English trade in Celebes, 1613–1667
D.K. Bassett’s 1958 article reconstructs the fifty-four-year history of the English East India Company’s factory at Macassar, Celebes, drawing primarily on the India Office records in London to supplement the well-established Dutch historiography of the period. The overarching argument is that the English at Macassar were the principal instigators of the clove-smuggling trade that undermined the Dutch monopoly in the Spice Islands, but that their commercial influence was always secondary to that of the Portuguese and was ultimately destroyed when the Dutch conquered the sultanate in 1667.
Summary
The English factory at Macassar was opened by John Jourdain in July 1613, initially conceived as a refitting and supply station for ships sailing from Bantam to the Spice Islands (p. 1). Its first decade was unremarkable: the factors struggled to sell Indian cloth against established Portuguese and Chinese competitors, and the port’s strategic value lay mainly in its rice and timber (pp. 1–2). The factory’s significance transformed after the Amboyna Massacre of 1623 and the subsequent withdrawal of all English settlements from the Moluccas and Bandas. By 1624, Macassar was one of only three English trading posts remaining in eastern Asia, and it became the Company’s principal source of cloves, which were smuggled in by Malay and Javanese nakhodas from Ceram and the Amboyna quarter (p. 2). The trade reached its zenith in the mid-1630s: the fleet of January 1636 carried nearly 300,000 lbs of cloves to England, and Brouwer’s own correspondence admitted that 600,000 lbs had entered Macassar in 1635 alone, against only 161,337 lbs reaching Batavia (pp. 6–7).
The Dutch treaty of June 1637, which reopened a seasonal Dutch factory at Macassar, marked the beginning of the end for the English clove trade. The decisive blow came in 1643, when the Dutch governor Anthony Caen crushed the Ambonese rebellion led by kimelaha Luhu, who was beheaded on 17 June (N.S.) (p. 11). Dutch control of the Amboyna quarter became complete, and the quantity of cloves brought to Batavia that year reached 869,000 lbs (p. 11). English clove exports from Macassar collapsed almost overnight; the cost price of cloves at Macassar rose by over 125% in two years, and the London market, which had seen prices fall to 3s. 9d. per lb. in 1643 due to oversupply, saw them recover to 8s. 2d. by 1653 as the supply dried up (pp. 11–12).
After 1643, the English factors at Macassar pivoted to tortoise shell, sandalwood, benzoin, and precious metals as return cargoes, while their primary commercial activity became the sale of Indian cloth in an increasingly saturated market (pp. 17–22). The Portuguese, particularly Francisco Viera de Figueiredo, remained the dominant commercial force in the port, and the English were never able to displace them. The Dutch attack of May 1660, which destroyed the Portuguese fleet in the roadstead and forced the expulsion of the Portuguese community, removed the sultanate’s main commercial pillar and set the stage for the final Dutch conquest under Cornelis Speelman in November 1667 (pp. 29–35). The Treaty of Bongaya excluded all non-Dutch Europeans from Macassar, and the English factory’s merchandise, valued at f. 17,230, was shipped to Batavia (p. 35).
Key Findings
- The English factory at Macassar was opened by John Jourdain in July 1613 and served initially as a supply station for rice, arrack, and timber for ships bound for the Spice Islands; its first trading season was a commercial failure as Portuguese private traders from Malacca undercut English cloth prices (pp. 1–2).
- In the mid-1630s, the English were the principal instigators of the clove-smuggling trade from Macassar; the fleet of January 1636 carried approximately 300,000 lbs of cloves to England, and Brouwer’s correspondence confirmed that 600,000 lbs of cloves entered Macassar in 1635 against only 161,337 lbs reaching Batavia (pp. 6–7).
- The Dutch crushing of the Ambonese rebellion in 1643 (kimelaha Luhu beheaded 17 June N.S.) ended the English clove trade at Macassar; Dutch-controlled Amboyna produced 869,000 lbs of cloves that year, while English exports from Macassar fell to negligible quantities (pp. 11–12).
- London clove prices, which had fallen to 3s. 9d. per lb. in 1643 due to English oversupply, recovered to 8s. 2d. by December 1653 as the Dutch monopoly took full effect; after 1660, annual sales never exceeded a couple of hogsheads (pp. 12, 17).
- After 1643, the English shifted to tortoise shell, sandalwood, benzoin, and precious metals (gold mass, Spanish reals of eight) as return cargoes; the Macassar mass was debased in 1655, causing a currency crisis that was resolved by the introduction of the kopang in late 1657 (pp. 22–27).
- The Dutch conquest of Macassar in November 1667 ended the English presence; the factory’s merchandise was valued at f. 17,230 and shipped to Batavia, and the Treaty of Bongaya excluded all non-Dutch Europeans from the port (p. 35).
Conclusion
Bassett’s definitive takeaway is that the English at Macassar, while undeniably the chief agents of the spice-smuggling trade that frustrated the Dutch monopoly for two decades, were never a decisive political force in the sultanate and were always commercially subordinate to the Portuguese. Their factory was a victim of the broader Anglo-Dutch rivalry in the East Indies, and its demise in 1667 was the inevitable consequence of the Dutch Company’s superior military resources and its determination to convert Macassar into a monopoly port like those it had already established elsewhere in the archipelago.
Context
- The article draws on the Original Correspondence Series and Factory Records (Java) in the India Office Library, London, which had not previously been systematically exploited for the Macassar period, making this the first comprehensive English-source study to counterbalance the Dutch historiography of Tiele, Heeres, and Stapel (p. 1).
- The publication includes a map of the Eastern Archipelago (95°–135° E) and a reproduction from the secret atlas of the Dutch East India Company (c. 1638) showing the English factory and Danish factory in the northern suburb of Macassar (pp. 14–17, 34).