Chapter Four
The Indigo Trade of the English East India Company in the Seventeenth Century: Challenges and Opportunities
Ghulam A. Nadri
Introduction
In the early modern period, commodities imported from the East made an impact upon European societies and political economies in a variety of ways. They re-shaped consumer cultures, unsettled some long-established patterns of production and exchange, prompted favourable or reactionary responses among merchants, rulers, and governments, and, above all, caused inter-continental transmission of knowledge that impacted artistry and craftsmanship. A good body of literature has emerged that examines many of these issues. Scholars have studied some of the major luxury and non-luxury commodities imported from Asia into Europe, identified the changes in European fashion and consumption cultures, and explored the arenas of technical, technological, and knowledge transfers between Asia and Europe.[i] British responses to large-scale import of Indian cotton textiles and its impact on consumption culture, for instance, are fairly well studied.[ii] Indigo, as an industrial raw material imported from India, has not featured much in the literature. This paper is an attempt to explore how indigo imports into Britain, and the knowledge that accompanied it, impacted upon the commercial and market relationships among Europeans in India and Britain in the first half of the Seventeenth Century.
Indigo affected European societies and political economies in several ways. It unsettled the European woad industry because it served as a better substitute for the locally produced blue dye extracted from the woad plant. The threat to the industry forced many European states to adopt protective measures that included encouragement of woad cultivation and proscriptions on the import and use of indigo in their respective countries.[iii] It also affected the relationships of exchange and distribution in London and elsewhere in Europe. Being a low-bulk, high-value product, the indigo trade became a contested domain. In the early Seventeenth Century, the English East India Company (EIC) and Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) fiercely competed with each other in the indigo markets of India. Their aspirations to acquire enough indigo to meet the demands of their home nations put the companies in contest with one another, whilst at home rivalries also occurred in many other forms. The EIC, for instance, faced stiff competition in the domestic market from the Levant Company, which also imported substantial quantities of Indian indigo. At another level, there was also rivalry between the EIC, which claimed a monopoly of indigo imports into Britain, and private merchants, who contested the EIC’s monopoly and imported indigo themselves.
As one of the major imports from India in the early Seventeenth Century, the indigo trade affected the commercial relationships in England perhaps more and earlier than any other commodity. In this paper, I examine the indigo trade of the EIC, and the knowledge of indigo making and dyeing that was transmitted through this trade between India to Europe. I also examine how this knowledge was used in Britain to control and sustain networks of exchange and distribution, and what implications this had for the market economic relationships between individuals and corporate bodies engaged in indigo enterprise. Due to the limitations of the sources, this paper focuses on early seventeenth-century London, which was the hub of commercial activities and the place where indigo was first put on the market, sold, and distributed to the textile production centres of England and Europe.
Indian indigo in Britain in the first half of the Seventeenth Century
India was a major producer and supplier of commercial indigo to Euro-Asian markets before the blue dye began to be imported on a large scale from Europe’s trans-Atlantic colonies in the second half of the Seventeenth Century. Indian indigo reached the markets of Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries via the Levant. After the Portuguese sailed round the Cape of Good Hope and discovered an all-water route to India in 1498, indigo began to reach Europe through the direct oceanic route as well. In the late Sixteenth Century, the Portuguese Estado da India exported large quantities of indigo to Lisbon from where it was distributed to north-western Europe. By the turn of the Seventeenth Century, Indian indigo had gained popularity in Europe as a dyestuff and was rapidly replacing the indigenous woad dye. When the EIC began its commercial career in India in the 1600s, indigo quickly became its prime item of export. Between 1608 and 1618, it was by far the most valuable item of the Company’s Indian trade.[iv] While the EIC ships brought large quantities of indigo to London every year, the dye was also imported in substantial volumes by the Levant Company and by English merchants trading in the Levant. In the early Seventeenth Century, indigo imports through the latter channel adversely affected the EIC’s prospects of sale and profits in London. This was so much so that, to undercut Levant trade, the Court of Directors, sometimes had to keep selling prices artificially low or hold back the stocks until the dyeing season.[v] Soon, however, the Company overcame this challenge and exerted its monopoly over the indigo trade between India and Britain, possibly because the Company had access to those villages in Agra and Gujarat where good quality indigo was produced. This enabled EIC officials in India to purchase indigo of the desired quality from primary producers or local intermediary merchants. The merchants of the Levant Company bought indigo at the major commercial marts in the Red Sea or the eastern Mediterranean, and almost entirely depended on merchants for the quantity and quality. This gave them less freedom to choose and, often, they had to take whatever was available in the market at whatever price. The EIC, on the other hand, could lay its hands on the best product through advance buying, with the help of brokers and indigo experts. Consequently, the Company was able to import large quantities of good indigo from India in the first half of the Seventeenth Century. The Company, it seems, took full advantage of the opportunity presented by a large demand for indigo at home and large-scale production in India.
The European demand for indigo was on the rise, mainly because it was rapidly replacing indigenous woad, and also possibly because the new indigo colour became increasingly popular and induced manufacturers and finishers to dye their woolens/linens with indigo more than before. Apart from indigo’s potential to replace woad, the rising demand for it may also be attributed to the changing relative value of commodities and their profitability in England and Europe. K. N. Chaudhuri has rightly argued that by 1600, pepper, the most important of all Asian imports, had lost its relative value in Europe whereas indigo and Indian textiles (calicoes) had become more profitable.[vi] It is no surprise then that the profit-seeking European Companies would turn to indigo to cater to the extensive home demand. Between 1600 and 1650, therefore, indigo exports from India to Europe registered the highest growth.
In the Seventeenth Century, the EIC was primarily engaged in exporting Indian goods to Europe. Production and supply conditions in India and the nature of consumer demand in Europe induced the EIC to diversify its imports. With no or limited access to Asian spices, the EIC’s trading enterprise in India came to depend on the exports of indigo and textiles. Thus, from the establishment of its factory in Surat in 1608, the EIC invested in indigo and exported large quantities of it to England every year. The Company’s procurements consisted mainly of Bayana and Sarkhej indigo- the most sought-after varieties from India. In the following ten years, indigo was the most valuable merchandise the EIC exported from India.[vii] Between 1615 and 1620, the Company benefited from the availability of indigo at low prices due to lack of competition from the Portuguese. The EIC’s average annual export during this period approximated 300,000 lb.
A decade after the EIC began its commercial career in Gujarat (western India), it began to face competition from the VOC, which was equally keen to benefit from the indigo trade. By 1620, the EIC and VOC had become the two most prominent indigo buyers in India. Each company had some relative advantages over the other, and both came to face similar problems in their indigo trade. The indigo trade of both companies was equally susceptible to the limitations of consumer demand in Europe, and uncertainties of supplies in India. Their responses to such challenges also shared some common characteristics. The Companies knew very well that success (i.e., sales and profits) in the indigo trade depended on their ability to buy the highest quality indigo at the lowest price. Competition among buyers often raised the prices in India, and any large supplies of indigo from other sources could potentially depreciate its value in the European markets. The companies had to guard themselves against such potential or real threats, and find ways to avoid or circumvent them. During the next three decades, each competed with the other in the indigo markets of Bayana and Sarkhej. However, at times, the companies also collaborated if circumstances so required. The activities of each company in the indigo market, and their conduct in relation to one other, depended to a large extent on the nature of their commercial pursuits in India, as well as Anglo-Dutch political relations in Europe, and politico-economic developments in India and Europe.
Initially, the VOC purchased indigo on the Coromandel Coast. However, the dye was neither of the best quality nor as abundant as in some parts of north-western India. Once the Dutch had established their chief factory in Surat and subordinate factories in Ahmadabad and Agra, they began to procure Bayana and Sarkhej indigo on a large scale and export it to the Republic as shown in the chart below. [Insert Table?] In the 1620s and 1630s, indigo accounted for a fairly high proportion of the Company’s total value of exports from Surat.[viii] Their purchases of indigo were in response to the orders from Gentlemen XVII (Heeren XVII, the Company’s highest governing body in the Dutch Republic consisting of the seventeen representatives of the Amsterdam, Delft, Rotterdam, Middelburg, Hoorn, and Enkhuizen chambers) who found the highest-quality indigo among the most profitable Asian merchandise.[ix]
As a consequence of competition, EIC exports steadily declined. From about 300,000 lb per year during 1615-20, the average annual exports fell to about 262,000 lb during 1621-30, and 220,000 lb during 1631-40, and further to 180,000 lb during 1641-50. Thus, in thirty years, the EIC’s indigo exports from India declined by about 40 per cent. In contrast, the VOC’s average annual exports rose consistently during this period. Between 1621 and 1630, the VOC exported an average of about 260,000 pounds of indigo every year. Its average annual exports amounted to about 332,000 pounds during 1631-40 and 296,000 pounds during 1641-50. The total exports of the two companies rose from 522,000 lb per year during 1621-30 to 552,000 lb during 1631-40 and then slightly declined to 476,000 lb per year during 1641-50.[x] The exports by the EIC and VOC declined rapidly after 1650 and Indian indigo lost its prominence in the European Companies’ scheme of Asian trade. The acceleration in the growth of demand, therefore, did not last long. As a substitute for woad, indigo was in limited demand, and once the process of displacement was complete, demand stagnated.[xi]
A growth in textile production in Europe may have kept demand rising, but Indian indigo came to face a major challenge in European markets. Europe had discovered a new source of indigo in its trans-Atlantic colonies. During 1618-1648, when Europe was in the grip of the Thirty Years’ War, supplies of American indigo (from the West Indies and Central America) had been interrupted and the indigo from India dominated the markets of Europe.[xii] Once supplies from the American colonies resumed after the war and their volumes expanded, Indian indigo lost out to its American rivals. From the late 1640s, consequently, indigo exports from India rapidly declined. Although the EIC and the VOC exported some indigo intermittently to Europe, the average exports during that period remained quite low.
