ABSTRACT
Gwyn Campbell, Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada, argues persuasively that Africa must be regarded as an integral component of the Indian Ocean World global economy.1 In making his case he vigorously distances himself from the dismissive attitude of Kirti Chaudhuri, who says relatively little about Africa in his seminal Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) and explicitly excludes it from his later Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). It is therefore most welcome that in a volume devoted to the place of the Indian Ocean in the making of early modern India, the editor has decided to include a chapter on Africa. In fact, Africa and India, especially western India, have a long tradition of ‘connected histories’, to use Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s felicitous construction.2 In this modest contribution I propose to focus on the presence of Africans in India and the trade in textiles from India to Africa during the period under consideration as a means to understand the contribution of Africans and Africa to the early modern history of India.
