Hello. I was wondering if there are any good sources (books, papers, talks, etc.) on Indo-Japanese history in the early modern and modern periods (1600 onwards). Specifically, I was interested in exploring whether there were any connections between Dutch trading settlements in India (Bengal, Coromandel, etc.) and those in Japan (Dejima in Nagasaki). It could be a comparative study or look at connections and networks between the two or anything else. Can be a social, economic, cultural, political history or anything else as well.
Please let me know if there's anything I could look at. Thanks!
This is a straightforward query, so I hope the mods won't mind me answering it concisely.
The Dutch East India Company, or VOC, grouped its overseas stations into a series of regions, of which India and Japan were two. The majority of the trade conducted flowed to and from Europe, and the majority of transactions were made by trading European silver for Asian commodities. However, the VOC did also preside over inter-regional trade and, while it was hardly substantial, there was some demand for Indian (and to a much greater extent, Chinese) goods in Japan, which the VOC satisfied as part of its overall trade with the Tokugawa shogunate.
Laver's recent book on gift-giving and diplomacy in Japan is by far your best resource for this aspect of the VOC's trade. He notes there was a fairly regular trade between the Dutch and Japan in colourfully dyed Indian fabrics, which were traded for copper. In addition, Laver points out that there was insatiable demand among Japanese elites for exotic gifts, comprising a wide range of novelties and curiosities, and some of these gifts were sourced from the VOC factories in India; the most exotic we have record of was an elephant.
How accessible the main sources on this trade are to you will depend on whether or not you read Dutch. I would suggest the following as offering a good start to further research:
Jaap S. Bruijn et al, Dutch-Asiatic shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries (3 vols, 1987-89)
Adam Clulow, The Company and the Shogun: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan (2016)
E.M. Jacobs, Koopman in Azië, De handel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie tijdens de 18e eeuw (2000)
Michael Laver, The Dutch East India Company in Early Modern Japan: Gift Giving and Diplomacy (2020)