Stories of resistance and resilience: The role of the port city of Calicut in the seventeenth-century Indian Ocean trade

Introduction

When the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) expelled the Portuguese from the Malabar Coast in 1663, it asked the king of Calicut to expel all other merchants from his port city in order to obtain a monopoly of the pepper trade. ¹ However, the king responded that the Dutch could be one among many merchants in the city, without any special rights. Similarly, the English East India Company requested that the king expel the French from his city because they were a threat to the Company. ² The minister of Calicut assured the English that they would not have to leave the city even if the French settles down there. ³ Unlike many other port cities in the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth century, Calicut attempted to sustain a free trading port on its own, instead of accepting a European company monopoly.

Early modern Indian Ocean trade is mostly discussed in terms of European companies. One reason for this bias is the abundance of European company sources for the period and the comparative lack of indigenous ones. However, another reason behind this is the assumption by scholars that the traditional trading networks and port cities declined while the European ones strengthened. ⁴ This article challenges this narrative by exploring the role played by the port city of Calicut in early modern Indian Ocean trade. The merchants and rulers of Calicut fought the pepper monopolization attempts by the Portuguese and later the Dutch, and continued to be active in global trade in the early modern period. ⁵

This article questions two historiographical binaries: first, the concept of centralized European empires/companies and declining traditional systems; ⁶ second, the concept of equating European companies and local powers on the assumption that the European companies were not centralized, but complex, multilayered entities. ⁷ Critiquing the centralized system of the company and focusing on multiple agents does not address the imperial features of the companies operating in the early modern Indian Ocean. This article traces the global power dynamics in a single port city in south-west India to explore these contentions.

Calicut offered an alternative emporium for Indian Ocean trade in Malabar by resisting imperial endeavours. The resistance was portrayed as decline, smuggling and piracy in European narratives. Consequently, the literature on early modern Indian Ocean trade focuses mostly on the European pepper trade, and the non-European trade is termed ‘smuggling’ or ‘piracy’. ⁸ It is irrefutable that European imperialism (the VOC in this case) affected the pepper trade in the city of Calicut, but there was an active resistance and sustaining of commerce by the already established parties. This article explores the ways in which the VOC attempted to block Indian Ocean trade from Calicut and how the rulers and merchants of Calicut overcame these challenges.

Placing Malabar and Calicut in the Indian Ocean World

The Malabar Coast was part of an Indian Ocean trading network long before the early modern period, which is said to have begun with the voyages of Vasco da Gama. ⁹ The Malabar Coast is located at a pivotal point between Arabia, Africa and China. The port cities there evolved as emporia of commodity exchange between those places. Trading communities such as Chinese, Arabs, Persians and Africans, as well as Europeans such as Italians, had frequented Malabar in premodern times. ¹⁰ In many foreign accounts, Malabar was simply known as the ‘land of pepper’, which was one of the most sought-after commodities from the twelfth century. Pepper was cultivated in Malabar and transported to South East Asia, China, the Indian subcontinent, Persia, Arabia, East Africa and Europe. ¹¹ Malabar was divided into numerous kingdoms and small chiefdoms, and many of them were based in port cities and depended on the Indian Ocean trade.

The port city of Calicut emerged as an important entrepôt only in the thirteenth century. The development of both the port city and the Kingdom of Calicut is closely tied to the dynasty of the so-called Zamorins (Zamorin is the anglicized version of the Malayalam term Sāmudiri, who was the chief of the ruling dynasty of Calicut). The term Sāmudiri originated from Samudra raja, meaning ‘King of the Sea’. The title Kunnalakkōn was also used, meaning ‘Lord of the Sea and Mountains’. ¹² These terms show the integral relationship between the royal lineage and Indian Ocean trade. By the fifteenth century, Calicut had become the strongest kingdom and the busiest port city on the Malabar Coast, and the destination of numerous merchants, travellers and diplomats from the Indian Ocean regions. ¹³

The seventeenth century witnessed the rise of European commercial companies and their increasing power in various port cities around the world. The Portuguese had settled in Cochin – a port city/kingdom located 180 kilometres south of Calicut – and were fighting with the rulers and merchants of Calicut in the early seventeenth century. The VOC sought help from the Zamorins to defeat the Portuguese. In 1663, they finally succeeded, and the VOC captured the city of Cochin. However, following this incident, the Dutch and Calicut became hostile and started fighting over the supremacy of the land and the pepper trade in Malabar. The VOC's attempts to monopolize the pepper trade in Malabar affected the commerce and politics in Calicut. In other words, the Dutch and Calicut became political and commercial competitors.

