1894. In 1896

their numbers had further swelled and accommodation had become so scarce that many had to huddle in the streets.6 Figures for the first half of 1900 show a total of 50,102 arrivals at Vladivostok. Of the immigrants 32,030 (64%) were Chinese and 16,384 (33%) Russians. During the same period 18,759 left the city. Of these Russians accounted for 74% (13,805) and Chinese only 22% (4, 195)7 The Chinese came to work on the railroad, in the port, in the factories, and anywhere else jobs were available. In 1900 Chinese made up nearly all the workers in the city’s industries. Those with technical skills were well paid. Even the common laborers, who were also mostly Chinese, received good wages, but their labor was thought to be less productive than that of white workers.8 Chinese immigration provided much needed labor but also brought cholera. The disease struck hard in 1886 when 23 Russians came down with Asiatic cholera and 11 died, while 71 Chinese and Koreans got sick and 45 died.9 Epidemics of typhus and cholera swept the city in 1890 and 1895, and there was an outbreak of smallpox in 1896. Cholera struck again in 1902, and the Russian government prohibited landing of Chinese laborers from Chefoo (Yantai), Tientsin (Tianjin), Taku (Dagu) or Yingkow (Yingkou).10 The disease returned in 1909. Driven by demographic pressures, also Koreans came to Vladivostok. Many settled as farmers on the southern outskirts of the city. In 1893 there were already 2,816 Koreans in the city, including 86 females and 50 children. Twenty-nine of them owned homes, and they paid about 9,000 rubles a year in various taxes.11 In 1921 there were 535 Koreans with Russian citizenship in the city and 7,910 who were not citizens, a total of 8,445. Most lived in what was known as ‘Korean town’, a clear indication of Vladivostok’s racial segregation.12 The Japanese population in Vladivostok was always much smaller than that of Chinese or Koreans, and it exhibited a very different character. The most noticeable aspect was the high ratio of women to men. Of the seventeen years between 1890 and 1909 for which data are available, the number of women exceeded that of men in seven. In all but one of the ten years in which the men out numbered women, the percentage of women was in the 40s, mostly in the high 40s. In 1901 there were 1,111 Japanese men against 1,097 Japanese women in Vladivostok. The men included merchants (142), carpenters (155), launderers (167), doctors, tailors, and restaurant owners. At the time there were three first-class commercial establishments: the local agency of Japan’s largest shipping company Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), Sugiura Shoten, and Tokunaga Shoten. Sugiura handled ships, banking, and insurance, and imported tea, cement, and other merchandise. Tokunaga imported mostly food and daily necessities. There were also 23 second-class stores, most of which were general stores, and seven third-class stores. Many females were prostitutes working in the city’s sex industry.13 In 1902 18 brothels employed over 400 Japanese women. The story of these women in

Vladivostok, as in so many other places in East Asia and Australia, is an unhappy one. Japanese writers at the time accused Russian authorities of encouraging their immigration in order to make up for the shortage of women in the city. The authorities looked the other way when these women entered the country without a passport. But without identity documents they had no legal protection. The authorities then used prostitution to develop the city. As the brothels attracted other businesses the red-light district grew prosperous, the city authorities increased taxes and forced them to move elsewhere where that process would be repeated. By 1902 the influence of the prostitutes was so pervasive in the Japanese community in Vladivostok that most of the legitimate business were connected with them in some way.14 Relations between the Russians and Asians in Vladivostok were always uneasy; in that respect it resembled the colonial and semi-colonial port cities of Asia. When the Russians had first arrived at what now is Vladivostok, it was still Chinese territory and called Hai-shenwei. It officially passed to Russia with the Treaty of Peking (Beijing) of 2 November 1860, but for some time the Russians remained fearful of the Chinese and Manchus. At the end of 1864 rumors spread that the Chinese were coming to reconquer Vladivostok. Three years later large numbers of Chinese were reported on Askold Island. They were illegally mining gold and the Navy drove them away. The Chinese came back the next year, and Russian attempts to remove them led to the ‘Manz War’. (At this time the Russians referred to the local Chinese as Manz.) The Russians won and after an investigation sentenced fifteen Chinese to hard labor in the Sakhalin coal mines. Another forty-three were sent to Poset to be handed over to Chinese authorities in Hunchun, and twelve were found innocent.15 As fears of a Chinese attack receded, the Russian authorities took a stronger hand in controlling resident Asians. In 1886 the Governor-General ordered a commission to work out a plan for the construction of a Chinese settlement. The city council selected a place, which came to be known as ‘Koreiskaya slobodka’ (‘Korean town’) for the Chinese and Koreans. In 1893 the government attempted to resettle the Chinese and Koreans there, but the majority remained in the city.16 To help control and monitor these large foreign ethnic communities, the Russian police adopted traditional Asian methods by having each of them form its own administration. The Chinese Public Administration was organized in 1891 with an elder at its head.17 By 1893 the Koreans in Vladivostok also had their own Korean Public Administration. The Koreans even enjoyed some degree of extraterritoriality and had their own court which tried minor offenses. Depending on the severity of the offense and the number of times, it could order that offenders be sent back to Korea.18 The Japanese also had an organization called the Fellow Countryman’s Association. It had a library and attempted to provide for the education, welfare, burial and crematory needs of the Japanese. By 1902 it had become so large that a new charter was necessary. The new organization, the ‘Residents Association.’ reflected the two

factions present in the city. One controlled prostitution, the other the laundries. The association levied a tax on each person and household to support its activities.19 The Russians often mistreated the Asians and Native peoples in the city. The drunks that roamed the streets regularly beat up and robbed Koreans and Chinese. Children played cruel tricks on them. The newspaper frequently complained about rudeness and cruelty to the Native peoples, exploitation of Koreans, and pulling of the Chinese’s queues. The intellectuals were as guilty of these acts as the common people. Generally, the Russians treated the Japanese better than they did the Chinese or Koreans. ‘Clean,’ ‘obedient’, ‘skillful’, and ‘honest’ were words frequently used to describe Japanese. The Japanese were regarded as so honest that they were often hired to protect large shipments of money when one of the merchants had to pay a bill. They were mostly treated like the Europeans. Thus, they were allowed to walk on the sidewalks while the Chinese and Koreans had to walk in the streets. According to one observer, the Russians treated these latter two peoples ‘like they would oxen or horses.’20 Two factors accounted for this differentiation. On the one hand, the Japanese habit of spending freely may have made them more acceptable folk. The Russians themselves were noted spendthrifts. This was in sharp contrast to the Chinese and Koreans who saved their money. On the other hand, there was the political reality that Japan was the rising military power in the region. She defeated China in 1894–5 and was fast becoming Russia’s rival in the Far East. With political ascendancy came social respectability.

The Russian Navy The Russian Navy, having been beaten to Japan by Commodore Perry’s Black Ships, founded Vladivostok partly as a consolation prize in its race with the U.S. Navy but also as a jumping-off point for further expansion into East Asia. The day it landed 28 soldiers and two non-commissioned officers of the 4th East Siberian Line Battalion, 20 June 1860, is taken as the date of the founding of the city. It was also the day the military took control. The government in 1871 moved naval units from Nikolaevsk-naAmure (then the main Russian naval base in the Far East, on the Amur River, 857 nautical miles north of Vladivostok) to Vladivostok. In planning the new naval base, the purpose was to keep the hospital, barracks and city buildings as far away as possible from any shelling from the seaside. Thus the port and city were located at the northern side of Zolotoi Rog (Golden Horn). The Naval Hospital was put at the eastern end of the inner harbor and from there westward for a distance of about 6 kilometers arose the barracks for the Siberian Flotilla, wharves and sheds for the Navy, accommodation for the officers, a place for the construction of a new commercial port, the city centre,

and the old port which had been established in 1867. Finally a place for the artillery was set aside near Cape Egersheld.21 For a considerable time Russian naval forces in the Far East remained modest. At the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 the Pacific squadron consisted of three first-class cruisers, three second-class cruisers, four gunboats, four minelayers, and several other boats. But the following year it was augmented with a battleship, two first-class cruisers, two gunboats, two mine-carrying cruisers, and three minelayers.22 Russia’s role in the decision-making about the fate of Korea and China was based on the completion of its Trans-Siberian Railway and the naval forces it could muster at Vladivostok. After the Boxer rebellion and with the apparently imminent collapse and partition of China Vladivostok lost most of its naval significance to more centrally-located Port Arthur (present-day Lüshun on the Liaodong Peninsula, China) which rapidly became the main base for the Russian Pacific Squadron in the Far East. In 1903 St Petersburg established a Far Eastern Viceroy in the Kwantung Leased Territory and appointed Admiral Evgenii Ivanovich Alekseev to its command. Most of the larger ships were transferred to Port Arthur or Dalnyi (present day Lüda). All that remained in Vladivostok were three cruisers, one light cruiser, one auxiliary cruiser, and several minelayers.23 After the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5) and the loss of Port Arthur, however, the Navy moved back to Vladivostok and began rebuilding. In order to provide protection to its naval base Vladivostok became strongly fortified; the imperial government had learned its lessons from the Crimean War. Work began in 1877 when several gun batteries were located at Capes Churkin, Burnyi and Egersheld. Mirroring British fears at the time, the Russians anticipated that British intervention in the Russo-Turkish War might take the form of a British attack on Vladivostok. However, the government only declared Vladivostok a fortress in August 1889.24 In the mid-1890s the government drew up a plan for strengthening the city in connection with worsening Japanese-Chinese relations. The plan envisioned construction of two lines of forts. The first line consisted of two forts on Russian Island and five forts on the city boundaries, the second, of forts on two hills. There were also to be shore batteries on the Goldobin peninsula. No less than thirty shore batteries would protect the city. Only twenty-three were actually constructed, many of which were equipped with old guns. Several did not have the instruments for aiming. Work stopped in 1901 when work began on the naval base at Port Arthur.25 In the aftermath of the debacle against Japan Russia lost most of its political interest in the Far East and for some time, as will be seen later, the commercial function of the port gained the upperhand. As the terminus of the Trans-Siberian railway it became the gateway of Siberia rather than the fulcrum of local power projection. During the war its gateway function became increasingly important for the re-supply of the Russian armies and this logistic function gained a hard military dimension when Japanese and

American troops occupied the city during the Civil War. This futile intervention, with its many profound repercussions, was only short-lived and soon central control, now from Bolshevik Moscow, was re-established. In 1922 Vladivostok played a minor role in the final phase of the Civil War as the Soviet government formed a Vladivostok detachment of ships to help suppress the remnants of the Whites. Without immediate further purpose, the squadron was disbanded in 1926. However, as the situation in the Far East deteriorated in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Moscow once again began to build up its defenses to strengthen its Far East border. In 1932, hot on the heels of the Manchurian incident, a new Pacific Fleet was established when several small boats were shipped by railroad to Vladivostok. The Soviet naval build-up continued throughout World War II. After a lull during the first stage of the Cold War, expansion began again with renewed and unprecedented vigor from the mid 1960s. Although several sections were homeported in other Pacific ports, Vladivostok remained the headquarters of the Soviet, now again Russian, Pacific Fleet. In 1991 there were about eighty surface combatants stationed there, but the number is now falling as national naval strength is reduced. Although the Russian Navy (according to local newspapers, perhaps more the bureaucrats in Moscow than the admirals on the ground) may have preferred to keep Vladivostok closed, it could not withstand the tide of the times. Naval units from many countries have now visited the port and, in the wake of this naval glasnost, also foreign merchant shipping again enjoys unimpeded access. Over the years, the Navy and military units stationed in the city have served as the nucleus around which a considerable defense industry has emerged. Very little is known about this in the West, but one Japanese analyst estimates that 90 per cent of the industry in the city is in some way connected with the military-industrial complex -one of the most important stakeholders in Russia’s current economic revolution. Whether and how this will assist Vladivostok in its attempts to become one more of the economic wonders of East Asia remains to be seen.

Shipping and trade In spite of many problems, Russian and foreign businessmen moved early to open shipping services along the Russian coast and with China, Japan, and Korea while the Russians themselves provided services to Odessa (now in the Ukraine) in the Black Sea. Before the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway Vladivostok’s hinterland was largely if not wholly delineated by its seaborne communication links (this in contrast to Nikolaevsk which benefited from opening river navigation on the Amur). The Russian merchant M.G. Shevelev was among the first to enter the shipping business, but he seems ultimately not to have prospered. The firm of Tokmakov, Shevelev & Co. began regular services between Vladivostok and the ports of China in 1877. The company was

dissolved, and two years later the government gave M.G. Shevelev & Co. the right to maintain sea communications among the ports in the Maritime region. Shevelev used two small ships between Vladivostok and the bays in the Gulf of Peter the Great. The largest measured 400 tons. By 1894, he had added two more ships; one served Nikolaevsk-na-Amure, the other traveled to Gensan and Wonsan in Korea, to Nagasaki, and Chefoo (Yantai) and Shanghai in China. Shev-elev’s steamers received a subsidy from the government of three rubles per mile for the southern routes. In the winter time, when Zolotoi Rog froze over, Shevelev sent his boats to Japan or put them on the run between Japanese and Chinese ports. In 1900 he had only one vessel registered in Vladivostok.26 Several other merchants operated ships, most of them small. In 1894 O.V Lindholm & Co. operated one small boat. In 1901 it had no boat registered. The merchant Startsev began with a small steamer in 1894, which was still registered in 1901. Count H.H. Kaiserling had three small ships registered in 1901, and he organized the Rus Shipping Company in 1907. The firm Bryner, Kuznetsov & Co. had three ships and 43 barges registered in 1901. The Russian Whaling Co. had two ships registered, Clarkson & Co. 23 barges.27 The Volunteer Fleet (which had arisen out of the 1875 war with Turkey)28 carried most of the freight between Odessa and Vladivostok. It opened an office in the city in April 1880, and its first ship arrived from Odessa with 980 tons of freight for Vladivostok, Nikolaevsk-na-Amure, and Sakhalin. Thus it began regular freight and passenger service. Another ship arrived in June to service the Vladivostok to Nikolaevsk-na-Amure coastal run. By 1894 the Volunteer Fleet was making 13 voyages to Vladivostok and delivering thousands of tons of freight and several thousands of settlers. Its annual returns in Vladivostok reached about 1.1 million rubles.29 Japanese shipping companies tried to provide Vladivostok with regular services, but the going was difficult. Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) established a regular service to Vladivostok in 1881. It began with one ship and by 1894 had added another. The route was Kobe-Nagasaki-Pusan-Wonsan-Vladivostok and back. A second company, the Nichi-Ro Kisen Kaisha ( Japanese-Russian Steamship Company) tried to establish a line between Niigata and Vladivostok in 1893 but failed. Another small company began serving the Niigata-Hakodate-Otaru-Vladivostok route after the Sino-Japanese War (1894–5). It operated with a single ship until 1902 when it added a second, but only survived with a subsidy from the Japanese government.30 During the succession of wars and revolutions shipping gradually went into oblivion and in 1922 there was hardly a vessel left in Vladivostok. The Soviet government was forced to depend on foreign ship charters for the coastal trade and what little overseas commerce it still carried on. By 1928 it had managed to put together a fleet of 14 ships, with an aggregate capacity of 25,500 tons. Half of them were built between 1911 and 1913 and the rest much older than that. By 1933 this fleet

had grown to 43 ships with a capacity of 116,555 tons. Not until 1934 did the Soviet Union succeed in carrying all its own freight and passengers without using chartered ships.31 Nowadays Fesco (Far Eastern Shipping Company) is the premier shipping organization in Vladivostok and of the entire Russian, ex-Soviet, Far East. There are other smaller shipping companies, but they generally carry freight only over short distances as part of the coasting trade and do not take part in international operations. In May 1991 Fesco had 199 ships: seven passenger vessels, nine icebreakers, and 183 cargo vessels, including several modern container ships. It employed 47,500 people. In fact, it is much more than just a shipping company. It bought a brick factory to build housing for its employees. It has a hotel, the Chelyuskin (formerly the Versailles), a farm to supply employees with dairy products and bought Japanese cows to improve milk production. It is also a major stockholder in a firm that imports and services Japanese cars. The company regularly contributes to the Children’s Fund, buys medicines with its hard currency for the pharmacies, and supports an anti-AIDS program. It also bought $74,000 worth of medical equipment for the hospital, a $20,000 computer for the cancer center, and a $500,000 machine that crushes kidney stones.32 Trade was long time far more important than industry. The leading firms began to emerge in the mid-1870s. Johann Langelite & Co. opened in 1875. Churin & Co. began operations in Vladivostok in 1878. Kunst & Albers was there by 1880, and the firm of Bryner, Kuznetsov & Co. was formed that same year. In 1880 there were over 300 trade firms with an annual turnover of 40 million rubles, 60 per cent of which was controlled by foreigners. Thirty years later there were about 3,000 trade enterprises in the city, but the annual turnover amounted to about the same sum, 40 million rubles. By contrast, the 97 factories in the city had an annual output worth only 1.3 million rubles a year.33 After the Revolution the Soviet hold initially was tenuous enough for foreign firms to retain their strength. In 1923 in Vladivostok there were 1,450 trade enterprises of which 975 (67%) belonged to foreigners.34 Even as late as 1926–7 private capital controlled 71% of the trade returns in the city.35 But by 1930 the writing was on the wall. Foreign and private Russian firms-controlled only 12% of the trade. That year Churin & Co. and Kunst & Albers closed their doors. At one time, it was claimed, Churin had about 30 million rubles tied up in property and inventory and employed 5,000 people. Kunst & Albers was worth 15 million and employed about 750 people.36 It is difficult to compile statistics on the trade handled by Vladivostok. For a long time no goods coming into Russia’s Far East ports paid duties. That meant no customs service was organized to keep detailed statistics. European and colonial goods destined for the Western provinces paid the European duty at the Irkutsk customs house, far inland, so an excise board kept what statistics there were.37 The government began considering levying customs duties in 1895, but the Far East was not brought into the general Russian customs regime until 1 January 1901.

However, things did not run smoothly nor did they last long. A temporary customs office worked in a somewhat chaotic condition until 1 July 1901 when the full and regular customs service began operation. This lasted only until 1 May 1904 when Tsar Nicholas II brought back the porto franco in an attempt to attract freight and food to the city under siege during the Russo-Japanese War. After the war local businessmen, merchants and foreign firms successfully agitated to keep the porto franco.38 The Russians distinguished between three types of trade. The ‘small’ coasting trade was trade with an area from Korea all the way into the Eastern Arctic. The ‘large’ coasting trade consisted of trade between Vladivostok and Russian ports in other seas, that is, with the Black and Baltic seas. The third type of trade was trade with foreign countries. The value or volume of the small coasting trade seldom appeared in published statistics. Between 1889 and 1917 the volume of foreign and ‘large’ coasting trade passing through the port grew with some sharp fluctuations. The chief characteristic of the trade was the constant and rather large surplus of imports over exports. Over time the gap tended to narrow, but the figures were never anywhere near equal. The only data available are for the pre-Revolutionary period. Data for 1911–13 are missing. As of 1903 most of the coasting trade between Vladivostok and places around Peter the Great Bay was in the hands of the Chinese. This was part of the ‘small’ coasting trade. The Russians wanted the trade entirely in their hands, but they never managed to oust the Chinese.39 The numbers for 1899 show just how overwhelming the Chinese presence was. The breakdown of steamships by nationality and number shows Russian 8, Norwegian 3, German 3, Japanese 2, Austrian 1; but of the sailing ships Chinese owned 557 against Koreans 152 and Japanese 4.40

Figure 10.1 Trade at Vladivostok, 1889–1917 The Russians tried to improve their situation and in 1911 the government prohibited foreign ships from taking part in the coasting trade. This generally hurt the

larger companies, but the Chinese and Koreans quickly got around the new law by ‘selling’ their boat to a Russian citizen. Because the law also specified that the crew could only be 50 percent foreign, the Chinese hired one Russian sailor to help the one Chinese sailor, and the rest of the Chinese crew traveled as ‘passengers’.41 The number of ships, both foreign and Russian, entering the port of Vladivostok increased gradually until the early 1890s. Thereafter more and more ships started coming. The drop to zero in 1904 is the result of the Russo-Japanese War. But after the war shipping came back stronger than ever. Vladivostok’s chief exports have always tended to be locally-produced commodities like construction timber, fish, seaweed, animal hides, whale blubber, and trepang (sea cucumber). The chief imports were matches, alcohol, wine, tobacco, dishes, iron, cement, coal, flour, and equipment of all kinds.42 A large share of exports consisted of soy beans which were transshipped from Northeastern China. In 1908 they amounted to 114,660 tons which was tripled in volume by 1913. During the first years under the Soviet regime, soy bean exports continued to grow. By 1923 they had reached seven times the 1908 figure.43

Figure 10.2 Ships entering Vladivostok, 1879–1913 For the Soviet period, trade figures for the port of Vladivostok are scarce. In 1932 ships moved 626,000 tons of freight, of which 287,000 tons or 46 per cent was in chartered ships. The volume of freight, both coasting and foreign, reached 1,121,000 tons in 1937, 1,471,000 tons in 1940. This latter was 2.35 times that in 1932.44 To get some idea of the relationship between the coasting trade and the foreign trade, from 1940 to 1950 the coasting trade grew from 1.355 million tons to 2.49 million tons, while foreign trade grew from 115,000 tons to 651,000 tons. In the 30 years from 1928 to 1958 the shipment of timber has increased 21 times, coal 25 times, cement 27 times, metal 10.6 times.45 Even these cursory figures show that foreign trade did not make up a significant

share of the trade at Vladivostok. In general, trade consisted of Soviet ships bringing Soviet goods from Baltic or Black Sea ports to the Far East for redistribution there. Foreign ships were not permitted to call at Vladivostok since World War II, and the ports of Nakhodka and Vostochnyi were developed instead. As a result in Vladivostok imports played a very small role as also Fesco used the port mostly for coastal trade.46 The end of the Cold War, however, caused a dramatic turnaround as Vladivostok was reopened to foreign vessels. Within a short time the bulk of the overseas traffic of its satellite ports, especially Nakhodka, has been redirected to Vladivostok itself. Thus, its relative decline as a naval base will be more than compensated for by the effects of the growth of its shipping and trade, and perhaps also its port industrialization.

