Anneli Xie
Profs. Nikhil Rao & Lidwien Kapteijns
HIST 367: The Indian Ocean as African, Arab, and South Asian History
2020/11/29
Profs. Nikhil Rao & Lidwien Kapteijns
HIST 367: The Indian Ocean as African, Arab, and South Asian History
2020/11/29
Reading response 3 – sessions 8, 9, 10
Session #8 – Indian Ocean Slavery: East Africa
Matthew Hopper’s chapter acts in opposition to the conventional history of the “timeless Islamic slave trade” (Hopper 2013, 227) and the notion of the Indian Ocean slave trade being fundamentally different from its Atlantic counterpart. Instead, Hopper argues that much like the Transatlantic slave trade, the slavery in the Indian Ocean world was influenced by global economic forces and was thus not fundamental to Islamic civilization. Importantly, he also debates the celebrated antislavery efforts of the British Royal Navy:
By telling the story of Ismail, an enslaved pearl diver that successfully escaped, this quote manages to extract several key points. Firstly, as Hopper notes in this quote, conventional history is written in favor of the Europeans, who take undue credit for eliminating the slave trade in the Indian Ocean. Secondly, Hopper notes that shipments of enslaved people continued under the watch of Europeans and Arabs alike even in the 20th century – far after the British Abolition Act. The slave trade thus went on for far longer than what is usually disclosed, and Hopper consequently does not free the Europeans of responsibility from this so-called “Islamic” slavery.
Furthermore, Hopper argues that European and North American demand laid behind the incentives to import slave labor into the Gulf:
The booming export of dates can be traced back to a “lucrative American date market,” (Hopper 2013, 227) even going so far as Arabian dates becoming an American Thanksgiving tradition. Similarly, the expanding pearl industry can be ascribed to a European pearl fashion revival, with the amplified demand increasing the value of pearl exports “more than 800 percent.” (Hopper 2013, 231) Hopper argues that the increased number of enslaved people in the Gulf can be ascribed to these two industries and their considerable Western demand, becoming paradoxical because “[Europeans] at the very moment increased their pressure on the region to end the slave trade and slavery.” (Hopper 2013, 234)
The correlation between the increased slave labor and global economic forces can further be seen in the collapse of the date and pearling industries in the Gulf during the late 1920s:
Through a comparison of numbers, Hopper demonstrates the significant decline of the pearl industry in the Gulf. He also claims that slave divers became burdensome as the demand for pearl labor – which correlated, of course, to the demand for natural pearls – drastically declined. Similarly, following the propagation of dates in California, the date industry in the Gulf collapsed in the 1920s as the American date market became locally sourced. The decline of dates and pearls – the biggest export market for the Gulf – had a devastating impact on the Gulf economy. Hopper further claims that after the 1920s, “the trade in slaves from East Africa to Arabia ceased,” (Hopper 2013, 235) making his argument clear: the increased slave labor in the Gulf was not due to a “timeless” Islamic tradition but was mainly dependent on economic forces; and when these forces could be satisfied elsewhere, slave trade in the Gulf declined.
Session #9 – British India and the Indian Ocean: The Arabian Gulf & the Red Sea
Through examining the commercial activities of Gulf merchants and nakhudas, Fahad Ahmad Bishara’s chapter argues that the Indian Ocean world “formed a critical dimension of economic and political life in the Gulf” (Bishara 2014, 71) and that historians thus ought to look beyond the nation-state paradigm in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the region. He writes:
This quote provides a great foundation for considering Bishara’s argument. Whereas most scholars have treated the Gulf as part of the Arab World or Middle East, the Gulf’s connection to the Indian Ocean ought not to be forgotten. This connection, as the quote reveals, can be seen in the influence on the region’s economy, but also – as Bishara continues to argue – in a range of often overlooked places, such as in food, traditions, and dialects. This “fluid spatial mobility,”(Bishara 2014, 70) rooting the Gulf in an oceanic rather than a terrestrial system, was also linked to socioeconomic mobility and formed an important dimension of life in the Gulf.
