Ottoman shipping in the Indian Ocean, circa 1650–1900

O'SULLIVAN, Michael

doi:10.1017/S0020743825100809

Ottoman shipping in the Indian Ocean, circa 1650–1900

dc.contributor.author	O'SULLIVAN, Michael
dc.date.accessioned	2025-07-31T13:31:57Z
dc.date.available	2025-07-31T13:31:57Z
dc.date.issued	2025
dc.description	Published online: 30 July 2025
dc.description.abstract	This article examines the subject of Ottoman shipping in the Indian Ocean in the two and a half centuries after 1650. With reference to both Ottoman and European sources, it first grapples with the empirical problems involved in studying the subject. It then explores how a combination of trade dynamics in the Gulf and the economic preferences of both Ottoman state and private actors attenuated the expansion of Ottoman shipping. Taken together, these factors confirm that the comparative dearth of Ottoman vessels in the Indian Ocean trade was a product of geopolitical and ecological contingency rather than entrepreneurial neglect or state aversion. Even so, as shown by two case studies, Ottoman subjects of one type or another were found in ports from Surat to Batavia at various moments before 1800. The analysis then turns to later nineteenth-century attempts by Ottoman state actors to augment Ottoman shipping. These efforts were inhibited by the contrasting incentives of private Ottoman seafarers, the dominance of European and Indian ships in the empire’s trade with India, the dislocation of nominal Ottoman territories in the Gulf, and the political economy of the Ottoman Gulf itself. Despite the fact that state-sponsored shipping came to grief, the presence of Ottoman ships in the Indian Ocean invites reflections on the highly mutable character of Ottoman identity and sovereignty, as well as the empire’s relative position in the wider commercial world of the Indian Ocean, across these centuries.
dc.description.sponsorship	This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - CUP Transformative Agreement (2023-2025)
dc.identifier.citation	International journal of Middle East studies, 2025, OnlineFirst
dc.identifier.doi	10.1017/S0020743825100809
dc.identifier.issn	1471-6380
dc.identifier.issn	0020-7438
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1814/93078
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher	Cambridge University Press
dc.relation.ispartof	International journal of Middle East studies
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights.license	Attribution 4.0 International	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject	Basra
dc.subject	Indian Ocean
dc.subject	Ottoman Empire
dc.subject	Shipping
dc.title	Ottoman shipping in the Indian Ocean, circa 1650–1900
dc.type	Article
dspace.entity.type	Publication
person.identifier.other	48327
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