City and port In its first decade Vladivostok was an insignificant military post where the most prominent residents were foreigners. In the first civil government elections of 27 March 1870, ten of the thirty voters were foreigners. Foreign merchants also dominated the trade. In 1871 there were three German, one American and one Russian merchant exporting and importing goods.47 The main street of the city was called ‘Amerikanka’ (American) until 1873 when it was renamed Svetlanskaya, in honor of the frigate Svetlanka which brought Grand Prince Aleksei Aleksandrovich to the city. A list of residents drawn up for the 1875 mayorial elections contained the names of 107 Russians and 125 foreigners. This time, however, the foreigners were not allowed to vote. A city charter was introduced on 30 November 1875. At that time the city had a population of 3,000. The first city council met on 7 December with twenty-one persons present. It took up the most immediate affairs: finding a building for the administration, police matters and the budget.48 In addition to the usual city affairs the Vladivostok civil administration had to deal with the question of land and, in particular, who owned it. This was a pressing issue since the government in St Petersburg controlled so much of it. In 1871 127 housing lots were auctioned. They went for about three kopeks per square sazhen (about 4.5 square meters).49 Foreign merchants were among the most active buyers. They often re-sold or leased the parcels to each other. Later the Committee on the Construction of Vladivostok distributed more land to foreigners. Unfortunately, the city elders on the committee did not bother keeping any blocks for the city’s own use and as a result they later had to buy land back from private individuals at high prices. The Navy Ministry owned Russian Island and all the land along the shore from the Obyasneniya River, at the eastern end of the Golden Horn, to Cape Egersheld, at the western end. It gave some land to the city for a bazaar and for the construction of

wharves, and also the mountainside of Svetlanskaya from the square to the watershed on the hill, but it kept for itself the entire shore-side, except for a few private parcels. In all the ministry controlled two-thirds and the city no more than one-third of the areas designated for the port.50 The city administration frequently petitioned higher authorities for the establishment of a city planning commission. It had three goals. Most importantly, it wanted to gain control over land use and, in particular, end the wanton seizure of land by central government departments. Whenever such a body needed space, it simply chose any spot and put up a building. Thus, construction and city growth took place without any plan or system. The city fathers also wanted the parcels reserved by the government in 1883 and not destined for government construction turned over to the city. Many of the empty parcels in the city and all the common and wooded land had been transferred to the local military in 1883, and after 1887 the city could not use the Goldobin Peninsula without special permission of the Priamur Governor-General. Finally, the city wanted control over the old commercial port. The city itself did not have sufficient suitable shoreline available for the construction of an adequate modern commercial port and docks. At some stage it hoped land would be freed up in the old port but as soon as that actually happened, the chancellery of the military governor grabbed it. The result was that the city had no space to construct the by now indispensable new port. By contrast, the military authorities made land available to commercial enterprises such as the Volunteer Fleet and the merchant Shevelev for their exclusive use.51 These transfers not only annoyed the city government but, as experience elsewhere showed at the time, such parcellization of harbor facilities could only have negative effects on Vladivostok’s long-term growth.52 As the land question remained unresolved until the late 1890s, a series of commissions grappled with the issue. Matters were coming to a head because with the Trans-Siberian Railway nearing completion, a place had to be found for the new commercial port, a railway station and the railway yards to link up with coastal and overseas steamers. The city was in a critical stage and its growth had to be regulated. The commissions could never come to a conclusion because of the obstructionist tactics of the Ministries of Finance, Navy and Railways. Finally, a commission headed by the Priamur Governor-General made a decision: in the future government agencies could take land without the city’s agreement only by legal means. That meant the city could now take possession of parcels within the city boundaries and the wooded land outside and establish regulations for its use. So long as its actions did not conflict with defense preparedness, the city could do what it wanted.53 As has been stressed, one of the city’s top priorities was the construction of the new commercial harbor. Although the decrepit remains of the original wooden wharf had been replaced by a stone dock 140 meters long which could accommodate all barges and seagoing ships, it was not suitable for the freight the new railroad would bring.54 In

1892 V.Ya. Beloborodov, a Ministry of Railways engineer, presented a plan for construction of a port along the northwestern shore of Zolotoi Rog from the railroad station to Cape Egersheld. It included a wharf of almost 5,200 meters long, capable of handling almost two million tons of freight a year. Beloborodov estimated the cost at approximately 2.3 million rubles. The Navy and War ministries, who wanted exclusive use of Zolotoi Rog, managed to get the plan scuttled. That left one of the other bays, Ulysses or Patroclus or even Poset or America, as possible sites for the commercial port. However, in 1895 the Navy Minister reversed course and pronounced the naval and commercial ports could coexist in Zolotoi Rog.55 After more surveys in 1895 the Ministry of Railways began construction of a 470 meter quay for ships with a draft of up to 8 meters. The modest new commercial port opened in December 1897. It was finally completed in September 1898 at a cost of some 1,250,000 rubles (c. £132,000),56 about half of Beloborodov’s estimate. In May 1897, even before the commercial port opened, the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) had begun construction of a port on the western shore of the Shkot Peninsula. Work was completed on the quay and port at Cape Egersheld in 1899.57 There were three dry docks, one 5-section floating dock, and a floating crane with a capacity of 100 tons. There was also a small private yard with mostly Chinese or Japanese workers.58 It was now possible for repair work to be done in winter. Previously ships had been forced to go to Nagasaki, Kobe or Shanghai as ships that remained in Vladivostok during the winter were frozen in. By 1913 the port of Vladivostok had evolved into a modestly sized but reasonably well-equipped modern facility. Its total quayage was 777 meters, consisting of a commercial quay 467 meters long; a two-part quay with each part about 49 meters which belonged to the Volunteer Fleet; and a two-part quay of the Chinese Eastern Railroad, of which each part measured 106 meters. In addition, the CER had six floating piers at Cape Egersheld. Minimum depth of the port was 8 meters. The water supply to the port (and the city) remained a constant problem. Before the Revolution, the port supplied water only to coasting ships and to the cutters of the various ministries and government departments. The express-steamers of the Volunteer Fleet and all foreign ships had to get water in Japan, China or Korea. In the early years, Vladivostok got all its water from wells that froze in cold weather or went dry in the summer because of too little snow fall the previous winter. Several plans were put before the city government to remedy the situation, but the city could never bring itself to act. During the winter of 1911 the water froze and drinking water had to be imported from Japan. The water supply problem was not finally resolved until the Soviet government built a waterworks in 1936.59 Those works were part of the slow and gradual modernization of the port which had started in 1924 when the Soviet government put in the first gantry crane. By 1936 the port had a large number of conveyor belts for bags of freight and tracked

transporters to load the ships. But there was still only a single railroad line and one crawler crane. In 1937 a floating crane with a lifting capacity of 120 tons arrived.60 In World War II Vladivostok was totally isolated in the shadow of the Japanese empire and if suffered no direct damage to port facilities. In its aftermath no resources were available and even the Korean War by-passed the city. Reconstruction began only in 1957 when a new series of wharves and sheds was built. A marine passenger terminal was added later. A second phase of modernization began in 1966. The new additions included cranes, forklifts, a computer center, and a small container terminal. The commercial port now stretches on the shore of Zolotoi Rog from the center of the city to the Strait of the Eastern Bosphorus.61 In addition to the commercial port, the Soviet authorities in 1938 established the Vladivostok Fishing Port to service the city’s expanding fishing industry. At that time it had only one deep-water dock and several small wooden piers. These were converted to metal, and they lasted until a major reconstruction project in 1965. At that time deep-water docks, capable of taking large factory ships, were added as were refrigerators, warehouses, mechanical discharging facilities, etc. The port’s function is to overhaul transports and fishing boats, repairs navigation instruments, etc. Since it is a dedicated fishing port, almost 90 percent of the goods handled are fish products. The Fishing Port is located on the Goldobin peninsula.62 The fishing fleet that had survived the Revolution, consisted of a few sailing boats. The Soviet government began modernization with the organization of the Far Eastern Fishing Trust. The Trust set out with simple initiatives such as providing motors for fishing boats. Its first seiner arrived only in 1934. It had a 100 horsepower engine. If the motor boats could catch 80 to 120 tons of fish per season, the seiner fleet could catch 900. The first ocean-going seiners arrived in 1951. In that year the Far East fishing fleet got 18 seiners and 11 medium trawlers with 300 horsepower engines. That permitted them to operate in the Okhotsk and Bering Seas and then in the open Pacific Ocean. The Far Eastern Administration of the Refrigerator Fleet (VRKhF) also operates out of Vladivostok. It was formed in 1932 and had its origins in a fish freezing enterprise. In 1933 it got two freezer ships and its present name, but it did not begin to develop rapidly until after the Second World War. At that time its shorebased refrigerators were transferred to the Fishing Port. By the end of the 8th Five-Year Plan (1966–70) the fleet had 49 transports, 45 refrigerator ships, eight floating fish factories and 30 auxiliary ships. It produced about 52 different products. In the 9th Five-Year plan VRKhF lost its factory ships to Dalryba (All-Union Fishing Industry Association of the Far Eastern Basin) and became simply a transport organization, carrying fish products and supplying the fleet at sea with fuel and fresh water. In 1978 it gained 15 rescue ships. VRKhF has its own repair factory. Its administration is opposite the center of Zolotoi Rog along side the fishing port.63 The Vladivostok base of the Trawler and Refrigerator Fleet (VBTRF) was created in

1974. It is one of the largest enterprises in Dalryba. In 1980, six years after its formation, it was producing 1,202,117,000 rubles worth of product a year. It has trawlers, factory ships and refrigerator ships.64 In addition to the Navy, other ministries and departments in Moscow also hampered the development of the port and city. The Ministry of the Merchant Marine, the Ministry of the Fishing Industry, and even the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations have diverted almost all of the hard currency earnings to Moscow, rather than using them to develop the port’s infrastructure. In the case of the fishing industry, the volume of the catch passing through Vladivostok has been increasing, but the volume at the disposal of the city itself has been falling.65

Educational institutions If Vladivostok has always been part of the sea and Asia, it has also tried to educate people to understand both. Education for the sea began with a school called the Aleksandrovskii Navigation Classes. This was established in 1890 to teach navigation, the mechanics of sailing, and also English language, since English was the commercial language of the Far East. In the winter months (mid-October to mid-April) the students were to study and work on ships. In the summer they sailed.66 In fact the school was illequipped. It had few teaching materials which had to be shared by two or three students at the time. During the first six years it spent 24,000 rubles and did not graduate a single student. In 1902 the Classes became the Maritime School of Navigation. In 1923 another change occurred and it became the Vladivostok Maritime Technical College for Communication. In March 1944 it became the Far Eastern Higher Engineering Maritime School. Today it is called the GI Nevelskoi Far Eastern State Maritime Academy. This makes it the third academy in the former Soviet Union (after St Petersburg and Odessa) preparing officers for the merchant marine.67 Over the course of time the number of its graduates has grown, but they have never been numerous. Graduates rose from 16 in 1924 to 136 in 1936 and then began declining, reaching a low of 32 in 1942. Thereafter, the number began a slow climb but did not exceed 200 until 1958 when 288 graduated.68 The Navy has its counterpart at Vladivostok, the SO Makarov Higher Naval School. It was established in 1937 in response to increasing demand for qualified officers in the Pacific Fleet. Things were so rushed in the beginning that the students were building the school at the same time they were taking classes.69 A much larger school prepared people for the fishing industry. In 1950 the Soviet government created the Far Eastern Engineering Institute of the Fishing Industry and Economy. Its first class graduated in 1955. By 1959 it had five faculties, over 800

students and branches in the Far Eastern cities of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii, YuzhnoSakhalinsk and Nakhodka. By the early 1980s it had about 7,000 students in six faculties and prepared engineers in ten specialist occupations. It was one of the largest higher educational institutions in Vladivostok. During its first 30 years it graduated over 10,000 engineers. Nowadays it no longer concentrates on just the fishing industry. It has diversified and trains students in the fields of food production equipment, refrigeration and compressors, processing fish products, the fishing industry, ichthyology and fish culture, marine transport, the economics, organization, and production of food products, accounting, etc.70 In terms of the number of students, the Far Eastern Polytechnical Institute is the largest educational institution in the Maritime region. It caters for a wide range of nonmaritime subjects and split off from the State Far Eastern University in 1930. At that time it had four faculties: mining, construction, mechanical and chemical engineering. Before the war it graduated about 1,200 engineers. Today it has over 10,000 students and about 700 teachers divided into nine faculties. It offers students 25 specialist courses. Since its inception it has produced more than 30,000 engineers.71 In addition to the educational institutions a series of research institutes deal with trade and marine affairs. The Pacific Scientific Research Institute of Fishing Economy and Oceanography (TTNRO), founded in 1925, studies marine resources and their use. To carry out this mission the institute has 46 laboratories and 15 observation points, a museum and about 40 ships. It also has a series of branches scattered throughout the Russian Far East.72 In addition to these specialized institutes, the Far Eastern Branch of the Academy of Sciences has a number of institutes in Vladivostok dealing with marine affairs: Pacific Oceanological Institute, Institute of Marine Biology, Institute of Economic and International Problems of Ocean Studies. Several others such as the Institute of Geography and Institute of Geology also do ocean-related work. Foreign language and humanities education began in Vladivostok after the SinoJapanese War of 1894–75 which stimulated sympathy for, and a growing interest in, China. The men’s gymnasium introduced a special class in Chinese in 1895, and the following year private courses in Chinese language were offered.73 But the real beginning came when a new four-year school, the Oriental Institute, opened in 1899. Students pursued one of four paths: Chinese-Japanese, Chinese-Korean, ChineseMongol, or Chinese-Manchu. They studied an extensive curriculum including religion, Chinese, English, French, geography and ethnography of China, Korea and Japan with a survey of their political systems and religious life, the political organization of modern China with a survey of its trade and industry, the history of contemporary China, Korea and Japan and their historical relations with Russia and other countries, the commercial geography of East Asia and the history of trade in the Far East, political

economy, international law, the political organization of Russia and other European powers, fundamentals of civil and trade law, accounting and commerce. Each of the four departments also offered specialist courses on their countries. In addition, the program included visits abroad in order to perfect the language studies.74 The Oriental Institute served the Far East well, preparing Russians for understanding their Asian neighbors. It had a rich library and issued a stream of important publications. It continued until after the Revolution when Soviet authorities converted it into the State Far Eastern University. The university had five faculties: Chinese and Japanese languages, pedagogy, agriculture, engineering, and workers. The latter contained departments of natural and social sciences. In 1923 it had 1,165 students in its three year program. In 1930 the engineering faculty was split off into the Far Eastern Polytechnical Institute, and in 1939 the university itself was closed. It was reconstituted only in 1956 as the Far Eastern State University, but by then all the outstanding teachers and specialists were gone and the library long since destroyed.75 The university today is trying to recapture its relationship with Asia. It has a Faculty of Eastern Languages, and recently it opened a faculty of Chinese Studies, formed on the basis of the Department of Philology of the Faculty of Eastern Languages. It is also developing ties with foreign universities. It signed an agreement with Kyongnam University in South Korea and with Heilongjiang University in China for the exchange of staff and students. As yet, no such programs with Niigata or other cities in Japan have been initiated but they cannot be far off.

Conclusion Vladivostok is one of the few port cities in the world functioning as the seat of all major maritime activities: merchant shipping, navy, fisheries, and oceanographic research. (And, if one can rely on photographic evidence, water sport as well.)76 Founded as Russia’s gateway to Northeast Asia and the Pacific, it has fully benefited from the absence of any serious rivals and its long-time superior situation and site. No fundamental change has occurred in that respect over the last century or so, even if the city has had its distinct ups and downs and if the balance between its various maritime sectors has differed from time to time. On the long term one can distinguish three major phases: a long and gradual expansion from the foundation to the outbreak of World War I, then a quiescent period with a few spasms of growth until the early 1960s, and then – largely the result of Vladivostok becoming an ever more important factor in the Soviet naval and militaryindustrial complex – again a period of sustained growth and self-confidence. The city’s fast-growing population has been largely employed in jobs directly or indirectly related to its port city function. Now, with the collapse of the Cold War a crucial period of new

challenges has begun. With the possibility of large-scale economic development in Russia’s Far East and the adoption of a Free Trade Zone régime for the city itself it is likely that the traditional maritime outlook of Vladivostok will be of immense value in its transformation away from a tightly-run Soviet community and into a true member of the international Pacific community. Whether it will actually be able to achieve the transition into one of Asia’s little dragons can only be mooted, but its special character will remain and its primacy uncontested, particularly now it has regained the shipping activity of its satellite port Nakhodka. Indeed, it appears that Vladivostok is regaining the cosmopolitan ambiance which characterized it during its most feverish era during the zenith of imperialist rivalries in East Asia, just prior to the Russo-Japanese War, when it was visited by the well-known British journalist, John Foster Fraser. The image he evoked, in 1902, ‘everything telling of a new town in the throes of development’,77 may soon be valid again.

NOTES 1 John J. Stephan, ‘Russia in Pacific Asia’, in Mark Borthwick, ed. Pacific Century. The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia (Boulder, 1992), p. 491. 2 For a relatively modern photographic account see Yu. Muravin et al., Vladivostok. Gorod u Okeana (Moscow, 1985). 3 N.N. Matveev, Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk g. Vladivostoka (Vladivostok, 1990), p. 177. 4 Ibid., pp. 165–6. 5 Ibid., pp. 236 and 249. 6 Ibid., pp. 89, 223, 236–7, and 247. 7 United States, Department of State, Bureau of Foreign Commerce, Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries, 1902 (Washington, 1903), vol. 1, p. 992. 8 United States, Consular Report, no. 246 (March 1901), pp. 386–7. 9 Matveev, Kratkii, pp. 187–8. 10 Kampo, 12 July 1902, p. 256. 11 Matveev, Kratkii, p. 230. 12 Hara Terayuki, ‘The Korean Movement in the Russian Maritime Province’, in Koreans in the Soviet Union (Honolulu, 1987), p. 2. 13 Robert B. Valliant, ‘Japan and the Trans-Siberian Railroad, 1885–1905’, (Ph.D. thesis, University of Hawaii, 1974), p. 186. 14 Ibid., pp. 186–8. 15 Matveev, Kratkii, pp. 14, 15, 30, 51–2, and 55–60. 16 Ibid., pp. 190, 223, and 229.

