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How did the Kachchhi traders build on the Gujarat Advantage? In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, during the dying days of the Mughal empire, merchants from Kachchh established a flourishing overseas trade. Building on a rich legacy of free trade in premodern times between the many ports of Gujarat and the Middle East, the Kachchhis dealt in pearls, dates, spices and ivory with the faraway lands of Muscat and Zanzibar. The Kachchhi merchants behaved ...
Drawing on archival sources, The Call of the Sea examines the significant role played by Kachchhi traders in connecting Muscat and Zanzibar to the thriving emporiums of Bombay and Mandvi. It provides an insight into the business environment and sophisticated sea-trade network in the western Indian Ocean that existed in the nineteenth century. Kachchhi entrepreneurs carried on a flourishing trade in ivory and cloves, among other products. They also acted as ...