Women and Economic Change: The Pepper Trade in Pre-Modern Southeast Asia

Author(s): Barbara Watson Andaya

Source: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 38, No. 2, Women's
History (1995), pp. 165-190
Published by: BRILL
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 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE:
THE PEPPER TRADE IN PRE-MODERN SOUTHEAST ASIA

BY

BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

(Department of Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa)

Abstract
Women in Southeast Asia are traditionally said to have occupied a "high status",
especially in comparison with China and India. As yet, however, little research has been
undertaken on the pre-modern period. This paper examines the development of the pepper
trade in Sumatra during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and explores the manner
In which this new cash crop affected the position of women. Prior to the Introduction of pep-
per, females dominated horticulture and local marketing. Initially pepper was incorporated
into household gardens, but increased production made its growing and marketing less easily
allied with domestic tasks. The arrival of Europeans accelerated the process whereby control
of pepper resources fell into male hands, both local and foreign. Declining prces meant pep-
per's popularity declined, but the Dutch and English East India Companies still tried to per-
suade local rulers to enforce cultivation. On the east coast of Sumatra the pepper areas were
far from coastal centres of control, and compulsion proved impossible. On the west coast,
however, the pepper districts were closer to English posts, and the changes brought about
by forced cultivation were therefore more far reaching. Women were particularly affected,
since Europeans saw plantation agriculture as a male preserve, with females occupying a
secondary position. Growing local resistance to pepper growing is normally attributed to the
low returns it offered from the mid seventeenth century onwards. As a case study, this paper
suggests that another element was the cultural disruption that European policies introduced,
and especially the effects on the traditional roles of women in the domestic economy

Introduction

Non-specialists sometimes forget that "Southeast Asia", a term first

employed dunng the Second World War, refers to a region that to-day
includes ten sovereign nations rather than a single geo-political entity'). Yet
despite its cultural variety, Southeast Asia-the "Southern Ocean" for the
Chinese, the "lands below the winds" for Indians and Arabs-has been
consistently perceived by outsiders as culturally separate from its larger
Asian neighbours, in part because of female prominence in "descent, ritual
matters, marketing and agriculture" 2). Indeed, in his survey of the pre-
modern period, Anthony Reid contends that the comparatively high status
of women in the social system is distinctively Southeast Asian3).

1) Keyes 1992, pp. 9-20.

2) Wolters 1982, p. 5; Reid, 1988, p. 6.
3) Reid 1988, p. 146; Reid, 1988a.

? E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1995 JESHO 38,2

166 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

While similar comments are also made about contemporary Southeast

Asia, feminist scholars in the social sciences have warned against
unqualified generalizations, pointing to the ways in which women's
"autonomy" and "freedom" may differ according to specific cultural
norms and socio-economic status4). The implications of these discussions,
however, are rarely apparent in historical studies on Southeast Asia, where
research on women has been extremely limited and has concentrated almost
exclusively on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the "high
status" of women in pre-modern times has become a truism in the
literature, there is an urgent need for this generalization to be tested by
more detailed work that compares different areas and traces shifts over time.
Research on other pre-industrial societies where females have enjoyed a
relatively favoured position has frequently concluded that women's
"status" is directly correlated with the degree of control they wield over
economic resources, and the value placed by the community on the work
they perform5). Certainly, the scattered glimpses of early Southeast Asia
that have survived do comment on the commercial independence of women,
and such sources are often cited as evidence of a "high status" which
prevailed through the entire region. The imperial Chinese envoy, Zhou
Daguan, who visited Cambodia in the late thirteenth century, was struck
by the fact that "the women. .take charge of trade", while a century later
another emissary recorded that in the country of Hsien-lo (Ayudhya, in
Thailand) most men, from the king down, entrusted "all trading transac-
tions, great and small" as well as other important decisions to their wives6).
And like earlier Chinese visitors, western European men in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries remarked on the participation of females in small
scale trade. In most areas, as in the Moluccas, "it is the women who
negotiate, do business, buy and sell" 7).
Throughout Southeast Asia women also played an important role in agri-
cultural production, a feature which sets the region apart from many other
societies where the introduction of grain crops, herding and ploughs saw
men dominating agriculture with women's tasks becoming secondary8).
The maintenance of large animal herds is not typical of Southeast Asia,
however, and the digging stick was much more widespread than the plough

4) See further Wolf 1992, pp. 55-56.