To demonstrate this, Bishara writes of the processes of the Gulf merchants and nakhudas, arguing that their access to resources from the Indian Ocean granted them upward mobility in the Gulf. He explains:
Thus, even after the pearl and date industries declined in the 1930s – which Hopper also discussed – Bishara explains that many Gulf traders survived economically because of their trade in general goods in an import/export/re-export manner. By trading and re-exporting goods between different ports, Gulf merchants could have long-lasting relationships with other economic actors in the ports of the Indian Ocean and the Gulf. By doing so, Bishara argues that they “carved for themselves strategic positions, both within the Indian Ocean trade system and at home,” (Bishara 2014, 80) for example through developing close relationships with merchant communities overseas. As such, the import/export/re-export business is crucial in understanding merchants’ influence in transregional politics.
Tying close connections to merchant communities overseas also played an important role in ensuring “smooth transactions” and political influence, as merchants would invest in “numerous assets spread all over the Indian Ocean.” (Bishara 2014, 87) Bishara explains:
By investing their pearling profit into other assets, such as real estate, land, and date gardens, merchants successfully spread – and thus lessened – their risk, as properties could be liquidated or mortgaged for credit. Not only did this spread help merchants financially survive “the storm of the 1930s,” (Bishara 2014, 88) but it also provided a strong economic base that helped them defend their political influence, allowing them to e.g., “launch a successful campaign for the establishment of a legislative council.” (Bishara 2014, 89) Thus, by establishing themselves in different ports in the Indian Ocean, Gulf merchants managed to use their “fluid spatial mobility” (Bishara 2014, 70) for socioeconomic mobility and as political actors, making it clear that oceanic networks had a great deal to do with how local networks functioned, and that the influence of the Indian Ocean of the Gulf should not be overlooked.
Session #10 – British India and the Indian Ocean: East Africa and Yemen
Thomas Metcalf’s chapter argues that India in itself became a center of imperial power that enabled British conquest in East Africa, thus problematizing the relationship between colonizer and colonized. Through considering how Indians acted as middlemen in the British efforts quest to colonize Africa, Metcalf argues that East Africa, in the early decades of colonialism, became “almost an extension of India itself.” (Metcalf 2008, 166) He writes:
Quoting the vision of Frederic Holmwood, consul-general of Zanzibar, Metcalf explains that the Britons saw the opportunity of “Indian agricultural colonization,” which they claimed would also be desirable for the Indians themselves. With claim of better soil and rain, a move to East Africa was told to be fruitful for the Indians as it was “a land crying out for population, by comparison with India hardly populated at all.” (Metcalf 2008, 183) Importantly, however, this quote also reveals that – despite the perceived advantages for the Indians – the new development would, of course, be used for British imperial gain, turning East Africa “into one of the greater food producing areas of the world.” (Metcalf 2008, 183)
Similarly, the Britons believed that making East Africa a pursuit of India would “initiate a salutary process of racial improvement.” (Metcalf 2008, 174) Metcalf explains:
Through quoting Theodore Morison, member of the Council for India in London, Metcalf offers a glance into the evidently racist stereotypes of the time, placing the Europeans on top, the Indians in the middle, and the native Africans at the bottom. In accordance with this racial hierarchy, Indians were tasked to become middlemen in the British quest for Africa, taking orders from the colonial power to “become valuable teachers” (Metcalf 2008, 173) to the East Africans, and thus, themselves, become colonizing forces. However, despite British enthusiasm, Indians “did not at once rush to take up cultivation in Central Africa.” Instead, calling them “never simply pawns of the British officials,” (Metcalf 2008, 175) Metcalf highlights the agency of the Indian emigrants by saying that they preferred, rather than migrating to the new land of East Africa, to go to South Africa because of its already established migrant community and Indian population.
It wasn’t until the 1896 extension of the British railway in the African interior – and the opportunities it brought – that settlement in East Africa became more attractive for Indians, and in 1896 it was reported that they were “flocking to Africa.” (Metcalf 2008, 171) The influences of India on the railway itself are clear. Metcalf writes:
Whereas the railway did little to satisfy the British imperial strategy that got it built in the first place, Metcalf writes that “what the railway did do […] was to drive a “wedge of India” into the heart of Africa,” (Metcalf 2008, 203) as seen in the Indian involvement of its build and development. Surely, the members of the railway committee and the senior staff remained British. However, these were “few in number” (Metcalf 2008, 193) compared to the subordinate and technical staff, along with the indentured laborers “in their thousands who wielded picks and shovels along the line,” (Metcalf 2008, 188) who were almost exclusively Indian. Whereas Metcalf writes that “nothing better illustrates the enduring Indian imprint on the Uganda railway than the dimensions of the track itself,” it is perhaps more easily seen in its surroundings, as “the entire line of rail took on the appearance of an Indian settlement.” (Metcalf 2008, 203) Thus, it stands clear that the British efforts in East Africa were largely “copying of Indian precedents,” (Metcalf 2008, 196) tying the two colonies together.
Bishara, Fahad Ahmad. “Mapping
the Indian Ocean World of Gulf Merchants, c. 1870–1960.” In The Indian
Ocean: Oceanic Connections and the Creation of New Societies. Edited by
Abdul Sheriff and Engseng Ho. London: C. Hurst, 2014.
Hopper, Matthew S. “Slaves of One Master: Globalization and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire.” In Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition. Edited by Robert Harms, Bernard K. Freamon, and David W. Blight. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
Metcalf, Thomas R. “India in East Africa.” In Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena 1860–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
Matthew Hopper’s chapter acts in opposition to the conventional history of the “timeless Islamic slave trade” (Hopper 2013, 227) and the notion of the Indian Ocean slave trade being fundamentally different from its Atlantic counterpart. Instead, Hopper argues that much like the Transatlantic slave trade, the slavery in the Indian Ocean world was influenced by global economic forces and was thus not fundamental to Islamic civilization. Importantly, he also debates the celebrated antislavery efforts of the British Royal Navy:
The standard histories of Indian Ocean slavery tell us that the slave trade from East Africa to Arabia was eliminated by the diligent work of the Royal Navy in the second half of the nineteenth century and should have been, at the very least, cut to only a trickle by the last decades of the century, yet Ismail and his companions were all kidnapped in the twentieth century. (Hopper 2013, 224)
By telling the story of Ismail, an enslaved pearl diver that successfully escaped, this quote manages to extract several key points. Firstly, as Hopper notes in this quote, conventional history is written in favor of the Europeans, who take undue credit for eliminating the slave trade in the Indian Ocean. Secondly, Hopper notes that shipments of enslaved people continued under the watch of Europeans and Arabs alike even in the 20th century – far after the British Abolition Act. The slave trade thus went on for far longer than what is usually disclosed, and Hopper consequently does not free the Europeans of responsibility from this so-called “Islamic” slavery.
Furthermore, Hopper argues that European and North American demand laid behind the incentives to import slave labor into the Gulf:
Demand for slave labor in the Indian Ocean grew for a host of reasons, most notably the expansion of commodity production for global consumption in the nineteenth century. […] In Arabia and the Persian Gulf, the rise in demand for slaves accompanied the expansion of production of commodities like dates and pearls for global markets. (Hopper 2013, 225)
The booming export of dates can be traced back to a “lucrative American date market,” (Hopper 2013, 227) even going so far as Arabian dates becoming an American Thanksgiving tradition. Similarly, the expanding pearl industry can be ascribed to a European pearl fashion revival, with the amplified demand increasing the value of pearl exports “more than 800 percent.” (Hopper 2013, 231) Hopper argues that the increased number of enslaved people in the Gulf can be ascribed to these two industries and their considerable Western demand, becoming paradoxical because “[Europeans] at the very moment increased their pressure on the region to end the slave trade and slavery.” (Hopper 2013, 234)
The correlation between the increased slave labor and global economic forces can further be seen in the collapse of the date and pearling industries in the Gulf during the late 1920s:
In Bahrain, the annual revenue from pearl exports in 1906 was over 12 million rupees, and the industry employed over 17,000 men and 900 boats. By 1936, pearl revenue was below 700,000 rupees, with 9,800 men from the island employed in the industry and 364 boats. Pearl captains and merchants who had formerly benefited from the labor of slave divers now found them burdens. (Hopper 2013, 227)
Through a comparison of numbers, Hopper demonstrates the significant decline of the pearl industry in the Gulf. He also claims that slave divers became burdensome as the demand for pearl labor – which correlated, of course, to the demand for natural pearls – drastically declined. Similarly, following the propagation of dates in California, the date industry in the Gulf collapsed in the 1920s as the American date market became locally sourced. The decline of dates and pearls – the biggest export market for the Gulf – had a devastating impact on the Gulf economy. Hopper further claims that after the 1920s, “the trade in slaves from East Africa to Arabia ceased,” (Hopper 2013, 235) making his argument clear: the increased slave labor in the Gulf was not due to a “timeless” Islamic tradition but was mainly dependent on economic forces; and when these forces could be satisfied elsewhere, slave trade in the Gulf declined.
