ABSTRACT
It is widely accepted that regional studies of industry in seventeenth and eighteenth century India are essential for the development of a pre-colonial economic history. To date such regional studies have concentrated on trade rather than industry.1 This may be due to the large size of the geographic units chosen for study. Studies of the Malabar Coast, Coromandel, Bengal or Gujarat offer geographic and economic coherence as well as follow divisions within the important Dutch and English factory records, yet these regions are too diverse and extensive for the close examination of the abundant records available in the late seventeenth century. In an attempt to get closer to the information on industry, always partial and scattered, this study considers only a portion of the Coromandel Coast, the Godavari and Krishna deltas of northern Coromandel. European factory records for northern Coromandel in the late seventeenth century are abundant. Moreover, they contain useful references to industry, particularly the Dutch records. In this period the Dutch were seeking ways to gain control over their suppliers, the brokers, and therefore took time to study something of the relationship of the broker to the weaver.
