The Development of British Commercial and Political Networks in the Straits Settlements 1800 to 1868: The Rise of a Colonial and Regional Economic Identity?

Abstract

This paper examines the growth of the British commercial communities in the Straits Settlements in the first half of the nineteenth century. It describes how they emerged as a coherent commercial and political interest group, separate from the Indian empire, with their own network of allies and commercial partners in Britain. As such, the Straits merchants emerged as a significant political lobby in their own right. It contends that in the process, they revived earlier notions of Southeast Asia as a discrete geographical region, in which political and ethnic diversity was bridged by the flourishing of maritime commercial networks.

Opposing Power

“…Historically, Singapore and the Malaysian ports of Malacca and Penang were midway points for merchant ships connecting British India with the Dutch East Indies and British Hong Kong. These three coastal cities were governed under the same Straits Settlements administrative structures in 1826 under the East India Company, and then reorganized under full direct control of the British colonial authorities in London as a crown colony in 1867 (Mills 1966;Turnbull 1972;Webster 2011). The Straits Settlements' openness to trade, combined with Peninsular Malaya's demand for cheap labor for the rapidly expanding tin mines and rubber plantations, drove massive inward immigration (Chai 1964, chapter 3;Parmer 1960;Lees 2017).…”

Deprovincializing Racial Capitalism: John Crawfurd and Settler Colonialism in India

“…Studies of the British India’s articulation to the world economy have noted that the failure to establish a strong regime of private property in land shaped the distinctly commercial character of British capitalist activity in the region. Lacking direct control over agricultural production, British capitalists in India conglomerated in “agency houses” in the presidency towns and concentrated their activities in the “gentlemanly” sectors of finance, shipping, brokerage, insurance, and intra-Asian trade (Cain and Hopkins 1993; Webster 2006; 2011a). Acting in symbiosis with the Company’s fiscal militarism, British commercial capital mediated India’s export-oriented integration into global capital flows.…”