5) Estenck 1982, p. 1, Brown, 1970, 157, Blumberg, 1976, pp. 19-20; Howell 1986, p.
199
6) Chou 1967, p. 34, Mills, 1970, p. 104.
7) Galvio 1971, p. 75; see further Reid 1988a, p. 632.
8) Ehrenberg 1989, p. 81.
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 167

as an agricultural implement. Throughout much of the region the place of

rice as a staple was a further factor in maintaining the position of women.
In China it has been shown that women's labour is more significant in rice
areas than in those that produce wheat, and the same pattern was enhanced
in Southeast Asia because a low population meant female work was essential
for planting, weeding and harvesting In colonial Java, for example, both
irrigated and upland rice cultivation consistently required more work from
women than from men 9).
Nonetheless, the involvement of females in economic activities is not by
itself sufficient to demonstrate a distinct Southeast Asian pattern. Cross-
cultural comparisons, such as the classic study by Ester Boserup, suggest
that the economic role of women in Southeast Asia is not unique, and is
related historically to a pattern of "female farming" found in other societies
like those of North America and Africa'1). What does make the Southeast
Asian region rather distinctive is the interlinkage between the prominence
of females in marketing and agriculture and other aspects of the social and
cultural matrix that also advantage women, such as the widespread occur-
rence of bilateral descent, and the complementarity of male-female roles in
indigenous ritual. In contrast to the requirement for a dowry in much of
India, for example, marriage exchanges in Southeast Asia are generally
reciprocal or may entail greater expenditure from the groom's side. A
female child thus does not represent a greater financial burden for her
family than does a male child "). Furthermore, in Southeast Asia the
patriarchal views of the world religions were considerably modified by the
vitality of indigenous religious beliefs, with their emphasis on women's
participation12). When these economic and cultural factors are considered
together, it should not be surprising to find indications of female influence
reaching beyond the purely domestic sphere. Tenth-century Javanese
inscriptions, for instance, indicate that village women entered into con-
tracts, incurred debts, owned property; they also took an active part in
ceremonies connected with the granting of land for freehold domains.
Women could either inherit or acquire titles In their own right, and there
is evidence that they took a prominent part in village decision-making'3).
Modern scholarship on gender relations has established that women who

9) Davin, 1975, pp. 247-248; Stoler 1977/78, pp. 77-78; Locher-Scholten 1992, p. 94.
10) Boserup 1970, pp. 16-19
11) Errinngton1990, pp. 3-5.
12) For further discussion see Uno 1991, p. 30; Ta 1981, Andaya 1994.
13) Locher Scholten 1992, p. 83; van Setten van der Meer 1979, pp. 94-96; BarrettJones
1984, pp. 96-98.
168 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

retain control of their income are more likely to gain not merely economic
autonomy but personal confidence 14). Such conclusions have clear implica-
tions in discussing early Southeast Asian evidence, for the ease with which
women could end an association with one man and initiate another con-
sistently attracted attention from outside observers. Zhou Daguan's
remarks on Cambodia clearly indicate that he considered this society to be
very different from his own. "When a husband is called away on matters
of business they endure his absence for a while; but if he is gone as much
as ten days, the wife is apt to say, 'I am not a ghost; how can I be expected
to sleep alone?' "15) Similar observations, ranging from surprise to outright
distaste, form a recurring theme in descriptions of pre-modern Southeast
Asia. As an early Spanish observer remarked in the Philippines, "Mar-
riages last only so long as harmony prevails, for at the slightest cause in the
world they divorce one another" 16). Contemporary research has demon-
strated the tenacity of female autonomy in Southeast Asia, despite extensive
social transformations resulting from industrialization and urbanization. In
fact, such economic shifts sometimes seem to reinforce cultural elements
rather than changing them. Female factory workers in Java are thus more
independent than their East Asian counterparts, despite their meagre
earnings 17).
On the other hand, we should not assume that economic and cultural pat-
terns remain unchanged over time. In colonial Java, for instance, gender
divisions in regard to rice cultivation were not necessarily applied to other
crops like corn, peanuts and sugar, especially when these were grown
primarily for the market. Although female workers still had specific tasks,
commercial agriculture was dominated by male labourers18). In this regard
Southeast Asia appears to typify a pattern that has been well-documented
in numerous other societies. Nonetheless, we have yet to explore the effects
of changing economic forces on women's lives in earlier times, and here
Southeast Asia may well provide a variety of intriguing case studies. Given
that females did play an important role in local economies and were able to
control many of the resources they generated, it is relevant to ask how they
were affected by the expansion in world trade and the growing international
demand for Southeast Asian products. What happened when incoming
traders from other parts of Asia and from Europe brought with them

14) Blumberg 1991, p. 25.

