Anneli Xie
Profs. Nikhil Rao & Lidwien Kapteijns
HIST 367: The Indian Ocean as African, Arab, and South Asian History
2020/11/16
Profs. Nikhil Rao & Lidwien Kapteijns
HIST 367: The Indian Ocean as African, Arab, and South Asian History
2020/11/16
Reading response 2 – sessions 5, 6, 7
Session #5 – The Indian Ocean in the 18th and 19th Century: (South) East Africa
Jeremy Prestholdt’s writing acts in opposition to “most developed paradigms of global economic integration,” which he argues are too reliant on a Westernized canon of history. He writes:
Here, Prestholdt argues for the influence on global trade of areas typically considered to be “peripheral,” such as East Africa and its commercial hub, Zanzibar. Importantly, he highlights the agency and autonomy – the interests – of such “peripheral” actors and their effect on local production elsewhere, such as Bombay and Salem. His claim of plural causality is followed as he explains that “transregional systems are [not] reducible to a singular logic such as that of capital accumulation,” and that consumer demand thus had huge influence on economic relations.
To illustrate the impact of East African consumer demand on foreign production, Prestholdt delves into the market of cloth and beads:
Quoting the Western agent Joseph Thomson, Prestholdt demonstrates how quickly consumer demand in Zanzibar could change and how difficult it was for merchants – without inside information of the market – to predict these patterns. Importantly, Prestholdt also claims that trade goods not matching consumer taste were unable to sell, thus emphasizing the agency and sophistication of East African consumers – something that is often overlooked in the lens of e.g., the World-Systems Theory. Thus, possessing knowledge of the changing patterns of demand was extremely important, and many trade goods were remade on the way to their consumers as new information about taste and demand was relayed.
Despite the complex network of demand, however, East Africa had a huge impact on distant manufacturers, such as textile mills in Salem and Bombay. Prestholdt writes:
By bringing “America’s largest textile mill” – Salem – into his argument, Prestholdt shines light on the global integration of East African consumer demand, securing his argument of the agency and sophistication among these “peripheral” actors. Notably, he also speaks of a reciprocal relationship; the East African demand for cloth helped grow the success of Salem, both as it provided a steady export market, but also as Salemites could gain access to copal and resin, necessary for the American market and their own Salem industries. As such, the consumer demand of East African actors helped position Salem in a lucrative position in the early 1800s, as all of Salem’s “most important industries” (Prestholdt 2008, 68) were linked, and entirely dependent on, East African trade.
Session #5 – The Indian Ocean in the 18th and 19th Century: The Red Sea and the Arabian/Persian Gulf
Nancy Um’s essay sheds light on the spatial dimension of Mocha as she documents the lack of typical Arab public trade structures, such as the urban khan, in the city. The absence of the urban khan alludes to Mocha as diverging significantly from its Arab counterparts, leading to Um’s argument of Mocha being “fully entrenched in another system [found in the Indian Ocean].” (Um 2003, 186) In her article, Um lays the private merchant’s house in the spotlight for trade activities in Mocha to explain how the maritime world affected the spatial organization of both the private and public city. She writes:
This quote lays an excellent foundation for understanding the dynamics of trade in the city of Mocha. Firstly, the quote references the Customs House, which was the “most important” trade-related building in Mocha, but which nevertheless did not provide a platform for negotiations. Similarly, Um hints at khans being the norm in Arab urban centers of commerce, making their absence in Mocha ambiguous.
Instead, Um reveals that trade in Mocha blurred the boundaries between the public and private realm as it would take place in the merchants’ private houses. An investigation into the interior of the merchants’ houses also reveals how architecture in Mocha was designed to accommodate multiple functions, such as private family life, as well as public trade transactions:
Whereas many Arab houses were fitted with a dual-entry system – and while Um relates the Mocha characteristic to one of “several standard attributes” (Um 2003, 183) that could be found in Arab architecture – these dual systems in Mocha were not organized in the same way as in other Arab cities. Typically, the dual-entry system was used to accommodate gender segregation, but in Mocha, the two doors acted instead to segregate the public and private realm. An understanding of how Mocha merchants re-appropriated “standardized” features of Arab architecture supports Um’s argument of the city being “fully entrenched in another system” (Um 2003, 186) as it did not conform to the local way of life. Notably, other cities in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea region functioned in the same way, similarly attesting to Mocha being rooted in an oceanic, rather than a local system.