The VOC attempted several methods to curb the pepper trade in Calicut and assert its monopoly in Malabar. These included, but were not limited to, issuing passes for trading in pepper; refusing passes to Calicut; attacking vessels without passes; attempting to control the price of pepper on the Coast; attempting to monopolize import commodities to Malabar; blocking the land and riverways from the south to Calicut; building fortifications; deploying soldiers; and trying to capture pepper-growing areas. However, the rulers and merchants of Calicut resisted these attempts and continued to participate in the Indian Ocean trade.

Restricting movement and breaking the chains

The first action of the VOC following the conquest of Cochin was to start issuing passes to all the merchants, rulers and ships that wanted to trade to or from the Malabar Coast. Inspired by the cartazes system of the Portuguese, the VOC made these passes mandatory and threatened to capture ships that did not have them. ¹⁴ The VOC decided to restrict the passes to a few rulers and capture all ships without passes that visited or exported from Malabar. For example, once the VOC started asking for monopoly rights, the Zamorin and the merchants of Calicut refused to sell pepper to the Company, so, in 1664, the VOC commander in Malabar at the time, Jacob Hustaert, instructed his successor that the VOC should not issue any more passes to the Zamorin, which would compel him to deliver all pepper to the Company. ¹⁵ The VOC also threatened the merchants of Calicut that it would capture the ships anchored at Calicut if they did not have passes. ¹⁶

However, to resist these challenges, Calicut’s rulers and merchants tried different tactics, such as attracting various merchant communities and making global connections, strengthening their relations with various port cities, and finding different navigational routes. First, the rulers of Calicut tried to maintain diversity in terms of merchant groups and did not allow any particular group to attain a monopoly. Not unlike many non-colonial cities, the rulers of Calicut attempted to bring merchants of different ethnicities and religions into the city to conduct trade. ¹⁷ In short, they actively gathered more support against the Dutch by inviting in as many different merchant groups as possible.

The merchant communities in Calicut included foreign and local Muslim, Gujarati (particularly Baniya), English, Tamil, Konkani and French traders. After collecting pepper from the south and fixing duties and prices, different merchant groups shipped it to various places from Calicut. The English, Muslim and Baniya merchants of Calicut sent pepper to different parts of the Indian Ocean World, and the Konkani and Tamil merchants continued the overland trade to the rest of the Indian subcontinent. In the seventeenth century, Surat, Mocha and Persia were the main destinations for pepper from Calicut.

The English East India Company was looking to set up posts in Malabar in the seventeenth century, and the Zamorin utilized this opportunity by inviting it to settle in Calicut to fight the Dutch. ¹⁸ The Zamorin sent two letters to the English East India Company and both guaranteed ‘all respect and a civil usage [civilized treatment] … and also guaranteed the Dutch would not be settling there’. ¹⁹ The English East India Company provided monetary support to the Zamorin to fight against the Dutch and, in return, set up a factory in Calicut and bought pepper there. ²⁰ The Surat Council – the higher authority of the English East India Company in India – believed that establishing a factory in Calicut would not only help with the collection of pepper and other commodities, but also prevent the Dutch from settling in Calicut. ²¹ However, the Zamorin ascertained that the English East India Company could not be granted a monopoly in the pepper trade. Rather, it was to work as one among many merchants in Calicut. ²²

