Rival Business Networks at the East India Sea and Persian Gulf: The Competitive World of Thomas Bowrey Commercial Networks (1690-1713)
Rival Business Networks at the East India Sea and Persian Gulf: The Competitive World of Thomas Bowrey Commercial Networks (1690-1713)

Summary/Abstract: The late 17th and early 18th centuries witnessed intense commercial rivalry across the East India Sea and the Persian Gulf, where large chartered corporations such as the British East India Company (EIC) and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) competed alongside independent merchants. This study reconstructs the commercial and financial networks of Thomas Bowrey (1659– 1713), an English merchant whose decentralized business model operated across India, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire. Drawing on extensive archival records and applying social network analysis (SNA), it maps Bowrey’s dyadic ties to financiers, investors, and merchant partners, including George Jackson, Elias Dupuy, Thomas Hammond, Richard Tolson, and Sir Ambrose Crowley, revealing the brokerage roles and collaborative structures that sustained his ventures. The analysis highlights how Bowrey’s network employed jointownership schemes (e.g., the Mary Galley), maritime insurance, and crosscultural alliances to resist corporate monopolies. It situates these activities within the broader geopolitical competition among English, Dutch, French, and Ottoman interests in key port cities such as Surat, Basra, and Bandar Abbas, emphasizing both competitive and cooperative inter-imperial dynamics. The findings challenge EIC and VOC centric narratives by demonstrating that independent merchant networks possessed significant operational sophistication, strategic adaptability, and trans-imperial reach. Methodologically, the study illustrates how combining archival reconstruction with quantitative SNA reveals hidden brokerage roles and relational patterns in early modern trade. By foregrounding the agency of independent actors, it contributes to a more integrated understanding of early globalization, where private commercial networks coexisted with, and contested, the dominance of formal corporate enterprises.

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