An in-depth exploration of the Dutch East-India Company and what its history reveals about the Chinese community in the Dutch East Indies.
Connections between Asian and European markets increased dramatically in the seventeenth century, indicating a turning point in the global history of trade. The Dutch East-India Company (or VOC) was central to this process, however, counter to the VOC’s aims, the winners of the game in maritime Southeast Asia were often Chinese merchants. As this book shows, at the time, these merchants were the only economic agents capable of trading both in major Southeast Asian commercial hubs and developing exchanges with China and Japan. The Chinese operated with a flexibility of means and a fluidity of management that allowed them to react rapidly and quickly gain returns on investment. In Batavia, as in other Southeast Asian emporiums, the increasingly numerous and diverse Chinese elites assumed direct responsibility for the management of their community; this made them the most important non-European free community in the city during the second half of the seventeenth century.
The Chinese in Maritime Southeast Asia tells this remarkable story through an examination of the VOC’s abundant sources, which record relations between the Chinese minority and the Dutch rulers who relied upon them.
INTRODUCTION
A Necessary Decentring
1. From a European-Centric To An Asian-Centric Historical Research
2. The Emergence of Permanent Chinese Communities
3. The Potential Contribution of the Archives and the Analysis Strategy
I METHODOLOGY AND CONTEXTS
1. Sources Relating to the Activity of Chinese Networks
2. The Evolution of two Exchange Systems: West/East and North/South
II CONTROLLING THE MAIN TOOLS OF COMMERCE
3. A Hierarchical Commercial Network: Products, Stages, and Routes
4. The Development of Overseas Chinese Communities
5. Technologies and Savoir-Faire
III TRADE FLOWS
6. Chinese Commerce in Batavia
7. The Chinese in the Insulindian Trade (Excluding Batavia)
8. Peninsula/China Sea/Manila Links
IV FINANCIAL FLOWS
9. Currencies and Cash
10. Deferred Payments
11. Prices, Margins and Profits
V THE CHINESE IN BATAVIA
12. Key Economic Players
13. A Self-Managing Community
14. Positive Relations with the Dutch Government
CONCLUSION
Successive Commercial Tensions
APPENDIXES
1. Weights and Measures
2. Lexicon of Product Names Most Frequently Mentioned in the DRS
3. Principal Types of Insulindian Vessels Mentioned in the Dagh Register
4. Inventory of Goods Traded in Insulindia
5. Selected Extracts from Dutch Sources
6. Thematic Bibliography
7. Index
8. Table of Author's Maps and Other Figures
9. Table of Graphs
10. Table of Tables
11. Table of Contents
