Trade And Finance In Portuguese India

This work marks a sharp departure from the predominant Eurocentric emphasis in Indo Portuguese studies, on the sixteenth century Portuguese trade in the Carreira da India. Such an approach unjustly dismisses the subsequent centuries as periods of no commercial consequence to the Estado da India and Portugal and relegates to an un important level the significance of the privately operated intra Asian trade. The evidence gathered and their argument of this book challenges such prevailing stereo types. Based on a wide range on archival sources in India, Portugal and England, this study unravels the existence of a thriving native operated country trade, in 'the splendid' and 'the trifling' that emanated from Portuguese India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It not only took advantage of the vulnerability displayed and the animation efforts undertaken by the Estado da India and the metropolis but also learned to function through 'crevices' under the growing British hegemony--

In this original study of the Portuguese Empire in the East, the Estado da India, George Souza looks in detail at the activities of Macao. His aim is to enquire into the nature of Portuguese society in China and the South China Sea and explain why the political and economic activities of the Portuguese crown did not inhibit the growth of local entrepreneurial trade. He also examines the nature of Portuguese maritime trade in Asia and analyses the focal role of Macao as an adjunct to the Canton market. The operations of Portuguese private merchants, the so-called 'country traders', are described and tellingly assessed in the wider context of the economic development of China and Southeast Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Growth Of International Trade Between Europe, Usa And Asia Gave Rise To The Need For Loans To Finance It And Development Of Financial Arrangements Through Banking. The Emergence Of Fuggers As Important Industrialists, Merchants And Financiers Controlling Even The Elections To The Roman Empire Against The Backdrop Of Indo-Portuguese Trade During The Sixteenth Century Is A Case In Point. This Book Deals With Such Cases And The Maritime History Of Regions And Its Impact On Trade, Politics And Society.

This book explores and analyzes developments in the military institution, military engagements as well as the larger security environment of (including non-war violence and maritime regions linking to) the Portuguese Empire in India. These developments occurred under the onslaught of the early modern globalization. The research shows that far from being dilapidated or archaic, the Portuguese colonial military there kept up with some developments in technology and organization in a competitive environment. Although the colonial military was not the most important reason in accounting for the survival of the Portuguese Estado da Índia, nor was the military profession the most lucrative occupation, the Portuguese experience gave indication of how a colonial state and society was able to survive against coalescing threats from the position of weakness. Located in the period and geographical region of the wax and waning of the Mughal and Maratha empires, Portuguese India was not necessarily a more violent place than the surrounding territories although resistance to and uprising against the Portuguese was usually underestimated. Beginning from the attempt at political and military centralization (and standardization) in the eighteenth century, the abolition of the army of the Estado da Índia in the nineteenth marked nominally the end of an era that may have a reverberation on the pacifist perception of Goa today.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.