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The Trading Queens Indian Ocean World, c. 1350–1850
| An outstanding feature of the early modern Indian Ocean world is the large number of ruling queens of maritime trading states. Early European, as well as some Arab and Chinese, travellers noted a great number of queens who ruled in their own name over city states on the Swahili coast, in Madagascar, in the Comoros, in several south Indian polities, in the Maldives and in the Malay archipelago. Although long well-known to area specialists, the phenomenon has not been touched upon but briefly in the literature. Based on a systematic and comprehensive survey of all known cases of ruling queens in the Indian Ocean world between c. 1350 and 1850, the paper explores, comparatively and with the aim of developing a theoretical understanding of the phenomenon, the social, economic, political, cultural and religious conditions that were favourable or not, as it were, to female rule. In particular, the link between, on the one hand, the maritime polities’ internal (gendered) social and political organisation and, on the other hand, their involvement in long-distance trade is explored. It is argued that the trading economy created opportunities for women, particularly elite women, to amass personal wealth, status and influence and, relatively frequently, to attain the highest formal position of political authority. The spread of world religions, including Islam and Christianity, and the militarization of the Indian Ocean in the wake of the European expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, affected the societies in question in fundamental ways, bringing about social, economic and political decline and a reinforcement of patriarchal structures of power. These processes tended to decrease the opportunities for women to exercise political power as well as to diminish their social and economic independence and status in general. Finally, the actual power and influence wielded by the ruling queens is considered, and the general assumption that they were mere figureheads in the hands of their husbands, clan elders or merchant-aristocrat oligarchies is challenged.
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