The foreign and local Muslim trade networks played the most important role in the pepper trade of Calicut from the fourteenth century onwards. Even though they were not a homogenous group, the Islamic trade networks posed a challenge to the European networks in the early modern period in many ways. Local Muslims (known as Mappilas) and foreign Muslim merchants from Surat, Persia, Yemen and Arabia dominated the Indian Ocean pepper trade from Calicut. The English East India Company records from Calicut complained about the strength of the Muslim merchants in the city from their first visit onwards. ²³ They noted that ‘Calicut was one of the very few ports in Asia where the Malabari Muslim merchants could anchor in their vessels’. ²⁴ Dutch officials in Malabar also complained that the native Muslims were harming their trade by facilitating Arab and English trade in Calicut. ²⁵ According to VOC records, in 1668, the navigation of the Zamorin's merchants to the Middle East was unstoppable. ²⁶ For example, they dispatched a good quantity of pepper to Mocha that year, which damaged the VOC’s profits. ²⁷ In the same year, English records also noted that the Calicut traders made a large profit from sending pepper to Surat, Persia and Mocha. ²⁸

In 1677, Hendrick van Reede, a Dutch commander in Malabar, mentioned that the English and Muslim merchants were taking advantage of a free port like Calicut and dominating the pepper market in India by exporting their goods to Mocha, Muscat, Surat, Cambay and Europe. ²⁹ According to the VOC’s records, the Zamorin's merchants shipped at least 170 lasts (510,000 Dutch pounds) of pepper in 1678 by evading Dutch control. ³⁰ This was a large amount of pepper because the Dutch had been able to gather only 600,000 pounds of pepper from the whole of the Malabar Coast in the previous year. ³¹ In 1679, the English merchants of Calicut noted that the Muslim merchants had achieved high profits that year by exporting pepper and other spices to Mocha and Muscat. ³² The English complained in 1684 that one of the prominent Muslim merchants in Calicut, Sheikh Mercar, sent several ships containing pepper destined for Mocha and Muscat, which damaged the English trade. ³³ All these reports show that the merchants in Calicut – and especially the Muslim merchants – continued the pepper trade in the seventeenth century.

The English also collected large amounts of pepper in some years, and smaller quantities in others, from Calicut. ³⁴ For example, they collected a huge amount of pepper in 1674–1675. ³⁵ This is from VOC correspondence, and it is possible that this was an exaggeration and the VOC officials in Malabar wanted to warn the higher authorities in Batavia and Amsterdam. But even if the English East India Company had bought at least half of the reported amount, it is proof of Calicut's sustained commercial vibrancy. On the other hand, according to their records, the English could not gather any pepper from Calicut in 1679. ³⁶

In 1684, Marten Huijsman, the VOC’s governor in Malabar, wrote that the monopoly of pepper was not working because European, Baniya, Muslim and Surat merchants were being admitted into the Zamorin’s territory. ³⁷ The Dutch records of 1695 show that there were several English and French ships carrying pepper from Calicut. ³⁸ Similarly, in 1698, Hendrick Zwaardecroon, a VOC governor, mentioned that the trade to Surat and Persia from Malabar was still dominated by Muslim merchants from Calicut. ³⁹ In 1700, Magnus Wichelman, a VOC commander, noted:

the English, Portuguese, Moors, and Baniyas frequently visited in the land of the Zamorin, mainly Calicut and Ponnani, the second capital of Calicut, and the inhabitants who live in the land of the Zamorin, both Moors and Pagans, among whom are many wealthy men engaged in trade, from which the Zamorin makes no small income. ⁴⁰

Hence, having different merchant groups in Calicut played an important role in fighting the Dutch pass system.