15) Chou 1967, p. 25.
16) See further Reid 1988, pp. 152-153.
17) Wolf 1992, pp. 10, 254-258.
18) Locher Scholten 1992, p. 94.
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANCE 169

assumptions about gender and work that often conflicted with women's
established economic and cultural roles? How did the Introduction of new
crops where gender tasks were not dictated by custom affect women's posi-
tion in agriculture and the economy generally?
One of the major methodological problems m n mnvestigating such ques-
tions remains the dearth of sources, and one looks with envy at the rich
material available for those working on European societies"). Written
indigenous texts, largely emanating from the courts, are naturally
unconcerned with the kinds of questions raised by contemporary historians,
while European documents, whether memoirs, trading records, or mis-
sionary accounts, were all produced by white males whose knowledge of
women's lives was limited and whose perceptions were shaped by their own
cultural attitudes. Nonetheless, it may still be possible to push the existing
evidence harder, and to make greater use of the expanding theoretical and
comparative framework developed by scholars working in other areas20).
One area where the sources may be more responsive concerns the trade in
pepper, the first cash crop to be developed on any scale in Southeast Asia.
In examining the Dutch and English material relating to the pepper-
growing areas of Sumatra, this paper attempts an exploration of possible
ways in which women's lives were affected as they were caught up in an
ever-expanding world economy

Womenand the Introductzonof Pepper to Sumatra

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a plant native to India,

pzpernigrum(black pepper), became a major export from Southeast Asia. By
the end of the seventeenth century western Java, central Vietnam, southeast
Borneo and the Malay peninsula had all became known as pepper-
producers, but internationally the area most well-known for its pepper
exports was Sumatra21). First introduced along the northeast coast around
1450, piper nigrum had gradually spread down the central spine to the
southern lowlands, and when the first Dutch vessels passed through the
Sunda Straits in 1596 they could see Sumatran pepper vines "climbing like
hops on high thick canes. Growing in rows like junlper-berries" 22). It was
the hope of tapping this expanding source of pepper that led the Dutch East

19) See, for example, Duby and Perrot 1992; Wiesner 1993
20) Wolf 1992, p. 55; Locher-Scholten 1992, pp. 3-4.
21) Andaya 1993, p. 45.
22) Andaya, 1993, p. 47
170 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

ACEH

Melaka
JOHOR

REPaJNGPalem

PALEAMBA

Bengkulen
REJANmban
PASEMAH

SUMATRA
SUMATRALAMPUNG
0 100 200 300 400 km
, ,,,, o
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 171

India Company to establish posts in southeast Sumatra (Jambi in 1615 and

Palembang in 1662) and after 1682 to attempt to control the pepper of Lam-
pung through its vassal Banten. The English East India Company also
maintained a post in Jambi between 1615 and 1679, and in 1685, after their
exclusion from Banten, set up a residency at Bengkulen, on the southwest
coast, specifically to purchase pepper
European interest testifies to the extent to which this relatively new crop
had come to be cultivated in Sumatra, which in turn indicates more than
simply climatic suitability. The popularity of ptper nigrum suggests that
initially it was easily incorporated into traditional cultivation patterns best
described as horticultural rather than agricultural, in which women's work
was vital. Prior to the introduction of pepper, the primary occupation of
most inland communities was the cultivation of upland or dry rice. From
a stable village base, family groups worked plots in forest clearings which
could be some distance away, usually necessitating the construction of small
temporary houses during planting or harvesting These plots were con-
tinued for a few years, and then the site was abandoned as soil nutrition was
depleted. After a period of time, when the forest cover had returned, the
plot might again be worked. In this agricultural cycle the female contribu-
tion was critical because Sumatran rice cultivation was organized around
the family rather than the village, and families were generally small. Men
were responsible for clearing the jungle and felling the trees, but the tasks
of women and children stretched over a longer period, since they planted
the rice itself, tended the young seedlings, and were essential in harvesting
and threshing Statistics from this early period are obviously lacking, but it
is worth noting that colonial officials in Java estimated that women devoted
roughly twice as much time as men to dry-rice cultivation23). And though
Europeans were exasperated by the absence of tools and draught animals
in these dry rice-growing communities, it is a common feature of societies
where agriculture is still largely in female hands24). Even more importantly,
in Sumatra as elsewhere in the region rice was imbued with a particular
cultural attachment that made its cultivation vital. If the rice crop failed
people believed they would starve, even when sago, yams and other root
vegetables were available. A golden rice plant was even said to have formed
part of Palembang's original regalia25).
A second important crop grown in combination with rice was cotton.

23) Marsden 1811, p. 71, Locher-Scholten 1992, p. 95.

24) Ehrenberg 1989, p. 81, Boserup 1970, p. 35.
25) Andaya 1993, p. 66.
172 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

While lacking the emotional associations of rice, it remained very much in

the female economic realm, being grown primarilyfor domestic use.
Women planted and tended the young bushes, harvested the pods when
ripe, spun the thread, and dyed it with vegetable dyes. They then wove both
the rough black pieces used for ordinary wear, and the more elaborately
designed cloth required for ritual exchanges. In some areas cotton textiles
were supplemented by bark cloth for daily use, but the production of this
too was solely a female affair26). Any surplus women obtained from their
gardens, including vegetables and fruit, was sold or exchanged in local
markets, providing them with a small but steady income that could be used
to support household activities. Indeed, traditional pantun (rhyming poems)
collected in central Sumatra in later times make plain that men considered
a desirable wife to be also a successful trader27).
A feature of local marketing and garden agriculture is that both are
eminently compatible with child-rearing Men may have been responsible
for activities which involved greater physical strength or long separations
from the family, but it was women who were the anchor of the domestic
economy. As in most pre-industrial societies the family thus formed an
economic unit where the activities of the wife were as important as those of
the husband. This notion of a partnership is well expressed by a women in
a seventeenth-century Malay folktale who asks that she be allowed to
accompany her husband on a trading expedition, since "we women are like
shoes: without shoes, the foot is ruined" 28). However, the contribution of
women was measured in more than simply economic terms. The parallels
between child-bearing and young plants sprouting from the earth-womb
infused the agricultural process with a sexual dimension that made female
participation integral to fertility rituals. And while the cloth that women
wove was certainly used for bedding and clothing, it was even more
necessary for ritual exchanges like those held during ceremonies connected
with birth, marriage and death 29). A guaranteed access to rice and cloth was
critical not only for the family's economic welfare but for its spiritual well-
being as well.
Important implications follow from the above comments, because

26) Andaya 1989, pp. 29-30; Marsden 1811, p. 157

27) For instance, "Serampas ke Sungai Tenang/Ke Tebing Tinggi membeli padi/Idah
berkapas, beli benang/Mandang dipuji oleh laki." From Serampas to Sungal Tenang/To
Tebing Tinggi to buy rice; If there's no cotton, buy thread/You'll certainly please your hus-
band. van Hasselt 1881, p. 25.
28) Winstedt 1966, p. 4.
29) Andaya 1989, p. 31.
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 173

modern research suggests that the influence women exert on household

decisions is directly affected not so much by how hard they work, but on
the value placed on this work. Given the role of Sumatran women as hor-
ticulturists and food producers, it is fair to assume that their opinions were
influential when a family decided to begin cultivating pepper. The shift
would have been facilitated because at least initially pepper was grown in
conjunction with dry rice and cotton and in small amounts that were suffi-
cient for small family units to maintain30). The work patterns were similar
to those that prevailed with rice and cotton: men cleared the land and
women planted out the young vines, kept them clear of weeds and trained
them around the prop-plants during the four to seven years before they
matured. While both sexes may have been involved in picking the berries,
women were responsible for drying and sifting the pepper in preparation for
sale of exchange. In the early years women were also in charge of marketing
their produce, for surplus pepper was seen as similar to other garden pro-
ducts normally traded by females. One strain, known locally as ladajambi
after the area where it was originally cultivated, was particularly suited for
marketing since it bore small quantities of berries through the entire year.
The benefit women drew from trading pepper was apparant in the west Java
port of Banten in 1598, when Dutch observers noted that female hawkers
were selling both food and pepper to incoming merchants31).

Changing Conditionsin PepperProductzon

The nature of female involvement in pepper growing started to change,
however, as its cultivation expanded in response to a rising world market.
From the sixteenth century the reputation of Sumatran pepper steadily rose,
and local ports along the southeast coast began to attract increasing
numbers of foreign traders who came in search of greater supplies. The
sources provide no clear answer as to why upland families were able to res-
pond relatively quickly to this enhanced demand for pepper However, a
partial explanation may lie in the fact that women were able to allocate their
working hours in different ways. In particular, instead of spending long
hours spinning and weaving, women could now purchase attractively pat-
terned cloth at low prices. This was because the principal exchange medium
for Sumatran pepper was cheap piece goods made available by the commer-

30) The HikayatBanjar,for instance, talks about ten or twenty stakes. Ras 1968, pp. 331,
375.
31) Reid 1993, p. 93.
174 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

cializationof productionin China and particularlyIndia. In economic

terms, it mademore senseto plantpepperand use the surplusto purchase
the textiles needed for practical use and ritual activities. The cultural impor-
tance of weaving meant that it still continued to be a necessary female skill
among Sumatran women, but there was now less need to devote time to the
production of everyday cloth.
With the spread of pepper cultivation many interior families also became
exposed for the first time to the use of money through the widespread cir-
culation of lead picis, small coins first introduced by the Chinese. Following
the arrival of the Dutch and English East India Companies in the early
seventeenth centuries a bewildering array of other currencies began to reach
the market, but interior peoples quickly demonstrated a preferencefor those
with a high silver content such as Spanish rials. For women, this new
coinage became much desired and was soon preferred to cloth as a medium
of trade for pepper sales. Converted into jewellery or sewn to clothing it
served as personal adornment and at the same time represented a woman's
own savings which could be available for other exchanges should the need
arise. Two hundred years later one observer in southern Sumatra noted that
old and valued items like female collars were often made entirely of Spanish
or Mexican rials as well as Dutch and English coinage, and that women
were spending most of their pepper income on the purchase of silver
ornaments32). In the seventeenth century the relatively high prices offered
for pepper and the Introduction of coinage similarly made it possible for
interior women to accumulate a modest store of personal wealth that could
be expended on themselves or their families. In west Sumatra in 1672
children in the hill districts of west Sumatra were wearing "new double
stuivers" on chains around their necks33).
Despite the initial popularity of pepper growing, a historian must also be
struck by the rapidity with which growers began to resist the pressure from
coastal chiefs and foreign traders to increase cultivation. Women were cen-
tral to this resistance, because it soon became obvious that the small family
unit typical of most upland communities was simply unable to cultivate and
harvest the amount of pepper demanded by coastal authorities and foreign
traders. Estimates of family size are always problematic, but a seventeenth
century Malay text that may have originated in Sumatra hints at two or
three children as "typical", while an Englishman in 1818 considered the
average family in west Sumatra to consist of a couple and two children34).
32) Forbes 1885, pp. 127, 135, 147
33) Coolhaas 1968, p. 786.
34) Jones 1985, p. 154, Bastin 1965, p. 179
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 175

The amount of labor available was thus not high, and while we cannot know
precisely how many plants such a family would have willingly cultivated for
the market, it is useful to remember that the seventeenth-century Hikayat
Banjar mentions "ten or twenty stakes" as suitable for domestic consump-
tion. The continuing preference for growing rice and cotton would have also
limited the extent to which "surplus production" could have been
expanded. Now, however, downstream kings began to demand much larger
gardens. In 1663, for example, the ruler of Banten ordered each pepper-
growing family in southern Sumatra and west Java to plant five hundred
vines35). And while this figure became established as the "traditional" size
of a pepper plot, it did involve some adjustment in cultivation patterns. Lada
jambi, for instance, fell from favour in many areas because of the small size
of its berries and the attention it required during the early stages of
growth36). The preferred strains matured more quickly but ripened twice
annually, which required considerable work in harvesting a large number
of vines at roughly the same time. The more distant plots laid out as plan-
ting expanded also meant gardening was less easily allied with domestic
duties. For many families the hirng or recruitment of labourers was the
only way they could hope to support a successful garden; indeed, the ruler
of Palembang regularly sent up parties of slaves to be distributed among
growers37). But the clothing and feeding of slaves placed a new burden on
the household economy, absorbing much of the surplus income previously
available. By the 1630s pepper growers inm Jambi were threatening to replant
with cotton because the price of pepper was insufficient to compensate them
for the costs of maintaining slaves38).
It also became apparent that large scale pepper growing was not easily
adapted to existing gender divisions in labour and marketing The promi-
nence of women in petty trading in most of Southeast Asia was undoubtedly
due to the fact that district markets were located within walking distance
from home and family, and the transportation of produce there was not
problematic. In the pepper trade, however, the most important exchange
points were the geographically distant coastal ports where the foreign
traders gathered. In some Southeast Asian pepper areas, distance alone did
not prevent women from taking their crop to market. In central Vietnam
wild mountain horses could be domesticated and a Chinese visitor com-

35) Meinsma, p. 154.

36) Kathiithamby-Wells 1977, p. 72; Marsden 1811, p. 144.
37) Andaya 1993, p. 97
38) Andaya 1993, p. 80; Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, p. 71.
176 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

mented that "it was very common to see women go shopping or travelling
on horseback 39). But without a family at home to oversee supplies they were
still disadvantaged. For example, a Dutch merchant in Vietnam arranged
a meeting with a female trader who had come down from the interior with
pepper She had to depart precipitously, however, because she had left two
large houses full of pepper unattended40).
In most of Sumatra women faced much greater difficulties in maintaining
control over the sale of the pepper they had grown. This was especially true
on the east coast, where the pepper-producing areas were many kilometres
from the capital, and any trip downstream entailed long absences from
home. In the nineteenth century the downstream journey from Rawas
(previously an important pepper district) to Palembang took 28 hours, with
the return trip lasting between four and six days41). Added to this was the
period spent waiting while the pepper was sold or exchanged. In a society
where aged parents were a rarity, few women were free to leave their
children, and it was extremely difficult to take infants on the journey
because the large bamboo rafts used for transporting pepper had to
negotiate dangerous rapids and currents42). Because interior dwellers were
inclined to see the bustling downstream ports as places where feminine vir-
tue was at risk, a woman only ventured there in the company of male
relatives; young or middle-aged females travelling without men were almost
Invariably seen as prostitutes43). It was thus primarily older women without
family responsibilities, themselves often the widows of pepper traders, who
made the journey between downstream port and upstream pepper areas.
For the most part responsibility for the transport of pepper downstream
rested with men44). The women who were involved in selling pepper in the
coastal ports were rarely growers themselves, and were typically small
peddlers rather than bulk suppliers. The foreign vessels involved in interna-
tional trade required large cargoes to make profits, and obtaining such sup-
plies demanded capital; the only females with access to such resources were
wealthy court women45).

39) Li and Reid 1993, p. 125.

40) Li and Reid p. 17
41) Koninklijk Instituut Hs. 309 A.H.W de Kock, "Process Verbaal van Overgave en
Overname van Papieren, gelden enz," fo. 1.
42) Marsden 1811, p. 131, Andaya 1993, p. 19; Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, p. 67
43) As with single women passengers on boats. Andaya 1993, p. 287 fn. 33.
44) VOC 1099 Jambi to Batavia 10Jan. 1631, fo. 142v- VOC 1083 Jambi to Batavia 3
Aug. 1624, fo. 242; 21 Nov 1624, fo. 246v
45) For example, Ratu Mas in Jambi. See Andaya 1993, p. 59
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 177

For the most part Sumatran females were thus excluded from the more
profitable end of the market, which entailed the sale of large cargoes of pep-
per to foreign merchants. The same pattern, in short, is emerging as in
Europe; when a woman appears as a noteworthy pepper trader, like a cer-
tain "Masatchi" in Jambi, it is as an assistant to her husband or as a widow
who has inherited his interests*6). Certainly foreign men, especially
Chinese, realized the importance of females as producers and were quick to
obtain "wives" who could act as assistants and take responsibility for their
affairs when they were absent, but such women were privileged servants
rather than independent traders"7). And because the ruler normally
assumed ownership of the goods of any deceased foreigner, women who
married foreign men were not protected by local custom which allowed a
widow to retain control of her husband's estate. If a widow were suspected
of hiding the wealth of her foreign-born husband, she could suffer the most
terrible punishment. When a certain Encik Ko Ee died in Jambi in 1671,
his wife was forced to put her hands into boiling oil and her head was
squeezed between two planks "until her eyes nearly came out" in an effort
to make her disclose where he had left his money48).
The marginalization of women in the purchase and sale of pepper became
more pronounced as European men became increasingly involved in the
trade. Portuguese merchants had bought pepper in Sumatra during the six-
teenth century, but their numbers were small and their impact on local
society negligible. However, through the seventeenth century the Dutch
and English East India Companies sought to negotiate contracts with rulers
and chiefs on both the east and west coasts in order to secure a monopoly
of pepper sales. Inevitably they became more involved with indigenous
society, sometimes entering into liaisons with native women but tending to
regard them as "whores" rather than wives. In consequence, there were
recurring conflicts with local men because of European mistreatment of
females"9). Though admitting the importance of women as traders, both
Dutch and English preferred to use men, either Chinese or local, as their
purchasing agents, despatching them upriver to negotiate large amounts for
which they offered advance credit.
At the end of the seventeenth century royal orders from downstream
rulers still recognized the family as a unit; in Palembang, for example a

46) VOC 1083 Jambi to Batavia 3 Aug. 1624, fo. 242; 21 Nov 1624, fo. 246v
47) Bluss6 1975, 30 1986, pp. 80-87, VOC 1099, Jambi Day Register April 8 1630, fo.
89v
48) Andaya, 1993, p. 265 fn. 32.
49) Andaya 1993, p. 58; Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, p. 86.
178 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

royal order (pzagem)dating from 1699 lays down that if a man fails to plant
pepper, then he, together with his wife and children, will be brought
downstream for punishment"S). Nonetheless, growing contact between
upstream families and downstream Muslim courts placed increasing
emphasis on the male as the head and spokesman for the family It was he
rather than his wife or daughters who negotiated with the male agents of
both kings and Europeans. The domination of the pepper trade by men was
particularly apparent in the Dutch and English trading posts, where
"menial" tasks such as sifting and bagging pepper were carried out by
female slaves. Pepper sales were conducted in a commercial environment
where all the visible links in the chain-buyers, scribes, weighers,
captains-were men. Though females remained crucial in the actual
cultivation of pepper, they had been relegated to a peripheral position in its
marketing and were consequently far less able to control the income that
pepper sales brought. When the prices of pepper began to fall it is not sur-
prising that upstream communities turned back to the cultivation of cotton.
Women's resumption of weaving can be interpreted as a response not
merely to higher cloth prices but as an effort to regain some of the income
they had previously enjoyed. A Dutch representative inm Jambi in 1691 com-
mented that there were now "as many looms as there are households," and
this trend so disturbed Batavian officials that they pressed the rulers of
Jambi and Palembang to order the destruction of all cotton bushes. To
achieve this would have required the compliance of the majority of rural
women, and their quiet but determined resistance is evident in the large
amounts of Sumatran cotton exported to other areasSi).
In Jambi and Palembang, where pepper districts were many kilometres
from the port, representatives of the Dutch East India Company and
downstream kings alike were unable to compel upstream families to grow
a crop which was both economically disadvantageous and culturally disrup-
tive. However, the situation was rather different on the southwest coast.
Here the English East India Company established a post at Bengkulen in
1685 and proceeded to sign a succession of agreements with local chiefs in
order to ensure a continuing supply of local pepper. The effects of the
English presence were far greater than those of the Dutch because west coast
pepper areas were geographically closer and thus more susceptible to con-
trol. Initially the English hoped that they could use local chiefs to implement
monopolies, optimistically assuming that a family could maintain two or

50) Brandes 1900, p. 495.

51) Andaya 1989, p. 39
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 179

three thousand vines. Cultivators soon made it clear that they could not
comfortably grow more than five or six hundred vines, the number tradi-
tionally invoked by adat or custom. It also became apparent that, contrary
to English hopes, west coast inhabitants would not voluntarily increase pro-
duction, and were often unwilling even to maintain existing gardens.
Though world demand remained strong in the eighteenth century, pepper
prices were vulnerable to oversupply, and were in any event much lower
than a hundred years earlier52). Even when prices in Europe or China were
high, few benefits trickled down to the actual growers. The profits they
enjoyed were at best meagre, especially when the slow maturation of pepper
and the difficulties involved in cultivation were taken into account. As the
members of an investigating committee noted in 1759, "It is with the
utmost reluctance [that]. the Malays plant pepper " While Company
directors continued to advocate persuasion, local officials therefore believed
that only some degree of force would induce families to cultivate pepper53).
Following administrative changes in 1759, the English attempted to under-
take something the Dutch had never done-to introduce direct European
supervision of the pepper gardens every two or three months and to punish
delinquent growers. And though the policy of forced cultivation was
ultimately unsuccessful, its attempted implementation introduced changes
which affected women in ways not found in any other pepper-producing
area. The English-controlled areas of west coast Sumatra thus provide a
case study of the clashes between cultural norms and commercial dictates
that seem to be inevitably associated with a plantation economy54).

Womenand the Forced Cultivation of Pepper

Though the English recognized that prime responsibility for the develop-
ment of gardens lay in the hands of the family unit, women are rarely men-
tioned in East India Company documents, and "the cultivator" and "the
planter" are invariably described as male. Yet the assumption that only
men were involved in cultivating pepper ignored not only the importance
of females in traditional agriculture, but the ways in which they were
affected by continuing English efforts to increase production. At a very

52) In the early seventeenth century, the London price for pepper averaged 2 shillings
halfpence per pound; in 1780 it was between 11 and 13 pence per pound. Bastin 1961, p.
22; Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, p. 184.
53) Reid 1993, p. 299; Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, pp. 59, 62; Bastin 1965, p. 64. Bastin
1961, pp. 29-42.
54) Wolf 1959, p. 136.
180 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

basic level was the question of labour supply. In their anxiety to outstrip
their Dutch competitors, English policy-makers disregarded local pleas that
the pepper quota be maintained at five hundred vines per family, and after
1766 this number was increased to a minimum of a thousand. A heavy
burden of work thus fell on married couples, who were sometimes required
to begin a new garden before the old one had been abandoned in order to
maintain an uninterrupted supply. A man and woman and their children
could therefore be responsible for maintaining as many as two thousand
pepper plants at one time. In addition, the English introduced new methods
of cultivation which required that the ground be kept completely free of
undergrowth except during the hot season. For women such quotas were
particularly onerous because weeding was traditionally a female task and
because men were frequently away on trading expeditions 55). Furthermore,
unlike the Dutch, the English continued to insist on the delivery of a propor-
tion of white pepper right through the eighteenth century. This increased
the hours that pickers had to spent in the gardens because the berres had
to be picked at the right time, and they rarely ripened simultaneously Yet
despite the amount of work involved in producing white pepper, no method
could ensure a lack of discolouration, and the entire delivery might well be
rejected after much time and effort56).
Bengkulen survey books listed only male cultivators, simply noting
whether they were married or single. However, the English view of the male
as primary cultivator and landowner proved to be problematic when the
ownership of gardens was disputed, especially in areas of Minangkabau
migration where land rights passed through the female line. The European
view of work roles similarly conflicted with existing cultural patterns.
Though not hesitating to use female slaves for arduous tasks such as carry-
ing pepper sacks, the English considered field agriculture to be a male
activity"57). As far as they were concerned, the responsibility for growing
pepper and the "ownership" of the vines rested with men. The decision in
1766 that all males over sixteen should be required to plant five hundred
pepper vines was in keeping with this view. There was no recognition of
established gender divisions which applied here, in common with other
Southeast Asian societies that practiced shifting cultivation. While the task
of cutting down tall trees and burning scrub was male work par excellence,
"an occasion for the demonstration of skill and daring, an opportunity for

55) Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, pp. 30, 57-58, 75.

