The World from 1450 To 1700 by Wills John E.;

Author:Wills, John E.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA - OSO
Published: 2009-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

In Maluku, the “Spice Islands” of eastern Indonesia, forces of the Dutch East India Company allied with and fought against local warriors. Dutch artists captured some vivid images of them, but publication often was delayed by Company fears of information that would aid competitors. KITLV / Royal Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies at Leiden.

Power was supposed to produce monopoly profits, and in the short run it did. Late in the 1600s the Dutch company still was building new forts to try to enforce its clove monopolies, and was more and more deeply involved in trying to dominate the intricate politics of the big, densely populated island of Java. Neither the Spice Islands nor eastern Java were major sources of goods in growing demand in Europe, and it was no longer clear that the application of power was producing profits for the Dutch company, to say nothing of its impact on the local peoples. But it was, nevertheless, a remarkable case of the building of a centralized power on a decentralized foundation of local privilege. The English company, founded before the Dutch, did not catch up with it as a structure of wealth and power until around 1700, as it became a major player in the trade of the Indian subcontinent, one of the great frontiers of opportunity and plunder of the following century.

The Dutch East India Company spread its power in maritime Southeast Asia in the 1600s, and had complicated relations with a large number of local rulers who also were interested in the positive relationship between profits of trade and military power. The impact of Dutch aggression destroyed some of these rulers and blunted the growth of others, but there were some who continued to grow well beyond 1700. Some were in the middle of rich rice lands, but many were in coastal enclaves surrounded by mountains or mangrove swamps that had plenty of fish but had to import their rice by sea. Among them were Aceh on the north end of Sumatra; the kingdom of Ayutthaya in what is now Thailand; and the Nguyen realm in what is now central Vietnam.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.