Secondly, the merchants of Calicut attempted to build ties with other port cities and coastal regions in the Indian Ocean to boost their trade. Arabia, Persia, Surat, Bengal, the Coromandel Coast and Aceh were important for Calicut. Surat, in particular, played a key role in the pepper trade in Calicut because of the diverse commercial communities there. ⁴¹ English, Dutch, Baniya, Gujarati Muslim, Malabari Muslim, Arab and Persian traders visited Surat, and none had a monopoly. Ships from Surat regularly visited Calicut, despite the Dutch restrictions. The VOC complained in 1683 that there were vessels from Surat in Calicut and it was unable to do anything to stop them. ⁴² In 1684, more than 20 ships came from Surat to Calicut to collect pepper. ⁴³ In 1696, Adrian van Ommen, a VOC commander, noted that ‘the flourishing of the Zamorin's kingdom is the reason behind the lack of traffic in Cochin. … Surat's Muslim and Hindu merchants visit Calicut with cotton, silk clothes, cash and buy pepper, cardamom, coconut’. ⁴⁴ In that year, 14 ships from Surat visited Calicut to collect pepper.

The Dutch tried to stop the sailings from Calicut to Coromandel and Sumatra more forcefully because they had more control in those places. However, their efforts were not very effective. Van Ommen noted in 1696 that there were many returning ships from Ceylon to Coromandel, Bengal and Persia trading with Calicut. ⁴⁵ Also, Aceh and Calicut had a trading relationship that could be traced back to the sixteenth century and continued in the following centuries. On the Acehnese sultan's insistence, the Dutch had to grant passes for ships travelling from Calicut to Aceh. ⁴⁶

From the 1660s onwards, the merchants of Calicut – especially the Pattars (Tamil Brahmins) and other Tamil merchants – started to carry pepper overland via the Ghat route (a route to non-coastal parts of the Indian subcontinent through mountain ranges on the eastern side of Malabar) to other parts of the sub-continent, including the Coromandel Coast. The trade via this route started in the sixteenth century to fight Portuguese surveillance, but continued in the early modern period against the Dutch monopoly as well. Hustaert complained that the merchants from Calicut transported pepper overland to Canara as well, and the VOC was not able to do anything about it. ⁴⁷

Thirdly, the merchants of Calicut also tried to find different navigation routes to fight the Dutch pass system, which was again termed ‘piracy’ or ‘illicit’ trade in the European sources. The Muslim merchants of Calicut and Cannanore attempted to navigate via the Maldives to reach their west Asian destinations from the early seventeenth century onwards. ⁴⁸ According to Portuguese sources, it was difficult to control these ‘illicit’ routes because they were controlled by the Muslim merchants from Calicut and west Asia. ⁴⁹ The VOC faced the same issues in the later period. VOC officials tried to ally with the king of the Maldives to fight against the Muslim merchants of Malabar, but were not very successful. ⁵⁰ The Dutch constantly complained about their inability to control this route and ‘illicit’ pepper transport throughout the early modern period, in which the merchants of Calicut played a big part. ⁵¹ In short, these merchants and rulers attempted to maintain their own space in the Indian Ocean pepper trade in the seventeenth century.

Opiated resilience: challenging the Dutch monopoly of import commodities

Controlling the exchange commodities for pepper was as important for the Dutch as monopolizing the pepper trade. The main reason was their interest in establishing intra-Asian trade along with European trade. To avoid importing bullion from their country, the Dutch wanted to find a lucrative commodity to be sold in Asia in exchange for spices. For example, when the Dutch established factories in Coromandel, the Batavian high authority reminded them that their aim was to collect cloth and other commodities to be sold in the Moluccas to buy spices. ⁵² Hence, most of the measures taken by the VOC for monopolizing the pepper trade applied to import merchandise as well.

