Commodity and Market 31
Superb seafarers, the Bugis had built their reputation in the maritime
world by the early sixteenth century, and by that time were increasingly
challenging the dominant Malays and Javanese. Taking advantage of
the Dutch occupation of Makassar, “the golden age of Bugis navigation
began”.^111 Their ships were active in the Spice Islands, the Java Sea and
later the Riau Islands, linking them to international trade in various
harbors. The most important among their trading stations was the
entrepôt in the Riau Islands that they had established in the early
eighteenth century. Because of its strategic location as well as the Bugis’
wide trading network, Riau had attracted the arrival of Chinese, English,
Siamese and Javanese traders, making it “the most important port linking
the trade of the South China Sea and the Java Sea with that of the Indian
Ocean”.^112 Arriving there, traders could conveniently exchange spices
from the Moluccas for cloth imported by the British from Bengal, and
thereby threatened the Dutch interest in imported cloth. Not surprisingly,
the Dutch found it necessary to take over control of Riau in 1784.
Java’s Northeast Coast (the Pasisir): The northern coast of Java, situated
on one of the major trading routes in the Java Sea, had control of the
inter-island trade and shipping in the Indonesian Archipelago by the
fourteenth and βifteenth centuries. Traders from there were able to βit out
scores of ships of around 60 tons each to sail to the Spice Islands. They
brought along scales and set up tents or stalls to collect spices from either
local small producers or peddlers. They also visited such places as Timor
to purchase sandalwood and other products. The bulk of the transactions
was conducted by small-timers drawn from the ranks of the peasants and
βishermen at the bottom of the social spectrum, who provided “the close
links between trade and the rural economy”, as Luc Nagtegaal observes.
He goes on to comment, “Javanese trade was far from insigniβicant, with
hundreds of traders together responsible for transporting large quantities
of goods over what could be very long distances.”^113 The Javanese also
played a conspicuous role in inter-island trade, using small boats (prahu)
to transport goods.
- Gene Ammarell, Bugis Navigation, p. 20.
- Christian Pelras, The Bugis, pp. 305–6. For Bugis trade in Riau and a detailed
account of the crushing of Riau, refer to Reinout Vos, Gentle Janus, Merchant
Prince: The VOC and the Tightrope of Diplomacy in the Malay World, 1740–1800,
trans. Beverley Jackson (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1993). I thank Koh Keng We for
drawing my attention to the work. - Luc Nagtegaal, Riding the Dutch Tiger: The Dutch East Indies Company and the
Northeast Coast of Java, 1680–1743 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996), p.107.