A new region-based comparative global history emerged when Jones (1981) compared Europe with three Asian empires (China, Japan, and India for 1400-1800), thus, recent research has explored economic history without being Eurocentric (Sugihara, 2014). For example, in his book on the history of the Indian Ocean from the seventh to the eighteenth century, Chaudhuri (1986) proposed that early developments in Indian Ocean could be treated as a single unit of human and physical interaction, similar to the notion of Fernand Braudel’s Mediterranean. Chaudhuri argued that Indian Ocean trade, exchange of cultures, religions, and peoples provided an important connection from East Asia to East Africa. In the context of Indian Ocean trade, one of the interesting aspect is the existence of early and direct long distance trade between Middle East and China,which was later replaced by organized trade in shorter segments” based on local networks and port cities(Chaudhuri, p. 49). Chaudhuri proposed that this change was possible because of temporary settlements of merchants −Chinese, Indians and Arabs−at the ‘commercial emporiums’ in the Indian Ocean to take advantage of economic profits, political security, and facilities such as anchorage, loading and unloading and warehousing.
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature on economic history of Indian Ocean, with particular focus on remarkable features of cowrie trade, linking local trade routes to long-distance trade networks. This paper will also re-examine some of the published data on money cowries of the Maldives (hereafter MCM). Moreover, add value to the existing literature on cowrie trade by revisiting the production, supply and influence of cowrie. Paper will describe the contributing factors and extent to which MCM was able to influence regional and long distance international trade in Indian Ocean. In addition, paper present an explanation for the possible relationship between cowrie trade and Europeans entry and dominance in Indian Ocean.
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