Page 40 - Zhangzhou Or Swatow The Collection of Zhangzhou Ware at the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden, Netherlands

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Zhangzhou Ware for the Muslim Kingdoms on Indonesia

The arrival of the Europeans around 1500 had created additional overseas markets for Chinese potters.
Because the Jingdezhen potters could no longer meet the increasing and insatiable demands, the kilns of
Zhangzhou, with its supplies of raw materials for ceramics production and the ease of transport by rivers,
seized the opportunity and became an important production centre for export wares.

Early Chinese records of trade to Southeast Asia go back to the late Song dynasty (960-1279). The Zhu Fanji (
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Description of Foreign People) by Zhao Rugua, compiled in the early 13 century, refers to shipment of
Chinese porcelain and silk to the Nanhai, the “Southern Sea”, how the archipelago was called, to barter for
pearls, tortoise shells and other items.

Early in the 16 century Islamic kingdoms were appearing throughout the Indonesian archipelago: Aceh in
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North Sumatra, Banten in West Java, and Macassar in South Sulawesi.

It was the kings and the nobility who played a role in determining trade, navigation and trade politics. They
were even owners of merchant ships. The important and lucrative trade in this period usually became a
monopoly of the state, which gave the Muslim elite the power to determine prices and trading conditions.

Trade centres were situated along the coast. Transit trade ships from China, India and the Middle East
transported Indonesian products – mainly agricultural products – to the north in exchange for Chinese wares,
mainly silk and ceramics, and to the west against textiles from India and Persia.

The merchants were Arab and Malaysian, but many were Chinese, often from the Chinese coastal provinces
Fujian and Guangdong, which lived in trading centres like Banten and Batavia in Chinese quarters. Chinese
merchants had settled on the Southeast Asian archipelago and became middlemen, a highly important role in
trade. Later, after the arrival of the Europeans, who were not permitted to enter China, these Chinese
merchants had to organize everything, from the orders to the kilns, the financing, checking and transport.

Chinese merchants were also visiting kampungs or villages to purchase direct from the farmers. They took with
them merchandise from their own country, which must have included ceramics. This might explain how
ceramics found their way to small inland villages.

Ref.: Stroeber 2013

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