Shallow Waters, Rising Tide

Book excerpt: In the historiography of Southeast Asia of the early modern period maritime trade has always been an important topic. A good opportunity for learning more about early modern shipping and trade is by making use of the few surviving harbourmasters' registrations of private traffic in fifteen major ports in Java around the year 1775. In this book these records, registering more than 20,000 ship movements, are analysed and interpreted in their broader context. The traffic in the shallow waters along the coast of Java appears to have experienced a rising tide of Dutch presence.