1
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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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 162130, 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
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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,
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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
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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.
Large demand for both types of indigo and intense competition among buyers,
especially between the EIC and VOC, often rendered indigo scarce and expensive in India, to
the extent that the companies sometimes found it difficult to meet orders from home.xvii At
times, the competition induced local rulers and state officials to monopolize indigo. This also
presented producers and local merchants with opportunities to benefit from the indigo trade.
They were tempted to produce more, even if that meant sacrificing the quality and purity. At
times, they even resorted to deceitful activities like product imitation and adulteration.
Such was the nature of the indigo market in which the EIC had to carry out its
businesses. How did the Company respond to these challenges? It is in the process of
articulating responses to them that one can see the impact of the indigo trade on European
commercial enterprise in India on the one hand, and on the market economic relationships in
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Britain and Europe on the other. Undoubtedly, Indigo trade was a major concern of the
Company. However, in securing it the Company had to be mindful of its relations with the
VOC and with rulers and chiefs in India, because these relationships had implications for the
Company’s commercial interests in India generally.
In Europe, indigo was one of the most profitable imports from India and, therefore,
central to the European companies’ schemes of Indian trade, at least in the first half of the
Seventeenth Century. There was a large domestic demand that the EIC was catering to. High
profitability prompted private European merchants to engage in a trade that was a monopoly
of the Company. Private indigo trade was carried out by some EIC officials and free
English/European merchants that undermined the Company’s exclusive trade privileges.
There were other additional challenges that the Company was confronted with at home in the
early Seventeenth Century. Those were the instances when the authority of the state was
invoked and state intervention in indigo business was solicited. A close scrutiny of this
challenge-response syndrome reveals how the indigo trade impacted upon market economic
relationships in London. However, let us first see how the EIC met the challenges in India.
Challenges and responses: buying indigo in a ‘seller’s market’
To obtain indigo of the desired quality and quantity, EIC officials in India had recourse to
advance-buying directly from producers, which meant advancing money to those
manufacturers who promised to deliver indigo to the lender. This, however, could not
guarantee that the producers would deliver indigo to the Company. Even after receiving
advances, the producers often sold their indigo to other buyers who offered higher prices. The
EIC officials knew very well that their large-scale purchases and the Anglo-Dutch
competition for the commodity induced indigo manufacturers and merchants to raise the
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prices and encouraged local governors to monopolise the indigo trade. They, therefore, often
tried not to disclose the quantities they intended to buy. The EIC also imposed a price-ceiling
that also, to some extent, constrained the demand-induced inflation. To avoid competition
and its ill effects, the EIC sometimes agreed to buy indigo jointly with the VOC and then
divide it.xviii The Dutch were also faced with similar challenges, and joint action worked in
their favour too. The VOC officials in Surat were, therefore, encouraged to cultivate a cordial
relationship with the English for the procurement of indigo and for defeating the monopoly of
trade imposed by local political authorities in Gujarat.xix In the short run, these measures
proved quite effective in keeping the indigo price within limits. However, collaborative
arrangements were not sustainable for long because competition was intense and commercial
logic required the companies to act contrarily.
In 1633, when the Mughal emperor brought the indigo trade under the imperial
monopoly, the EIC negotiated a contract with the VOC that stipulated measures to be jointly
undertaken in order to defeat the monopoly. The Companies signed a written agreement on
29 November 1633, each pledging not to buy any indigo without mutual knowledge and
consent and that neither would buy any quantity at higher prices than those specified in the
contract. Article 12 of the contract also stipulated that under no circumstances would either of
the companies allow its ships to freight any indigo belonging to local merchants to Persia.xx
This was a joint protest against the monopoly, and was intended to defeat Mughal ambitions
of controlling the indigo trade. In view of the widespread resentment and protest by
merchants and producers, the emperor withdrew the monopoly a year later.xxi It is interesting
to note that it was the Anglo-Dutch competition for indigo that initially prompted the
governor of Surat and the Emperor to bring indigo under imperial control. EIC officials in
Surat believed that the idea of an imperial monopoly had emerged out of a contract between
the VOC and the governor of Surat, whereby the VOC agreed to purchase all indigo in the
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country and thereby deprive the EIC of opportunities to get any.xxii More than any
commodity, it seems, indigo affected the EIC-VOC commercial relationship in western India
in the early Seventeenth Century.
Keeping purchase prices low was important, but to ensure that they obtained indigo of
the desired quality and purity was equally crucial for the companies. Knowing that producers
imitated products and adulterated indigo to deceive merchants, EIC officials had to be
attentive at all stages of business transaction. Those purchasing indigo for the Company were
expected to possess some knowledge about indigo and be able to determine if indigo was
pure or not. Knowledge of indigo reached Europe through the writings of early European
travellers and Company officials in India, and those interested in the commodity may have
benefited from this knowledge.xxiii Some Europeans had even obtained proficiency in
discerning the quality and purity of indigo and assisted the companies with indigo purchases
in India.xxiv There were certain procedures that indigo buyers carried out to determine the
quality of the dye. These were: burning a sample, because pure indigo left no residue after it
was completely burnt; breaking a piece with the fingers, because pure indigo was soft and
easily breakable; and putting it in water, as pure indigo would float whereas adulterated and
heavy indigo would sink quickly. Such procedures were not always performed, and
merchants had to be skilful enough to discern its quality by simply looking at the colour and
texture of the cakes/balls. Such skills and knowledge were transmitted to Europe through the
Company’s letters and correspondence, and also possibly through returning merchants and
officials. Merchants, grocers, and dyers from Europe needed such knowledge to judge the
quality of indigo before bidding for it or actually buying it.xxv
In London and other parts of Britain, dyers and finishers acquired skills to work with
indigo. Many of them specialised in dyeing with Indian indigo and were well-known for their
ability to judge its quality. In 1633, as we will see below, the EIC had expert indigo dyers
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conduct trials with samples from the Company’s Indian indigo and of counterfeit indigo made
in London from indigo dust. Grocers and shopkeepers too, it seems, were familiar with the
types and qualities of indigo imported from India as they sold these varieties in their stores.
Frequent complaints by merchants and dyers in Europe about the poor quality of indigo and
corrective measures that the Company recommended to its employees in India indicate the
diffusion of knowledge about indigo. Much of this knowledge, interestingly, was related to
deception and manipulation, and protective measures against them. Product imitation or
innovation, counterfeiting, and adulteration were forms of knowledge that producers,
merchants, and the companies acquired, controlled, and made use of to fulfil their economic
ambitions. Through these activities, producers and merchants in India actually took the
opportunities that the indigo trade presented to them. They took full advantage of the
competition among buyers and circumstances in which the EIC and the VOC conducted their
trade. In the 1630s, in response to a general European preference for round Bayana indigo,
the indigo manufacturers of Sarkhej began to imitate the product of Bayana by manufacturing
round indigo from green leaves. This method of production rendered indigo of better quality
than the flat indigo made of dry leaves. Consequently, the EIC and VOC purchased large
quantities of round Ahmadabad indigo for European markets. Consumers in Europe were so
fixed on brand name and the look of the product that merchants could deceive them by
selling this new variety as rich Bayana indigo.xxvi Like producers in India, the EIC and VOC
and other merchants in Europe missed no opportunity to benefit from the large demand for
indigo. Being the largest importer of indigo into Britain, the EIC was concerned about the
adverse effects of product imitation and counterfeiting on its sales and profits. Private
imports of indigo constituted another source of concern because they competed with the
Company’s indigo. The Company responded to these challenges by invoking political
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authority and asserting its trade privileges. It is to these contestations, which affected the
commercial relationship at the market place, that we now turn our attention.
Indigo market at home: competing networks of exchange and distribution
Although the EIC claimed exclusive rights to import indigo from India, the commodity also
entered the English markets through another channel.xxvii Notwithstanding the monopoly and
the prohibition against private imports of indigo, some Company officials succumbed to the
temptations of a lucrative indigo business and engaged in private trade, undermining the
commercial interests of their employers. The Company viewed this trade as illegal and a
violation of the Royal Proclamation that prohibited private trade in certain commodities.
Merchants knew the routes out, and conducted their private trade in such a way that it was
not always possible to detect. They had established their own exchange and distribution
networks which enabled them to dispose of their indigo quickly upon arrival at the port.
Interested buyers reportedly went on board ships returning from India and bought indigo
imported privately. In 1633, the Company discovered that 300 wt (about 33,600 lb) of indigo
was traded in this way at Dover.xxviii In 1643, about 40,000 lb of indigo was reportedly
imported privately into London on the Crispiana and Aleppo Merchant and another ship, the
London, also carried some indigo on board as private cargo.xxix At the time when the EIC’s
indigo enterprise was under the pressure of competition from American indigo, private
imports from India and its consequent adverse impact on prices, sales, and profits provoked
the Company to react.
