Merchant Empires

The Age of Merchant Empires started with the implementation of the Cape Route in 1498 and ended in 1874 with the extinction of the English East India Company. Europeans engaged in the business pursued trade (therefore merchant) and maintained their overseas possessions by force (therefore empires), but population density and established state hierarchies in Asia prevented them from engaging in full-fledged colonialism from the outset. By settling trade outposts in port cities around the Indian Ocean and the Far East, Europeans acquired the necessary network for the supply of a continuous stream of spices, and other Asian goods, to be loaded on ships sailing to Europe. Maintaining an empire required a steady supply of Eastern products implying necessarily the availability of capital and the development of capable shipping technology. But the longevity of merchant empires also depended on a sophisticated administration of trade and personnel in Asia and the defense of trade interests. These multi-stranded enterprises were controlled by merchants and/or kings, to whom the prerogative of international trade belonged in early modern Europe. Organizational control had considerable implications on the way merchant empires were run as well as their long-term commercial success. The Asian territorial expansion that some merchant empires pursued reached colonial proportions even before the official start of colonialism in Asia when the administration of overseas territories was formally assumed by governments in Europe.