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

Ibid., p. 222. Ibid., p. 230. Asahi, 27 February 1902. Quoted in Valliant, ‘Japan and the TSR’, p. 191. Matveev, Kratkii, p. 82–4. Vladivostok: shtrikhi k portretu (Vladivostok, 1985), pp. 40–1. Ibid., pp. 51 and 52. Ibid., pp. 28 and 36. Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., pp. 28, 29, and 37; Matveev, Kratkii, pp. 234–5. Matveev, Kratkii, p. 234; Vladivostok: shtrikhi, p. 59; Materialy po istorii Vladivostoka (1860–1917) (Vladivostok, 1960), vol. 1, p. 50; Vladivostok (1860–1907), pp. 45–6. There is a curious parallel here, as Witte, who cut his teeth during the same war on the emergency building of railways to the Turkish front, was the driving force behind the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway whereas the Volunteer Fleet established the maritime link between European Russia and Vladivostok. Vladivostok: shtrikhi, p. 29; Matveev, Kratkii, p. 235. Valliant, Japan and the TSR, pp. 88 and 199. Vladivostok 1860–1960, pp. 117–20. SUPAR Report, no. 11 ( July 1991), p. 114. Vladivostok: shtrikhi, pp. 26, 28, 29, and 62. Vladivostok 1860–1960, p. 68. Vladivostok: shtrikhi, p. 109. Ibid., pp. 260–1. Commercial Relations, 1902, vol. 1, pp. 997–8. Matveev, Kratkii, pp. 239 and 261; Commercial Relations, 1902, vol. 1, pp. 997–8; Materialy po istorii Vladivostoka, vol. 1, pp. 55–6. United States, Bureau of Statistics, Monthly Consular Reports, vol. 73, no. 279 (December 1903), pp. 699–700. Commercial Relations, 1902, vol. 1, p. 978. Denisov, Rossiya, pp. 37–8. Vladivostok: shtrikhi, p. 60. Vladivostok 1860–1960, p. 107. Ibid., pp. 118–20. Ibid., p. 116. A.S. Sergeev, ‘Rol morskogo porta Vladivostok v sotsialno-ekonomi-cheskom razvitii goroda’, in Perspektivy razvitiya g. Vladivostoka (Vladivostok, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 18–21. Matveev, Kratkii, pp. 71–2, and 80.

48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Ibid., pp. 91–100. Ibid., p. 74. Ibid., pp. 131–5. Ibid., pp. 201–3. See, esp., the formation of Harbour Trusts with wide powers, including that of the resumption of privately-held land and wharves in most major ports of the British Empire; F. Broeze, P. Reeves & K. McPherson, ‘Imperial ports and the modern world economy’, Journal of Transport History, vol. 7 (1986), pp. 14–7. Matveev, Kratkii, pp. 257–8. Vladivostok: shtrikhi, p. 33. Vladivostok (Sbornik istoricheskikh dokumentov) (1860–1907) (Vladivostok, 1960), pp. 38–40; Vladivostok: shtrikhi, p. 39; and Matveev, Kratkii, p. 225. Matveev, Kratkii, pp. 239–40, and 252–3; Vladivostok: shtrikhi, pp. 41 and 49. Vladivostok: shtrikhi, pp. 48 and 49. V.I. Denisov, Rossiya na Dalnem Vostoke (n.p., 1913), pp. 33–6. Ibid., pp. 64–5. Vladivostok 1860–1960, pp. 106–8. Vladivostok: shtrikhi, p. 244. Ibid., p. 242–3. Ibid., pp. 241–2. Ibid., p. 242. Vladivostokskii gorodskoi sovet narodnykh deputatov. Perspektivy razvitiya g. Vladivostoka (Vladivostok, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 18 and 19. Vladivostok (1860–1907), pp. 59–61. Krasnoe znamya, 15 May 1991, p. 2. Materialy po istorii Vladivostoka II, 1917–1960, pp. 176–9. Vladivostok: shtrikhi, p. 258. Ibid., pp. 256–7. Ibid., pp. 255–6. Ibid., pp. 248–9. Matveev, Kratkii, pp. 242 and 244. Vladivostok 1860–1907, pp. 62–65. Vladivostok (1860–1960), pp. 220–2; Vladivostok: shtrikhi, pp. 254–5. Muravin, Vladivostok. Gorod u Okeana, pp. 190–5. John Foster Fraser, The Real Siberia (London, 1902), p. 202.

11

ALLEPPEY From a Port without a City to a City without a Port Hans Schenk Faculty of Environmental Sciences University of Amsterdam

The helmsman of a ship sailing at night along the west coast of India would at 9° 35” latitude North sight the beams of a lighthouse. Anchoring in the shallow waters off the coast, the next morning he would recognize the distant profile of the port that was his destination: a pier stretching a few hundred metres into the sea; the white-painted lighthouse, towering above thousands of green coconut trees; and the harbour master’s station, slightly to the left. The captain might call at the harbour master. However, if any cargo had to be unloaded, he might face problems. There were no lighters at hand to bring it ashore from the roadstead to the pier on which a few rusty cranes stand idle. True, lighters could be called, and they might actually arrive in a few days from nearby ports such as Quilon or Cochin. But then the captain might as well decide to sail on to Quilon – 40 miles to the South – or Cochin – 40 miles to the North – where he would find better facilities to unload his ship than at the port of Alleppey. For all practical purposes the port of Alleppey has ceased to function; it is dead, not even acknowledged any more as one of India’s ‘minor ports’. Once, however, it was the major port of Travancore and named as ‘second to Bombay only’ on the west coast of the peninsula. This chapter will re-create and assess the birth, life and death of this unique port.1 Alleppey once was a port city along the southwestern coast of the Indian peninsula, one of the numerous settlements along the coasts of Asia which served as ports. Rhoads Murphey has memorized them in a collective epitaph, referring to nineteenth century

developments in maritime technology and the failure of these ports and their hinterlands to respond adequately to that challenge.2 The rise and decline of these ports are an integral element of India’s economic development and its long involvement with the sea. Alleppey is a prime example for studying the various internal and external dynamics involved in such a process of fluctuating fortunes. Questions such as: why did Alleppey become a port of some importance on the Malabar coast – which it undoubtedly was until recently3 – why did it decline; did rise and decline follow the usual forces of enlargement of scale and centralization of port activities, have to be asked. In the process the possibility of alternative developments must also be considered as Alleppey’s rise and decline can only be understood through the interaction of local factors and the larger contexts of regional, national and even worldwide developments. It is not difficult to study Alleppey’s history from the perspective of its port as its urban development until about thirty years or so ago has to an extreme extent been dominated by it. It is hardly an exaggeration to equate the port and the city during that period. Any assessment of the history of Alleppey is almost necessarily port-centred. Ironically, its gradual decline – which started almost a century ago – was camouflaged and even delayed by a sudden, short, and intense outburst of industrialization.

The birth of an indigenous port in Travancore It is customary to make a broad distinction between gradually emerging ‘traditional’, ‘indigenous’ settlements in South Asia and the ‘planned’, ‘European’ colonial towns, notably the colonial port cities.4 Often, the origins of pre-colonial port and trading towns such as Surat, Cambay and Calicut remain rather vague,5 while a clear birthday can even be given to the colonial port settlements such as Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. Though this distinction may suggest a broad dividing line between two types of South Asian settlements, it does not cover the origins of Alleppey Alleppey was purposefully planned and constructed, but not under foreign rule or by a foreign power. Its creator was the Indian kingdom of Travancore which aimed at beating European naval, commercial and political rivals with their own weapons. In order to understand the birth of the port, we have to analyse the political, socio-economic and physical conditions of Travancore.

Power and trade From the sixteenth till the nineteenth centuries European traders and trading companies tried to establish factories along the southwestern coast of India, both in

existing settlements and at specifically created stations. Their good or ill fortunes depended on many factors, including power politics in Europe (which are far beyond the scope of this chapter), the dynamics and outcome of their cut-throat competition, and their political relations with local Indian rulers. Britain emerged as the major European trading power during the eighteenth century but its position along the southwestern – or Malabar – coast was much less clear. The Dutch, who had ousted the Portuguese during the previous century, were strongly entrenched at Cochin and a few other smaller settlements. Moreover, the French at Mahé formed a considerable nuisance to British trade and in their struggle against British power they repeatedly formed alliances with Indian rulers in the interior such as Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali.6 The commercial interests of the Europeans were focused on what was called ‘the wealth of Malabar’ or ‘the wealth of Travancore’: pepper primarily, but also cardamom, turmeric, capsicum, teakwood, coir rope, and a wide range of other produce.7 Though sharp rivalry between the Europeans was common along the full length of India’s littoral, an unusual factor on the Malabar coast was the increasing interest during the 18th century by an indigenous ruler, the Rajah of Travancore, and his chief minister to participate and capture a fair share of the profits for their state. Travancore had gradually expanded its territory and power through the conquest of territories to the northward and by the 1750s stretched from Cape Comorin in the south to Cochin and even beyond in the north, and from the Arabian Sea coast to the Ghats. Meanwhile, Travancore’s rulers managed to outmanoeuvre British and Dutch traders and by the 1760s they decided to challenge the foreign powers by involving themselves directly in the lucrative export trade. Das Gupta summarized the consequences of these decisions: Finally, Travancore challenged and broke the Dutch blockade of the coast at sea. This was not done by another naval battle but by the establishment of a new port at Alleppey a little to the south of Cochin, which the Dutch were forced to leave alone. All this took some fifty years to accomplish. In this half a century the greatest single act in the business world of Malabar was the monopoly of Travancore.8 For their purpose the Travancore administration created both a state trading organization – the Commercial Department – with monopoly powers over inland production and a new port at Alapuzha as the outlet for its pepper and other export produce. Because of the lack of an indigenous trading tradition the Travancore rulers invited merchants from Sindh, Kutch, and Gujarat as well as Tamil Chettiars to settle at Alapuzha. In addition Konkani Brahmins (from Goa) and Parsis arrived and began trading under the overall control of the state Commercial Department.

The port of Alapuzha: Site characteristics The choice of the location for Travancore’s port was based on rational physical and transport economic considerations. The main spice-growing regions of Travancore were situated in the hilly ‘midlands’ in the northern part of the state, separated from the sea by the ‘lowlands’, an extensive estuary of rivers and creeks (the Backwaters) which converged into a brackish lake (Vembanad). This lake stood in open connection with the Arabian Sea at Cochin. At its southern end, Lake Vembanad was fed by most of its tributary rivers, flowing from the ‘highlands’ and the ‘midlands’. There the lake was only separated from the sea by a stretch of low dunes some three miles in width (Fig. 11.1). It was here, near the tiny hamlet of Alapuzha, that the Rajah of Travancore decided to build his port. The Commercial Canal was built from the Backwaters to the beach up to a mere hundred meters from the sea. Alongside this canal, and close to the beach, a few warehouses and offices were built. This was the sum total of the port of Alapuzha. The simplicity of the planned port of Alapuzha is striking. From its hinterland shallow boats (vellams) loaded with spices, timber and other products, almost naturally drifted into Commercial Canal and were unloaded near the beach. Cargo was subsequently stored and – if necessary – processed in the warehouses set back some ten metres from the canal. Seafaring barges then carried exports to ships on the roadstead in front of Alleppey, where a mudbank provided safe anchorage in all seasons.9 Natural conditions thus determined Alapuzha’s location and favoured it. But alternative sites in the region hardly existed, due to the lack of roads and adequate means of overland transport, while the inland trade monopoly of the Commercial Department was effective enough to direct most of Travancore’s export products to its port and defeat various attempts at smuggling them to ports elsewhere. Alapuzha was almost nothing but a port from its inception in 1762 until at least the mid-nineteenth century. A small cluster of traders lived alongside Commercial Canal while port workers and lightermen were recruited from prisons or from nearby villages. No settlement of any significance and inhabited by ‘citizens’ emerged under the feudal and state-controlled régime of the port during the eighteenth century. This situation did not change materially when, from around 1800, Travancore came under British suzerainty, and the Commercial Department was controlled by the East India Company and headed by a British ‘Commercial Agent’.10 Only now, due to the direct involvement of the British in the export trade of Travancore, the name Alapuzha was written onto the world map of ports, albeit in a version typically corrupted for British convenience to: Alleppey.

Port and industrial development Though data pertaining to the development of Alleppey’s port during the first half of the nineteenth century are scarce, it can be assumed that some steady growth took place in the volume of its trade. A second waterway, the Vadai Canal, was built during these decades, parallel to Commercial Canal and apparently aiming at relieving the latter’s congestion (Fig. 11.2). However, since the Commercial Department operated under a monopolistic contract system obliging spice-growers to sell specified proportions of their harvest against fixed prices, there were few incentives to increase the crop of spices and hence the volume of cargo handled at Alleppey’s port. All this changed when, in 1858, the EIC was abolished. The new British colonial administration installed a free trade régime in its Indian presidencies and also imposed it on the semi-independent ‘Princely States’ such as Travancore; existing trade monopolies on pepper and other products were abolished from 1860. The government of Travancore henceforward received a small duty on the goods exported through the Commercial Agent, stationed in Alleppey, while it had to allow its wealth to be tapped by Travancoreans and foreigners alike. Consequently, after 1860 foreign traders and private trading companies settled in large numbers in Travancore where they congegrated in Alleppey. They contributed to a remarkable increase of the export trade through the port.

Figure 11.1 Water and land in Kuttanad

Figure 11.2 Sketchmap of Alleppey The Commercial Agent and the local trading community reacted promptly to the emerging prospects of free trade by modernizing the port of Alleppey11 A lighthouse was built in 1860, a telegraph office opened in 1863 and a pier constructed during the early 1870s. Steam-driven cranes were installed on the pier, and more and bigger lighters were put into use to serve the increasing number of ever larger ships calling at its port. Steamers were first seen off Alleppey’s coast in 1865, and their number increased rapidly from the 1870s. Table 11.1 gives some details on shipping until the turn of the century. Table 11.1 Shipping at Alleppey, 1868–98 (selected years)

*

The reports from which these figures are taken, refer actually to the Malayalam calendar which roughly starts at the beginning of September and runs to the end of August. Source: Annual Reports on the Administration of Travancore. The Alleppey authorities and traders were keen to respond to the introduction of new technologies. The Alleppey telegraph office was the first in Travancore and came only ten years after the first one in Madras,12 while in Bombay the first telegraph was installed in 1853.13 The Madras pier was constructed in 1861,14 again only ten years ahead of that in Alleppey, while major innovations in Bombay also took place during the 1860s.15 Apparently, at this stage of technological development and economic growth, Alleppey’s port facilities could match those in other Indian ports. At the turn of the century it was observed that Alleppey ‘commands a fine harbour affording safe anchorage for the greater part of the year’.16 Soon, however, threats arose to Alleppey’s rising importance. The first came from the port’s hinterland. From the mid 1850s, the state of Travancore started the construction of a road network.17 This consisted of a major North-South running trunk road (the ‘Main Central Road’, even now called ‘MC-road’) and a number of ‘feeders’. The main artery was laid east of the marshes of the Backwaters for obvious ecological reasons, but it neared the coast / both to the north and to the south of Alleppey, viz. at Ernakulam opposite Cochin, and at Quilon. Alleppey itself was by-passed and thus was in danger of being isolated from its hinterland as transport switched from water to land (Fig. 11.3). The consequences of this modal shift became manifest by the turn of the twentieth century. Road traffic increased even more rapidly when it became motorized. Carts and cars with spices and other products were increasingly dispatched from the midlands to Quilon and even more Cochin, much to the detriment of vellam transport to Alleppey. (Fig. 11.4)

Figure 11.3 Water and land routes This decline was hastened when, during the 1890s, the British colonial administration (partly for military reasons) decided to build a modern harbour at Cochin,18 and also sought Travancore’s co-operation for this policy. The state government now realized that its open port was incapable of handling ever larger steamers and improving on long loading times. Not after some long considerations it concluded that it was indeed necessary to construct another port. It committed itself to the development of the new harbour at Cochin which was finally opened in 1939. Through a process of gradual atrophy Alleppey would by that time already have been a ‘dead’ port, if not another development had given its port an unexpected lifeline: the rapid expansion of the coir industry and the overseas shipment of coir products through its port.

Alleppey’s industrialization: the coir industry In 1859 a United States citizen of Irish origins, James Darragh, started a coir mill in Alleppey This event marked the beginning of an initially slow process of industrialization which in due course gave an enormous stimulus to the town and its port. The latter, in fact, did not reach its zenith until the 1930s. This is not the place to discuss the details of the manufacturing of coir products by Darragh and the companies which followed in his wake. Here it must suffice to stress how extraordinary this particular example of industrialization in India was. First, contrary to developments in several other economic sectors in India, the factory manufacturing of ‘coir goods’ (mats and matting) did not affect the traditional and home-based processing of the fibre of the husk of the coconut into yarn (mostly used for rope, e.g. in shipping). To the contrary: it greatly diversified and enlarged the usage of coir yarn and hence traditional employment.

Second, the introduction of factory-based production as such was a novelty in a region, in which only home-based cottage production was known. Third, Darragh did not ship yarn to Great Britain or elsewhere in the Atlantic world for the final stages of production, as was initially the case with raw cotton from Bombay or jute from Dacca and Calcutta. The entire manufacturing process of coir products took place in Alleppey itself and exports were shipped directly from there till the early 1970s.19 James Darragh stood alone till about the turn of the century. Afterwards, and especially after the introduction of powerlooms (a very few as early as the 1870s, but in increasing numbers after the First World War), other trading and manufacturing companies established themselves in the town. Initially, they were almost all British (e.g., Aspinwall, Peirce Leslie, William Goodacre) but there was also the well-known Swiss company Volkart Brothers, specialized in the manufacturing and shipping of rope for the European wine industry, and in the later stage also some Indian firms. The coir business was profitable and created large-scale employment. During the 1930s it employed some 20,000 factory workers in Alleppey alone and another 15,000 in its immediate vicinity. In addition, the tedious household-based process of transforming the husk of the coconut into yarn may have employed (probably mostly part-time) another 60,000 to 70,000 workers, mainly in the countryside near Alleppey.

Figure 11.4 The location of Alleppey in South India

These figures are remarkable, considering the size of Alleppey’s population. At the census of 1901 the urban population was said to be 25,000 inhabitants, which number rose to 56,000 in 1941, a growth which partly resulted from extended municipal boundaries. Alleppey grew as much by annexing neighbouring villages in the densely populated coastal tracts of Travancore as by natural growth of its population. Immigration was not an important factor. The urban labour force consisted largely of a considerable number of daily ‘commuters’. Alleppey, in fact, was little more than a port with a few basic facilities to which a huge labour force – working in the coir factories, and to some extent also in copra and coconut oil processing – was added, partly from within, partly from without its municipal boundaries. Alleppey, in this way, was and remained very much a ‘parachuted’ settlement, geared towards the external demands of overseas transport and coir manufacturing. The occupational structure of the town as recorded in the 1901 Census demonstrates this very well: unskilled labourers (probably most of them ‘coolies’); fishermen; workers in the coir industry; persons engaged in water transport, from pilots to boatsmen and bargemen; and traders formed the bulk of the Alleppey labour force, whereas other groups such as professionals and civil servants formed only a small minority.20 The reasons for James Darragh’s decision to start his factory in Alleppey were clear: he went to ‘the centre of the yarn producing area’.21 Probably one has to add that he found easy and cheap transport from there to the town and, naturally, the presence of a port which at that time could compete with any other along the south-western coast of the peninsula. Companies which came later must equally have been attracted by the skilled labour force, from which they could recruit, although coir manufacturing units were also established in several other towns, such as Beypore, Calicut and Cochin. Alleppey, however, was without any doubt the main centre of both manufacturing and shipping. Moreover, the spectacular rise of the coir industry for a long time delayed the decline of the port; indeed, it was responsible for its unprecedented turnover and importance during the 1930s.

A giant on clay feet In retrospect, the history of Alleppey during the first four decades or so of the twentieth century, seems to be the peculiar result of two opposite trends. In the long run the port was doomed and the harbingers of death were clear: port centralization in Bombay (and later Cochin) and economies of scale threatened all minor ports in the region and, in particular, those not sufficiently equipped to handle ever larger cargo ships. Technological changes in land transport threatened Alleppey too: its hinterland shrunk with the import of every additional truck introduced into Travancore. And, as the final nail in its coffin, colonial policies – partly reacting to economic calculations,

partly following military reasoning – favoured Cochin. Yet, between the World Wars Alleppey prospered as never before, as can be seen from shipping statistics in Table 11.2. Table11.2 Shipping at Alleppey, 1923–44 (selected years)

Sources: Annual Reports on the Administration of Travancore, and Annual Reports of the (Alleppey) Travancore Chamber of Commerce. The port of Alleppey flourished as the cargo provided by the bulky coir mats and matting from its factories easily overshadowed the unavoidably meagre tonnage of spices and similar products – the traditional ‘wealth of Travancore’ – which through the introduction of ever larger steamers was lost to the major coastal ports. The average tonnage of the ships plying at Alleppey increased gradually during the second half of the nineteenth century from approximately 180 tons, during the 1870s to over 800 during the 1890s (Table 11.1). It rose dramatically to over 2,000 tons per ship during the 1930s (Table 11.2). Moreover, speed became more and more important with the advent of steamers, which by the 1930s totally dominated the trade. Alleppey also remained an attractive outlet because of the nature of its hinterland which enabled water transport to survive longer than otherwise would have been possible. Although the port was more and more cut off from its hinterland in the Travancore up- and midlands, the coastal Backwaters continued to be oriented towards Alleppey. They remained inaccessible to trucks as roads remained rare and thus the vellam had no real competitors in bringing coir-yarn into the town. Even in I960, all coir goods in Kerala (India’s successor state to the princely states of Travancore and Cochin and the British-Indian district of Malabar), were for 60 per cent transported by vellam.22 Since roads were much more developed elsewhere in the region, it can be assumed that almost all inland coir transport took place by inland boats. Table11.3 Shipping at Alleppey, 1948–73 (selected years)

Sources: see Table 2. Shipping departing from Alleppey was almost all ‘overseas shipping’. During World War II it collapsed and was replaced by the traditional and subordinated mode of transport: coastal sailing ships, which centralized exports in the few bigger seaports like Cochin and Bombay.23 After the war, Alleppey’s overseas traffic recovered quickly. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the volume of its shipping movements approximated that during the 1930s (Table 11.3). This recovery is remarkable, since by now Cochin had come fully on stream. It must therefore be concluded that the opening of this modern port was not the single decisive factor in the decline of Alleppey’s traffic which manifested itself clearly from the late 1960s (Table 11.3). Other factors should be taken into account as well in order to explain the collapse of this – small – giant.

