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Contact and Transformation. The European Pre-Colonial Expansion in the Indian Ocean world-system in the 16th - 17th Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Jan Kieniewicz
Jan Kieniewicz
Affiliation:
University of Warsaw
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Extract

This article offers a preliminary outline of a theoretical concept to cover the precolonial phase of European overseas expansion. It considers the particular case of the Indian Ocean, which provides an exceptionally clear illustration of the need to link research into the expansion with the history of, and changes taking place within, the societies affected by it. What is necessary is to demonstrate the simultaneity and interaction of the region's social organi-sation with European Expansion. For this purpose I have used what may be called a systems approach.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , July 1984 , pp. 45 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1984

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References

Notes

1. G.M. Weinberg, “A Computer Approach to General System” and Orchard, R.A., “On the Approach to General Systems Theory”: in Trends in General Systems Theory, ed. Klir, G.J., New York, 1972 and alsoGoogle ScholarWeinberg, G.M., An Introduction to General Systems Thinking, New York, 1975Google Scholar.

2. Braudel, F., Civilisation Matérielle, Économie et Capita-lisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1979, vol. III, p. 12.Google Scholar

3. Wallerstein, I. considers the Indian Ocean as a Proto-World-Economy, “Rise and future demise of the Capitalist World Economy” in: The Capitalist World-Economy, Cambridge, 1979, p. 26.Google ScholarChaudhuri, K.N. accepts existence of many World-Economies with very clearly marked center “The World-System East of Longitude 20: The European Role in Asia 1500-1750”, Review, V, 2, Fall 1981, p. 226.Google Scholar

4. My understanding of culture is based mainly on White, L.A., The Concept of Cultural Systems. A Key to Understanding Tribes and Nations, New York, 1975.Google ScholarBraudel, Cf., op. cit. p. 51 and Wallerstein, I., “Civilisation and Modes of Production: Conflicts and Convergences”, Theory and Society, 5, 1978, p. 3–6Google Scholar.

5. More about stationariness in Kieniewicz, J., “Kerala as a Stationary System”, Hemispheres. Studies in Cultures and Societies, Warsaw, 1984. (in print).Google Scholar

6. The concept is of Wilkinson, R., Poverty and Progress. An Ecological Model of Economic Development, London, 1973.Google ScholarSachs, Cf. I., “Environnement et styles de développement”, Annales ESC, 3, 1974 andGoogle ScholarBoulding, K.E., Ecodynamics. A New Theory of Societal Evolution, Beverly Hills, 1978, p. 136Google Scholar.

7. More about progressive and backward states of social systems in Kieniewicz, J., “Aspekty historyczne rozwojuw krajach Trzeciego Swiata” (Historical Aspects of Development in the “Third World's” Countries), Przeglad Histo-ryczny, LXXI, 4, Warsaw, 1980, p. 735–737.Google Scholar

8. I discuss broadly this aspect in my book Kerala,- Od rów-nowagi do zacofania (Kerala. From Equilibrium towards Backwardness), Warsaw, 1976, p. 20–27. I consider inadequateGoogle ScholarMammen's, M.P. approach in “Tradition versus Modernization categories in Traditional Kerala Society”, Journal of Kerala Studies, II, 3, Trivandrum, 1975, p. 269–292Google Scholar.

9. About Europeans in Asian Trade and Warfare, Boxer, cf. books of C.R. and Chaudhuri, K.N. as well as Steensgaard Das Gupta and Pearson. I discussed this aspect in Faktoria i Forteca. Handel pieprzem na Oceanie Indyjskim i Ekspansja Portugalska w XVI wieku (The Factory and Fortress. The Pepper Trade over Indian Ocean and Portuguese Expansion in the 16th Century), Warsaw, 1970.Google Scholar

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ll. Prakash, Om estimated recently that the European demand strongly stimulated the Bengal textile production in the beginning of the 18th Century, “Bullion for Goods: International Trade and the Economy of Early Eigtheenth Century Bengal,” Indian Economic and Social History Review, 1976, XIII. CfGoogle Scholar. Raychaudhuri's and Cicero's remarks about European impact on Coromandel and Gujarat textile industry. I think Prakash's, suggestion that “the coming of the Europeans had a wide ranging impact on the organization of the Asian merchants trade from India in the seventeenth Century” is valid for the half of 18th Century only, “Asian Trade and European Impact: A Study of the Trade from Bengal, 1630-1720” in The Age of Partnership, Europeans in Asia before Dominion ed. Kling, B.B. and Pearson, M.N., Honolulu, 1979, p. 60Google Scholar. Cf. different opinions of N. Steensgaard in a lecture given in Goa during the Indo-Portuguese History Seminar, 1983.

12. Some aspects of this problem are discussed in Pearson, M.N., “Corruption and Corsairs in Sixteenth-Century Western India: A Functional Analysis” in The Age of Partnership, op. cit. p. 20 Overwhelmingness is a new-coined term I have chosen from the OxfordEnglish Dictionary.Google Scholar

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15. Gupta, A. Das, Malabarand theAsian Trade, Cambridge, 1967 and J. Kieniewicz, Kerala, op. cit.Google Scholar

16. Kieniewicz, J., “L'Asie et l'Europe pendant les XVIe-XIXe siècles. Formation de l'état arrière et confrontation des systèmes des valeurs” in: L'Histoire à Nice, p. 217–229.Google Scholar