Element contents
Series: Elements in Economic History
Origins of Colonialism
Why Geography Mattered
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2025
Summary
Historians explain the eighteenth-century origin of European colonialism in Asia either with the profile of the merchants or an argument about uneven power. This Element suggests that the environment was an important factor, too. With India (1600-1800) as the primary example, it says that the tropical monsoon climatic condition, extreme seasonality, and low land yield made the land-tax-based empires weak from within. The seaboard supplied a more benign environment. Sometime in the eighteenth century, a transformation began as the seaside traded more, generated complementary services, and encouraged the in-migration of capital and skills to supply these services. The birth of a new state from this base depended, however, on building connections inland, which was still a dangerous and uncertain enterprise. European merchants were an enabling force in doing this. But we cannot understand the process without close attention to geography.
Information
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Series: Elements in Economic HistoryOnline ISBN: 9781009524186Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 10 April 2025
Bibliography
Anon, ., An Historical Account of the Settlement and Possession of Bombay by the East India Company, London: W. Richardson, 1781.Google Scholar
Anon, ., ‘Journal of a Residence in Great Britain, by Jehungeer Nowrajee and Hirjeebhoy Merwanjee, of Bombay, Naval Architects. London. 1841’, Calcutta Review, 4, 1845, Miscellaneous Notices, i–xii.Google Scholar
Arasaratnam, Sinnapah, ‘The Politics of Commerce in the Coastal Kingdoms of Tamil Nad 1650–1700’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 1(1), 1971, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arasaratnam, Sinnapah, ‘Factors in the Rise, Growth and Decline of Coromandel Ports CIRCA 1650–1720’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 7(2), 1984, 19–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balesi, Charles J., ‘Henry de Monfreid: Chronicler and Adventurer of the Red Sea’, Proceedings of the Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society, 5, 1980, 83–87.Google Scholar
Barua, Pradep P., ‘Maritime Trade, Seapower, and the Anglo-Mysore Wars, 1767–1799’, The Historian, 73(1), 2011, 22–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, Susan Neild, ‘Madras in 1800: Perceiving the City’, Studies in the History of Art, 31, 1993, 221–240Google Scholar
Bayly, Christopher Alan, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North India Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770–1870, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, 5.Google Scholar
Berg, Fred James, ‘The Swahili Community of Mombasa, 1500–1900’, Journal of African History, 9(1), 1968, 35–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernier, François, Travels in the Mogul Empire AD 1656–1668, London: Humphrey Milford, 1916.Google Scholar
Bhattacharyya, Debjani, Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biddulph, John Stringer Lawrence: The Father of the Indian Army, London: John Murray, 1901.Google Scholar
Boxer, Charles Ralph ‘The Dutch Economic Decline’, in Cipolla, Carlo M., ed., The Economic Decline of Empires, Abingdon: Routledge, 2006, 235–263.Google Scholar
Broeze, Frank, ed., Brides of the Sea, Port Cities of Asia from the 16th-20th Centuries, Kensington: New South Wales University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Buchanan, Francis, A Journey from Madras through The Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, London: T. Cadell, and W. Davies, 1807.Google Scholar
Das Gupta, Ashin, ‘Indian Merchants and the Western Indian Ocean: The Early Seventeenth Century’, Modern Asian Studies, 19(3), 1985, 481–499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, Ashin, ‘The Maritime Merchant and Indian History’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 7(1), 1984, 27–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elkiss, Terry H., ‘Kilwa Kisiwani: The Rise of an East African City-State’, African Studies Review, 16(1), 1973, 119–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fawcett, Charles, The English Factories in India, vol. 4 (New Series) The Eastern Coast and Bay of Bengal 1670–1677, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Kenneth, ‘Mocha’, Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/place/Mocha-Yemen, 2024.Google Scholar
Foster, William, The English Factories in India 1630–33, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910.Google Scholar
Foster, William, The English Factories in India 1634–36, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911.Google Scholar
Foster, William, The English Factories in India 1646–50, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914.Google Scholar
Foster, William, The English Factories in India 1655–60, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.Google Scholar
Foster, William, The English Factories in India 1661–64, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.Google Scholar
Foster, William, The English Factories in India 1668–1669, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927.Google Scholar
Gani, Shahabuddin M., ‘Danish Settlement of Balasore’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 22, 1959, 354–357.Google Scholar