The port of Alleppey and the economics of poverty Alleppey port would gradually have atrophied during the first decades of the twentieth century if the coir industry had not been established and had not generated its massive overseas shipments. The town itself would then have become a settlement like any other without any special function in the regional economy of Travencore. Perhaps it might even have shrunk to no more than a fishing village like those that in their many hundreds form an almost continuous line of human habitation along India’s west coast. However, the coir industry rescued the port and the town for a short but intensive period. Both James Darragh and his successors made rational decisions in settling at Alleppey. Cheap and easy transport of raw materials, availability of cheap and skilled labour, and, of course, the presence of an outlet for overseas transport, were their major considerations in starting coir manufacturing in Alleppey, made that the worldwide market for coir mattings could be translated into continuous business and profitability for the ‘coir business’. But, we can sharpen this argument, and it seems relevant to do so, since only then will it become possible to understand the rather sudden and now – apparently – final collapse of the industry. The foundations of the city’s industry and the traffic of the port

were based upon an economic structure of poverty; a poverty which pervaded each and every link in the chain of the process of production, manufacturing and both land and sea transport of that mainstay of Alleppey’s economic life: the coir industry. Under a number of specific conditions, this ‘poverty economy’ appeared to be the strength of local prosperity, that is considerable prosperity for a few and means to survive for the many of the inhabitants of the town and its vicinity. Each challenge to the poverty component of this structure directly affected the structure itself. What did this poverty-based economic structure look like? The coir industry demands initial processing from husks into yarn. This work was mostly done in the countryside, by men, women and children, and mainly on a household contract-basis, against very minimal returns and with considerable risk to the workers themselves.24 Shipment by vellam to the coir processing units in Alleppey was the cheapest form of transport.25 In Alleppey, the processing of yarn into mats and matting was to some extent mechanized as handlooms and even some powerlooms were used, but the looms were very primitive and did not require substantial capital investment. The major costs of production were labour costs, which were low during the whole period from the 1920s to the 1950s. Shipping was equally cheap. Alleppey was called a ‘competitive port’, demanding low port duties and offering poor and time-consuming facilities. Hence, when the final products reached London, Rotterdam, New York and Sydney, they were cheap products. Coir matting was a cheap and simple product, almost inferior, also in the eyes of local entrepreneurs,26 but continued to be desired as a floor covering by many people in the United States, Europe and Australia. Its very cheapness made it attractive, especially during the Great Depression of the early 1930s, and less vulnerable to that crisis. The port, the industries and the labourers of Alleppey offered a cheap product to the (relatively) less well-off in the industrialized nations of the world. Some of those who controlled this chain of poverty naturally grew rich out of their position of power, such as the entrepreneurs involved in all stages of the production, transport and marketing. However, cheapness prevailed as a relevant denominator of the final product and circumscribed the position of producer, transporter and consumer. Cheapness, as an indicator of Alleppey’s economy of poverty, of course had its price. The processing of coir products was technically ‘primitive’ and the end-product not seldom ‘sub-standard’, while inland transport was slow and technologically simple. Under the conditions of the poverty-circuit which governed the roles of producers, distributors and consumers, these factors could not be taken too much into account. In retrospect, it appears that between the late nineteenth and the mid twentieth century (apart from the two World Wars which ‘distorted’ the picture) two rather different and separate types of economic circuits emerged in southwest India. One became related to the modern inputs in infrastructure and could capitalize on them: the export of the precious spices of Travancore and adjacent regions went more and more

to that port that could guarantee quick and easy transport to the warehouses located near the consumers. From the late 1890s onwards and even more so from the late 1930s Cochin became the focal point of overseas shipments as it assumed a position of port hegemony on the Malabar coast at the expense of Alleppey and the many other minor ports in the region.27 But there had been a second circuit – easily overlooked – which did less depend on speed, which had a much lower value per cubic ton, and which could maintain its position in ports such as Alleppey. The cheap transport of bulk coir products forms a prime example of this category. Thus a dichotomy evolved in Travancore’s regional economy and its overseas shipping links. ‘Modern’ developments could be and were separated from ‘other’ ones. During the considerable period that Alleppey’s products could be offered against competitive rates and were in demand all over the world, its port could remain active. Thus also Alleppey’s poverty-based economic system could survive and even ‘flourish’. However, internal challenges and changes in external conditions always posed threats to its survival and in the end they proved to be too strong for the local society and its institutions. The challenge to cheapness came from several corners. The first set of attacks can be euphemistically classified under the heading: increased costs of the production of coir mats. Actually these words hide a heroic drama of the struggle of organized labour in Travancore and Kerala since the 1920s. Both heroism and drama have been well recorded from its initial stage of labour welfare demands through various stages of radicalization from the 1930s to the 1960s which ultimately led to the periodical takeover of power by so-called Communist and Marxist parties in Kerala since the late 1950s.28 The labour conditions in the coir and port sectors of the Travancorean and Keralese economy always were major issues in the region’s industrial and political struggles. The Alleppey trade unions, the vanguard in the emergence of class consciousness in Travancore between the World Wars, started to negotiate for better labour conditions in the 1920s. Their campaign was conducted with increasing vigour during the 1930s and culminated in the general strike of 1938. After the formation of Kerala in independent India, these unions formed the core of the dominant left-wing political power in that state. During the 1950s and 1960s organized labour struggled against the loss of work in the coir sector of the town, with success as far as attempts to mechanize the coir industry was concerned, despite the overall decline of demand for coir goods. Under the growing influence of organized labour, wages – at least those in the organized coir sector – increased. This led both to a retreat of the coir industry into unorganized small-scale and household manufacturing units beyond the realm of labour legislation, and to the transfer of several coir manufacturing units away from Alleppey to other locations in India where labour was less powerful (such as Tamil Nadu) and also to locations beyond India’s boundaries which allowed and encouraged

capital intensive/labour extensive manufacturing, such as Sri Lanka and even Europe. In this manner the advantages of comparative low costs of production were lost at – least for Alleppey. These processes, moreover, took place under changing conditions of world demand for coir. The second major attack against the coir industry indeed resulted from changes in the patterns of demand. Increased wealth and purchasing power of consumers in the industrialized world after the Second World War made coir mats less and less attractive. The era of ‘consumerism’ allowed and stimulated more expensive home decoration. The tonnage of coir goods exported from all ports in Kerala declined gradually after a post-war high of approximately 75,000 tons during the late fifties/early sixties to some 50,000 tons around 1970.29 Overseas shipments through the port of Alleppey declined even faster. From a post-war high of 24,000 tons in 1962, exports steadily declined to 13,000 tons in 1970 and 7,000 tons in 1973. The loss of overseas markets was only partly off-set by increased demand from the Indian domestic market. Therefore, as the strength of cheapness was broken at the consumers’ side as well as on that of production, Alleppey’s port activity could not but collapse. Dramatic changes in transport technology accelerated the inevitable. The gradual opening of Alleppey’s Backwaters by road reduced the port’s hinterland and sharpened the competition from overland transport to Cochin. The coastal road from Alleppey northward to Cochin lured coir manufacturers to transport coir goods to that port for further shipment without the vexations of time-consuming transshipment on the open roadstead. The once ‘comfortable’ gap between ‘cheap’ shipments from Alleppey and ‘expensive’ ones from Cochin was reversed and became uncomfortable for Alleppey. In other words: the economics of cheapness could no longer be maintained in a world governed by efficiency, in which time cost money. Within this overall picture, a comparison between the export of coir goods (both finished, mats and matting and some rope, semi-finalized products, mainly yarn) from Cochin and from Alleppey, accentuates the peculiar position of Alleppey’s port and industry. Both ports faced overall decline in the coir sector from about 1964 onwards, but in quite different ways. Finished products were the first to be concentrated in Cochin for shipment. While the volume of this category was more or less steady during the 1950s and 1960s, Alleppey’s share diminished sharply from more than 40 per cent of all Keralese ports during the mid 1950s to a mere 10 per cent around 1970. However, Alleppey could maintain its relative position with regard to semi-finalized and cheaper goods. Its share in a gradually declining export trade even rose from some 15 per cent during the early 1950s to about 30 per cent in the early 1960s, and it remained at least on that level to 1970, after which year a sudden and final collapse took place. Alleppey’s entrepreneurs were the first to gauge the downfall of the local economy. Both in reaction to wage demands from organized labour, and in search for more convenient shipment of their products, many of them transferred business to Cochin, or

at least, finalized mat production there. In these processes of relocation and overall economic decline Alleppey’s coir sector was drastically reduced and largely transformed from making end-products into the supply of raw materials or semifinished products for final manufacturing in Cochin or elsewhere. This flight was promoted by the objections from the Alleppey trade unions against any measure of mechanization in the fabrication of coir mats. The key elements of these processes were summarized by a retired employee of the Swiss firm Volkart Brothers in a private communication: By the end of the 1950s/early 1960s coir yarn and coir products were more and more replaced in industrialized countries by other materials (synthetic fibres and floor coverings etc.). With vastly reduced turnover and improved transport facilities Cochin [the Cochin branch of the firm, HS] found that they could operate more economically by purchasing coir yarn directly from districts and transporting it to Cochin for processing. Accordingly, in 1963, the Alleppey agency was reduced to a small shipping office. In 1969 our erstwhile Alleppey properties were requisitioned by the Kerala Government.30

Conclusion Reviewing the history of Alleppey and its port, several anomalies stand out in comparison with the general picture of Indian ports. First, in contrast to the commonly made distinction between gradually growing indigenous Indian port settlements and artificially established foreign ports, Alleppey – or rather Alapuzha – demonstrates the limits of this distinction. In this case it was the Indian rulers of Travancore who were able to initiate trade and port settlements – against the strength of foreign power. Second, contrary to the main historic process of de-industrialization in the Indian subcontinent during the nineteenth century, the emerging coir industry in Alleppey provides an example of initial industrialization in a (semi-) colonized state, which is unlike developments elsewhere in South Asia with regard to, for example, cotton and jute. It was only in the 1960s that in Alleppey the process of de-industrialization started. Third, Alleppey’s remarkable economic boom, and hence that of its port, during the 1920s and 1930s and again later, albeit of lesser magnitude, during the 1950s and 1960s can only be explained by the production, the transport and the consumption of its major export article, coir, within a system based on cheapness. It was an economy of poverty which, as long as it remained based on poverty, could successfully compete with ‘modern’ systems. The recent history of Alleppey has shown the limits of this ‘status quo’ economic system as it ultimately could not withstand the combined forces of internal and external changes and challenges. Its inevitable collapse ruined

Alleppey’s port and reduced the economic role of the city to being the supplier of raw materials for manufacturing elsewhere. Hence, fourth, only since India’s independence has Alleppey been assigned the role of a small centre in the periphery of the world economy, despite all attempts by the Indian government to reverse this process. For Alleppey there seems to be no alternative to the road to oblivion, as perhaps there still had been in the late 1890s. There is no re-transformation to a fishing community possible for the post-industrial city which now counts some 200,000 inhabitants. Alleppey became a city due to its port and its port-related industry. But now its port has disappeared and its coir industry has been decimated, the fifth and perhaps final anomaly is there: by contrast to so many other cities in India, Alleppey’s prospects are gloomy and, even more after the recent liberalization of the Indian economy, left to the mercy of as yet unknown new developments. Its past, bred on poverty, was no less sad.

NOTES 1 Much of this contribution has been taken from: H. Schenk, Views on Alleppey, socio-historical and socio-spatial perspectives on an industrial port town in Kerala, South India (Netherlands Geographical Studies No. 4, Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap/Instituut voor Sociale Geografie, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1986). 2 Rhoads Murphey, ‘On the Evolution of the Port City’, in Frank Broeze, ed. Brides of the Sea, Port Cities of Asia from the 16th–20th Centuries (Sydney/Honolulu, 1989), p. 241. 3 In an overview of the ranking of major ports in India, 1902–1980, by Kidwai, Alleppey does not figure. Apparently, Kidwai has confined herself to the ports of British India, excluding those in the semi-independent princely states, such as Travancore. If she had included the latter category, Alleppey might have taken a position in-between Cochin and Calicut between the two World Wars, i.e. approximately the tenth rank. See Atiya Habeeb Kidwai, ‘Port Cities in a National System of Ports and Cities: A Geographical Analysis of India in the Twentieth Century’, in Broeze, Brides of the Sea, pp. 207–22, esp. Table 9.1, p. 213. 4 See e.g. John D. Brush, ‘The Morphology of Indian Cities’, in Roy Turner, ed. India’s Urban Future (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1962), pp. 57–70; Anthony D. King, Colonial Urban Development, Culture, Social Power and Environment (London, 1976); Meera Kosambi, ‘Bombay and Poona, a Socio-Ecological Study of Two Indian Cities, 1650–1900’ (Ph.D. Stockholm University, 1980); Ashok K. Dutt, ‘Cities of South Asia’, in Stanley D. Brunn & Jack F. Williams, eds Cities of the World, World Regional Development (New York, 1983), pp. 325–68.

5 See e.g. H.K. Naqvi, Urbanisation and Urban Centres under the Great Mughals 1556–1707, vol. 1 (Shimla, 1971); M.P. Singh, Town, Market, Mint and Port in the Mughal Empire 1556–1707 (New Delhi, 1985); and I.P. Gupta, ‘Urbanisation in Gujarat during the Seventeenth Century’, in J.S. Grewal & 1. Banga, eds Studies in Urban History (Amritsar, n.d.). 6 The regional history is recorded by, e.g., A. Das Gupta, Malabar in Asian Trade, 1740–1800 (Cambridge 1967); and Pamela Nightingale, Trade and Empire in Western India 1784–1806, (Cambridge, 1970); the ‘Dutch connection’ is analysed by, e.g., T.I. Poonen, A Survey of the Dutch Power in Malabar (1603–78) (Trichinopoly, 1948); T.I. Poonen, Dutch Hegemony in Malabar and its Collapse (AID 1663–1795) (Trivandrum, 1978); and Owen C. Kail, The Dutch in India (Delhi, 1981). 7 An interesting account of the range of export products from the Malabar cost is given in W.K.M. Langley, Century in Malabar, the History of Peirce Leslie & Co., Ltd., 1862–1962 (Madras, n.d.). 8 A. Das Gupta, Malabar, p. 33. 9 The mudbank has from the birth of Alapuzha onwards drawn the attention of several observers. It is said that it has been one of the important factors for the selection of the site of Travancore’s port (Government of Kerala, Alleppey District Gazetteer [Trivandrum, 1975]). In what has been described as ‘some old notes’ I was informed in a letter by a retired employee of the Swiss trading firm Volkart Brothers (Mr A. Vogt, letter d.d. 30 May 1980) about the mudbank as follows: ‘At Alleppey there had been certain fortuitous circumstances which gave this Port a spell of prosperity. For quite a number of years the oily mudbanks of Alleppey afforded smooth-water anchorage for ships during the south-west monsoon, waves passing over the banks being diminished in height and lessened in velocity. It enables ships to work in shelter with a certain amount of safety during monsoons.’ Theories regarding its origin have been given in: Government of Kerala, Alleppey Gazetteer, and in Sir Robert Bristow, Cochin Saga, a History of Foreign Government and Business Adventures in Kerala, South India, by Arabs, Romans, Venetians, Dutch and British, together with the personal narrative of the last adventurer and an epilogue (Ernakulam-Cochin, 1959).

10 The appointment of a ‘Britisher’ to take direct command of the Commercial Department of the state is an interesting in-between solution of the then reigning debate in England and among the EIC officers on the issue: ‘trade vs empire’. While the state of Travancore as a whole was put under indirect rule, only this – apparently vital – department for British interests was directly ‘colonized’. (See further, e.g., Nightingale, Trade and Empire; R. Mukerjee, The Rise and Fall of the East India Company (London & New York, 1974); and Edward Ingram, ed. Two Views of British India, the private correspondence of Mr Dundas and Lord Wellesley: 1798–1801 (n.p., 1969). 11 Data are taken from V. Nagam Aiya, The Travancore State Manual (3 vols, Trivandrum, 1906); and the annual Reports on the Administration of Travancore, from 1856–66 onwards. 12 K.R.N. Menon, ‘A chronology of technology in Madras’, in S. Muthiah, ed. Madras,

its yesterdays, todays and tomorrows (Madras, 1990), p. 39. 13 Teresa Albuquerque, Urbs Prima in Indis, An epoch in the history of Bombay 1840–1865 (New Delhi 1985), p. 7. 14 Menon, ‘Chronology of technology’, pp. 38–9. 15 See Albuquerque, Urbs Prima; and Mariam Dossal, Imperial designs and Indian realities, the planning of Bombay city 1845–1875 (Bombay, 1991). 16 Census of India 1901, Vol. XXVI, pt I (Trivandrum, 1903), p. 23. 17 See for an overview of transport developments in the composite parts of Kerala: P. Ibrahim, ‘The Development of Transport Facilities in Kerala: a Historical Review’, in Social Scientist, vol. 6, no. 8 (1978), pp. 34–48. 18 The development of Cochin as a naval station was an already longstanding desire by the British Administration. It was in 1789 proposed by the President of the Board of Control of the East India Company, Dundas ‘… that the government should negotiate with the Dutch for Cochin, which with its good harbour and fortifications could be made into a first-class military station.’ (Nightingale, Trade and Empire, p. 48). See also Bristow, Cochin Saga; and Pierre Meile, ‘La naissance d’un port: Cochin’, Annates de Geographic, vol. 48, no. 273 (1939), pp. 276–84. 19 Prior to coming to India, he assisted his father in starting a factory for ‘cocoa mats and matting in Hoboken N.J.’. He subsequently left for Calcutta with a view of starting up the business in India, and proceeded then to Travancore: ‘… it being the best place to start the manufacture of cocoa goods … on account of it being the best place of obtaining raw materials, the cocoanut tree flourishing there better than in any other part of India.’ ‘… it is due to him that the spinners were taught to spin yarn by machine instead of only by hand, from where he went on to the manufacture of Coir Mats and Matting. According to the tradition, his factory superintendent – a Mr Collins – was so closely imitated by his weavers that all Mats and Matting are woven with the left hand as Collins himself was left-handed.’ (Unpublished typescripts: a) G.H. Davey, Reminiscences of James Darragh & Henry Smail, 1922; b) Taken from the file of the Carpet and Upholstery Trade Review, 15 February 1890; c) no title, no date. 20 Census of India 1901, vol. XXVI, Travancore, pts I-III (Trivandrum, 1903). 21 Taken from unpublished typescript c), see note 19. 22 K. Bhaskaran Unnithan, Coir industry in India, with special reference to marketing and trade (Cochin, 1970). 23 Cf. K.B. Vaidya, The Sailing Ship Traffic on the West Coast of India and its Future (Bombay, 1945). 24 The incidence of elephantiasis f.i. is even now among the highest in India, especially among women who work in and near ponds in the primary stages of retting coconut husks, and become easy victims of the filaria mosquito. Investigations have shown that one out of every six inhabitants suffer from the

25 26 27

28

29 30

disease (Alleppey District Gazetteer [Government of Kerala, Trivandrum 1975], pp. 524–6). Ibrahim, ‘Transport Facilities’. Langley, Century in Malabar, pp. 47–9. In the earlier quoted ‘some old notes’ from Volkart Brothers (see note 9), it is said: – ‘Meanwhile the port of Cochin has been opened up, which brought about a complete re-orientation of shipping and commercial activities on the coast. Cochin became by far the most important Port with its year-round shipping facilities, with a safe and convenient modern harbour.’ This struggle has been documented and analysed in its various stages and from various points of view. See e.g. Robin Jeffrey, Travancore: Status, Class and the Growth of Radical Politics, 1860–1940’, in R. Jeffrey, ed. People, Princes and Paramount Power, Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States (Delhi, 1978); T.M. Thomas Isaac, ‘Class struggle and structural changes, coir mats and matting industry in Kerala 1950–1980’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XVII (n.y), p. 31; Robin Jeffrey ‘Destroy Capitalism, growing solidarity of Alleppey’s coir workers, 1930–40’, in Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XIX, no. 29, pp. 1159–66; and T.M. Thomas, ‘From caste consciousness to class consciousness, Alleppey coir workers during the Inter-war period’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XX, no. 4 (n.y). See Annual Reports of the Travancore Chamber of Commerce, Alleppey. Communication from Mr A. Vogt; see note 9.

