The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [77]
Two earlier examples again point to a rather benevolent situation, where merchants were able to counter attempts to fleece them from land powers, and port controllers. A Jewish merchant who left Oman poor, but made a great fortune, came back thirty years later in 912 to Sohar with a huge cargo of Chinese merchandise. Envious people persuaded the Caliph in Baghdad to confiscate his goods, but the governor of Oman was worried about this as he knew that he would lose trade in his port if word of this got out. He summoned all the heads of the merchant communities, and told them what had happened. They closed down the markets, and sent a petition to the Caliph, and the governor was able to avoid having the Jewish merchant arrested. Buzurg recounts a very similar tale, one perhaps based on this actual event. He tells how a rich Jewish merchant in Oman was unjustly arrested by the rulers. This was seen as prejudicial to all merchants and foreigners, and once word of his arrest got around no ships would come to Oman. The markets all closed and foreign merchants got ready to leave. Upset, the locals pointed out that 'We shall be deprived of our living when ships no longer come here, because Oman is a town where men get everything from the sea.'120
In sum, there is very little evidence of the use of force in the Indian Ocean before 1498. The bottom line is competition. None of these port cities could afford to be too abusive, for then merchants would go elsewhere. The crucial point is that these Asian port cities prospered not by compulsion, but by providing facilities for trade freely undertaken by a vast array of merchants. What the rulers provided was really opportunities, fair treatment, an infrastructure within which trade could take place. They ensured low and relatively equitable customs duties, and a certain law and order, but did little else. Officials concerned with trade were instructed to encourage and welcome visitors. In short, visiting merchants wanted a level playing field. If they did not get this, they could retaliate by going elsewhere.
What was the basis of these merchant communities? The main distinction between various natios (a word deriving from the Mediterranean, which can be used to refer to Indian Ocean merchant communities) was not power or wealth, and certainly, in this pre-modern and pre-national age, it was not nationality: these people did not carry passports, and knew little or nothing of frontiers between sovereign states. The senior historian Philip Curtin some time ago wrote a book about 'trade diasporas', which he thought characterised much premodern trade. The notion is that various traders spread out from some place of origin, like say Jews, or Armenians.121 However, his stress on their being dispersed, and on the importance of kin and connections, seems to be to a degree invalid; all merchants at this time operated through these sorts of connections, regardless of whether they were an Armenian trading in Tibet or a Gujarati Jain trading in Cambay. Indeed, the whole concept of a diaspora seems problematic, for many of the groups he classifies in this way did retain strong ties with some base or home area; this certainly applied to India's Hindu and Muslim overseas traders, and even to Armenians, who had no country but did have centres, notably New Julfa in Isfahan.122
If these merchant communities were not all trade diasporas, on what criteria were they based? Obviously not all merchants were itinerant. Rather, various merchant groups had agents, often kin, located in the major trading centres. There were at least two reasons for this. First, someone based in an echelle for some time would learn the local languages and customs, and provide good information for his visiting kin folk. Some port controllers, as we saw, provided mediators for visitors, but in many cases merchants preferred to use their own locally based men. Second, the monsoon pattern necessitated a local permanent contact. A merchant who arrived and was dependent