Gjersø, Jonas Fossli, ‘The Scramble for East Africa: British Motives Reconsidered, 1884–95’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 43(5), 2015, 831–860.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greville, Charles, British India Analyzed The Provincial and Revenue Establishments of Tippoo Sultaun and of Mahomedan and British Conquerors in Hindoostan Stated and Considered, London: E.Jefferey, J. Debrett and P. Elmsley, 1793.Google Scholar
Guha, Sumit, ‘Rethinking the Economy of Mughal India: Lateral Perspectives’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 58(4), 2015, 532–575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, David, ‘Imperialism Ancient and Modern: A Study of British Attitudes to the Claims to Sovereignty to the Northern Somali Coastline’, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, 5(2), 1967, 9–35.Google Scholar
Hasan, Farhat, ‘Indigenous Cooperation and the Birth of a Colonial City: Calcutta, c. 1698–1750’, Modern Asian Studies, 26(1), 1992, 65–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hemingway, F. R., Madras District Gazetteers. Trichinopoly, Madras: Government Press, 1907.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Philip, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Hopkins, A.G., ‘Economic Imperialism in West Africa: Lagos, 1880–92’, Economic History Review, 21(3), 1968, 580–606.Google Scholar
House of Lords, Copies and Extracts of such Parts of the Correspondence between the Governor General, and the Governments of India respectively, with the Court of Directors, and the Secret Committee thereof, as Relate to Hostilities with the Late Tippoo Sultan, 1799, 63.Google Scholar
Jagtap, Neelambari, ‘Ports, Markets, Commercial Networks, and Politics: Case of Tal (South) Konkan in the 17th Century’, in Seshan, Radhika and Shimada, Ryuto, eds., Connecting the Indian Ocean World: Across Sea and Land, London: Routledge, 2022, 83–92.Google Scholar
Janmohammed, Karim Kassam, ‘A History of Mombasa, c. 1895–1939: Some Aspects of Economic and Social Life in an East African Port Town during Colonial Rule’, PhD Dissertaton of Northwestern University, 1978.Google Scholar
Karak, Anirban, ‘The Politics of Commerce in Eighteenth-Century Bengal: A Reappraisal’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, early-view 61(1), 2024, 33–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karaman, K. Kivanç and Pamuk, Sevket, ‘Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500– 1914’, Journal of Economic History, 70, 2010, 593–629 (along with www.ata.boun.edu.tr/sevketpamuk/ JEH2010articledatabase).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khan, Mohibbul Hasan, History of Tipu Sultan, Calcutta and Dacca: The Bibliophile, 1951.Google Scholar
Kosambi, Damodar, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965.Google Scholar
Kroef, Justus M. van der, ‘The Decline and Fall of the Dutch East India Company’, The Historian, 10(2), 1948, 118–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laitin, David D. and Samatar, Said S., Somalia: Nation in Search of a State, Boulder: Westview Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Lee, Robert, ‘The Socio-economic and Demographic Characteristics of Port Cities: A Typology for Comparative Analysis?’ Urban History, 25(2), 1998, 147–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Peter James, ‘Presidential Address: Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: III, Britain and India’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 10, 2000, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McConkey, Rosemary and McErlean, Thomas, ‘Mombasa Island: A Maritime Perspective’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 11(2), 2007, 99–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg, Fred James, ‘The Swahili Community of Mombasa, 1500–1900’, Journal of African History, 9(1), 1968, 35–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miran, Jonathan, ‘Facing the Land, Facing the Sea: Commercial Transformation and Urban Dynamics in the Red Sea Port of Massawa, 1840s-1900s’, PhD Dissertation of University of Michigan, 2004.Google Scholar
Mishra, Patit Paban, ‘Balasore Port-Town in Seventeenth Century’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 59, 1998, 301–10.Google Scholar
Miyake, Riichi and Okazaki, Rumi, ‘Study on the Trading Routes Connecting the Red Sea and Ethiopia as Serial Heritages’, Bulletin of the Fuji Women’s University, 49, Ser. II, 2012, 23–38.Google Scholar
Moreland, William, India at the Death of Akbar: An Economic Study, London: Macmillan, 1920.Google Scholar
Mukherji, Bimala Prasad, ‘The English Factory at Hooghly (1651–1690)’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 19, 1956, 290–300.Google Scholar
Nadri, Ghulam A., ‘Exploring the Gulf of Kachh: Regional Economy and Trade in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 51(3), 2008, 460–486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nadri, Ghulam A., Eighteenth-Century Gujarat: The Dynamics of its Political Economy, 1750–1800, Leiden: Brill, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oak, Mandar and Swamy, Anand, ‘Myopia or Strategic Behavior? Indian Regimes and the East India Company in Late Eighteenth Century India’, Explorations in Economic History, 49(3), 2012, 352–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Brien, Patrick, ‘State Formation and Economic Growth: The Case of Britain, 1688–1846’, in Backhaus, Jürgen, ed., Navies and State Formation: The Schumpeter Hypothesis Revisited and Reflected, Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2012, 217–272.Google Scholar
