Requests from the indies. Asian agency in the VOC’s currency supply to eighteenth-century Java

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the chain of demand for cash from Asia to the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It shows that the Javanese’s currency preferences were visible in the exports from Europe. The growing Dutch involvement in Javanese society from the 1680s increased and transformed the composition of the currencies requested from the Dutch Republic, towards more smaller denomination coins. The paper also demonstrates that with regard to the money supply, considerations of state prevailed over purely business interests. The limitations to the Dutch power forced them to adjust to the local power holders their currency preferences.