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Home > JOURNAL > Vol. 10 (2021) > Number 1

 

Abstract

The rise of Penang as a bustling regional entrepot and prosperous business centre in the 19th century was not solely attributed to the British magic formula — free trade and free port policies. It was more the result of a web of mercantile networks emanating from a group of merchant families who had made Penang as their base that linked the island not only to its surrounding states but also to India and China. In other words, Penang profited from a matrix of intra- and inter-regional connections. Much scholarly attention has focused on the networks linking Penang with its adjacent states in the Straits of Melaka and China rather than with the littoral states of the eastern Indian Ocean. This study will redress this imbalance by recovering the networks connecting Penang with the eastern Indian Ocean through a cluster of Hokkien mercantile families, namely the Gan, the Lim, the Lee, the Khoo, and the Cheah families. It is incorrect to think that these Chinese mercantile families only spun networks to Chinese maritime world of commerce and migration. Their networks extending to the eastern Indian Ocean, particularly Bay of Bengal were equally extensive and important. More interestingly, they were closely intertwined with the prominent Armenian and Merican families of Penang, who had long and established links with Calcutta, Madras, Colombo, Rangoon, and Moulmein. To illustrate how the Chinese mercantile families’ networks reached out to the eastern Indian Ocean, I will examine four significant linkages — maritime trade (shipping and flow of commodities such as areca nuts, piece goods, pepper, coconut, and rice), inter-marriages, business partnership, and education. By expounding these four linkages, I argue, the Chinese networks of hybridity and fluidity rather than essentialist homogeneity transcended political and geographical boundaries and linked Penang and the eastern Indian Ocean together to form one of the most vibrant geo-economic regions in Asia.

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