The Court of Directors reproached officials in Surat for their inability to stop this
‘unlawful’ practice and suspected them of colluding with those on board ships in perpetrating
private trade. Despite repeated instructions from London, officials in Surat were unable to
15
prevent indigo being smuggled on board ships returning to England. They expressed their
shock and anger at the impudence of those who smuggled indigo on board ships undetected,
an activity that earned them disrepute and the criticism of their superiors in London.xxx EIC
officials in Surat contemplated measures to stop this practice that included ‘fixing a public
inhibition upon the ships mainmasts, private admonitions to the masters, and keeping a strict
watch to prevent the goods being carried aboard’.xxxi In England, the Court of Directors
resolved to initiate legal proceedings against those suspected of privately importing indigo
into the country. In 1633, it was reported to them that 60 bales of indigo were imported on
the EIC ship, the James, before being secretly conveyed out of the ship and sent in carts from
Dover to a Spanish merchant, Mr. Oxwick.xxxii The directors suspected that the indigo in
question belonged to the Earl of Benbiyk [Benwick?]. An inquiry followed and Mr. Oxwick
was interrogated about the people involved in this private enterprise. We do not know the
outcome, but the initial proceedings reveal two important aspects of private trade. First, it
reveals that private trade was not an isolated act of individuals who smuggled indigo onboard
ships and sold it at home, but was sustained by a network of people that included EIC
servants in India, merchants and men of substance and with political clout in England.
Second, the proceedings reveal that this made it difficult for the Company to deal effectively
with private trade.
In the second half of the Seventeenth Century, even though the EIC’s indigo imports
from India had substantially declined, private trade continued to bother the authorities in
India and London. In the 1670s, they imposed a penalty on private imports of indigo into
London. A fine of 18d per lb and 12d per lb was imposed respectively on all Bayana and
Sarkhej indigo imported in Company ships and brought into its warehouses.xxxiii By the last
quarter of the Century, the EIC’s trade monopoly had come under severe assault from several
groups of British entrepreneurs aspiring to share the commercial privileges and profits in
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Anglo-Indian trade. The Company tried hard to preserve its trade monopoly. In 1681, it even
got a Royal Proclamation issued by the King that prohibited all private trade in commodities
whose imports into England were a monopoly of the EIC and subjected all private traders to
punitive action.xxxiv The so-called interlopers carried out frequent commercial ventures in the
East and even established the New Company in 1698 that traded in Asia as the EIC’s rival
until the two merged in1708.xxxv
In the early 1630s, the EIC faced another challenge in the home market. The directors
of the Company discovered in 1633 that much ‘counterfeit’ and ‘false’ flat indigo was made in
London and put on the market as pure Indian indigo.xxxvi To apprehend its adverse effects on
the Company’s indigo sales in London, the court of directors carried out an investigation. It
was found out that attempts to make counterfeit indigo had been made earlier but restrictions
had been imposed through an act of counsel. However, the practice continued and those
involved in it produced indigo so good in colour and texture that it became undistinguishable
from the real flat indigo imported from India. The court of committees noted that, ‘the parties
that nowe make this fflatt indico are growne to that excellent art and cuning as neither by the
coullor nor yet by the breaking of the indico the falcity can bee decerned from that which is
reall and good but onely in the use and spending of the same.’xxxvii
William Bolton, a grocer of London, had learnt the art of separating indigo dust from
sand and converting it into fine flat indigo. He had also acquired the knowledge and skills to
converting hard and heavy ‘rich’ indigo into good flat and easy-to-use indigo by soaking and
grinding it. Upon his request and for an annual payment of 40 marks, a patent was granted to
him by the government for a period of fourteen years, which allowed him to put his skills into
practice and convert indigo dust and ‘rich’ indigo into flat indigo as good in quality as the
original, and also to export it to other countries in Europe.xxxviii It is not clear how William
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Bolton acquired these skills or whether the knowledge was transmitted from India. It may,
however, be noted that indigo dyers in India knew the process of removing impurities by
soaking and grinding indigo in water and then drying the pulp after it had been separated
from sand or other materials mixed with it.xxxix Regardless of where the knowledge or
inspiration came from, the new enterprise of William Bolton was certainly perceived by the
EIC as a threat to its indigo trade. The Company, consequently, reacted to it and
contemplated measures to stop the production and sale of counterfeit indigo.
