African Ivory Research Network Seminar #14 «Mainland routes, mainland traders a…

Publicado em: African Ivory Research Network Seminar #14

«Mainland routes, mainland traders a…

African Ivory Research Network Seminar #14

«Mainland routes, mainland traders and middlemen: new perspectives on the ivory trade from the Swahili Coast ca.1600-1750»
🗣 Thomas Vernet-Habasque (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/IMAF – Institut des mondes africains/CH-ULisboa Visiting Researcher)

📍 FLUL (Room B112.B) & Online
📅 May 8, 2024
⏰ 6 pm (GMT+1)
💻 Zoom: https://shorturl.at/csCXZ

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The ivory trade was probably the most important trade from the Swahili Coast during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In particular it became vital to the Portuguese Empire. Ivory was mainly exported to Gujarat and north-western India, often through complex partnerships between Swahili, Portuguese and Gujarati traders and brokers. This communication aims to reverse the common Indian Ocean-centric perspectives on trade by focusing on the mainland actors of this trade. Research on the Portuguese archives highlights the very active role of some mainland, non-Muslim, communities in the ivory trade, particularly in Mombasa. Mainland groups hunt the elephants, but they also opened routes to the coast, others were middlemen between the coast and the hinterland, and all were key actors with which the powers of the coast had to negotiate. Far from being peripheral, dominated, actors of the Indian Ocean ivory trade, most mainland communities had the capacity to defend their interests and sometimes became central at key moments of early modern Swahili history.

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+Info https://chul.letras.ulisboa.pt/eventos-detalhe.php?p=1228