Abstract
The eighteenth century saw European colonial enterprises like the Dutch (VOC) and the English (EIC) begin emerging as significant commercial and political interests in the Indian Ocean. Between trade and military naval conflicts, labour and technology as well as raw materials and resources local to communities in coastal South Asia were essential to European merchants and navies for ship building, maintenance and repair. Indian Ocean seaports had a long tradition of shipbuilding that predated the arrival of Europeans in the Indian Ocean by several centuries, and from long before Europeans were able to acquire territorial possessions in South Asia, they were dependent on the technological expertise and knowledge of resources of local coastal communities to cater to their specific needs and requirements of ships. Suffice to say, even after the establishment of territorial colonial empires, many continued to rely on their old networks to establish their own shipbuilding centres. Apart from the Wadia family of shipbuilders in British Bombay, there is very little extant research on the complex networks of knowledge and technology communities that Europeans in coastal South Asia relied on to establish and maintain their shipbuilding infrastructures during this period. Through archival research, this paper explores these networks and communities and the circulation of knowledge and technology facilitated by their interactions with European mercantile powers in two eighteenth-century seaports in South Asia, Bombay and Cochin, acquired and controlled by the English and the Dutch respectively.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Maritime History, Indian Ocean World, Eighteenth Century, Societies and Technology