Opium was the most important exchange commodity for pepper on the Malabar Coast in the seventeenth century, and was primarily imported from Surat and Bengal. Opium was widely used as both an intoxicant and a medicine. Mappila merchants brought opium from Surat and Tamil merchants brought it from Bengal through the Ghat route long before the arrival of the Dutch, and made a great profit; this continued throughout the early modern period. ⁵³ However, the VOC attempted to block the transportation of opium via other merchants, especially to its rival cities like Calicut, to obtain control of the pepper trade. ⁵⁴ The VOC also requested its high council to impose a ban on opium exports from Surat and Bengal, even though it was told that this would not be possible. The Dutch continued to complain that Muslim merchants were importing opium to Calicut from both places. ⁵⁵ Hustaert noted in 1664 that English and Muslim merchants from the land of the Zamorin were importing opium, which damaged the VOC’s profits. He added that there were 30,000 pounds of opium lying in the VOC's warehouse that the VOC was unable to sell. ⁵⁶ The merchants of the Zamorin not only imported opium to Calicut, but also dispatched it to southern ports – namely, Cochin, Porkkad, Kayamkulam and Kollam. Hustaert was worried that this would be detrimental to the VOC. Thus, he instructed his successor that ‘it is important to keep the soldiers at Cranganore, a strategic point between Calicut and Cochin, in order to prevent this opium transport’. ⁵⁷ On the other hand, he was sceptical about this plan because he believed ‘merchants of Calicut will not abandon this very profitable business easily’. ⁵⁸

Hustaert's scepticism proved to be right in the coming decades. The VOC bought 100 pounds of pepper in exchange for 1 pound of opium in the early 1660s, but due to the competition from the merchants of Calicut, the VOC was only able to buy 40 pounds of pepper for 1 pound of opium in 1669. However, the merchants of Calicut began to sell 1 pound of opium for 35 pounds of pepper, which was a blow to the VOC. ⁵⁹ It is not certain if the reduced price was profitable for the merchants of Calicut, but this was a way in which they resisted the monopoly of the Dutch and sustained their pepper trade. Similarly, a VOC letter from 1669 mentioned that because of this ‘smuggling’, it was not able to buy large quantities of pepper with its opium. ⁶⁰

In 1679, seven Gujarati ships came from Surat to Calicut, carrying cotton and opium as exchange commodities for pepper. ⁶¹ Dutch officials estimated that around 15,000 pounds of opium were ‘smuggled’ from Calicut to south Malabar in 1681. ⁶² If this estimate is correct, the merchants of Calicut made a huge pepper trade in exchange for that opium. Twenty ships from Surat came to Calicut with opium in 1684, which caused an increase in the price of pepper along the whole Malabar Coast. ⁶³

VOC officials complained again in 1686 that ‘the Moor merchants of Surat own great ships and they are buying pepper from Calicut in exchange for opium’. ⁶⁴ The opium imported by the VOC began to spoil while it was waiting for a better opportunity, which forced its sale at a lower price than expected. ⁶⁵ The VOC managed to gain better control over the import of opium from Surat in the 1690s, but the English and Danes were importing opium from Bengal to Calicut. ⁶⁶ In 1692, Issack van Dielen, a VOC commander, mentioned that the Malabar market was flooded with opium brought by Muslim merchants. ⁶⁷ In short, the VOC's attempt to control the import of opium to Calicut was a failure.

In the meantime, in the 1680s, the Dutch had started to understand the impossibility of monopolizing the import of opium and to think about other commodities. For example, Huijsman pointed out that it was important to gain a monopoly of not only pepper and opium, but also commodities like grains, food, salt, arrack, tobacco, sugar, vinegar, European and Chinese foods, porcelain, silk and brass. ⁶⁸ According to the English, tobacco was a desired commodity that the VOC tried to monopolize. ⁶⁹ However, like the monopoly of pepper and opium, this was challenged by the merchants of Calicut. Tobacco was grown in good quantities in southern Malabar, and the VOC attempted to control its export after its conquest of Kollam, but did not succeed. In 1691, van Reede complained to the Zamorin that the Muslim merchants of Calicut were smuggling tobacco from Kollam, which affected the VOC’s monopoly. ⁷⁰ In 1695, Paulus de Roo, the Dutch governor of Malabar, also noted that it was essential to discuss the toll on tobacco with the Zamorin because his merchants were still transporting tobacco from Kollam to Calicut. ⁷¹ This shift shows that the Dutch governors could not stop the transport of tobacco to Calicut, so they started to think about taxing it, if possible.

The merchants of Calicut also imported coffee from Mocha, and the direct connection between these two places troubled the VOC. ⁷² The Dutch constantly complained about this because they had been attempting to buy coffee in exchange for pepper in Mocha. ⁷³ For example, in 1693, a letter from Malabar noted that the Zamorin's merchants bought a significant quantity of coffee in Mocha in exchange for pepper. ⁷⁴ However, later, the Dutch decided that it would be better if they bought coffee from the Muslim merchants of Calicut instead of competing in Mocha. Zwaardecroon instructed his successor in 1698 that ‘coffee has become more popular in the fatherland [the Netherlands]. Try if the Moorish merchants will want to exchange pepper with the company at Cochin for coffee’. ⁷⁵ The merchants from Calicut went to Mocha and sold pepper in exchange for coffee throughout the seventeenth century. ⁷⁶

However, some of the commodities that the Dutch imported were exclusive to them. Japanese copper was an example. The local demand for Japanese copper helped the VOC make up for its losses in the opium trade. ⁷⁷ In the 1660s, the Dutch believed that Japanese copper, tin and some spices would be their strength. ⁷⁸ However, the VOC was only able to buy pepper in large quantities in exchange for Japanese copper in Malabar between 1676 and 1678. The import of Japanese copper was reduced dramatically in the following decades, and there were almost no imports from 1696 to 1698. ⁷⁹ In late 1698, the VOC imported 500 chests of Japanese copper into Malabar. ⁸⁰ However, since it was not among the most desired commodities, this did not challenge the trade in Calicut to a great extent. In conclusion, controlling import commodities was important to the Dutch, and resisting their actions was integral for the merchants of Calicut. Throughout the early modern period, the merchants of Calicut attempted to maintain their role in the exchange of commodities.

The military, fortifications and watch posts: the peculiar case of the Dutch monopoly in Malabar

According to George Winius and Marcus Vink, there were three types of trading policy practised by the VOC in South Asia in the seventeenth century. ⁸¹ The first was conquest; in jurisdictions such as Ceylon and the Coromandel Coast, the VOC built fortifications. The second was conducting trade without any special status or privileges, mainly through treaties, such as in Bengal and Gujarat. However, in Malabar there existed a third and peculiar type of policy – establishing monopolistic privileges in local production, which was achieved through exclusive contracts and military conquests. ⁸²

As discussed above, issuing passes to control the outgoing ships from Calicut or controlling the import commodities was not proving fruitful for the Dutch in Malabar. Hence, they tried to invest in the military control of inland routes in order to restrict the movement of pepper from the south to Calicut. The VOC attempted to establish exclusive contracts with the kings, such as the king of Cochin, to buy pepper, along with building watch posts to stop ‘smuggling’. According to this plan, if the merchants of Calicut could not get pepper from inland, they would not be able to export it, which would help in implementing the Dutch monopoly.

However, these exclusive contracts turned out to be difficult to enforce, even after the military conquests in Malabar that contributed to the ‘peculiar case’ of a Dutch monopoly. One of the major challenges the VOC faced in controlling the flow of pepper to Calicut was the peculiar geographical and political conditions. Malabar had four major kingdoms, numerous smaller kingdoms and several territories ruled by local chiefs. The presence of these multiple rulers and stiff competition on the coast forced the Dutch to invest increasingly in the military and fortifications to implement its theoretical monopoly. The VOC made exclusive contracts with the king of Cochin, but the rulers of smaller principalities were not obliged to supply pepper to the king of Cochin. The merchants and rulers of Calicut took advantage of this situation to protect their trade.

Similarly, the brokers and merchants who had contracts with pepper farmers carried their pepper through different parts of the Malabar Coast according to their interests. For example, many merchants and brokers carried pepper to Calicut because there were diverse merchant groups there, some of whom often offered a better price than the VOC in Cochin. This was a blow to the VOC and its policies, and expenditure on the Malabar Coast was shaped by the flow of pepper from southern regions to Calicut. Hence, the Dutch believed that the only way to stop this flow of pepper was by deploying more force and capturing the shipments. It was clear that it was impossible to implement exclusive pepper rights in Malabar without significant military investment.

