An Anatomy of Commerce and Consumption: Opium and Merchants at Batavia over the Long Eighteenth Century
Date
2009
Authors
SOUZA, George Bryan
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Publisher
Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, The Australian National University
Access Statement
Open Access
Abstract
This essay considers the commerce and consumption of opium at Batavia (modern
Jakarta), on Java, and in the Indonesian Archipelago, from the later seventeenth to the early
nineteenth centuries. It is a preliminary examination of the lesser known history of those merchants
(Chinese and others) who made their livelihoods from purchasing bulk opium from the Dutch East
India Company (VOC) and re-distributing it commercially, and of the consumers who inhumed the
opium. It utilizes two valuable new sources: a 1697 stele from the Ci Ji temple in south China, and
Dutch debenture bonds (called obligatien) that recorded loans for the purchase of opium on credit
(held in the Indonesian National Archives). Together they allow an analysis that, for the first time, can
accurately identify Hokkien (and other) opium merchants and their closest commercial partners in
eighteenth-century Batavia.
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Source
Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies
Type
Journal article
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Publication
Access Statement
Open Access