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Résultats 4 ressources
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The second half of the eighteenth century, witnessed a boom in the trade in coffee in Mocha and Muscat. The Kachchhis traders of Mandvi and Surat based traders were central to this trade. The shifts and circumstances of the eighteenth century disturbed the control and Surat was forced to lose the premier position in coffee supply. The considerable coffee trade was diverted to Muscat in the eighteenth century. Concurrently, the Sultans were running into political expansion and risked considerable resources. Kachchhi merchants in Muscat were stressed to contribute. This necessitated the fortune making enterprise through the lucrative commodity trading. The opportunity to import Mocha coffee and re-export them to destinations in the neighbourhood of Oman was, thus, the outcome. This chapter takes us to the understanding that how the circulation of a single commodity empowered the transregional trade routes not only with the significant volume of trade but also facilitated the flow of specie and profit through various channels.
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This chapter provides a case study of the career of Seth Ratansi Purshotam to demonstrate the role of Gujarati Banyans of Muscat, Oman in linking that port’s transregional commercial network of India, the Persian Gulf, and East Africa to the global market. Ratansi, a native of Mandvi, Kachhch, began his career as a clerk in his uncle’s shop in 1857, opened his own shop in 1867, and by the 1880s until his death in 1904 was one of the leading importers/exporters and money lenders of Muscat and a principal financier of the government of Oman as the customs farmer. During that period Ratansi joined with other Banyan, Khoja, and Arab merchants to expand and strengthen direct contacts with European and American commercial outlets for the export of Omani products, especially dates, and the import of Western manufactured consumer goods, most notably arms and ammunition.
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In 1840 the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar’s flagship, the Sultana, sailed for New York City. Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Sultān Āl Busa‘īdī sought to capitalize on new commercial networks beyond the Indian Ocean and so dispatched a trusted agent, Ahmad bin Na’aman al Kaabi, to the United States with iconic regional products: Zanzibari cloves, East African ivory, Muscati dates, Yemeni coffee, and Persian carpets. From the proceeds of their sale Na’aman purchased a cargo of American cotton cloth, already a commercial staple in East Africa. Na’aman was fêted in New York, and the Sultana’s African, Persian, and Indian crew captured headlines across the nation. The Sultana’s sojourn was of such great interest to New Yorkers that the city council commissioned a lush portrait of Na’aman for City Hall. This essay offers context to the Na’aman painting through a reconsideration of the Sultana’s voyage, a journey that encapsulated the ambitions of the Omani-Zanzibari state. More precisely, the Sultana was a richly symbolic vessel that represented the new material and political interests binding Zanzibar to distant world regions. Indeed, the ship, its mission, cargo, and crew were each emblematic of the emergent cultural economy of the Swahili Coast as well as the wider economic trends that were remaking the nineteenth century world. The portrait of Ahmad bin Na’aman thus offers an extraordinary window on the interface of the Indian Ocean and Atlantic basins, and it stands as a testament to the role of Zanzibaris in shaping emergent global relationships.
Explorer
Sujet
- Commerce -- Oman (1)
- Emigration -- Inde -- Oman (1)
- Navigation -- Oman (1)
- Zanzibar (1)
Type de ressource
Année de publication
- Entre 2000 et 2026 (4)