The directors also discovered that some persons of ‘rank’ and ‘quality’ were involved
in this enterprise.xl They were, therefore, reluctant to launch a public protest against this
practice as that would have harmed the nobility involved in this business and damaged the
latter’s reputation. On the Company’s initiative, trials with the Company’s and William
Bolton’s indigo were made by some skillful and expert dyers in London to determine their
respective quality and purity and to verify the falsity of counterfeit indigo. The matter was
then taken to the government, and attempts were made to secure a Royal Proclamation that
would prohibit the production and sale of counterfeit indigo in England. Mr. Bolton tried to
defend his patent by arguing that, with the Company’s support, he would work towards
preventing others from making false indigo.xli He also got two declarations from other
grocers and dyers issued in favour of his indigo. But the directors were not convinced with
Mr. Bolton’s arguments, and insisted that the patent granted to Bolton be withdrawn and that
no-one should be allowed to make counterfeit indigo. We do not know the outcome of these
proceedings. The episode, nevertheless, clearly shows that the indigo trade generated new
forms of skills and knowledge, and also affected already complex commercial relations in
Europe.
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Conclusions
In the first half of the Seventeenth Century, several factors—such as large-scale indigo
production in India, growing demand for it in Europe, the Thirty Years’ War and suspension
of indigo imports from Europe’s transatlantic colonies--combined to create conditions in
which indigo trade between India and Europe would flourish. The English and the Dutch East
India Companies benefitted from this commercial opportunity. Large imports of indigo from
India impacted upon the indigo markets in England in various ways, and affected the
economic relationships in the marketplace. The indigo trade of the EIC induced competition
and private trade leading to competing networks and also, occasionally, disaffected market
relationships. Bayana indigo became a brand name in European markets and, although this
stimulated growth in production, trade, and consumption on the one hand, it also encouraged
imitation and innovation, counterfeiting the product, and deceitful activities by merchants and
the Companies in India and England on the other. Indigo therefore serves as window through
which to evaluate the impact of goods from India on market economic relationships in
Europe. The analysis presented in this chapter shows how the indigo trade contributed to the
transmission of knowledge between India and England, and how that knowledge was then
used by all those involved in the enterprise to carry out their entrepreneurial ambitions.
19
20
i
See for example, John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds., Consumption and the World of Goods (London:
Routledge, 1993); Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger, eds., Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires
and Delectable Goods, (London: Palgrave, 2003); Maxine Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century
Britain (New York: OUP, 2005).
ii
Beverly Lemire, Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660-1800 (Oxford:
OUP, 1991); Beverly Lemire, Dress, Culture and Commerce: The English Clothing Trade before the Factory,
1660-1800 (London: Macmillan, 1997); Giorgio Riello and Prasannan Parthasarathi, eds., The Spinning World:
A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200-1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Giorgio Riello and
Tirthankar Roy, eds., How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500-1850 (Leiden:
Brill, 2009).
iii
Jenny Balfour-Paul, Indigo (London: British Museum Press, 1998), Ch. 3. Robin J. H. Clark et.al. ‘Indigo,
Woad, and Tyrian Purple: Important Vat Dyes from Antiquity to the Present’, Endeavour, New Series, 17
(1993), pp. 192-3.
iv
Balfour-Paul, Indigo, p. 45.
v
As Chaudhuri has pointed out that imports from the Levant affected the Company’s indigo trade more than the
imports of indigo by the Portuguese. K. N. Chaudhuri, The English East India Company: The Study of an early
Joint-Stock Company, 1600-1640 (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1965), pp. 174-5; Balfour-Paul, Indigo, p. 47.
vi
Chaudhuri, The English East India Company, p. 21.
vii
Chaudhuri, The English East India Company, p. 176.
viii
Om Prakash (ed.), Dutch Factories in India, 1624-27: A Collection of Dutch East India Company
Documents Pertaining to India (hereafter DFI), (New Delhi: Manohar, 2007), pp. 119, 151-2, 155-6, 266-70.
ix
In 1617, indigo afforded the highest profit in Amsterdam. DFI 1617-1623, p. 45.
x
I have calculated these figures on the basis of the EIC’s and VOC’s annual purchases and exports from Gujarat
from the records of the respective companies. The export figures are not available for every year between 1615
and 1650.
