Shipping and Trade in Java, c. 1775: A Quantitative Analysis

Abstract

Since the 1930s shipping and trade in Southeast Asia during the early modern period have attracted much attention from historians. The pioneer in this field was the Dutch scholar, J. C. van Leur, whose original work was translated into English during the 1950s (Van Leur 1955). Van Leur's interest was heavily weighted toward what he labelled ‘old Asian trade,’ and as such he was one of the first who called for an Asia-centric perspective. He drew attention to the fact that the maritime sector of Southeast Asia had its own dynamics. In the 1960s, M. A. P. Meilink-Roelofsz carried on the work of analyzing the indigenous maritime sector as well as the effects of the Portuguese and Dutch onslaughts on it up to the 1630s (Meilink-Roelofsz 1962). Limiting our perspective to the Malayo-Indonesian Archipelago, in the last decade several regional case studies have further enhanced our knowledge of the subject, such as those on Sulu (Warren 1981), Batavia (Blussé 1986), Amboina (Knaap 1987), Central and East Java (Nagtegaal 1988), and the Straits of Malacca (Vos 1993). Furthermore, Anthony Reid has recently tried to create a synthesis for the entire region of Southeast Asia up to 1680 (Reid 1993).