12

ASEAN PORTS SINCE 1945 Maritime Change and Port Rivalry Keith Trace Department of Economic History Monash University

The major ports of the ASEAN region1 have undergone a dramatic transformation over the past forty years. During the 1950s they laboured under the handicap of run-down infrastructure. Wharves built in the early years of the century had deteriorated during and after World War II. Cargo handling equipment was primitive, capital for port improvements hard to obtain. Cargo was handled by labour intensive methods. Vessels spent long periods in port and congestion on and off the wharves was endemic. But containerization, imposed on the region by decisions made in Europe and the United States, forced revolutionary change within the ASEAN port system. By the early 1990s Singapore was the world’s leading container port. The efficiency of major ports in the region had improved dramatically. The intermodal possibilities of containerization were beginning to be exploited in Southeast Asia. The contrast with the 1950s could not be more dramatic. Prior to World War II, European-owned liner and tramp vessels trading between Europe and Southeast or East Asia monopolized the deep-sea trades of the ASEAN region and a complex yet distinct port hierarchy had emerged. Benefiting from its strategic location betweeen the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, as well as from the commercial freedom allowed its residents, Singapore not only functioned as the gateway for the Malay Peninsula but also as the primate port for entire Southeast Asia, serving major and minor ports throughout the whole region.2 The capital-port cities of the various colonial possessions (Batavia [Jakarta], Manila, and Saigon) all had direct shipping connections with their metropolitan ports and other destinations outside the region and also, to a certain extent, centralized cargoes within their territories. Bangkok, finally, lacking the economic clout and political commitment of the colonial powers, linked regional economies into the European commercial and trading system. The oil tanker market was totally separate from that for general cargo and operated

partly inside and partly outside this system. Crude oil was directly shipped from the points of production, such as Balikpapan, but, as refinery and storage facilities were often located within or very close to major general ports, tankers formed a part of their general import traffic. A complex network of secondary services linked the major hubs with minor ports in the region. Such services played a dual role: feedering primary products into the European trading houses’ godowns located at the hub ports and distributing manufactures throughout the region. The ships employed were steam powered, relatively modern vessels, albeit smaller than those serving the mainline trades.3 Some services were operated by European owned companies, such as Straits Shipping, other by overseas Chinese interests.4 As early as the 1880s Singapore Chinese interests were operating regular steamship services between Singapore and the Indonesian archipelago. The Chinese succeeded where the indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia failed. Few indigenous entrepreneurs had the commercial and technical knowledge required to operate regional shipping services, nor were they able to mobilize sufficient capital. In contrast the Chinese networks of business and social contacts not only helped in raising capital but also guaranteed custom.5 In turn, major regional ports were linked to the myriad local communities by traditional vessels owned by indigenous shipowners. In these third tier ‘ports’, wharves and cargo handling equipment were minimal or non-existent. Sea transport played a vital role in archipelagic Southeast Asia; given the nature of the climate, the terrain and the rain forest, land transport was always difficult. Indigenous traders also served local trades, carrying foodstuffs and raw materials such as timber in the South and Southeast Asian regions. The contrast between the large, steam or diesel powered deep-sea vessels employed in the main line trades, and the smaller, though still relatively modern, vessels employed in the secondary trades was marked, but not as great as that between the latter and the traditional prahus of the indigenous owners. That dualism lasted from the 1880s to World War II.

The era of conventional shipping, 1945–mid 1960s The major ports of the ASEAN region were in an extremely rundown condition in 1945. The Philippines, Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) had been occupied by the Japanese. Some port facilities were damaged or destroyed by air and sea attacks. As long as the region’s ports were required to handle military cargoes, little investment in or improvement of port facilities was undertaken. Rehabilitation of ports was not accorded a high priority in the late 1940s and 1950s. The colonial era was drawing to a close and the preoccupation was with politics rather than economics. The Philippines was granted independence in 1946 as the United States had promised before

the war but the Dutch resisted Sukarno’s attempts to gain independence for Indonesia. It was not until the end of 1949 that Indonesia won its sovereignty. The British clung even longer to empire and Malaya only became independent in 1957. Social and economic factors were hardly conducive to port rehabilitation. Development priorities reflected the pressing need to house and feed poor but growing populations. Plantation economies, dependent on fluctuating export earnings of foodstuffs and raw materials, failed to generate sufficient income to finance infrastructure development. Capital was scarce and foreign currency at a premium. Meanwhile, as Robinson has noted, the failure of decision-makers to perceive the cost implications of inefficient ports led to the downgrading of port investment.6 Given the relatively low priority accorded to ports and, particularly, the lack of investment in wharves and cargo handling equipment, it is hardly surprising that the efficiency of ports in the ASEAN region was generally low in the mid 1960s. There is no single, all-embracing explanation for their inefficiency as local factors affected the conditions of each port. In general, the level of efficiency reflected the seriousness of the physical constraints of each port, the extent to which port facilities had been allowed to run down, the productivity of the labour force, the extent of congestion on the wharves and in transit sheds, and the efficiency with which cargo moved into and out of the port area. Depth of water is a common physical constraint in the tropics, and a number of ports in the region are located on relatively shallow rivers or coastal inlets. As Falkus discusses elsewhere in this volume, Bangkok developed 30 km upstream on the meandering Chao Phraya. Here, the overriding constraint was a bar at the mouth of the river, allowing high-water access to vessels with a maximum draft of 16 feet. By the early 1960s a channel had been dredged, making it possible for vessels with a draft of 28 feet to use the river. Widening and straightening of the channel allowed vessels up to 565 feet in length to berth at the East Quay of Klong Toey port (Bangkok). Amongst the coastal ports disadvantaged by shallow water were Port Kelang and Penang. Port Kelang (formerly Port Swettenham), located on the relatively shallow South Kelang Straits, developed as a railway port in the early twentieth century. The limitations of its site were soon recognized and, as early as 1931, an inquiry recommended that future expansion take place on the deeper North Kelang Straits. However, it took until 1963 for the new ‘North Port’ to become operational. Attempts in the 1920s to construct deep water berths at Penang, opposite the existing wharves on Penang Island, failed due to heavy silting. The port suffered until 1968 when the Butterworth Deep Water Wharves were commissioned. In most ASEAN ports productivity was low. Vessels remained in port for days or even weeks, the rate of cargo loading and discharge was slow by world standards, while congestion on the wharves and in storage areas meant long delays in getting cargo away from the port area. Low productivity reflected a range of factors. Prior to

containerization cargo was presented in a bewildering variety of packages, boxes, drums, and slings. Each item had to be individually handled and the stowage of cargo in a ship’s hold was a skilled task. Most cargo was manhandled. Typically, such mechanical handling equipment as was available was old and poorly maintained. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) noted in 1965:7 Bangkok has been suffering from congestion due mostly to slow movement of import cargo through the (Klong Toey) Wharf. Cargo handling rates are very low and although unloading is done throughout the 24 hours … ship discharge rate seldom exceeds 400 tonnes per 24 hour period … [a] satisfactory discharging rate for general cargo is at least 750 tonnes per day of 8 hours. As late as the 1960s congestion was endemic; Manila and Bangkok were notorious for delays. An ESCAP report on Manila attributed its serious congestion to poor equipment, lack of space, administrative difficulties, lack of supervision, and labour unrest. Congestion in transit sheds and storage areas was common throughout the region. In Bangkok, an ESCAP survey of cargo held in transit sheds suggested that 60 percent of consignments took up to one month to clear the sheds, a further 30 percent was cleared in less than two months, whilst the remaining 10 percent occupied floor space for over two months. In extreme cases cargo took six months or more to clear the port! Road and rail links serving ASEAN ports were equally inefficient. In Bangkok, Manila, Singapore and Tanjung Priok ( Jakarta) transport to and from the wharves suffered because ports were embedded in high density urban areas. All too often ASEAN ports were linked to the metropolitan area by roads already choked with a great number and variety of vehicles. The transport problem was exacerbated by the lack of a contiguous zone of industry adjacent to most ASEAN ports. The port of Bangkok not only served the requirements of a city of five million people, but virtually all the import requirements of a nation of 45 million. Given the limited development of industry in the vicinity of the port, a very high proportion of both import and export cargoes had to compete for road space with the general traffic of an already overcrowded city.

The early container era, mid 1960s–mid 1980s Containerization is the most significant technological development in liner shipping during the past fifty years. Although there is nothing new in the use of ‘containers’ to unitize cargo, the introduction of a truly intermodal system, offering a ‘door-to-door’

service in which cargo is carried from origin to destination in a sealed container which may be transshipped on several occasions between road, rail and ship, created a radically different transport network. Whilst the earliest container services date from the 1950s and early 1960s, the modern intermodal system of containerization was developed in the mid 1960s.8 The impetus for containerization came from outside the ASEAN region. Major liner operators in the Far Eastern trade, linking UK/Europe with Southeast and East Asia, the US/Canada, signalled their intention of switching to containers in the mid 1960s. The decisive moves so far as Asian ports were concerned were the formation in 1965 of two consortia, Overseas Containers Ltd (OCL) and Associated Container Transport Ltd (ACT), by British-owned lines in the Australian and Far Eastern trades, and the 1966 decision of the Japanese Government Council of Rationalization of Marine Transport and shipbuilding to containerize the trans-Pacific trade. If ASEAN ports were to handle containers efficiently, large-scale investment was required. New wharves had to be constructed; existing wharves being unable to bear the weight of container handling equipment and lacking the space necessary behind the wharf to park containers. Up to 20 acres of container storage space was required per berth. Specialist handling equipment had to be purchased: at least one gantry crane to load and unload ships, three or four straddle or side-load carriers to serve each crane, others to deliver containers to customers and handle containers arriving in advance of sailing date. The investment required as of the early 1970s was US$40–70 million, depending on local conditions.9 Such investment was the minimum necessary to begin operations; further investment has proven necessary as cargo volumes have grown and the pressure for greater efficiency has increased. The introduction of container services had immediate implications for Asia’s major entrepôt ports. In July 1966 Singapore and Hong Kong independently appointed committees to consider the implications of containerization and make recommendations regarding container terminals, noting that prior to their commissioning conventional vessels carrying containers would have to be handled at the existing berths. In Singapore, the introduction of containerization coincided with a more aggressive, entrepreneurial style of port management, prompted by the 1965 split with the Federation of Malaysia.10 Singapore moved quickly in an attempt to maintain its position as regional hub, a role then threatened by the economic policies of its neighbours. Construction of the East Lagoon (Tanjong Pagar) container port began in 1969, with the first deep-sea and feeder berth becoming operational in June 1972. The departure of Singapore from the Federation not only posed problems for the port of Singapore, it also created a dilemma for Malaysia. Wishing to ensure sovereignty over the movement of national cargo, Malaysia sought to encourage direct calls at Port Kelang rather than having cargo feedered through Singapore. But in the absence of firm commitments to call at Port Kelang by the new container consortia in

the Europe-Far East trade, it was difficult to forecast the volume of container cargo and the size of vessels likely to use the port’s facilities. A study commissioned in 1967 concluded that two berths designed to handle either container or conventional cargo should be built. Construction of the new facilities began in April 1969. Within a year the Trio consortium, a major carrier in the Europe-Far East trade observed that the proposed berths would be unable to handle vessels then under construction. Major modifications were made to ensure development of a container terminal capable of handling ‘third generation’ (capacity over 3,000 TEUs)11 container vessels. In August 1973 the arrival of OCL’s Tokyo Bay marked the beginning of container operations in Port Kelang. Purpose-built container facilities in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines date from the late 1970s. Extensions to the lineal quayage along the Chao Phraya had been proposed in 1965 as a partial solution to Bangkok’s port congestion. When construction began in 1972, two berths designed for feeder container operations were included in the plans, draft limitations ruling out calls by deep-sea container vessels. These East Quay container facilities became operational in 1978. The largest container vessels using East Quay in the early 1980s had a capacity of only 750 TEUs. A single container berth in Tanjung Priok ( Jakarta) became operational in 1978. Manila’s ‘International Port’, including a two berth container facility, was opened in December 1979. As Bangkok, the port began as a feeder, rather than a mainline, terminal. Once the essential infrastructure was in place, the volume of container traffic grew extraordinarily rapidly. The number of containers loaded and unloaded in ASEAN ports by vessels employed in international liner trades grew from 200,000 TEUs in 1972, to 1.1 million TEUs in 1978, and 2.5 million TEUs in 1983.12 The rate of growth of varied across ports as well as over time. In the late 1970s the annual rate of growth of Singapore’s international container traffic varied between 30 and 48 per cent. By the early 1980s the annual rate of growth had slowed to around 16 per cent. Over 50 percent of Singapore’s liner cargo was containerized by 1983. Although somewhat later to containerize than Port Kelang, Bangkok experienced a higher rate of growth of container movements (35 per-cent compared to Port Kelang’s 20 percent) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The volume of containers handled at Manila grew by more than 25 percent in 1977 and 1978, only to slow markedly in 1979. During this period Singapore handled over 50 percent of the total containers handled by all ASEAN ports together. Whilst holding out the promise of real gains in port productivity, containerization posed a number of problems for ASEAN countries. First, the high cost of container facilities created the need for substantial sums of capital, raising yet again the issue of the financing of port improvements. Second, not only was container transport capitalrather than labour-intensive, a dubious benefit for ASEAN countries in the late 1960s, but it created a demand for skills in short supply. Third, if the container system was to

operate smoothly and efficiently space was needed behind the wharves for container handling and stacking, yet space was at a premium in crowded ASEAN port cities. Fourth, if potential productivity gains were to be realized, containerization had to be accompanied by major improvements in road-rail infrastructure. Fifth, the quality of port management needed to be enhanced. It was noted above that the cost of a new container terminal of modest dimensions, including the cost of construction of the berth and the purchase of the necessary gantry cranes, straddle cranes and fork-lift trucks, was around US$40–70 million in the early 1980s.13 Such an investment represented a major outlay for capital-poor economies and was usually funded by development aid or borrowing from abroad. Until the 1960s the primary source of development aid in the ASEAN countries, of course with the exception of Thailand (which has always maintained special relations with Denmark), was the former colonial power. In Malaysia, Port Kelang (Port Swettenham) and Penang received development aid from the UK leading to close ties with British firms involved in port planning and the provision of infrastructure and equipment. Funding of regional port projects by multilateral lending agencies, notably the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank, is a comparatively recent development. The ADB’s interest in port funding began with a loan to finance port expansion at Kuching (Malaysia) in 1969. By 1988 the bank had granted loans worth US$457 million for 29 ASEAN port projects, 42 per cent of the total going to Indonesia and 36 per cent to Malaysia.14 Though charged with a global rather than a regional brief, the World Bank played a significant role in the funding of ASEAN port improvements in the 1980s. Between 1980 and 1986 loans totalling US$716million were approved for port projects in the Asia-Pacific region, including seven projects in the ASEAN countries estimated to cost US$294 million. Such loans are not intended to cover the entire cost of port improvements, although the funds allocated usually account for a significant proportion of projected outlays. Thus, the total project costs associated with ASEAN port improvements funded by the ADB between 1968 and 1988 were US$1,105 million whilst the loans offered by the ADB totalled US$457 million. Robinson has characterized ASEAN port development as an ‘aid-enhanced process’, noting that such heavy reliance on foreign funding is of some concern. Foreign funding implies access to and use of foreign expertise. But it may also imply foreign intervention, or even foreign control. In Robinson’s view, the ‘foreign buck’ has driven the port development process.15 Whilst the potential savings in labour costs provided a major impetus to containerization in the developed world, labour saving technology was of dubious value in developing countries. Since ports were major employers of labour, Port Kelang employing over 7,000 in the early 1980s, port authorities experienced some outside pressure to maintain employment levels following containerization. Ports giving in to

such pressure faced rising cost levels and hence, given a competitive market for port services, tended to price themselves out of business. Port Kelang reacted to the problem by slowing down its rate of recruitment, preferring to experience labour shortages at periods of peak demand rather than to inflate its costs. The level of labour skills posed a short-term problem in ASEAN ports. Containerization requires fewer but more highly trained workers to operate such relatively sophisticated equipment as gantry cranes and straddle trucks. In particular, a lack of maintenance skills led to frequent breakdown of cargo handling equipment. Few ASEAN ports have the space required for really efficient container operations. Whilst a container berth has the potential to handle much larger cargo flows than a conventional wharf, container handling technology effectively transfers the ‘bottleneck’ or ‘capacity problem’ for the loading and unloading of vessels to the port’s cargo storage areas. Adequate space behind the wharf for the parking of inbound and outbound containers is an essential requirement, and attempts to handle containers at conventional berths lacking such parking space during the early years of containerization led to severe congestion in land-side operations in Manila and Bangkok. The high proportion of Less-than-Containerload (LCL) traffic intensified this space problem. In ASEAN, as in other developing countries, import and export cargo typically included many small consignments. In comparison with cargo flows to and from developed countries, a high proportion of shipments were on an LCL basis. Such shipments had to be consolidated or de-consolidated (packed into or unpacked from containers) within or at least near to the port. At Klong Thoey (Bangkok) more than 90 per cent of the containers handled in the early 1980s were loaded within the port area.16 ESCAP has noted that17 In most of the ports of the developing ESCAP region, the provision of landward storage and processing areas has been quite inadequate, with resulting congestion, slow clearance of cargo and decreased handling productivity. Thus whilst modern and fast container vessels move containers quickly from one port to the other, clearance of cargo may be unacceptably slow … (nullifying) much of the advantage that containerization can bring to shippers. Intermodalism, the transfer of international containers to and from the domestic land transport system, is only just beginning to be introduced in the ASEAN countries. Until recently the general pattern has been for containers to be ‘stuffed’ and ‘unstuffed’ within the ports. Few ASEAN ports have a contiguous zone of port industry and many are deeply embedded within an overcrowded metropolitan area. Road access to container terminals has been inadequate and the problems of moving large containers through the congested and often narrow streets of Asian cities, especially Bangkok and

Manila, defy description. Rail systems have lacked the capacity to handle containers intermodally. The early phase of containerization coincided with and was influenced by a new wave of maritime nationalism, best seen as part of a broader push by developing countries for a New International Economic Order.18 The dominance of foreign shipping lines was resented and foreign shipowners held to be exploiting domestic producers. It was argued that national flag shipping would give rise to a range of economic benefits, including the promotion of exports, employment creation, and foreign exchange earnings, in addition to which national lines would have the incentive to limit cartel (conference) power in liner shipping. Of more significance, in the context of this chapter, the new maritime nationalism led to attempts to redirect international trade by encouraging direct calls at domestic ports at the expense of the development of hub ports and feeder services within the ASEAN region. Naturally, in view of their dependence on Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia were in the forefront of this movement. Indonesia’s Maritime Sector Development Programme (1982) took the form of an integrated set of proposals aimed at creating efficient shipping and port services for both domestic and overseas trades. Under the ‘gateway ports’ programme, four ports – Tanjung Priok, Tanjung Perak (Surabaya), Belawan, and Ujung Pandang (Macassar) – were given exclusive rights to handle international liner cargoes and foreign shipping services. While the ‘gateway ports’ policy focused investment on, and hence held out the promise of increasing efficiency of the four gateway ports, the policy was rooted in the notion of maritime nationalism.19 Transshipment via Singapore was actively discouraged. Successful implementation of this policy implied the exclusion of Singapore as a hub port and the withdrawal of the feeder services linking that port with the Indonesian archipelago. In Malaysia, the growing concern over the diversion of Malaysian cargo through Singapore was highlighted in a 1980 study by the Prime Minister’s Department.20 The report recommended Malaysia adopt a series of measure designed to recapture traffic routed via Singapore: new container berths at Penang; the construction of a new port at Pulau Lumut near Port Kelang; and the further development of Johor.

The ‘globalization’ of shipping: implications for ASEAN ports, 1985–92 The combination of economies of vessel size in container shipping and intense competition in liner shipping markets has led to the emergence of new types of shipping service, especially ‘Round-the-World’ and ‘Pendulum’ services. Patterns of

port calls have changed, leading to the emergence of regional ‘load centres’ and the further growth of feeder container services. Over the same period, the ASEAN economies have experienced rapid, export-oriented economic growth. Cargo volumes have increased rapidly. Ports within the ASEAN region have had to accommodate this trade growth as well as changes in the pattern of shipping services. Not surprisingly, port investment undertaken in the early phase of containerization proved inadequate and facilities have had to be expanded. The need for new investment has encouraged experiments with corporatization and privatization. The period has also seen the beginning of truly intermodal transport in the ASEAN region. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Asian NICs have enjoyed rapid, export-oriented economic growth and there has been a tendency for rapid economic growth to spread outward from Northeast to Southeast Asia. Whilst world trade as a whole has grown relatively slowly, the ASEAN countries have experienced relatively rapid trade growth. Growth in ASEAN trade has been enhanced by the decisions of a number of Japanese firms to move production offshore and by the tendency for European and US firms to seek low cost production in Southeast Asia, and by declining competitiveness in the industrialized nations. So far as liner shipping is concerned, the effect of this export growth is seen in burgeoning cargo volumes in the trans-Pacific and Europe-Far East trades as well as the rapid growth of intra-Asian cargo flows. This growth in the volume of cargo required significant further upgrading of container handling facilities at ASEAN ports. Container handling facilities within the ASEAN countries had also to adapt to changes in the size and nature of container vessels as well as changes in service patterns. By the mid 1980s containerization had been almost universally adopted on main line trades, almost all suitable cargoes being shipped in boxes. It had been widely, though not exclusively, adopted in secondary trades, including those serving low labour cost developing countries. Competition in liner shipping intensified in the 1970s and 1980s: the ease with which containers could be transshipped meant that cargoes could be consigned by more than one route, while the entry of new lines and the expansion of existing carriers maintained excess shipping capacity, benefiting shippers at the expense of shipowners. In turn, intensifying competition forced shipowners to seek cost savings through the introduction of larger vessels, the adoption of new types and patterns of service, and the minimization of port calls. Economies of vessel size have led owners to employ larger second, third and fourth generation container ships where cargo volumes permit.21 New deliveries will see the average size of vessels in the Europe-Far East trade rise from 3,000 to 4,000 TEUs. In May 1991 Hapag Lloyd had four 4,400 TEU vessels scheduled for delivery in 1993 while CGM and MISC each had one 4,400 TEU vessel on order.22 Shipowners have also developed new types and patterns of services, the driving

forces being economies of vessel size and the scale of cargo flows between the three major Northern Hemisphere cargo generating regions – Asia, North America and Europe. The desire to offer a high quality service between major ports as well as maximize the utilization of slot capacity has led to the development of ‘round-theworld’ (Evergreen, Tricon) and ‘pendulum’ (Hanjin, Yang Ming) services. These share a number of common features: the employment of ships large enough (3000+ TEUs) to benefit from the economies of vessel size; freight rates that reflect (in whole or part) these cost economies; port calls that are limited to regional ‘load centres’; the distribution of cargo from these load centres by feeder or secondary liner services. The recognition that early container services tended to serve ‘too many’ ports, thus increasing costs, led to attempts to minimize the number of ports of call by main line vessels. The outcome has been renewed emphasis given to the development of regional ‘hubs’ or ‘load centres’ (Singapore, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung). While the relative importance of these regional ‘hub’ may be expected to change over time, as rates of economic growth and patterns of trade vary, economic forces appear to indicate that no more than a small number of ‘super-hubs’ will emerge. The changing pattern of port calls by vessels in the Europe-Far East trade suggests that Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo are strengthening their position as hubs, whilst Kaohsiung and Busan are tending to be served by feeder rather than mainline services. The growth of regional ‘hubs’ or ‘load centres’ has encouraged the further development of the network of regional feeder services. While Singapore and Hong Kong have been regional transshipment centres for over a century, their role has been enhanced by the growth of trade, the growth in the size of vessels employed in the major trades and economic pressure to reduce the number of port calls. The emerging pattern of mainline and feeder services is analogous with the ‘hub-and-spoke’ networks which evolved following the deregulation of US domestic aviation.23 The feeder networks based on major ‘hubs’ appear to be expanding geographically over time. For example, the feeder network operating from Singapore not only serves Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, etc.) but has spread westward to the Gulf and eastward to Vietnam and the Philippines.24 Such feeder networks are more highly developed in archipelagic Southeast Asia than in either East Asia or Europe. Frequent changes in the pattern of mainline and feeder services suggest that the system is still evolving and that the economic forces driving change have not as yet been fully accommodated. Rapidly changing trade patterns, especially in East and Southeast Asia, add to this instability. Hence we would expect to see further modifications to the pattern of mainline and feeder services, as well as changes in the absolute and relative status of regional ports during the 1990s. The growth of trade, the employment of larger vessels on mainline trades, and the emergence of new service patterns in both mainline and feeder trades have had important implications for ASEAN ports. Container facilities built in the 1970s have

proved inadequate to meet the needs of the 1980s. New facilities have had to be planned and constructed. Whilst some ports have met these challenges successfully, others have been slower to react to the changing environment. Case studies of Singapore and Bangkok illustrate some of the opportunities created, as well as some of the problems involved in taking advantage of the opportunities. Within the ASEAN region, the pivotal position of the Port of Singapore has been enhanced. Handling more containers than any other port in the world in 1990, Singapore has benefited from the increasing number of Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean firms setting up in Southeast Asia as well as from the late 1980s retreat from maritime nationalism. The abrupt change in Indonesian shipping policy, announced in Inpres 4/1985, freed up that country’s international trade, abolishing customs controls over exports as well as permitting foreign flag vessels to carry Indonesian exports and imports. High intensity feeder container services now link Singapore with Tanjung Priok, Belawan, Surabaya, and Ujung Pandang. The effect of this retreat from maritime nationalism has been to enhance Singapore’s role as a transshipment port. Whilst the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) does not publish the number of transshipment containers handled, Robinson has estimated that between 60 and 70 per cent of containers handled may be for transshipment.25 This would suggest that 3.1–3.7 million of the 1990 container throughput of 5.2 million might be classed as transshipment cargo. The figures in Table 12.1 showing the capacity of feeder routes serving Singapore appear to support Robinson’s judgement. Singapore’s dominant position owes much to continuing efforts on the part of the government and the PSA to create and sustain the port’s competitive advantage. The efficiency with which containers are handled and the cost-effectiveness of shipping cargo via Singapore combine to create a service that is qualitatively different from that offered by other ports in the region. Competitive advantage is sustained by continuing investment and innovation. The PSA ensures that the port has the capacity to meet future demand: while a new container terminal is under construction at Pulau Brani, the first berths of which became operational in 1992, a major new terminal is being planned for Pasir Panjang. The port is purchasing post-Panamax quay cranes. Pricing policy aims to enhance competitiveness and in 1990 revisions in port tariffs passed on some part of the port’s productivity gains to customers. Current plans envisage Singapore as a ‘distriport’, integrating the port into a regional and global distribution service. Table 12.1 Feeder fleet capacity: Singapore – regional ports, 1990

In contrast, Thailand has been much less successful in adapting to the new demands. As Robinson has noted, the overriding port-development problem for Thailand in the 1970s and 1980s lay in the adequacy of the East Quay (Klong Toey) wharves to handle an increasing volume of trade coupled with the timing of the construction of alternative deep-water facilities on the Gulf of Thailand. This policy dilemma intensified following containerization. Container facilities at Bangkok could handle only feeder vessels. Space behind the wharves was limited, a serious deficiency for a port in which 90 per cent of containers were packed and unpacked within the port boundaries. Given the port’s proximity to metropolitan Bangkok, roads leading to the port were extremely congested. A 1978 World Bank study argued that, given additional handling equipment, the East Quay berths would be able to handle the growth of traffic until 1990. Thereafter Thailand would require a deep-water port. The World Bank, on the grounds of cost effectiveness, recommended the upgrading of existing facilities at Sattahip, then used by the Thai Navy, rather than the development of a new port at Laem Chabang. These proposals were initially accepted by the government. Thailand’s Fifth National Economic and Social Development Plan, however, brought a dramatic change in direction. It envisaged the development of a heavy industry complex at Rayong, as well as the growth of light- and medium-industry at Laem Chabang. Japanese interest in the Rayong development led to a feasibility study for a port at nearby Mab Ta Pud, while the plans for an industrial complex at Laem Chabang led to renewed interest in the development of that port. In July 1983, the Eastern Seaboard Development Committee formally approved the construction of new ports at Mab Ta Pud and Laem Chabang, while suspending the construction of additional facilities at Sattahip. The new port of Laem Chabang was officially opened in January 1991. The delay in constructing deep-water port facilities forced shippers and shipowners using Bangkok to devise measures to obviate the congestion. American President Lines opted to use the port of Sattahip, by-passing the congestion of the metropolitan area by

railing fully laden containers to an Inland Container Depot located North of Bangkok. Fifteen privately owned Container Freight Stations have been set up away from the wharf area in an attempt to overcome terminal congestion. The future course of Thailand’s port development is still not clear; much also will depend on the expansion of the Thai railroad and highway structures as well as the competitive strength of the new coastal ports.

Conclusion Historically, a high proportion of the ASEAN region’s international trade has flowed through the primate ports. However, the recent rapid growth of regional ports in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, associated with planned decentralization, strong flows of investment into regional economies, and the continuing availability of funds for port development, suggest that competition between ports may intensify during the 1990s. In Indonesia, the inadequacy of existing facilities at Tanjung Perak (Surabaya), coupled with forecasts suggesting a fivefold expansion in container cargo by 1995, led to the building of a new container terminal, financed by a US$152 million loan from the Asian Development Bank and the Saudi Development Fund. In Malaysia, Pasir Gudang ( Johor) is in its third phase of expansion, including a new container wharf designed to double the port’s handling capacity (to 300,000 TEUs annually). Intermodalism has been relatively slow to develop in the ASEAN countries. Until recently there were no inland container terminals nor had road and rail infrastructure developed to the point at which major intermodal corridors could develop. However, recent developments in Malaysia and Thailand suggest that a substantial growth of intermodal services will occur in the 1990s. The great virtue of the container lies in its intermodality. Containers may be transshipped relatively cheaply and easily from one vessel to another and/or from one transport mode to another. Whereas the vessel (or train or truck) was once the central element in the transport chain, the container itself is now the focus: ships merely provide the means of transporting the container from A to B. Intermodalism has stimulated organizational innovation. Containers are now shipped on the basis of through (multimodal) contracts, covering transport from, say, a factory in Thailand via road or rail to a Thai port, the sea leg to a Japanese port, and delivery to the ultimate destination in Japan by road/rail. A single operator assumes responsibility for the entire transport chain, enabling its management to control both logistics and costs more effectively which, ideally, leads to a more efficient and reliable transport system. The customer needs only to contact a single transport supplier, pays one account, and one supplier of transport services is legally responsible for service

delivery. Intermodalism offers a one-stop transport service. Viewed from another perspective, intermodalism offers an opportunity for freight forwarders to extend the scope of their business. Using their specialist knowledge of land and sea transport, forwarders offer clients tailor-made, door-to-door transport packages, enabling their customers to concentrate on their core business. Through their control over large volumes of freight, freight forwarders are in a position to obtain ‘wholesale’ rates from line haul operators. The benefits of such lower rates may be passed on to clients in whole or part. Traditional shipping lines also have the opportunity of providing door-to-door transport services. The incentives are both positive and negative. The carrot is the possibility of expanding into a higher value-added business once the preserve of freight forwarders. The stick is the intense competition which has forced shipping companies to seek cost reductions wherever possible: the provision of door-to-door transport services enabling a shipping company to control costs over the entire journey.26 In Malaysia, Kelang Container Terminal has sought to capture overseas cargoes from the northern Johor industrial area, an area traditionally serviced via Singapore. Containers are carried by road to a rail interchange at Tampin, thence via Malaysian Railways to Kelang Container Terminal. Similarly, a regular bloc train service operates from Kelang Container Terminal to an inland depot operated by Kontena Nasional in Prai close to Penang Port. The Malaysia-Thai Landbridge has yet to gain widespread acceptance. Thailand is a recent convert to intermodalism. Mitsui-OSK Line launched a roadbased intermodal service from Chiang Mai in 1988, whilst American President Line offers an inbound service via the port of Sattahip, utilizing Thai Railways Bang Sue Container Freight Station in north Bangkok. Ports within the ASEAN region have hitherto been owned by the state. But public sector control over port investment as well as that sector’s monopoly in the provision of a range of port services is now under challenge. In Malaysia, privatization is seen as a means of achieving rapid economic growth. Privately owned port facilities, it is argued, are more productive than their state counterparts; the privatization of Kelang Container Terminal in 1986 is viewed as highly successful.27 Private investors are to be invited to participate in new port developments in Indonesia: a joint venture between Australian and Indonesian interests is building a terminal to handle export coal on the island of Laut, off the southern tip of Kalimantan. ASEAN ports have come a long way since the 1950s. Early difficulties with containerization have been overcome. The ports have proved able to handle the increased cargo volumes that have accompanied rapid economic growth. Singapore is an outstandingly efficient port by any standards, whilst the other major ports of the region have lifted their game. The region is likely to see a major development of intermodalism during the 1990s.

NOTES 1 ASEAN – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – is composed of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Brunei. The text of this chapter was finalized before the accession of Vietnam (Ed.). The ports discussed in this chapter are the general trading ports of the region, not the specialized loading facilities for oil or dry bulk cargoes. 2 See, e.g., C.M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore 1819–1975 (Singapore, 1977), ch. 4: ‘The Clapham Junction of the Eastern Seas’. 3 The best case study of one such regional shipping company is J.N.F.M. à Campo, Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij. Stoomvaart en staatsvorming in de Indonesische archipel 1888–1914 (Hilversum, 1993). 4 K.G. Tregonning, Home Port Singapore: A History of the Straits Steamship Co. Ltd., 1890–1965 (Singapore, 1965). 5 H. Dick, ‘The Rise and Fall of Dualism: the Indonesian Inter-Island Shipping Industry’, in R.G. Garnaut & P.T. McCawley, eds. Indonesia: Dualism, Growth and Poverty (Canberra, 1980), p. 356; see also Frank Broeze, ‘From Imperialism to Independence: The Decline and Re-Emergence of Asian Shipping’, The Great Circle, vol. 9 (1987), pp. 78–84, and P. Reeves et al., ‘The Maritime Peoples of the Indian Ocean Region: Changes in Industries and Occupations since circa 1800’, The Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 74 (1988), pp. 248–9. 6 R. Robinson, ‘Regional Ports: Development and Change since the 1970s’, in T.R. Leinbach & Chia Lin Sien, South-East Asian Transport: Issues in Development (Singapore, 1989), p. 136. 7 United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), A Study on Liner Shipping Services and Freight Rates for ASEAN Major Export Trade Routes (Bangkok, 1985). 8 See, e.g., H.J. Witthoft, Container. Transportrevolution unseres Jahrhunderts (Herford, 1977), and Eric Jennings, Cargoes. A Centenary of the Far Eastern Freight Conference (Singapore, 1979), pp. 59–64. For a discussion of the impact of containerization on a third-world port system see B.S. Hoyle, ‘Maritime Perspectives on Ports and Port Systems: The Case of East Africa’, in Frank Broeze, ed. Brides of the Sea (Honolulu-Sydney, 1989), pp. 188–206. 9 The estimates relates to a new container berth of 300 metre length, equipped with two or three gantry-cranes, yard gantries, straddle carriers, fork-lift trucks, tractors and trailers. The capital cost of interest (10%) and depreciation (10–20 years for equipment and 30 years for infrastructure) works out at $US15,000–20,000 per berth day. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Evaluation and Forecast of Containerization in ASEAN, September 1985,

p. 9. 10 Robinson, ‘Regional Ports: Development and Change since the 1970s’, p. 139. 11 TEU stands for Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit, the standard form of measuring containers. 12 ESCAP, Evaluation and Forecast of Containerization in ASEAN, Bangkok, September 1985, p. 9. 13 Ibid. 14 R. Robinson, “The Foreign Buck: Aid-Reliant Investment Strategies in ASEAN Port Development”, Transportation Research, vol. 23A, no. 6 (1989), p. 440. 15 Ibid., p. 439. 16 ESCAP, Evaluation and Forecast of Containerization in ASEAN, p. 28. 17 ESCAP, Review of Developments in Shipping, Ports and Inland Waterways in the ESCAP Region - 1980, Bangkok, 1980, p. 67. 18 See, e.g., H.L. Beth et al., 25 Years of Shipping (London, 1985), ch. 9. 19 See R. Robinson, ‘Containerization in ports of Third-World Asia: an overview of present patterns and the direction of future growth’, Maritime Policy & Management, vol. 12, no. 4 (1985), p. 270. Also M.R. Brooks, Fleet Development and the Control of Shipping in Southeast Asia, Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Occasional Paper no. 77, 1985, p. 15. 20 In 1978 an estimated 25 per cent of Malaysian exports (by value) moved through Singapore. This included 39 per cent of Malaysian rubber exports, 50 per cent of timber exports, almost 100 per cent of canned pineapple exports, and 18 per cent of palm oil exports. See Socio-Economic Research Unit, Prime Minister’s Department, A Study of the Railway Services to Singapore in Relation to the Greater Utilisation of Ports in Peninsular Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 1980, p. 17. 21 The length and breadth limitations imposed by the Panama Canal have discouraged the ordering of very large (3,800+TEU) container vessels, especially in the case of lines such as Evergreen and Hanjin who are already operators (or are considering becoming operators) of round-the-world services. See K. Trace, ‘Australian Shipping into the 21st Century: The Issues’, Centre for Transport Policy Analysis, University of Wollongong, Proceedings of Seminar on the Globalisation of Liner Shipping, Sydney, August 1991. 22 See Containerization International, May 1991. Amongst non-conference operators, Yang Ming had three 3,500TEU containerships on order for 1991/92 delivery, Hanjin three 3,862TEU vessels for delivery in 1992, and Evergreen three 3,388TEU vessels for delivery in 1993. Following American President Line’s (APL) pioneering (1988) order for post-Panamax tonnage, several owners have been willing to forego the operational flexibility of being able to transit the Panama Canal in their quest of scale economies. Of the orders mentioned above, the Hapag Lloyd, Nedlloyd and MISC vessels are too large to transit the Canal (post

23

24

25 26 27

Panamax). However, non-conference round-the-world operators (such as Evergreen) continue to face a size constraint. Since the unit cost of carriage continues to decline in the 4,000–6,000TEU range, and since the scale of shipments between the three Northern Hemisphere cargo generating areas warrants the employment of large vessels, it seems inevitable that owners will introduce ultraPanamax vessels in the 1990s. By the year 2000 we may well see container vessels with a carrying capacity exceeding 6,000TEU shuttling between North America, Europe and Asia, especially in the trans-Pacific trade. A fine balance exists between feedering and direct calls. Jannson and Schneerson have argued that feeder operations may be viable only in special circumstances and that multiport itineraries, though expensive for mainline vessels, remain the best solution for ‘thin’ trades. The argument appears flawed: the mainline-feeder network – at least in SE Asia – appears to have expanded in the 1980s and judging by recent developments is likely to continue to expand in the 1990s. While the economies of vessel size achievable in the mainline trades appear to be the driving force of the evolving system, we should acknowledge the entrepreneurial flair shown by the region’s feeder operators. However, we should note that a mainlinefeeder service is vulnerable to competition from direct services if its service quality falters and/or if the freight differential between the mainline-feeder and the direct service narrows. In some cases feeder links into major hubs have replaced direct services. HapagLloyd’s 1990 decision to phase out its 17-day frequency three ship direct EuropeIndonesia service, in favour of feedering cargo via Singapore into its Europe-Far East (‘new Trio’) service is a case in point (see Containerization International, April 1990). More generally, the Indonesian experience following the 1985 abandonment of the gateway port policy points to the strength of the economic forces favouring regional hubs in the absence of economic regulation or political interference. R. Robinson, ‘Hubs and Feeders: The Dynamics of Asian Maritime Development’, Centre for Transport Policy Analysis, University of Wollongong, Seminar on The Globalisation of Liner Shipping, Sydney 1991. Profits in modern cargo transport lie not so much in the ship (given the cost cutting revolution in ocean transport) but in what happens in ports and on the land. Shippers’ Times (Singapore), vol. 10, no. 3 (1990).

13

JAPAN’S SEAPORTS AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT DURING THE ERA OF HIGH-SPEED GROWTH, 1960–751 Peter J. Rimmer Department of Human Geography Australian National University Toru Taniuchi Department of Human Geography Tokyo University

Unlike [the experience of] other countries, the Japanese port development policy is much more aggressive through planning and implementing port projects as a strategic means of regional development. [Japan, Ministry of Transport, Ports and Harbours Bureau, 1991: 19].