Session #9 – British India and the Indian Ocean: The Arabian Gulf & the Red Sea
Through examining the commercial activities of Gulf merchants and nakhudas, Fahad Ahmad Bishara’s chapter argues that the Indian Ocean world “formed a critical dimension of economic and political life in the Gulf” (Bishara 2014, 71) and that historians thus ought to look beyond the nation-state paradigm in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the region. He writes:
Certainly, the desert hinterland played a critical role in Gulf economic and political life; this, however, should not preclude an exploration of the region’s trans-oceanic linkages. The economies of the Gulf chiefdoms were far more influenced by market shifts in India and Aden than they were by those of places like Cairo and Damascus. (Bishara 2014, 71)
This quote provides a great foundation for considering Bishara’s argument. Whereas most scholars have treated the Gulf as part of the Arab World or Middle East, the Gulf’s connection to the Indian Ocean ought not to be forgotten. This connection, as the quote reveals, can be seen in the influence on the region’s economy, but also – as Bishara continues to argue – in a range of often overlooked places, such as in food, traditions, and dialects. This “fluid spatial mobility,”(Bishara 2014, 70) rooting the Gulf in an oceanic rather than a terrestrial system, was also linked to socioeconomic mobility and formed an important dimension of life in the Gulf.
To demonstrate this, Bishara writes of the processes of the Gulf merchants and nakhudas, arguing that their access to resources from the Indian Ocean granted them upward mobility in the Gulf. He explains:
Many [India-based Gulf merchants] traded in pearls as well as in general goods, running import/export businesses out of offices in western India in conjunction with family members in the Gulf. Merchants sent goods from India to their home ports in the Gulf, from which they would re-export to smaller ports of the Gulf or, more importantly, into the interior of the Arabian Peninsula. (Bishara 2014, 79)
Thus, even after the pearl and date industries declined in the 1930s – which Hopper also discussed – Bishara explains that many Gulf traders survived economically because of their trade in general goods in an import/export/re-export manner. By trading and re-exporting goods between different ports, Gulf merchants could have long-lasting relationships with other economic actors in the ports of the Indian Ocean and the Gulf. By doing so, Bishara argues that they “carved for themselves strategic positions, both within the Indian Ocean trade system and at home,” (Bishara 2014, 80) for example through developing close relationships with merchant communities overseas. As such, the import/export/re-export business is crucial in understanding merchants’ influence in transregional politics.
Tying close connections to merchant communities overseas also played an important role in ensuring “smooth transactions” and political influence, as merchants would invest in “numerous assets spread all over the Indian Ocean.” (Bishara 2014, 87) Bishara explains:
By relying on their diverse investments, they were also able to establish secure bases for themselves during periods of economic downturn and, if necessary, use these bases to mount political challenges. […] Indeed, for many Gulf merchants, the profits from the pearl trade were only partly re-invested in outfitting pearling dhows. Many merchants preferred to invest pearl proceeds in other assets. (Bishara 2014, 87-88)
By investing their pearling profit into other assets, such as real estate, land, and date gardens, merchants successfully spread – and thus lessened – their risk, as properties could be liquidated or mortgaged for credit. Not only did this spread help merchants financially survive “the storm of the 1930s,” (Bishara 2014, 88) but it also provided a strong economic base that helped them defend their political influence, allowing them to e.g., “launch a successful campaign for the establishment of a legislative council.” (Bishara 2014, 89) Thus, by establishing themselves in different ports in the Indian Ocean, Gulf merchants managed to use their “fluid spatial mobility” (Bishara 2014, 70) for socioeconomic mobility and as political actors, making it clear that oceanic networks had a great deal to do with how local networks functioned, and that the influence of the Indian Ocean of the Gulf should not be overlooked.