Most of the VOC's expenditure in Malabar was allocated to building fortifications, military posts and watch posts in the area between Calicut and Cochin to stop Calicut merchants from collecting pepper and opium. ⁸³ To support this fortification process and conduct surveillance, the Dutch used soldiers from both Malabar and abroad. In the 1680s, 200 soldiers were sent from Ceylon to Malabar to fight the Zamorin’s pepper trade. ⁸⁴ However, this was not effective because the kingdom of Calicut extended a long way south in this period and, most of the time, the VOC's infrastructure was not able to prevent the trade. ⁸⁵

The VOC spent large sums of money on its military and the fortifications in Malabar, and, because of these expenses, could not offer a higher price to the sellers of pepper. ⁸⁶ The VOC officials constantly wrote to their higher authorities in Batavia and Holland, complaining about this competition and asking for permission to increase the price. ⁸⁷ As time went by, the military infrastructure needed more and more investment, which further reduced the price the Dutch could offer for pepper.

On the other hand, the merchants of Calicut managed to buy pepper from mediators from the south by offering a higher price than that offered by the VOC. Similarly, those merchants managed to sell the pepper to other merchants in Calicut at a relatively lower price. This attracted both sellers and buyers of pepper to Calicut. ⁸⁸ For example, Hustaert mentioned that ‘the Zamorin's land offers a higher price for pepper than any other ports in Malabar and because of that, the pepper was being transported from southern ports like Kollam and Kayamkulam to Calicut’. ⁸⁹ In other words, throughout the second half of the seventeenth century, the merchants of Calicut offered an increased price for pepper in Calicut so that mediators from the south would want to sell their pepper there and not to the VOC. ⁹⁰

Since the constant investment in soldiers and fortifications was not practical, several Dutch commanders on the Malabar Coast proposed different ideas to control the transport of pepper. For example, Huijsman thought that expanding the canals of Cochin to the south and north would be a good way to stop the ‘smuggling’. Even though it would be expensive, it would be less than the cost of fortifications and watch posts. ⁹¹ Also, this method would be a less hostile way to control the trade, unlike the constant fights between the VOC and Calicut at the watch posts. Because numerous land-based and water ways and different routes existed in Malabar, controlling trade through watch posts proved impossible. ⁹²

In short, the Dutch policies in Malabar oscillated from military deployment and the forceful seizure of pepper to making exclusive contracts with different rulers. However, the rulers and merchants were successful in obtaining pepper because it was impossible for the VOC to cover the pepper-transporting areas completely, as they extended over numerous smaller principalities. Along with this, the merchants of Calicut offered a higher price for pepper, which gave the brokers an incentive to escape Dutch surveillance.

Conclusion

It is unwise to compare the city state of Calicut and the VOC as equal powers. The VOC was a global enterprise that pulled imperial, colonial and oppressive strings in many parts of the Indian Ocean World, whereas Calicut was a small port city with numerous political and commercial competitors. Moreover, the merchants of Calicut were not a unified group. It is also important to acknowledge that the commerce of Calicut was certainly affected by Portuguese and Dutch imperial efforts throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, Calicut challenged the attempts made by the Dutch to monopolize the pepper trade.

An examination of the expenditure and profits of the VOC in the early modern period in various parts of India shows that, unlike Gujarat, Coromandel or Bengal, the VOC always had more expenses in Malabar than income. ⁹³ Even though the VOC attempted to achieve a monopoly over pepper on the Malabar Coast by building a pass system, trying to enter into exclusive contracts and constructing watch posts, it was not possible because of the geography and politics of Malabar. Calicut played an important role in resisting these attempts and participated in the Indian Ocean trade. The rulers and merchants vigorously resisted these imperial pursuits by conducting internal pepper trades, fighting the VOC army, exporting pepper and importing other commodities, such as opium, which was banned by the Dutch. Hence, the story of Calicut and the Dutch East India Company was neither that of a rising centralized company and a declining traditional city nor an equal partnership between the East and the West. On the contrary, it tells a story of resisting the Dutch imperial attempts and Calicut's efforts to sustain its own place in the pepper trade.