Introduction Japanese seaports are representative of changes in the country’s economy and shifts in major regional development issues since the Pacific War. Initially, these maritime terminals were rehabilitated as part of Japan’s post-war restoration (1945–59). The period 1960–75 was one of dramatic economic growth during which seaports became the focus of coastal industrial complexes (kombinato). Their importance as industrial zones diminished following the oil crisis of the early 1970s, and their domestic distribution, storage and commercial functions were emphasized during the period of stable economic growth (1976–84). Since 1985, they have taken on additional roles in urban redevelopment, ‘life activity’ and maritime leisure (e.g., marinas and cruise

terminals) as part of a planned development of the waterfront and creation of offshore artificial islands ( Japan, Ministry of Transport, Ports and Harbours Bureau, 1991, 1992; Nihon, Unyusho Kowanbu, 1991). In this chapter their development during the critical fifteen years of highspeed growth is examined. Most economic studies of Japan’s overseas trade since the Pacific War have been intent on discovering the roots of Japan’s ‘economic miracle’ rather than analysing the impact of rapid economic growth on spatial differentiation (see, for example, Nakamura, 1981; Kosai and Ogino, 1984; and Kosai, 1986). In their research economic analysts have highlighted: the increase in Japan’s share of world trade in both imports and exports; the continuing reliance of Japan on imports of raw materials and exports of processed goods to pay for them; relative shifts in the sources of imports and exports from developed countries (except western Europe) to the Communist bloc and developing countries, particularly the Middle East but not Southeast Asia; and the unremitting concentration of imports in the hands of general trading companies (sogo shosha) together with an increasing share of exports being handled by large manufacturers. More specifically, commentators have noted the addition of coal, timber and wheat to Japan’s traditional dependence on imports of cotton, crude oil and iron ore – a trend attributed to the growth in industrial production and the preference of those on higher income levels for protein-rich foods, rather than any variation in import process structural shifts in Japanese manufacturing or import liberalization. Similarly, economic analysts have detailed the decline in exports of textiles and other labour-intensive goods and some capital-intensive goods (e.g., artificial fibres and consumer electronics), growth in capitalintensive and high wage goods (e.g., motor vehicles), and a growing share of capital-intensive goods related to advances in research and development (e.g, advanced electronics and chemicals). The task of examining the role of seaports in engineering changes in regional development, however, has been ignored. This study summarizes the key features of regional development policy instituted during the years of high-speed growth (Section 2). Its relative success is reflected in analyses of variations in overseas imports and exports handled by individual seaports (Section 3). Subsequent developments in the role of ports after 1975 suggest the need to shift from a regional to a global scale of analysis (Section 4). As port-investment programmes have varied due to changes in national planning we begin with an examination of regional development policy.2

Regional development policy Transport was emphasized but seaports were not featured separately in the original scheme for regional development within Japan established as part of the ‘Greater East

Asian National Land Planning Act’ 1941 (Table 1). Repairs to ravaged seaports following the end of the Pacific War were slow. After the establishment of the Comprehensive National Land Development Act, 1950, and the Port and Harbour Act, 1950, seaports were afforded a supportive role in nineteen Tennessee Valley-style river basin planning areas. In 1960, however, seaports became prominent when the Japanese government sought to generate high economic growth. Two phases were involved. Between 1960 and 1964, the emphasis was on establishing the first generation maritime industrial development areas (MIDAS) (Flüchter, 1975; Vigarié, 1981). Then attention switched from these intended growth poles between 1965 and 1974 to national transport and communications networks and related large-scale port projects in nonmetropolitan (‘micropolitan’) areas as a means of alleviating congested metropolitan ports. Seaports had a pivotal role in the ‘growth-through-planning’ strategy used in Premier Takeo Ikeda’s ten year ‘Plan for Doubling National Income I960’. It incorporated the idea of a Pacific Coastal Belt with industrial activity focused on four metropolitan regions – Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay (Nagoya), Osaka Bay and Kitakyushu. As the plan was criticized for its preoccupation with efficiency and the priority given to these ‘advanced areas’, its regional counterpart, the ‘Comprehensive National Development Plan’ (Zenso) 1962, introduced the concept of “preventing excessive expansion of urban areas and correcting regional imbalance”. The main thrust of this policy was the establishment of maritime industrial areas involving massive reclamation projects – a strategy coinciding with the development of very large bulkcarriers and marked improvements in dredging and land-reclamation technology. Established in 1962, the fifteen industrial areas focused on seaports were intended to act as ‘growth poles’, inducing the ‘trickling down’ of industries from overcongested metropolitan regions to peripheral areas (with one exception) outside the Pacific Coastal Belt (Fig. 13.1). In 1964, an additional six coastal areas within the Pacific Coastal Belt were established as ‘growth poles’. These coincided with the rationalization plan for the iron and steel industry which included building large plants with a capacity of more than 10 million tonnes per year outside Tokyo Bay and Osaka Bay. As ships calling at major ports were obliged to wait at anchor an average of one full day per ship because of the rapid increase in ocean cargo a demurrage problem arose (Ohta 1989). A port-improvement programme was instituted to overcome bottlenecks and accommodate larger and more specialized vessels bringing imported raw materials for processing and re-export. Rather than revamp Zenso to overcome capacity problems, a new regional development plan was formulated to build on the foundations laid for major seaport, railway and expressway projects throughout Japan – including the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka. Table 13.1 The evolution of regional planning and seaport priorities in Japan, 1940–75

source: Yoshnimura, 1981; various. In 1969, the shift from growth poles to national transport and communications networks was embodied in the ‘New Comprehensive National Development Plan’ (Shinzenso) in which ports had twin functions. They had a distributional role as part of the national transport and communications grid, comprizing high-speed superhighways, trunk railways, national airlines, international airports and automatic telephone dialling.3 Collectively, they welded Japan’s seven constituent regions specified in Figure 2 into a ‘fully fledged spatial organization’. Ports also had a key role as components of five, large-scale industrial bases (or giant kombinato) located on ‘green-field sites’ at East Tomakomai (Hokkaido), Mutsu-Ogawara, Akita Bay (Tohoku), Chunanse (Ise Bay), Suonada (Seto Inland Sea) and Shibushi Bay (Kyushu). These bases required gargantuan inputs for their planned, integrated iron and steel works, shipbuilding, alumina production, oil refining, petrochemicals and paper manufacturing. Apart from Chunanse, their peripheral location appears to have been due to a concerted attempt to provide industrial sites and energy ‘bases’ away from areas with rising wages and anti-pollution requirements – a move that, predictably, drew criticism from conservation groups and, ultimately, resulted in the movement of industrial capacity to Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan. The efficiency thrust of these policy measures on port investment was exposed in

the unofficial ‘Japan Archipelago Remodelling Plan’ (Nihon Retto Kaizo Ron) put forward by Kakuei Tanaka (1972), then an aspirant for premier. This reformulation envisaged more extensive, high-speed, land-based transport networks; tax exemptions for industry relocated from overcongested areas; and acceleration of all cities over 200,000 – a policy that appealed to its log-rolling, political backers from provincial constituencies (Fig. 13.3). As the Japanese economy and society were undergoing substantial changes around 1970 to accommodate a new phase in corporate development it was not surprising that the bold Tanaka Plan received international acclaim. In 1972, the Industrial Relocation Act was passed to facilitate the decentralization of industry from overcongested areas – the main thrust of the Tanaka Plan.

Figure 13.1 The new industrial cities and special areas of industrial development associated with the Comprehensive National Development Plan (Zenso), 1962

Figure 13.2 Japan as a spatially-integrated, national economy envisaged under the New Comprehensive National Development Plan (Shinzenso), 1969 The Tanaka Plan (and by association Shinzenso), however, fell foul of the emerging environmental lobby concerned about the pollution of Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay and the Inland Sea. Since the 1950s, strange diseases had been linked to pollution – mercury poisoning (Minamata disease), cadmium poisoning (itai itai disease), and pulmonary disorders associated with air pollution (Yokkaichi asthma). In the early 1970s, indifference gave way to action by those afflicted, and community-based movements blossomed into a radical political process drawing in farmers and fishermen – hitherto the bedrock of Japanese conservatism. The anti-pollution movement gathered such momentum that when the oil crisis and inflation struck in 1973 the Tanaka Plan was shelved and a new strategy sought. Prior to outlining these new proposals on spatial differentiation, changes in the fortunes of particular regions as reflected in the ranking of seaports between 1960 and 1975 are considered. Specifically, what changes occurred within the Japanese port system; did they decrease centralization; and did deconcentration occur within metropolitan port complexes?

Changes in seaport rankings

There is no dearth of data for such an exercise as Kowan Tokei Nenpo [Annual Statistical Yearbook on Ports] (Nihon Unyusho Daijin Kambo Joho Kanribu, 1976) provides information on overseas cargo movements by individual ports.4 The sensitivity of port statistics to changes in gross national product is highlighted in Table 13.2. A deceleration in the growth of tonnage coincided with President Nixon’s normalization of relations with China in 1971; recovery ensued in 1972 with the announcement of the Tanaka Plan for remodelling the Japanese archipelago; the oil crisis erupted in 1973; and, by 1975, observers were talking of a ‘compounded’ crisis involving the economy, public finance, basic industries, energy, the environment, and stagflation and insolvencies among small and medium-sized businesses. Nevertheless, the number of ports continued to grow unchecked after 1960. In 1975 there were 939 ports comprising 825 local and 114 major ports with an important bearing on the national interest which qualified them for a higher rate of state subsidies.5 Attention is concentrated on the major ports, especially as detailed statistics for overseas trade are available only for these centres in 1975.6 Strict comparisons in the rankings of ports over time are vitiated by variations in the number and definition of ports. (Moji, Kokura and Wakamatsu, for example, were separate ports in 1960 but became integrated into a single port – Kitakyushu in 1975)7 The problem is overcome by grouping ports in the metropolitan areas of Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay and Osaka Bay into complexes and accepting the definition of ports as constituted in 1975 and converting data for 1960 to that base.

Figure 13.3 Tanaka’s new industrial pattern: 1 Tomakomi; 2 Mutsu-Ogawara; 3 Akita; 4 Suo-Nada; and 5 Shibushi Table 13.2 Gross national product, cargo tonnage and number of ports, 1960–75

* Real

GNP based on 1960 prices.

Source: Nihon Unyusho Daijin Kambo Joho Kanribu (1976: 514–16). A shift-share analysis is used to gauge changes in the ranking of ports (complexes and regions) in terms of imports and exports between 1960 and 1975. Although the application of shift-share analysis to seaports is not novel, the specific use of the technique here follows Glickman (1979) to draw parallels between ports and urban systems, particularly the degree to which decentralization has occurred within metropolitan areas. Shift-share analysis indicates the growth rate that would have occurred if a particular port (complex or region) had grown at the same rate as all ports between 1960 and 1975. The expected growth rate of a port can be calculated by assuming that it grew at the all-port (i.e. national) rate between 1960 and 1975. The absolute difference is given by deducting the expected from the actual figure for 1975.8 With this technique it is possible to chart the effects of a nationwide industrialization which produced new industrial concentrations and transformed existing industrial areas through the decline in coalmining and technological change by pinpointing which ports grew at the expense of others within Japan. When the differences in imports and exports are mapped they not only show the spatial redistribution that has occurred but also provide an opportunity for demonstrating how the decisions of big corporations and business groups have used the spatial framework provided by the state to shape the domestic economy. An examination of shifts and shares of imports between 1960 and 1975 revealed that a marked decentralization had occurred (Fig. 13.4). This pattern is explicable in terms of the new form of the intra-national spatial division of labour in leading industrial sectors-basic intermediate goods (e.g. iron and steel, petrochemicals and nonferrous metals) and items produced by capital-intensive technology (e.g. pulp, cement and organic chemicals). Without down-playing government-business interaction, the powerful influence of log-rolling politicians, and the pathological fear among Japanese of uneven development, the key to interpretation seems to lie in production-related changes. Deskilling occurred, there was an increased emphasis on research and development, and production was segmented – functionally and spatially. Where the new heavy and chemical industrial production had penetrated designated areas (new industrial cities or special areas) with a surplus of skilled labour, local ports had recorded gains. Much of the spectacular growth was concentrated in ports serving the integrated kombinato which combined in one location oil refineries and oil-using thermal power plants that provided energy for iron and steel and petrochemical plants established by big corporations and business groups; Kashima (Sumitomo Metal and Mitsubishi Petrochemicals), Higashi-Harima (Nippon Steel, Kobe Steel, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Takeda Chemicals), Mizushima (Kawasaki Steel and Mitsubishi Petrochemicals) and Oita (Nippon Steel and Tsurusaki Petrochemicals). Fukuyama, serving an integrated iron and steel plant built by Nippon Kokan, also made

a strong showing. The other main gains were more narrowly-based on the upsurge of a single commodity at newly dredged ports serving less-developed industrial estates – Kushiro (timber), Tomakomai (oil), Hachinohe (non-ferrous metals), Shiogama (oil), Owase (oil), and Sakaide (coal). Ports experiencing ‘losses’ were typified by those dependent on the older industrial company or ‘mill’ towns such as Niihama, the home base of Sumitomo. These ports included Muroran and Kamaishi, both of which serve obsolete Nippon Steel plants which were adversely affected by the recession of 1973. Also involved were Niigata (despite its new industrial city status), Shimizu, Tokuyama, Iwakuni (Mitsui Petrochemical), and Matsuyama which were the sites of non-metropolitan oil refineries built prior to 1960. Even Tokuyama, which was chosen as the base for Idemitsu Petrochemicals, could not match ports serving kombinato established on green-field locations between 1960 and 1975 (Mizushima, however, was the site of a Mitsubishi wartime aircraft factory). The Kanmon port complex was most affected by changes in the production process and the new opportunities for big corporations and business groups offered by the new spatial division of labour. Its share of imports declined from 12 per cent of the national total in 1960 to less than 5 per cent in 1975. Within the complex the gain at Ube (site of the Ube Kosan coalbased chemical complex) based on the return to imported coal following the oil crisis in 1973, was dwarfed by losses at Kitakyushu – site of the country’s first iron and steel plant (Yawata) in 1896 and hitherto a major coalproducing area dominated by the pre-war zaibatsu Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo. Such a result emphasized that the recession in 1973 was most effective at singling out industrial areas suffering from technological obsolescence. These net losses were sufficient for Kanmon to lose its ranking as a major port complex. Other major port complexes retained 46 per cent of total imports in 1975 compared with 53 per cent in 1960. This was due to government-instigated policy of decentralizing industrial activities to interlying areas being obscured by decisions of big corporations and business groups to take advantage of extensive land reclamation and deconcentrate within port complexes so as to maintain close contact with metropolitan markets. Shrugging off the ‘local’ character of its industrial activities Ise Bay recorded a slight gain from the activities of big corporations and business groups. Their attention was directed to establishing oil refineries, iron and steel and petrochemical plants on four coastal industrial estates on reclaimed land at West Nagoya, South Nagoya, Kinuura and Mikawa (another was being created at Tsu-Matsusaka). These activities more than offset losses at the traditional wool and coal importing port of Yokkaichi where environmental protests stymied further petrochemical developments by Mitsubishi. Tokyo Bay, in contrast, experienced a slight net loss. There was a marked upsurge in imports for the rash of oil refineries, thermal power stations, integrated steel works

and major petrochemical undertakings (third level production) established by big corporations and business groups at Chiba and Kisarazu as part of their overall strategy of having plants in both eastern and western Japan. Nevertheless, these gains did not compensate for losses occurring at the well-established ports of Tokyo, Yokohama and Kawasaki serving industries dominated by the second level of production – the heavy and chemical industries base established by Nippon Kokan in 1912 and Asano Cement in 1917 respectively. Tokyo Bay’s net loss, however, would have been cancelled out by a wider interpretation of the complex to include spill-over developments instigated by Sumitomo Metals at Kashima. The more striking occurrence was at Osaka where the relative decline of inner metropolitan manufacturing activities affecting Kobe and Osaka. While the loss is attributed to the shortage of industrial land and subsidence problems in the inner metropolitan areas, the shift of production to decentralized sites, such as SakaiSenboku, offering low-paid, unskilled labour seems to have been underestimated. Even a more generous definition of the Osaka Bay port complex to include Higashi-Harima (offering sites for heavy and chemical industries west of Kobe and WakayamaShimotsu with similar facilities would not have mitigated its net loss). Clearly, the outer areas of Osaka Bay had not industrialized to the same extent as Tokyo Bay. The failure of Osaka Bay to attract highly-automated petrochemical complexes to its coastal areas presaged its decline relative to Tokyo Bay and Ise Bay. Besides changes within complexes and interlying areas the new spatial division of labour also created a new set of regions within Japan. This is demonstrated by revealing the inadequacy of retaining the sixteen regions as reservoirs of surplus labour, markets for industrial products and fields for investment.9 Since 1960 the resultant series of centre-peripheral relationships, mirroring unequal exchanges based on the relative price of commodities that favoured industrial regions at the expense of agricultural regions had been superseded, their dominance in terms of labour power, profit and capital accumulation revised, and the flow of rural-urban migration stemmed. In regional terms the effects of shifts in imports between 1960 and 1975 resulted in marked gains in Inland Kanto, San-yo, South Kyushu and, to a lesser extent, Tohoku Pacific. Losses were recorded in Tohoku Japan Sea, Coastal Kanto, Yamaguchi and North Kyushu. In the process the series of centre-periphery relationships between the four industrial the regions regions and their agricultural counterparts were dissolved and two macro-regions emerged. These macro-regions were not the time-honoured division between East Japan and West Japan (Kawashima, 1980) - in which there was a shift in imports in favour of the former of less than one per cent – but the PacificSetouchi (Seto Inland Sea) Coastal Belt and the comparatively undeveloped areas outside that belt. This spatial pattern fulfilled the aims of Prime Minister Takeo Ikeda’s Income Doubling Plan. The Pacific-Setouchi Coastal Belt originated from the extension

of the Tokaido Megalopolis (comprising Coastal Kanto, Tokai and Coastal Kinki) to encompass an area stretching from Tohoku-Pacific to North Kyushu – the result of giving the Coastal Belt priority in infrastructure.

Figure 13.4 Shift-share analysis of imports, 1960–75, It shows the difference between a port’s (or complex’s) imports in 1975 with the tonnage required to maintain 1960 percentage of Japan’s exports. Inset shows similar information for the regions Assuming Tohoku-Pacific to be still part of the ‘undeveloped’ zone there has been no massive decentralization of imports as its share has increased by less than five per cent between 1960 and 1975. Although targeted for development on completion of the Income Doubling Plans the traditional sources of labour surplus and complementary markets – Hokkaido, Tohoku-Japan Sea, Hokuriku, Shikoku and San-in – barely held their own. The result emphasized that the location of heavy and chemical industries under the ‘Act for the Development of Industrial Cities’ (Shinsangyo Toshi Kensetsu Sokushin Ho, 1962) within these regions had, at best, offset losses experienced at the sporadically distributed, older industrial centres troubled by technological change. South Kyushu was the only exception to this pattern but its marked gain in imports was narrowly-based on the location of an oil terminal (Kiire) which, though it handled

almost 25,000,000 tonnes in 1975, was not designated as a major port. Apart from South Kyushu the general failure of undeveloped areas to attract more imports was attributed to Japan’s position in the international division of labour. Shortages of semi-skilled labour and heightened concern with environmental problems in Japan led to the location of activities that previously would have been part of kombinato being located ‘off-shore’. The oil crisis in 1973 merely confirmed these locational shifts and large kombinato designated under the ‘New Comprehensive National Development Plan’ (Shinzenso) were operating below their expected capacity. Decentralization was less pronounced in exports than in imports. Increasingly, exports were drawn from large-scale assembly production (e.g., motor vehicles and household electrical appliances) rather than the basic intermediate-goods sector (e.g., iron and steel, petrochemicals and non-ferrous metals). Although both were leading sectors between 1960 and 1975, the latter had not decentralized to the same extent as the former and was still concentrated in the major port complexes – Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay and Osaka Bay – which still monopolized scheduled liner shipping services (Fig. 13.5). Only modest gains, therefore, were recorded by the ports serving the ‘growth poles’ in the Pacific-Setouchi coastal belt – Kashima, Mizushima and Fukuyama. Losses were concentrated in older centres of skilled labour – Otaru, Shimizu, Matsuyama and Tsukumi. They were, however, most pronounced at the Kanmon port complex following the reduction of coal exports and the ‘flight’ of manufacturing capacity forced to locate there during the Pacific War – Sumitomo Metals and Asahi Chemicals to Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay and Osaka Bay (the Coal Mining Area Development Area Act 1961 designed to attract industry to North Kyushu not proving very fruitful). Not all of the older industrial centres declined; Hiroshima, for example, received a fillip from the limited decentralization of the motor vehicle industry from Tokyo Bay and Ise Bay (Toyo Kogyo, manufacturers of Mazda). Even Shimizu’s loss would have been greater had it not been for the growth in exports of motor cycles (Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha) and musical instruments and the fact that it served as an ‘overflow port’ when liner services were available there and not in Tokyo Bay. These overflow facilities were required because Tokyo Bay recorded the largest gain in exports between 1960 and 1975 - a reflection of marked industrial expansion not only on coastal reclaimed land but also on industrial estates (kogyo danchi) in landbased prefectures. These attracted the interest of big corporations including Sumitomo Metals which hitherto had only been represented in West Japan. The main industries on the estates were electrical machinery, transport equipment (Nissan, Honda, Isuzu, Hino and Mitsubishi), information processing equipment and precision manufacturing which were all geared to overseas markets (metal products accounting for one-tenth of all exports in 1975). Collectively, these developments offset likely export-depressing constraints embodied in the Law to Restrict Industry in Existing Buildup Areas of the

Tokyo Metropolitan Area (Shutoken no Kisei Shigaichi ni okeru Kogyo no Seisan ni Kansuru Horitsu, 1959) and gave Tokyo Bay a healthy lead over its Ise Bay and Osaka Bay rivals in attracting newly emerging high-technology industries such as microelectronics (semiconductors and computers). Ise Bay had maintained its share of exports between 1960 and 1975 through increased shipments of transport equipment, particularly motor vehicles (Toyota). Although the Ise Bay complex was below Osaka Bay in total output, its employment and value of output were growing at a greater rate. The failure of Osaka Bay – an area associated with exports of textiles, transport equipment and consumer electrical goods to keep pace with its rivals has been variously attributed to its loss of leadership in textiles to Ise Bay; fewer inland industrial estates (except those housing Matsushita Electric, Sanyo-Electric and Sharp); only one major car manufacturer with an assembly plant (Daihatsu); a smaller share of ‘growth’ industries manufacturing highly technical products such as communications equipment, precision instruments or electrical machinery; and a marked shift of head offices to Tokyo. Deconcentration of economic activities within the Osaka Bay complex was, therefore, insufficient to offset losses in the Osaka-Kobe core area. Even if the complex’s boundaries were re-drawn to include Higashi-Harima and Wakayama-Shimotsu the Osaka-Bay port complex would have experienced a marked loss – which emphasizes just how much the area had been outstripped by Tokyo Bay.

Figure 13.5 Shift-share analysis of exports, 1960–75. It shows the difference between a port’s (or a complex’s) exports in 1975 with the tonnage required to maintain a 1960 percentage of Japan’s exports. Inset shows similar information The net regional effect of these shifts and shares was reflected in marked gains in Coastal Kanto and Inland Kanto on the one hand and San-yo and, to a lesser extent, in Yamaguchi and Shikoku on the other. Hokuriku (despite government encouragement of industrial agglomeration still weak), Inland Kinki and San-in experienced little change but losses were recorded in Hokkaido, Tohoku-Japan Sea, Tohoku-Pacific, Tokai and North and South Kyushu. At one level these results reflect that the ‘coal contracting regions’ – Hokkaido and North Kyushu – and traditional labour surplus areas (with minor exceptions) lost ground and the new industrial complexes were responsible for gains in San-yo and adjacent areas. Macro-regions were more significant with a marked shift in favour of East Japan at the expense of West Japan, presumably brought about by the attraction of the former for firms performing some of the higher functions within the national economy. Overshadowing these changes was the emergence and dominance of the Pacific-Setouchi Coastal Belt over undeveloped regions as it exported over 90 per cent of all cargo in 1975. The ‘stability’ of the pattern of imports and exports during the era of high-speed

growth was seriously undermined by a spell of less rapid growth during the late 1960s which was intensified by the oil crisis in 1973. These general economic trends in Japan (and other free enterprise economies) were consistent with the country entering a new phase in her economic history between 1965 and 1970. According to Hanappe and Savy (1981) this change, mirrored in the fortunes of ports and regions, should be interpreted in terms of the 50–60 year-long wave of the Kondratieff cycle comprising an initial phase of rapid growth (20–30 years) followed by a phase of lower or zero growth. The upswing period of the Kondratieff cycle (1947–73) in Japan – the fourth since the beginning of the industrial era in western Europe at the end of the eighteenth century – was characterized by a shift from colonial traffic to imports of raw materials and energy resources (oil and coal) and exchanges of semi-finished and finished products. Ports located close to coalfields declined in the rankings whereas those able to accommodate the space needs of the oil industry – large metropolitan ports and greenfield sites – improved their status. The momentum behind these changes in rankings was the ‘propulsive effect’ of the oil industry on shipbuilding through the construction of supertankers and extension of the bulk-carrier concept to other cargoes; the growing control over the domestic economy and international trade of Japanese oligopolies; government investments in ports as a convenient means of investing public money to benefit the private sector as they were not recouped by a ‘user pays’ principle; and the gravitation of several leading industrial sectors (oil refining, iron and steel, chemicals, aluminium and motor cars) to port areas. During the phase of reduced growth since 1967, port activities have been affected by the absence of a specific branch of the industry figuring as the leading component of the economy. Rather than search for further economies of scale within Japan investors withdrew from activities or projects not offering long-term yields and switched their attention during the recession to outlets in the Third World. This search was facilitated by the splintering of the production process. Those Japanese corporations engaged in such activities as textiles, electronics and motor cars have retained skilled work within the country while simultaneously taking advantage of lower wages, fewer regulations and faster market growth offered by the Third World for unskilled work. As oil prices rose there was a shift of the aluminium industry to countries with bauxite and cheaper electricity. This phase of low growth, coinciding with a reduction in population mobility and a shift in value judgements, prompted a change in regional development policy after 1975. As attempts to refurbish the New Comprehensive National Development Plan (Shinzenso), advocating large-scale, port-based projects, could no longer be sustained, the National Land Development Council reached general agreement in April 1975 to revise Japan’s national plan and port policies in a way consistent with the downswing in the Kondratieff cycle. Table 13.3 The evolution of regional planning and seaport priorities in Japan, since

1976

Source: Various.

Aftermath Since the end of the era of rapid economic growth and accelerated accumulation that featured industrial port complexes or kombinato there have been two marked shifts in regional policy (Table 3). After 1975, a new inward-looking policy which recast seaports as regional distribution centres within a new cellular pattern of social life was developed in a bid to cope with the social unrest over the environmental consequences of accelerated growth. By 1985, it was widely perceived that this anti-development strategy had limited practical application because of strong counter-trends rooted in the new international division of labour. At best, the initial, post-high-speed growth phase was one of transition and adjustment before the first steps were taken towards more moderate growth and new developments befitting Japan’s emerging information society.

Portopia, 1975–84 Between 1975 and 1984 the role of Japan’s ports in regional development policy had to be recast in response to structural changes in the world economy and increasing limitations on resources, changes in national consciousness and problems accompanying the slower growth rate. Ports had to be ‘retuned’ to accommodate a ‘stable growth rate’ of less than 6 per cent. Guidelines for the role of ports in regional development policy were embodied in the ‘Third Comprehensive National

Development Plan’ (Sanzenso, 1977) which sought to create a second generation of major industrial areas emphasizing industrial diversification and limitations on pollution. Much importance was placed on ports as commodity distribution centres within the cellular pattern of integrated residential areas (teijuken) designed to take advantage of the lessening rate of rural depopulation and community involvement in an era of local initiative (chiho no jidal) (Fig. 13.6). In the process ‘Portopias’ were created on the Pacific route and Japan route arterial network comprising distributionbase areas being devoted to warehousing, commercial activities, light industry and urban residential areas as illustrated by the Osaka South Port and Kobe Port Island developments. These domestic measures were matched by a planned decentralization of overseas trade through the stipulation that ports capable of serving international liner traffic should be established in Hokkaido, Tohoku-Pacific, Inland Kanto and Kyushu – a move increasing the number of such port complexes from five to thirteen ( Japan, Ministry of Transport, Bureau of Ports and Harbours, 1987: 29). Simultaneously the large-scale industrial zones at Tomakomai (Hokkaido), Mutsu Ogawara (Tohoku), Akita Bay (Tohoku) and Shibushi (South Kyushu) were continued. Provision was also made for oil stockpiling. These directives were accompanied by a dramatic shift in the allocation of investment – the development of ports and harbours per se being downgraded in favour of providing an ‘agreeable’ marine environment, promotion of maritime safety and use of ports to promote local development. Following the promulgation of this regional development policy, Japan was affected by the intensification of the recession during the late 1970s. The advent of ‘nationalism under recession’ reflected in selective unemployment and a crisis in public finance – particularly severe in port authorities – curbed progressive political forces that had pressed for a change in regional policy.10 Generous pollution-damage compensation was allegedly used by government to buy off progressive support, and corporations set about isolating citizen’s movements by creating the impression that all environmental problems had been solved and by avoiding the issue of environmental conservation so that pollution controls were relaxed in port industrial complexes (Gresser et al., 1981). Notwithstanding Japan’s continuing dependence on imported raw materials and energy and the real prospects of increasing its self-sufficiency in foodstuffs, this new Utopian regional policy – even purged of its fuzzy concepts – had only limited practical application in Japan.

Figure 13.6 Self-governing units and main core regions (teijuken) established under the Third Comprehensive National Development Plan (Sanzenso) The role of Japan’s seaports had to reflect changes in the activities of the global network corporations. Caught in the downswing of the country’s economy the latter have switched from taking a bird’s-eye-view of the Japanese archipelago to a worldwide perspective in making their investments within their own global organization. Their aim is to capitalize on the shifting pattern of comparative advantage based on improvements in transport and telecommunications technology, the decomposition of production, international capital markets and use of inexpensive labour overseas. Although technopos were designated throughout Japan these hightechology ‘growth poles’ did not stem the movement of Japanese industry to off-shore locations.

The new reality Since the Plaza Accord of 1985, seaports and regional development policy have had to come to terms with the new reality buoyed by the revaluation of the yen. While

Japan’s global network corporations have opened up new fields of surplus production and capital accumulation, seaports handling overseas trade have had to be upgraded as part of their international operations of production (though competition from cheaper labour in South Korea and Taiwan caused Japan to lose her position in container feeder services). As recognized by the Fourth National Development Plan (Yonzenso, 1987), the ‘worldwide sourcing strategy’ adopted by major Japanese corporations, featuring a global market for labour forces, industrial free zones, offshore plants and enclave factories in underdeveloped countries, has taken the place of leading sectors in Japan. The main exception has been the precision machinery sector (e.g. video tape recorders, integrated circuits and numerically controlled machine tools) in which computer-aided manufacturing systems have reduced production costs. Apart from nuclear plants with similar requirements to shipbuilding, and the application of computerized telecommunications as part of advanced distribution space within port areas, there have not been any rivals to the worldwide sourcing strategy in the medium term capable of supplying an alternative ‘engine’ to drive the economy Not only has this strategy promoted the internationalization (kokusaika) and ‘informatization’ of Japanese society but, by implication, the activities performed by major ports. Thus great emphasis is now placed on installing information infrastructure within ports (e.g. teleports). As illustrated by container movements, the production potentials and social functions in Japan were still highly concentrated – the result not only of the concentration of capital but also of the close interlocking, functional relationships between manufacturing, research services and consumption.11 As identified by Yonzenso, the spatial outcome of the internationalization of production within Japan has been to place Tokyo – with its headquarter functions, research and development and high technology production – at the apex of a global hierarchy with its base in maritime development areas located in underdeveloped countries and dependent on a narrow range of industries. There appears little doubt that the breaking down of existing industries and their replacement by others using advanced technology and scientific research has kept Japanese ports at the forefront of exports as junctions of international chains of production. In the process, uneven regional development within Japan has been reinforced with Osaka Bay and Ise Bay areas becoming subordinate to a still expanding Tokyo Bay area. The latter is now the undisputed hub for corporate headquarters, international finance (e.g., banking, securities and insurance), national wholesale and retail distribution, and the fast-growing services sector using the latest information technology. Tokyo Bay’s growth became a major issue for Yonzenso and, by implication, for seaport development. After discussion on the appropriate balance between Tokyo and other parts of Japan the final report sought a dispersed, multipolar pattern of international-gateway seaports linked by expressways and advanced information

technology. The pattern reflected the dispersion of bulk imports to kombinato located outside Tokyo but only a modest expansion of oil, chemical and metallurgical industries was expected in these once ‘hyperactive’ port industrial complexes, particularly because new investment in such activities was directed primarily to areas outside Japan. Ports dependent on traditional labour-intensive products geared to regional markets will continue to decay – and, as in so many other decaying inner-city seaports around the world (e.g., Liverpool, Sydney or New York), tourist and leisure activities are seen as their means of salvation. It is important, however, not to become too preoccupied with the hinterlands of ports. As Japan’s internationalization of production has redirected attention from uneven regional development within the country to the same situation on a global scale, ports and port development must also be assessed on such a global basis.

REFERENCES Flüchter, W. (1975) Neulandgewinnung und Industrieansiedlung vor den japanischen Küsten: Funktionen, Strukturen und Auswirkungen der Aufschüttungsgebiete (umetate chi). Paderborn, Ferdinand Schoningh. Glickman, N.J. (1979) The Growth and Management of the Japanese Urban System. London, Academic Press. Goss, R.O. (1980) A Comparative Study of Seaport Management and Administration. 2. vols, London, Government Economic Service. Gresser, J., Fujikura Koichiro & Morishima Akio (1981) Environmental Law in Japan. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press. Hanappe, P. and Savy, M. (1981) ‘Industrial port areas and the Kondratieff cycle’, in B.S. Hoyle and D.A. Pinder, eds Cityport Industrialization and Regional Development: Spatial Analysis and Planning strategies. Oxford, Pergamon, pp. 11–22. Japan, Economic Planning Agency (1976) Economic Plan for the Second Half of the 1970s: Toward a Stable Society. Tokyo, Government of Japan, Ministry of Finance, Printing Bureau. Japan, Ministry of Transport, Bureau of Ports and Harbours (1987), Ports and Harbours in Japan. Tokyo, International Affairs Office, Ports and Harbours Bureau, Ministry of Transport. Japan, Ministry of Transport, Bureau of Ports and Harbours (1997), Ports and Harbours in Japan. Tokyo, International Affairs Office, Ports and Harbours Bureau, Ministry of Transport. Japan, Ministry of Transport, Bureau of Ports and Harbours (1992), Ports and Harbours in Japan. Tokyo, International Affairs Office, Ports and Harbours Bureau, Ministry of Transport.

Kosai Yutaka, (1986). The Era of High-Speed Growth. Notes on the Postwar Japanese Economy, trans. J. Kaminski, published in Japanese, 1981, Tokyo, Tokyo University Press. Kosai Yutaka & Ogino Yoshitaro, (1984) The Contemporary Japanese Economy, trans. R. Thompson, London and Basingstoke, Macmillan. Nakamura Takafusa, (1981) The Postwar Japanese Economy: Its Development and Structure trans. J. Kaminski, published in Japanese 1980, Tokyo, Tokyo University Press. Nihon Unyusho Daijin Kambo Joho Kannbu (1976) Kowan Tokei Nenpo Showa 50 Nen [Statistical Yearbook on Ports and Harbours for 1975]. Tokyo, Nihon Unyusho Daijin Kambo Joho Karibu. Nihon Unyusho Kowanbu, (1991) Hokana Wa-tafuronto o Mezashite: 21 Seiki he no Ko Zukuri [Creation of the Resourceful Waterfront: Port Development Towards the 21st Century], Tokyo, Nihon Unyusho Kowanbu. Ohta Kasutoshi, (1989) ‘The development of Japanese transportation policies in the context of regional development’, Transportation Research A, vol. 23A, no.1, pp. 91– 101. Tanaka Kakuei (1972) Building A New Japan: A Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago. Tokyo, Simul Press. Vigarié, A. (1981) ‘Maritime industrial development areas; structural evolution and implications for regional development’, in B.S. Hoyle & D.A. Pinder, eds City Port Industrialization and Regional Development. Spatial Analysis and Planning Strategies. Oxford, Pergamon, pp. 33–6. Yoshimura Makoto, (1981) Port’s roles in regional development, unpublished paper presented at the 12th Conference of the International Association of Ports and Harbours, Nagoya, 1981.

NOTES 1

Dr Rimmer is grateful to the Australia-Japan Foundation and the Australian National University for funding the fieldwork on which this paper is based. In Japan he was helped by Shuhei Konno then Senior Planning Officer, Planning and Co-ordination Bureau, National Land Agency (Kokudo Cho). Through Professor Konno meetings were held with the Ports and Harbours Bureau, Ministry of Transport; port authorities and associated bodies at Kitakyushu, Kobe, Mizushima, Nagoya, Niigata, Shimizu, Tokyo, Toyama and Yokohama; the International Association of Ports and Harbours (Rinnosuke Kondoh and Kimiko Takeda); and Institute of Port Economics. In Hokkaido discussions were held with the port authorities at Otaru, Muroran, and Tomakomai, the Hokkaido Prefectural Institute of Economic Research and Japan Port Economies Association. Contacts were also

2

3 4

5

6

7

8

made with the Institute of Marine Industries (Eiko Murayama), Japan Transport Economics Research Centre (Osamu Nakai) and Tokyo University of Mercantile Marine (Yasutake Nishiyama). In Australia, assistance with translation has been afforded by Yoichiro Higuchi, Chiaki Kuranami, Paul Sheard and two Japanese teachers, Saeko Ogi and Haruko Higuchi (née Hayakawa). Barbara Banks was responsible for proofreading the paper. Detailed port investment plans have varied with shifts in national economic and land-use planning strategies. Since 1956, forecasts for the transport sector have been part of the national economic plan formulated by government in consultation with industry and within the comprehensive national development planning system. After 1961, these plans provided the basis for establishing port policy objectives. The Plan also provided for the construction of the Seikan Tunnel between Honshu and Hokkaido, bridges linking Honshu and Shikoku, and the Tohoku and Joetsu extensions to the Shinkansen (Ohta, 1989). Rimmer (1966) has demonstrated that when shipping and cargo statistics are mapped they will produce a similar pattern. The latter is preferred, however, as a yardstick for measuring changes in the rankings of individual ports as the data can be broken down into separate commodities. The state provided 50 per cent of the cost of construction or improvement of public water, protective or mooring facilities at major ports compared with 40 per cent at local ports; the state also covered up to 50 per cent of the construction or improvement at major port berths but local ports received no such assistance. There is another distinction, which is not used in this study, between seventeen designated ‘major ports’ – especially important for foreign trade and ‘other major ports’. The specially designated ports which attracted a higher rate of subsidy are Muroran, Chiba, Tokyo, Kawasaki, Yokohama, Niigata, Shimizu, Nagoya, Yokkaichi, Osaka, Sakai-Senboku, Kobe, Himeji, Wakayama-Shimozu, TokuyamaKudamatsu, Shiminoseki and Kitakyushu. As both liner and industrial ports are included in this list, the rationale for inclusion is not clear-cut. Inter-port competition is difficult to assess during the era of highspeed growth. Local monopoly power, however, was reinforced by the so-called ‘six port association’ which had eight members – Kawasaki, Yokohama, Shimizu, Nagoya, Yokkaichi, Osaka, Kobe and Kitakyushu. This association which met to discuss and agree on common charges was outside the orbit of the Fair Trade Commission. Private stevedoring companies could also agree on cargo handling charges but only within the limits prescribed by the Transport Council (Goss, 1980). For example, imports at Muroran grew from 2,623,000 in 1960 to 9,444,000 tonnes in 1975 but the ‘expected’ level was 17,289,000 tonnes. Thus, the shift factor was -7,845,000 tonnes – the difference between actual and expected (9,444,000–

17,289,000). By contrast, Wakkanai grew to 112,000 tonnes in 1975 rather than the expected 24,000 tonnes; the result is +88.000 tonnes because it grew faster than the all-port rate. A ‘shift’ index is the percentage change in a port’s share of the cargo tonnage for all ports. Thus, if a port had 10 per cent of imports in 1960 and 11 per cent in 1975 the shift index would be 1.10 because in 1975 it had a 10 per cent greater ‘share’. Muroran’s index for imports is 0.55 indicating a 45 per cent decrease during the period; the comparable figure for Wakkanai is 4.67 indicating that its share increased by 367 per cent. 9 These regions are defined by the Ministry of Transport on the basis of areas developed by industrial capital prior to the Pacific War – Coastal Kanto, Tokai, Coastal Kinki and North Kyushu – and others still dominated by agricultural peasant production. 10 As the accounting systems of port management bodies in Japan during the era of high-speed growth were still rather unsophisticated, it is difficult to grasp their correct financial situation. Nevertheless, their financial policies did not involve making a profit after historical depreciation and investment. A statement of profit and loss for eight major ports prepared by the central government showed that all experienced losses in 1975 - the annual net deficit increasing each year since 1970. These figures understate the position as their historical depreciation and investment statistics did not cover the subsidization of infrastructure by the central government. There was no attempt to achieve any level of opportunity cost as formal investment techniques (e.g., discounted cash flow or cost-benefit analysis) were not used. Their application would probably have led to an increase in port charges of 50 per cent (Goss, 1980). 11 Figures for 1991 show that Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay and Osaka Bay ports handled 91 per cent of Japan’s container tonnage (pers. comm.).