(5) However, it was the Dutch Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) that established the first regular, large-scale exports of saltpeter from India to Europe in the second decade of the seventeenth century, soon followed by the Company of London Merchants, precursor to the English East India Company (EIC). Indeed, Rene Barendse argues that saltpeter was one of the first Indian Ocean commodities effectively "globalized" by the Estado da India. The Portuguese entered the inter-Asian saltpeter trade, in a limited way, in the sixteenth century. Since the late medieval period, saltpeter had been a concern of governments throughout India, albeit one contracted out to commercial interests and open to foreign traders. Indian rulers and rival merchants often tried to obstruct the flow of saltpeter, both to manipulate pricing and to deny supplies to their enemies, while European governments sought to coerce and regulate production from afar by fixing prices and requiring minimum annual shipments (4) The East India companies struggled to regularize the volume of saltpeter exports, maximizing production in India but checking distribution in Europe in order to stabilize prices and maintain profitability. The persistent high demand of gunpowder mills made saltpeter valuable on the open market, but as a crucial war material its exportation was politically complicated. Aboard an Indiaman, especially in the sultry atmosphere of tropical waters, the pungent, penetrating odor of saltpeter, buried under tons of coffee and calicoes, was inescapable and euphemistically described, by English sailors, as "the smell of the ship." (3) That unpleasant smell, however, was also the aroma of latent political power. Sometimes, saltpeter was shipped in heavy bags, weighing between 150 and 170 pounds, but usually it was shoveled loose into the bottom of the hold, a marketable ballast that looked like mud and smelled like sewage. (2) Sixteen percent of this cargo space, according to the normal practice of East India captains, consisted of saltpeter-some 452.8 of nitrates, weighing 1.6 metric tons. (1) On average, these Indiamen measured 1,000 tons burden, with approximately 2,830 of cargo space. BETWEEN 16, ships made thousands of voyages carrying goods from Asian ports to the primary European markets for East Indian commodities: Amsterdam, London, l'Orient, Copenhagen, Lisbon, and Stockholm.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |