The Shipmasters of Insular Southeast Asia: Seafarers and Entrepreneurs

• In Event: Coastal and Maritime Dynamics of Southeast Asia, 5th - 19th Century

Abstract

Shipmasters played a crucial role in long distance exchange networks of Insular Southeast Asia. Between the 5th and the 18th century, their position is documented in local epigraphy, as well as in Malay, Chinese, Arabic and Indian textual sources under designations of various origins: mahānavika (Sanskrit), puhawang (Austronesian), nakhoda (Arabo-Persian). They were true entrepreneurs, who owned and skippered trading ships and often also invested in part of the cargo. In a region where the economy of a variety of polities was essentially based on long-distance maritime trade, their role and agency was therefore intimately associated with the state formation process. Alongside "sea merchants," with whom they were often associated, in the Malay World shipmasters belonged to a high status, non-noble class that formed a social group connecting local political power to networks of overseas relationships and exchange, the very foundation of the merchant economy of coastal polities.

Author

• Pierre-Yves Manguin, École française d’Extrême-Orient