Interestingly, the dualistic nature of domestic architecture is also reflected in the spatial organization of Mocha as a whole:
Thus, a spatial investigation into the organization of the city of Mocha reveals a division between the local community and the international world of trade, present in Mocha because of its important position as a port city in the Indian Ocean. Deeming the city “not unified,” Um has through an investigation into its spatial organization explained the movement, patterns, and systems of transregional trade, giving us a new understanding for where to position Mocha – dualistic in its identity as an Arab city and an important node in maritime trade.
Session #6: Indian Ocean Slave Trades: India, Iran, and Arabia
Matthew Hopper’s chapter shines light on the complicated origins of the African diaspora in the Persian Gulf, claiming it is not one of “cosmopolitanism [or] a cultural crossroads,” (Hopper 2015, 41) but rather the result of forced migration in the 19th century slave trade which both literature and residents in the Gulf are often ignorant to. Hopper makes his argument in opposition to other historians, arguing that there was not a large African diaspora in the Gulf before the 1820s, when it started becoming recognized in European accounts. He writes:
The increased demand for dates and pearls exported from the Gulf, in addition to the decreased European demand for enslaved peoples (as a result of the British abolition, the Napoleonic Wars, and Atlantic anti-slave trade measures), incentivized the import of slave labor into the Gulf. The use of enslaved people in the Gulf region’s own exports is further emphasized as Hopper notes that almost all vessels carrying enslaved people that were captured off the Gulf coast contained “a majority of young male captives,”reflecting their importance in providing labor for the pearling and date industries. (Hopper 2015, 43)
Enslaved people came to the Gulf on two primary routes from East and Southeast Africa, although Hopper is quick to note that “the majority of slaves captured within East Africa stayed in East Africa.”He writes:
As such, Hopper does not free the Europeans of responsibility in the so-called “Arab slave trade,” despite the decrease brought upon from the British abolition. Accordingly, Hopper also notes how trade routes shifted inwards between 1873–1885 as a response to the British capturing of dhows carrying enslaved people. Bypassing the British, slave trading was “carried on openly in the harbor, on the beaches, and around town” (Hopper 2015, 45) in Zanzibar. While the Brits were quick to judge the “piratical Arabs” (Hopper 2015, 46) for this, Hopper reveals that the French and Portuguese were active partakers in the slave trade long past the British anti-slave trade efforts, transporting and sanctioning slave trade until the end of the 19th century. Thus, Hopper argues that long after the antislavery treaty of 1873, shipments of enslaved people continued under the watch of Europeans and Arabs alike.
In his discussion of the Northeast and West African Routes, Hopper further complicates the patterns of slave trade by bringing into account kidnappings. He writes:
This final quote reveals how enslaved people were kidnapped in manner deemed “lawful,” often on their way to or from pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. It also reveals that the need for labor for the export of pearls was still in full swing well into the twentieth century – and thus long past the antislavery treaty of 1873. As such, in contrast to the mask of cosmopolitanism and cultural crossroads that Hopper presents in the beginning, it stands clear that the ancestry of Africans in the Gulf connects back to a – too recent – history of slave trade.
Hopper, Matthew S. “Diasporic Routes: African Passages to the Gulf.” In Africa and the Gulf Region: Blurred Boundaries and Shifting Ties. Edited by Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf and Dale F. Eickelman. Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2015.
Prestholdt, Jeremy. “The Global Repercussions of Consumerism: East African Consumers and Industrialization.” In Domesticating the World: African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Globalization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
Um, Nancy. “Spatial Negotiations in a Commercial City: The Red Sea Port of Mocha, Yemen, during the First Half of the Eighteenth Century.” In Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 62, no. 2 (June 2003).
Jeremy Prestholdt’s writing acts in opposition to “most developed paradigms of global economic integration,” which he argues are too reliant on a Westernized canon of history. He writes:
Attention to “peripheral” cultures of demand, or any local interests that produce long-range reverberations, brings to historical analyses of global processes an appreciation of plural causality. Yet reciprocities, however uneven, have rarely gained critical attention in the most developed paradigms of global economic integration, […] neither they nor many other analysts of globalization phenomena have fully appreciated how the interests of the “periphery” have affected distant societies. (Prestholdt 2008, 60)
Here, Prestholdt argues for the influence on global trade of areas typically considered to be “peripheral,” such as East Africa and its commercial hub, Zanzibar. Importantly, he highlights the agency and autonomy – the interests – of such “peripheral” actors and their effect on local production elsewhere, such as Bombay and Salem. His claim of plural causality is followed as he explains that “transregional systems are [not] reducible to a singular logic such as that of capital accumulation,” and that consumer demand thus had huge influence on economic relations.
To illustrate the impact of East African consumer demand on foreign production, Prestholdt delves into the market of cloth and beads:
Indicative of the importance of sensitivity to local tastes, Thomson continued, “The absence of the required article at any particular point, might mean nothing less than disaster and failure to the expedition, as people will have nothing but the cloth or bead that happens to be in fashion. Everything else is of no value.” (Prestholdt 2008, 64)
Quoting the Western agent Joseph Thomson, Prestholdt demonstrates how quickly consumer demand in Zanzibar could change and how difficult it was for merchants – without inside information of the market – to predict these patterns. Importantly, Prestholdt also claims that trade goods not matching consumer taste were unable to sell, thus emphasizing the agency and sophistication of East African consumers – something that is often overlooked in the lens of e.g., the World-Systems Theory. Thus, possessing knowledge of the changing patterns of demand was extremely important, and many trade goods were remade on the way to their consumers as new information about taste and demand was relayed.
Despite the complex network of demand, however, East Africa had a huge impact on distant manufacturers, such as textile mills in Salem and Bombay. Prestholdt writes:
East African demand for cloth would shape most of the region’s trade relationships and draw economies around the world into dynamic relation with African consumers. […] Demand for American cloth not only provided a commercial staple for East African merchants, but it also assured a primary export market for America’s largest textile mill. (Prestholdt 2008, 72)
By bringing “America’s largest textile mill” – Salem – into his argument, Prestholdt shines light on the global integration of East African consumer demand, securing his argument of the agency and sophistication among these “peripheral” actors. Notably, he also speaks of a reciprocal relationship; the East African demand for cloth helped grow the success of Salem, both as it provided a steady export market, but also as Salemites could gain access to copal and resin, necessary for the American market and their own Salem industries. As such, the consumer demand of East African actors helped position Salem in a lucrative position in the early 1800s, as all of Salem’s “most important industries” (Prestholdt 2008, 68) were linked, and entirely dependent on, East African trade.
Session #5 – The Indian Ocean in the 18th and 19th Century: The Red Sea and the Arabian/Persian Gulf
Nancy Um’s essay sheds light on the spatial dimension of Mocha as she documents the lack of typical Arab public trade structures, such as the urban khan, in the city. The absence of the urban khan alludes to Mocha as diverging significantly from its Arab counterparts, leading to Um’s argument of Mocha being “fully entrenched in another system [found in the Indian Ocean].” (Um 2003, 186) In her article, Um lays the private merchant’s house in the spotlight for trade activities in Mocha to explain how the maritime world affected the spatial organization of both the private and public city. She writes:
Public structures fulfilled none of the daily functions of overseas trade of Mocha, outside of customs clearance. While one may expect to find urban khansestablished for the purposes of commerce, the major overseas merchants at Mocha did not conduct their business in public structures, nor did they use such public buildings for lodging. (Um 2003, 182)
This quote lays an excellent foundation for understanding the dynamics of trade in the city of Mocha. Firstly, the quote references the Customs House, which was the “most important” trade-related building in Mocha, but which nevertheless did not provide a platform for negotiations. Similarly, Um hints at khans being the norm in Arab urban centers of commerce, making their absence in Mocha ambiguous.
Instead, Um reveals that trade in Mocha blurred the boundaries between the public and private realm as it would take place in the merchants’ private houses. An investigation into the interior of the merchants’ houses also reveals how architecture in Mocha was designed to accommodate multiple functions, such as private family life, as well as public trade transactions:
In Mocha, the dual-entry system channeled mixed traffic through the front of the house, and the secondary entrance serviced commercial interaction or visitors who called for other business purposes. (Um 2003, 185)
Whereas many Arab houses were fitted with a dual-entry system – and while Um relates the Mocha characteristic to one of “several standard attributes” (Um 2003, 183) that could be found in Arab architecture – these dual systems in Mocha were not organized in the same way as in other Arab cities. Typically, the dual-entry system was used to accommodate gender segregation, but in Mocha, the two doors acted instead to segregate the public and private realm. An understanding of how Mocha merchants re-appropriated “standardized” features of Arab architecture supports Um’s argument of the city being “fully entrenched in another system” (Um 2003, 186) as it did not conform to the local way of life. Notably, other cities in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea region functioned in the same way, similarly attesting to Mocha being rooted in an oceanic, rather than a local system.