xi
Chaudhuri, The English East India Company, pp. 176-7.
xii
Jonathan Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 177-8;
Jonathan Israel, Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World, 1606-1661 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 296,
432.
xiii
William Foster, English Factories in India 1618-21, Ahmadabad to Surat, 6 Oct. 1621, p. 291; EFI 1618-21,
Ahmadabad to Surat, 24 Oct. 1621, p. 310.
xiv
DFI 1624-27, pp. 52-3.
xv
EFI 1625-29, pp. 38, 63, 335.
xvi
DFI 1624-27, p. 64.
xvii
DFI 1624-27, Memorandum from Vapour at Agra to Batavia, 26 Oct. 1627, pp 342, 352; J.A. van der Chijs
(ed.), Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batvia vant passerende daer ter plaetse als over geheel NederlandtsIndia(’s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1899); 1637, pp. 270-1; Dag-Register 1644-45, p. 232.
xviii
DFI 1624-27, p. 64 DFI 1624-27,Surat to Batavia, 4 Dec. 1625, p. 184.
xix
DFI 1624-27, Batavia to Surat, 14 Aug. 1625, p. 169.
xx
National Archives, The Hague, VOC 1113, Contract ende Capitulatie op den handel van den indigo [Contract
and capitulation concerning the indigo trade], 1633, ff. 230 r-236r.
xxi
Bibliothique Nationale, Paris, Blochet Supplementary Persian 482, f. 98 a.
xxii
EFI 1634-35, pp. 7-8.
xxiii
See the accounts of William Finch and Edward Terry in William Foster, Early Travels in India, 1583-1619
(London: OUP, 1921); Francisco Pelsaert, De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indië, 1627:
Kroniek en Remonstrantie, eds., D. H. A. Kolff and H. W. van Santen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979),
pp. 255-65; Geleynssen de Jongh, De Remonstractie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh, ed., W. Caland
(s’Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1929).
21
xxiv
DFI 1617-23, pp. 31, 63, 130-31.
British Library (BL), Factory Records Surat, 84, Consultations, Surat, 17 May 1616, f. 33 b.
xxvi
EFI 1642-45, London to Surat, 27 Nov. 1643, p. 122.
xxvii
George Birdwood and William Foster, The First Letter Book of the East India Company, 1600-1619
(London: Bernard Quaritch, 1893), pp. 57-8; S. Arasaratnam, ‘Monopoly and Free Trade in Dutch-Asian
Commercial Policy: Debate and Controversy with the VOC’, in S. Arasaratnam, Maritime Trade, Society and
European Influence in Southern Asia, 1600-1800 (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1995), chapter VII. Indigo is
not listed among commodities that the EIC officials and seamen were allowed to import into Britain by the
Royal Proclamation issued in 1631. BL, A Porclamation for the better encouragement, and advancement of the
trade of the East India Companie, and for prevention of excesse of private trade, 1631.
xxviii
BL, Court Minutes, Court of Committees held on 6 Sept. 1633, p. 65.
xxix
EFI 1642-45, London to Surat, 27 Nov. 1643, pp. 123, 141.
xxx
EFI 1642-45, p. 202.
xxxi
EFI 1646-50, p. 78.
xxxii
Court Minutes, Court of Committees held on 20 Sept. 1633, p. 86.
xxxiii
Court Minutes, 1671-73, pp. 65, 91, 170-1.
xxxiv BL, A Proclamation for the restraining all his Majesties subjects but the East India Company, to trade
to the East Indies (London, 1681).
xxxv
Ian Bruce Watson, Foundation of Empire: English Private Trade in India, 1659-1760 (New Delhi: Vikas
Publishing House, 1980), 61-3.
xxxvi
Court Minutes, Court of Committees, 26 Feb. 1633, pp. 294-5.
xxxvii
Court Minutes, Court of Committees, 26 Feb. 1633, pp. 294-5.
xxxviii
National Archives, Kew, State Papers Office, 17/B/18, A Special Privilege granted to William Bolton, 2
July 1633.
xxxix
BL, Oriental and Islamic Collection, Khulasat-ul Mujarrebat, ff. 136b-137a.
xl
Court Minutes, Court of Committees, 28 Feb. 1633, p. 300.
xli
Court Minutes, Court of Committees, 1634, pp. 21-2.
xxv