The overall European consumption of indigo possibly increased in the late Seventeenth Century, but the quality and price at which it would sell in Europe determined whether Indian or American indigo would dominate the market. These factors, in turn, depended upon the relative advantages in labour and technology employed in the respective production zones. The sale price of indigo in Europe also depended on the degree of favour and state support (subsidies and/or other forms of protection) it enjoyed in the home market. Distance and transportation costs were also important, and determined which variety would sell cheaply or expensively in Europe. The terms of trade leaned in favour of trans-Atlantic indigo, which happened to be less expensive than Indian indigo because of its lower production and transportation costs. Thus, after 1650, Indian indigo was only sporadically exported by the Companies until the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century when Indian indigo began to dominate the world market.
Knowledge transfer: brand naming and specialised indigo dyeing
With large-scale imports of Indian indigo into Europe and its popularity among merchants and dyers, a transfer of knowledge about the dye, its variety, quality, and colour and of the art of dyeing between India and Europe also occurred. By the early Seventeenth Century, Bayana and Sarkhej became the best-known and most sought-after varieties of indigo for their purity and high quality. Bayana indigo was believed to be the best, and it became known in Europe as ‘round’ indigo because of its globular shape. It was also known as ‘Agra indigo’ or ‘indigo Lauro’ (Lahore indigo) because it was first taken from Bayana/Agra to Lahore (in Punjab, present-day Pakistan) and from there to the Levant and further on to north-western Europe. The second best variety, produced in Sarkhej near Ahmadabad in Gujarat, was known as ‘flat’ indigo because it was made in the form of a cake. There were many other places where indigo was produced, such as Khurja, Hindaun, Kol (Aligarh) in the Agra tract and Jambusar, Bharuch, Cambay, and Dholka in the Ahmadabad tract. The dye from these places was judged to be inferior by European markets, and import of these varieties was not encouraged by the companies.[xiii]
EIC officials in India were instructed by their superiors in London to buy round Bayana indigo as much as possible, and to purchase flat Sarkhej indigo only when supplies of Bayana were insufficient.[xiv] At times, however, Sarkhej indigo was favoured for its low purchase prices, and lower costs of transportation from Ahmadabad to Surat than those of Bayana indigo that had to traverse a rather long caravan route between Agra and Surat. Furthermore, the sale price of Sarkhej indigo in Europe sometimes only differed marginally from those of Bayana indigo.[xv] Under such circumstances, the EIC imported more Sarkhej indigo and earned higher profits on its sale in Europe. For many years in the 1620s and 1630s, therefore, large proportions of the Company’s indigo imports from India to Europe comprised of the Sarkhej variety.
Until 1630, the EIC’s indigo procurements were overwhelmingly of the Sarkhej variety. For many years in the 1620s, the Company did not buy any Bayana indigo.[xvi] Available figures for some years between 1615 and 1630 show that Sarkhej indigo, on average, accounted for about two-thirds of the total annual indigo exports from India. Between 1633 and 1651, Sarkhej indigo still comprised of some 40 per cent of the total English exports of indigo from Gujarat. Similarly, the share of Sarkhej indigo in the VOC’s total annual indigo exports from Gujarat averaged about 70 per cent during 1624-25 and 1625-26 and about 77 per cent during 1637-40. Between 1621 and 1644, on average, the proportion of Sarkhej indigo to that of Bayana was almost equal (49 and 51 per cent respectively). Subsequently, the VOC’s procurements of indigo in India were confined to the Bayana variety.The Company only occasionally bought Sarkhej indigo, and then only in small quantities. Such labeling of indigo and strong preferences for Bayana and Sarkhej varieties by European merchants and dyers prompted a variety of responses from producers and merchants, including the companies. The responses ranged from product imitation by producers, to counterfeiting and selling of inferior varieties of Bayana indigo in European markets.