ABSTRACT
The west coast of India and the east coast of Africa were linked through an exchange of cotton textiles for ivory. This trade was instrumental in the rise of Surat as a trading centre. Scholars have debated when the commercial centre of northwest India shifted from Surat to Bombay, with dates ranging from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century. This chapter argues that Surat remained an important commercial entrepôt well into the nineteenth century because indigenous patterns of trade and consumption of ivory were tenacious and not easily altered by British attempts to shift activity to Bombay.
