The Indian Ocean World in the Nineteenth Century

November 4, 2008

Many historians have argued that, from roughly the eighth century to the nineteenth century, there were major commercial, religious, political, migratory, economic, and cultural links between different regions surrounding the Indian Ocean, making it a separate “Indian Ocean World” distinct from other parts of the globe, similar to the Atlantic world in the early modern era and the ancient Mediterranean world. Sugata Bose argues in A Hundred Horizons that the Indian Ocean world actually continued beyond the end of the eighteenth century, which earlier historians date as its end. Bose points to continuing interregional links between different parts of the Indian Ocean rim to argue that the system did not in fact end at the dawn of the 19th century. Although West Eurasian empires, especially Britain, did conquer the area, much of their rule was simply overlaid on preexisting interregional connections. Trade and investment between societies on different parts of the ocean continued, and in some cases did so in ways similar to how they did prior to 1800. Circuits of migration continued to exist between different parts of the ocean rim, as did Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca. Soldiers from India fought for the British empire across the Ocean. Even anti-colonial movements were themselves transnational and spread across the rim.

Bose argues that there was a fundamental difference between the types of sovereignty imposed by west Eurasian empires and what he calls precolonial empires such as the Ottomans or Mughals. West Eurasian empires were more focused on creating clearly defined borders and on imposing sovereignty at sea. When European claims of sovereignty at sea led to conflicts Europeans labeled their opponents “pirates.” Bose sets up a binary between precolonial sovereignties and west Eurasian sovereignties, implying that precolonial empires had more in common with each other (at least when it comes to claims of sovereignty) than they did with European empires.

There are certain similarities between the world of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic World, but many differences as well. Most Atlanticists believe the Atlantic World ended at some point in the nineteenth century, and apparently most historians of the Indian Ocean world similarly believe it ended in the eighteenth century. The phase of the Indian Ocean presented by Bose is dramatically different in the the empires that ruled it were not themselves part of it, or at least their capitals were not. The political centers of the trans-Atlantic empires were all in the northeast Atlantic. With the major exception of the silver trade, the Atlantic world was more self-contained than the Indian Ocean as presented by Bose.

Bose sees his book as a contribution in the history of “globalization.” Using the term for this time period is presentist because it projects a contemporary term into a past that had no such concept. It is also problematic because the term “globalization” itself is very vague and can be taken to mean all sorts of things, especially if it is being projected into the past. If the Indian Ocean in this time period is part of globalization, what is not globalization? Bose provides no clear definition of the term.

Clearly there is an appropriate level of analysis between the local or national and the global (in scale). Interregional levels of analysis, such as the Indian Ocean or Atlantic world, can reveal things that may not be as apparent at a local, national, or global level. This is perhaps the most important point made by Bose, and probably the best supported.