Page 130 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters

west coast of India (Goa, Area ), the Malabar Coast (Area .) It was part of the VOC’s mili- tary strategy at that time to confront the Portuguese in their own strongholds (Westera : ). Following , when both this strategy and the sea route to Asia had changed, a steep decline in visits to these places can be seen. It was only in the s, when the VOC started the yearly blockade of Goa and an operation to drive the Portuguese from Ceylon, that a sharp increase in the VOC presence in this region could again be seen. In this early period, Mauritius played a strategic role for the VOC. It served as an important rendezvous for homebound fleets, it produced ebony and it also reinforced the claim that the VOC monopoly included this part of the Indian Ocean. In this period, the Island was visited  times. Apart from the raids on the Portuguese strongholds in Mozambique in  and , most visits in this region were focused on finding a staging post for Asian-bound fleets. Most landfalls on the African coast, Madagascar and the Comores turned out to be unsuccessful. Once the offensive policy was abandoned and after the sea route to Asia was redirected to the southern Indian Ocean, Mauritius continued to be visited after  to take on refreshments and also cargoes of ebony-wood. Some unintended visits to Madagascar were made following shipwreck. These voyages are not included in the analysis of the development of the intra-Asia shipping network of the VOC. They are considered to belong to the outward or homeward bound voyages, as are the incidental landfalls on the western shores of Australia (in later peri- ods) and on some of the Great Ocean Islands. As a derivation of the early sea road to Asia over the northern part of the Indian Ocean, a couple of places were visited for trade on the coast of India. Textiles were purchased around Surat (the Area , the Gulf of Cambay in north-west India –  arrivals) and on the Coromandel Coast (the east-coast of India, Area  –  arrivals). From here the ships sailed to the Straits of Malacca (Area ) for military operations where their presence could also be combined with the purchasing of pepper. Extensive military actions were also undertaken in the Spice Islands in order to reinforce the Dutch position in this important market. At the end of this period the VOC had stabilised its position in the southeastern part of the Spice Islands – Ambon/Ceram, (Area ) and Banda (Area ) – though with some more problems with local inhabitants. They could now concen- trate on fighting the Spaniards in the northern part (Area  – the islands in the Molucca Sea, dominated by Ternate and Tidore) and the Philippines (Area ) in order to consolidate their monopoly in cloves. The period - As shown in Table -, the total amount of shipping in Asia grew in this period by % in ship movements and % in volume over the previous period. A number of noteworthy develop- ments were taking place. Between  and  one can see a significant increase in visits to destinations on Sumatra, as reflected in Table -. This relates to all the important pepper har- bours that were rarely if ever visited in the earlier period. For example, the southeast coast of Sumatra (region ), where Jambi and Palembang were the important harbours, shows  arri- vals, while in the pervious period only  visits were made. This shipping route came into ex- istence from , when director Coen tried to find a solution to the unreliability of Bantam’s rulers in applying the pepper and price policy. For that reason, he sent a consignment of textiles to Jambi on a Siamese junk with a Dutch merchant and ‘with a minimum of commotion and with silent drums’ (Colenbrander , --). Without delay the Dutch started to build a trading post although they still had to deal with some logistical problems related to the ship- ping: to reach Jambi they needed a special ship that could sail up river (see chapter ). The smaller harbours under the influence of Banda Aceh on the west coast of Sumatra (re- gion ) were visited  times. The  arrivals in the previous period were mostly incidental landfalls or a search for refreshments along the coast. After , West Sumatra became a reg- ular destination for the pepper trade. This was in line with the policy of the VOC to avoid Bantam and to collect pepper directly from the production areas since the prices in Bantam  Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters