Goods from the East, 1600–1800: Trading Eurasia

380 Pages·2015·3.25 MB·English

by  Maxine Berg, Felicia Gottmann, Hanna Hodacs, Chris Nierstrasz (eds.)

Goods from the East, 1600–1800
Europe’s Asian Centuries
Series Editor: Maxine Berg, Professor of History, University of Warwick, UK
This series investigates the key connector that transformed the early modern
world: the long-distance trade between Asia and Europe in material goods and
culture. This trade stimulated Europe’s consumer and industrial revolutions,
re-orientating the Asian trading world to European priorities. Europe’s pursuit
of quality goods turned a pre-modern encounter with precious and exotic orna-
ments into a modern globally-organized trade in Asian export ware.
Europe’s Asian Centuries engages with new historical approaches arising from
global history; it develops subject areas grounded in skills and processes of
production as well as material culture, and it demonstrates the new depth of
research into diverse markets, quality differences and the development of taste.
The books are groundbreaking in bringing the study of traded products, m aterial
cultures and consumption into economic and global history, and in making
economic history relevant to wider cultural history. It has the vision of a history
over a long chronology of two and a half centuries and wide European and Asian
comparisons and connections.
The series includes:
Maxine Berg, editor with Felicia Gottmann, Hanna Hodacs, Chris Nierstrasz
GOODS FROM THE EAST, 1600–1800
Trading Eurasia
Forthcoming titles:
Chris Nierstrasz
RIVALRY FOR TRADE IN TEA AND TEXTILES
Felicia Gottmann
GLOBAL TRADE, SMUGGLING, AND THE MAKING OF ECONOMIC LIBERALISM
Asian Textiles in France 1680–1760
Hanna Hodacs
SILK AND TEA IN THE NORTH
Scandinavian Trade and the Market for Asian Goods in 18th Century Europe
Europe’s Asian Centuries
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–40393–3 hardcover
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a stand-
ing order. Please contact your bookseller, or write to us at the address below with
your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above.
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Goods from the East,
1600– 1800
Trading Eurasia
Edited by
Maxine Berg
Professor of History, University of Warwick, UK
with
Felicia Gottmann
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, The Scottish Centre for Global History,
University of Dundee
Hanna Hodacs
Research Fellow, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Chris Nierstrasz
Lecturer, Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication,
Erasmus University, Rotterdam
Palgrave
macmillan
Selection, introduction and editorial matter © Maxine Berg 2015
Chapters © Contributors 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-40393-3
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First published 2015 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-56218-3 ISBN 978-1-137-40394-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137403940
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goods from the East, 1600–1800 : trading Eurasia / [edited by] Maxine Berg (professor
of history, Warwick University, UK) ; with Felicia Gottman (research fellow, University
of Warwick), Hanna Hodacs (research fellow, University of Warwick), Chris Nierstrasz
(postdoctoral fellow, University of Warwick).
pages cm
Summary: “The imperative of the long-distance seaborne trade of Europeans, from the
age of exploration, was to acquire the goods of the exotic East—the silks and porcelains
and tea of China, the spices of the spice islands and the textiles of India. Goods from
the East focuses on the trade in fine products: how they were made, marketed and
distributed between Asia and Europe. This trade was conducted by East India Companies
and many private traders, and the first Global Age that resulted deeply affected European
consumption and manufacturing. This book provides a full comparative and connective
study of Asia’s trade with a range of European countries. Its themes relate closely to issues
of fine manufacturing and luxury goods in the current age of globalization. Goods from
the East brings together established scholars, such as Jan de Vries, Om Prakash and Josh
Gommans, and a new generation of researchers, who together look into the connections
between European consumer cultures and Asian trade”— Provided by publisher.
1. Asia—Commerce—Europe—History—17th century. 2. Asia—Commerce—
Europe—History—18th century. 3. Europe—Commerce—Asia—History—17th
century. 4. Europe—Commerce—Asia—History—18th century. 5. Luxuries—Asia—
History. 6. Luxuries—Europe—History. 7. Trading companies—Asia—History. 8. Trading
companies—Europe—History. I. Berg, Maxine, 1950–
HF3752.G66 2015
382.09504—dc23 2015001285
Contents
List of Figures, Tables and Maps viii
List of Colour Plates xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Notes on Contributors xiv
1 Introduction 1
Maxine Berg
2 Understanding Eurasian Trade in the Era
of the Trading Companies 7
Jan de Vries
Part I Objects of Encounter and Transfers of Knowledge
3 Spirited Transactions. The Morals and Materialities of
Trade Contacts between the Dutch, the British and
the Malays (1 596–1 619) 45
Romain Bertrand
4 The Indigo Trade of the English East India Company in
the Seventeenth Century: Challenges and Opportunities 61
Ghulam A. Nadri
5 The Orient and the Dawn of Western Industrialization:
Armenian Calico Printers from Constantinople in
Marseilles ( 1669– 1 686) 77
Olivier Raveux
6 Europe– C hina– Europe: The Transmission of the Craft of
Painted Enamel in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 92
Xu Xiaodong
7 Patterns of Design in Q ing- China and Britain during the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 107
Dagmar Schäfer
8 ‘The Merest Shadows of a Commodity’: Indian Muslins
for European Markets 1 750– 1800 119
Maxine Berg
v
vi Contents
Part II Private Trade and Networks
9 The Eurasian Diamond Trade in the Eighteenth Century:
A Balanced Model of Complementary Markets 139
Tijl Vanneste
10 British Private Trade Networks and Metropolitan
Connections in the Eighteenth Century 154
Timothy Davies
11 Worlds Apart? Merchants, Mariners, and the Organization
of the Private Trade in Chinese Export Wares in
Eighteenth-C entury Europe 168
Meike von Brescius
12 The Dutch and the English East India Companies
Trade in Indian Textiles in the Seventeenth and the
Eighteenth Century: A Comparative View 183
Om Prakash
Part III Consuming East and West
13 Becoming Consumers: Asiatic Goods in Migrant and
Native- born Middling Households in
Eighteenth-C entury Amsterdam 197
Anne McCants
14 ‘Exotic’ Goods? F ar- Eastern Commodities for the
French Market in India in the Eighteenth Century 216
Kévin Le Doudic
15 Selling India and China in E ighteenth-C entury Paris 229
Natacha Coquery
16 Textile Furies – the French State and the Retail
and Consumption of Asian Cottons 1 686– 1759 244
Felicia Gottmann
Part IV A Taste for Tea
17 The Popularization of Tea: East India Companies,
Private Traders, Smugglers and the Consumption of
Tea in Western Europe, 1700– 1760 263
Chris Nierstraz
18 Chests, Tubs and Lots of Tea – the European Market
for Chinese Tea and the Swedish East India Company,
c. 1730– 1760 277
Hanna Hodacs and Leos Müller
Contents vii
19 A North Europe World of Tea: Scotland and
the Tea Trade, c.1 690– c.1790 294
Andrew Mackillop
20 Arriving to a Set Table: The Integration of Hot Drinks
in the Urban Consumer Culture of the E ighteenth- Century
Southern Low Countries 309
Bruno Blondé and Wouter Ryckbosch
Conclusion The Indian Ocean World
21 For the Home and the Body: Dutch and
Indian Ways of Early Modern Consumption 331
Jos Gommans
Select Bibliography: Suggested Further Reading 350
Index 355
List of Figures, Tables and Maps
Figures
2.1 Europe’s intercontinental trades, by shipping
tonnage, 1501– 1795 19
3.1 Map of Banten, from Baptista van Doetechum, 1598 46
3.2 ‘An audience of the regent of Banten’, from
Baptista van Doetechum, 1598 47
8.1 ‘Winding and Preparing the Yarn’, engraving from
John Mortimer, A Descriptive and Historical Account
of the Cotton Manufacture of Dacca in Bengal by a
Former Resident of Dacca, (London, 1851), p. 26 120
8.2 ‘Applying the reed to the warp’, engraving from
John Mortimer, A Descriptive and Historical Account
of the Cotton Manufacture of Dacca in Bengal by a
Former Resident of Dacca, (London, 1851), p. 30 121
8.3 ‘Applying the warp to the end roll of the loom’, engraving
from John Mortimer, A Descriptive and Historical Account
of the Cotton Manufacture of Dacca in Bengal by a Former
Resident of Dacca, (London, 1851), p. 31 121
14.1 Distribution channels for Far East Products in Pondicherry 220
15.1 ‘A l’Empereur’, Thibault, mercier. A. N., T186/81,
Mlle de Fitz- James, 4 janvier 1780 232
15.2 ‘Au Roi de Perse’, Mme Hayet, mercière. A. N., T186/50,
duc de Fitz- James, 27 juin 1788 233
15.3 ‘A la Levrette’, Paris, marchand faïencier. A. N., T186/50,
duc de Fitz- James, mars 1781 235
15.4 ‘A la Pomme d’or’, Bertrand, mercier. A. N., T186/71,
maréchal duc de Fitz- James, 29 janvier 1783 239
17.1 EIC Purchase price of green tea (Hyson,
Singlo and Bing) in Canton, 1715– 1760 267
17.2 EIC Purchase price of black tea (Bohea, Congou,
Pekoe and Souchong) in Canton, 1715–1 760 267
viii
List of Figures, Tables and Maps ix
17.3 Bohea and other tea in the return cargo of the
EIC, 1715– 1760 268
17.4 Bohea and other tea in the return cargo of the
VOC, 1715– 1760 269
18.1 Tea volume imports of the SEIC, 1742– 59 and proportions
of Bohea and Congo teas imported, the two most
important tea types 284
18.2 A summary of the cargo of the Swedish East India
Company ship Prins Carl, put up for sale in
Gothenburg 1756 285
20.1 New mercers: c hocolate-, tea- and coffee shops in Antwerp 312
Tables
2.1 Inter- c ontinental bullion flows, 1 601– 1800 25
2.2 Coffee imports, by source, to Great Britain, 1 699– 1787 28
2.3 Coffee imports, by source, to the Dutch Republic, 1 710– 1789 28
4.1 Ten- yearly average annual exports of indigo by the
EIC and VOC, 1 615– 1700 65
5.1 Main Armenians involved in trade and production of
printed calicoes in Marseilles in the late
seventeenth century 80
5.2 Printed calicoes for furnishing and garments in the
probate inventories with textiles of Marseilles (1 667– 1693) 82
5.3 Numbers of Indian cotton pieces exported to Europe by
East India Companies. Annual average (1 665– 1684) 82
5.4 Turkey red techniques used by Armenians and Greeks
in the eighteenth century  85
9.1 Percentages per city of origin of diamonds purchased 141
9.2 Percentage per city of types of diamonds purchased 142
9.3 Percentages per city of diamond sales 144
9.4 Percentage of sales types 144
9.5 Shipments to India by the Salvador Firm (1 744– 1758) 148
13.1 Financial profile of the Amsterdam
Burgerweeshuis inventories 202