Abstracts Category : Other

Interactions between the Dutch and local inhabitants in Nagasaki and Canton (1757-1840): Boatmen, Interpreters, and Local women

by HO WAI LEUNG

Before Tokugawa Bakufu collapsed in the 1868, the Dutch was the only European officially permitted by both Tokugawa Japan and Qing China to establish a trading post and settlement in their most important maritime trading centre: Nagasaki and Canton. Under a series of restrictions implemented by the local authority over maritime trade with foreign countries and interactions between the Europeans and local inhabitants, merely a little amount of local civilians had the opportunity to interact with the Dutch. There were both officially permitted and secretly conducted interactions between the Dutch and local inhabitants in the two cities. The aim of this paper is to explore these seemingly minor and unimportant interactions between the two parties, with three groups of local inhabitants in Nagasaki and Canton, namely boatmen, interpreters, and women being the main focus. In doing so, we will see how both the Dutch and local inhabitants in these two East Asian cities managed to fulfil their needs and benefit from each other under restrictions of the authority and the state power.Advisors/Committee Members: Gommans, Jos (advisor).