Sugar in eastern India: Commercial agriculture and the Indian Ocean trade,c. 1600–1800

Abstract

Eastern India, particularly Bengal and to some extent northeast Andhra Pradesh, was a major hub in the Indian Ocean sugar trade. The fertile and well-watered areas of this vast region were able to meet the growing demand for sugar in the intra-Asian trade. Although sugar exports from Bengal began to decline in the second half of the eighteenth century, it continued to be consumed both locally and regionally. Little is known about the role of eastern India in the early modern regional and overseas sugar trade. This article makes a modest contribution to the region’s experience of commercial agriculture by describing sugarcane cultivation, sugar production and trade. It explains why the sugar export trade became marginal and how regional consumption remained resilient in the late eighteenth century. It sheds light on the region’s participation in intra-Asian trade, sugarcane cultivation and sugar production practices using data from the Dutch East India Company archives and other early colonial documents.