Pankhurst, Richard, ‘The “Banyan” or Indian Presence at Massawa, the Dahlak Islands and the Horn of Africa’, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, 12(1),1974, 185–212.Google Scholar
Pearson, Michael, ‘Littoral Society: The Concept and the Problems’, Journal of World History, 17(4), 2006, 353–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, Aniruddha, ‘The Crisis of the French East India Company at Surat and Bengal at the End of the 17th Century’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 54, 1993, 361.Google Scholar
Ray, Aniruddha, ‘Shorosh shatabdir sheshbhage Banglar nagarbinyas o arthanoitik samriddhi’, [Urban and Economic Expansion in Bengal towards the End of the Sixteenth Century, in Bengali] in Gautam Chattopadhyay, ed., itihas Onusandhan [History Research], Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi, 1986, 20–34.Google Scholar
Reno, William, Review of Peter D. Little, Somalia: Economy without State, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Roney, Jessica, ‘Introduction: Distinguishing Port Cities, 1500–1800’, Early American Studies, 15(4), 2017, 649–659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, Tirthankar, ‘Rethinking the Origins of British India: State Formation and Military-fiscal Undertakings in an Eighteenth Century World Region’, Modern Asian Studies, 47(4), 2013, 1125–1156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, Tirthankar, ‘The Mutiny and the Merchants’, Historical Journal, 59(2), 2016, 393–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, Tirthankar, An Economic History of India 1707–1857, London: Routledge, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, Tirthankar, Monsoon Economies: India’s History in a Changing Climate, Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salimullah, , Tarikh I Bangal, volume 2 of 2, trans. Francis Gladwin, Calcutta: J. W. Fischer of Stuart and Cooper, 1785,Google Scholar
Samatar, Abdi, ‘The State, Agrarian Change and Crisis of Hegemony in Somalia’, Review of African Political Economy, 43, 1988, 26–41.Google Scholar
Sarkar, Jagadish Narayan, ‘Notes on Balasore and the English in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 13, 1950, 209–21.Google Scholar
Seid-Gholam-Hossein-Khan, , Seir Mutaqherin, vol. 3 of 3, Calcutta: T.D. Chatterjee, 1902, 388.Google Scholar
Sengupta, Kaustubh Mani, ‘Bazaars, Landlords, and the Company Government in Late Eighteenth-Century Calcutta’, IESHR, 52 (2), 2015, 121–146.Google Scholar
Seshan, Radhika, ‘Coastal Connections of Fort St. George (Madras/Chennai) in the 17th Century’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 78, 2017, 372–379.Google Scholar
Shastri, Haraprasad, ‘Baneshwar Bidyalankar’, Sahitya-Parishat-Patrika [Bengali] 38, 1938, 135–144.Google Scholar
Shil, Shibchandra, Gaure Suarnabanik [Bengali, Subarnabaniks in Gaur], Chunchura: Author, 1910, 49.Google Scholar
Shimada, Ryuto, ‘Southeast Asia and International Trade: Continuity and Change in Historical Perspective’, in Otsuka, Keijiro and Sugihara, Kaoru, eds., Paths to the Emerging State in Asia and Africa, Singapore: Springer, 2019, 35–72.Google Scholar
Shimada, Ryuto, ‘The Long-Term Pattern of Maritime Trade in Java from the Late Eighteenth Century to the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, Southeast Asian Studies, 2(3), 2013, 475–497.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, Padma, ‘Indian Traders in Zanzibar with Special Reference to Jairam Shewji (19th Century)’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 61, 2000–2001, 1142–1148.Google Scholar
Stern, Philip, The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘The “Pulicat Enterprise”: Luso-Dutch Conflict in South-Eastern India, 1610–1640’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 9(2), 1986, 17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India 1500–1650, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Subramanian, Lakshmi, Indigenous Capital and Imperial Expansion: Bombay, Surat and the West Coast, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Swai, Bonaventure, ‘East India Company and Moplah Merchants of Tellicherry: 1694–1800’, Social Scientist, 8(1), 1979, 58–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taddia, Irma, ‘At the Origin of the State/Nation Dilemma: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ogaden in 1941’, Northeast African Studies, 12(2–3), 1990, 157–170.Google Scholar
Temple, Richard, ed., Diaries of Streynsham Master (1675–1680), 2 vols., London: John Murray, 1911.Google Scholar
Thomas, M. Arun, ‘Merchants, Markets and Merchandise: Strategy of English East India Company Trade in Tellicherry 1725–1750’, PhD Dissertation of the University of Calicut, 2015.Google Scholar
Thomas, M. Arun and Mundon, Asokan, ‘Robert Adams: the Real Founder of English East India Company’s Supremacy in Malabar’, IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 20(5), 2015, 19–26.Google Scholar
Varkey, Joy, ‘The Significance of Mahe in Eighteenth-Century French India’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 58, 1997, 295–302.Google Scholar
Washbrook, David, ‘Review of Sinnapah Arasaratnam and Aniruddha Ray, Masulipatnam and Cambay: A History of Two Port Towns 1500–1800’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 39(4), 1996, 465–467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellen, Kathryn, ‘The Danish East India Company’s War against the Mughal Empire, 1642–1698’, Journal of Early Modern History, 19(4), 2015, 439–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this Element is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.