Interestingly, the dualistic nature of domestic architecture is also reflected in the spatial organization of Mocha as a whole:
The public character of the eighteenth-century city was not unified, but rather located in two distinct and separate zones. In essence, the visitor who entered the city by way of the eastern gate, from inland Yemen, would experience Mocha as a typical town […] However, the traveler who came by boat would encounter the city as a maritime center. […] Mocha’s organization reveals a clear spatial distinction between the two worlds. (Um 2003, 188)
Thus, a spatial investigation into the organization of the city of Mocha reveals a division between the local community and the international world of trade, present in Mocha because of its important position as a port city in the Indian Ocean. Deeming the city “not unified,” Um has through an investigation into its spatial organization explained the movement, patterns, and systems of transregional trade, giving us a new understanding for where to position Mocha – dualistic in its identity as an Arab city and an important node in maritime trade.
Session #6: Indian Ocean Slave Trades: India, Iran, and Arabia
Matthew Hopper’s chapter shines light on the complicated origins of the African diaspora in the Persian Gulf, claiming it is not one of “cosmopolitanism [or] a cultural crossroads,” (Hopper 2015, 41) but rather the result of forced migration in the 19th century slave trade which both literature and residents in the Gulf are often ignorant to. Hopper makes his argument in opposition to other historians, arguing that there was not a large African diaspora in the Gulf before the 1820s, when it started becoming recognized in European accounts. He writes:
The dramatic rise in the African population in the Gulf in the nineteenth century is attributable to a confluence of global economic factors that created new demand for labor by expanding international markets for Gulf exports […] The collapse of extensive European demand […] drove prices down and encouraged Arab traders to begin employing large numbers of enslaved Africans on plantations of their own.(Hopper 2015, 43)
The increased demand for dates and pearls exported from the Gulf, in addition to the decreased European demand for enslaved peoples (as a result of the British abolition, the Napoleonic Wars, and Atlantic anti-slave trade measures), incentivized the import of slave labor into the Gulf. The use of enslaved people in the Gulf region’s own exports is further emphasized as Hopper notes that almost all vessels carrying enslaved people that were captured off the Gulf coast contained “a majority of young male captives,”reflecting their importance in providing labor for the pearling and date industries. (Hopper 2015, 43)
Enslaved people came to the Gulf on two primary routes from East and Southeast Africa, although Hopper is quick to note that “the majority of slaves captured within East Africa stayed in East Africa.”He writes:
Although British abolitionists and colonial officials referred to the slave trade in Western Indian Ocean as the “Arab slave trade,” it primarily served East African demand for servile labor rather than Arabian demand and became a large-scale endeavor only after European demand for servile labor in the Americas and the Mascarene Islands […]. (Hopper 2015, 45)
As such, Hopper does not free the Europeans of responsibility in the so-called “Arab slave trade,” despite the decrease brought upon from the British abolition. Accordingly, Hopper also notes how trade routes shifted inwards between 1873–1885 as a response to the British capturing of dhows carrying enslaved people. Bypassing the British, slave trading was “carried on openly in the harbor, on the beaches, and around town” (Hopper 2015, 45) in Zanzibar. While the Brits were quick to judge the “piratical Arabs” (Hopper 2015, 46) for this, Hopper reveals that the French and Portuguese were active partakers in the slave trade long past the British anti-slave trade efforts, transporting and sanctioning slave trade until the end of the 19th century. Thus, Hopper argues that long after the antislavery treaty of 1873, shipments of enslaved people continued under the watch of Europeans and Arabs alike.
In his discussion of the Northeast and West African Routes, Hopper further complicates the patterns of slave trade by bringing into account kidnappings. He writes:
As Mecca and Medina fell to Saudi forces, enslaved Africans were deemed lawful seizures and many were taken to the Gulf and sold to labor in the pearl banks, as the value of enslaved pearl divers was near its peak in the second and third decades of the twentieth century. (Hopper 2015, 51)
This final quote reveals how enslaved people were kidnapped in manner deemed “lawful,” often on their way to or from pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. It also reveals that the need for labor for the export of pearls was still in full swing well into the twentieth century – and thus long past the antislavery treaty of 1873. As such, in contrast to the mask of cosmopolitanism and cultural crossroads that Hopper presents in the beginning, it stands clear that the ancestry of Africans in the Gulf connects back to a – too recent – history of slave trade.
References
Hopper, Matthew S. “Diasporic Routes: African Passages to the Gulf.” In Africa and the Gulf Region: Blurred Boundaries and Shifting Ties. Edited by Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf and Dale F. Eickelman. Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2015.
Prestholdt, Jeremy. “The Global Repercussions of Consumerism: East African Consumers and Industrialization.” In Domesticating the World: African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Globalization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
Um, Nancy. “Spatial Negotiations in a Commercial City: The Red Sea Port of Mocha, Yemen, during the First Half of the Eighteenth Century.” In Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 62, no. 2 (June 2003).