Session #10 – British India and the Indian Ocean: East Africa and Yemen
Thomas Metcalf’s chapter argues that India in itself became a center of imperial power that enabled British conquest in East Africa, thus problematizing the relationship between colonizer and colonized. Through considering how Indians acted as middlemen in the British efforts quest to colonize Africa, Metcalf argues that East Africa, in the early decades of colonialism, became “almost an extension of India itself.” (Metcalf 2008, 166) He writes:
For the early administrators, Indian settlers on the land were an essential element. […] Indeed, he went on, “the want of population existing almost throughout […] Central Africa” offers “the very opening that India seeks, and the space available is so vast […] that this opening will continuously extend itself from year to year as British enterprise develops what is practically a new continent. (Metcalf 2008, 172)
Quoting the vision of Frederic Holmwood, consul-general of Zanzibar, Metcalf explains that the Britons saw the opportunity of “Indian agricultural colonization,” which they claimed would also be desirable for the Indians themselves. With claim of better soil and rain, a move to East Africa was told to be fruitful for the Indians as it was “a land crying out for population, by comparison with India hardly populated at all.” (Metcalf 2008, 183) Importantly, however, this quote also reveals that – despite the perceived advantages for the Indians – the new development would, of course, be used for British imperial gain, turning East Africa “into one of the greater food producing areas of the world.” (Metcalf 2008, 183)
Similarly, the Britons believed that making East Africa a pursuit of India would “initiate a salutary process of racial improvement.” (Metcalf 2008, 174) Metcalf explains:
Morison described African tillage practices as “wasteful and inefficient.” Europeans could not successfully accomplish the needed transformation because European methods were too advanced […]. The rural economy of the Indian village, by contrast, was “very much more within [the native population’s] grasp. [… Indians] were, once again, to be “called to share the white man’s burden.” (Metcalf 2008, 174)
Through quoting Theodore Morison, member of the Council for India in London, Metcalf offers a glance into the evidently racist stereotypes of the time, placing the Europeans on top, the Indians in the middle, and the native Africans at the bottom. In accordance with this racial hierarchy, Indians were tasked to become middlemen in the British quest for Africa, taking orders from the colonial power to “become valuable teachers” (Metcalf 2008, 173) to the East Africans, and thus, themselves, become colonizing forces. However, despite British enthusiasm, Indians “did not at once rush to take up cultivation in Central Africa.” Instead, calling them “never simply pawns of the British officials,” (Metcalf 2008, 175) Metcalf highlights the agency of the Indian emigrants by saying that they preferred, rather than migrating to the new land of East Africa, to go to South Africa because of its already established migrant community and Indian population.
It wasn’t until the 1896 extension of the British railway in the African interior – and the opportunities it brought – that settlement in East Africa became more attractive for Indians, and in 1896 it was reported that they were “flocking to Africa.” (Metcalf 2008, 171) The influences of India on the railway itself are clear. Metcalf writes:
Nothing better illustrates the enduring Indian imprint on the Uganda Railway than the dimensions of the track itself. The line, […] was “being constructed on Indian methods by Indian workmen under officers with Indian experience controlled from home by a committee whose managing member is an ex-Indian official.” Hence use of meter gauge – employed on nearly half the Indian lines – was appropriate. (Metcalf 2008, 195)
Whereas the railway did little to satisfy the British imperial strategy that got it built in the first place, Metcalf writes that “what the railway did do […] was to drive a “wedge of India” into the heart of Africa,” (Metcalf 2008, 203) as seen in the Indian involvement of its build and development. Surely, the members of the railway committee and the senior staff remained British. However, these were “few in number” (Metcalf 2008, 193) compared to the subordinate and technical staff, along with the indentured laborers “in their thousands who wielded picks and shovels along the line,” (Metcalf 2008, 188) who were almost exclusively Indian. Whereas Metcalf writes that “nothing better illustrates the enduring Indian imprint on the Uganda railway than the dimensions of the track itself,” it is perhaps more easily seen in its surroundings, as “the entire line of rail took on the appearance of an Indian settlement.” (Metcalf 2008, 203) Thus, it stands clear that the British efforts in East Africa were largely “copying of Indian precedents,” (Metcalf 2008, 196) tying the two colonies together.
References
Hopper, Matthew S. “Slaves of One Master: Globalization and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire.” In Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition. Edited by Robert Harms, Bernard K. Freamon, and David W. Blight. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
Metcalf, Thomas R. “India in East Africa.” In Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena 1860–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.