Author: Dr. Tarun Kanti Halder
DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.70798/PP/030200020
Abstract: One of the oldest economic areas in the world was changed by the emergence of European naval supremacy in the Indian Ocean between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Indian traders, especially those from Gujarat, the Malabar Coast, and the Coromandel Coast, held a pivotal role in a vast network of trade connecting East Africa, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, South Asia, and Southeast Asia prior to the Portuguese arrival at the end of the fifteenth century. Instead of using military dominance, this marine system relied on existing merchant communities, monsoon navigation, and commercial collaboration. However, by the late eighteenth century, the Portuguese, Dutch, and British commercial enterprises had gained maritime dominance as European ships began to outnumber native ones on important trade routes. This article explores the historical mechanisms by which European shipping in the Indian Ocean eclipsed Indian maritime trade. The study makes the case that European dominance resulted from a combination of naval technology, state-backed monopolies, military coercion, strategic control of ports, and access to global capital rather than from innate commercial superiority. It does this by drawing on the works of historians like Ashin Das Gupta, K. N. Chaudhuri, Om Prakash, Michael N. Pearson, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, as well as the maritime perspectives found in the writings of Amitav Ghosh. The article goes on to argue that Indian traders did not vanish from international trade, but rather changed their roles from maritime carriers to financiers, brokers, and commercial intermediates in a trading system that was increasingly dominated by Europe. This study questions oversimplified accounts of European economic success and emphasizes the adaptability and tenacity of native merchant networks in the face of imperial change by placing European expansion within the larger framework of Indian Ocean history.
Keywords: European Maritime, Malabar Coast, Maritime System, Coromandel Coast.
Page No:165-176