The study of historical international affairs in the Indian Oceans would not be complete without including the factors of pluralism in commerce and politics. In the age of seafaring, not only the Chinese and Arabs but also the South Indians from Malabar and the Coromandel ports were among the most notable trading communities that engineered maritime Indian Ocean. Positioning themselves in the middle path between the local sovereignty and the global world, their roles rose from being mere traders to political and economic advisers. Some records even present them as kings, believed to be the result of generational circulatory relations and kinship intermarriage with royal circles.  Â
Driven by many factors, including the impact of famine and the colonial political economic system in India and Malacca, a new wave of South Indian traders and refugees sailed to Indonesia and Malaysia in the 1650s. Half of Sumatra (now in Indonesia), Kedah and Perak (now in Malaysia), were under the governance of queens of Aceh Darussalam Sultanate when the maritime world witnessed the struggle of South Indian merchant communities under capitalist commerce and political turmoil between the former and their colonial masters. Having said so, the queen’s strategic partnership with the South Indians and colonial Dutch powers played an important role in dealing with the subsequent survival of the communities. Before 1500, South Indian Hindus and Muslim merchants’ commercial enclaves known as the Chetties existed in Malacca. Due to the Portuguese invasion in 1511, the merchants diverted their trade from Malacca to Pasai in Aceh. The trade continued to survive and reached a climax in the 1650s, where the tin trade was among those that flourished the most. The lucrative commodity of tin became the source of power interest and conflict in centuries to follow. The tin trading circulated from Malacca-Aceh-Pegu and Tenasserim. Â
Find out more at https://memorients.com/articles/south-indians-and-the-power-politics-of-tin-1651-1663