56) Kathmirthamby-Wells1977, pp. 65-66.
57) Bastin 1965, p. 144, Hanawalt 1986, p. xiii, xv
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 181

a young man to establish himself among his peers," planting, tending seed-
lings, and weeding were women's work. Without a wife it was impossible
to grow pepper successfully, and it is not surprising that there are constant
English complaints of gardens "choked with weeds." Many young men
simply abandoned their gardens and left for the coast58).
English requirements also infused new tensions into the complicated pro-
cesses by which marriages were arranged on the west coast. As we have
noted, pepper growing required more labour than was available to most
families, and in 1779 in one west Sumatran district it was estimated that five
men were necessary to harvest a thousand vines59). A traditional solution
to the chronic labour shortage was the practice known as ambil anak, or
adopting a child. By this custom daughters, usually the eldest, could marry
a poorer man who would then live permanently with his wife's family and
"purchase" his bride through his own labor The English, however,
discouraged and finally prohibited the custom. In their view a situation
where a man's status as a cultivator meant that he was in effect a bondsman
to his wife and her family created "administrative difficulties"60).
The English were also concerned to "reform" local customs because they
were distributed at the low demographic growth. Were the population to
increase, they believed, it would help increase revenue and thus ease the
financial difficulties of their west Sumatran posts. One reason cited for the
low population was the alleged frequency with which women aborted their
pregnancies. This had never aroused cultural condemnation, although
custom theoretically dictated that a fine could be imposed if a pregnancy
was terminated. By the early nineteenth century, however, English
rewriting of traditional laws had made abortion at least theoretically
punishable by death61). In addition, officials hoped to stimulate marriage
not only by prohibiting the custom of ambil anak, but also by modifying
practices associated with the payment of jujur (bride price) which men in
some districts customarily paid to their wife's relations. The English
strongly disapproved of the resulting indebtedness, oblivious to the fact that
this network of debts was an important cultural mechanism in establishing
social relationships. Certainly most men who had obtained a bride through
jujur could never hope to repay the amount, but the widespread

58) Freeman 1970, pp. 173-174, 193; Kathinthamby-Wells 1977, p. 59; Bastin 1957, p.
85.
59) Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, p. 63.
60) Kathinthamby-Wells 1977, pp. 110-112.
61) Kathinthamby-Wells 1977, p. 118; Ball 1984, p. 213.
182 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

"indebtedness" that so horrified Europeans was In fact an important means

of binding kinfolk together Marriageable daughters for whom jujur might
be offered were a channel by which household resources could be enhanced
and could help a man repay the debts he had incurred by his own marriage.
Female infanticide was unknown in this society; indeed, the birth of a
daughter was an occasion for rejoicing, since "the more females in a
planter's family, the richer he is esteemed" 62).
The English, on the other hand, argued that the jujur "established a price
on the woman that is out of the power of the purchaser to pay. . " and con-
demned the victim to a cycle of debt that could only be resolved by obtain-
ing a juur payment from some other man. This in turn made him "greatly
[dependent] on the female children he or his relations may have." Though
the Directors claimed they did not wish to interfere with customs, they
believed that "buying" a wife was harmful to economic development and
by introducing new regulations, even when these did not comply with tradi-
tional laws, they would gain the "esteem and confidence of the people." In
accordance with these arguments, a local official in 1768 modified existing
custom and reduced the totaljujur amount to one hundred and fifty dollars,
while allowing a man to take a bride with an initial payment of fifty63).
It is not surprising that these measures were almost totally ignored by
local populations. It is also Ironic that, while the English were working to
encourage marriage, the economic changes they had introduced were in fact
bringing added burdens to young couples. From 1766 the number of pepper
vines a young man was expected to maintain increased to a thousand follow-
ing his wedding. This assumption that the acquisition of a wife could double
production proved to be not only unrealistic but unacceptable. While living
with her family a young woman would simply assist' her parents in the
maintenance of the family plot, but on marriage, she and her husband
immediately became responsible for a thousand vines. This fell heavily on
a new bride because most of the field work was her responsibility, and many
females apparently preferred to remain single. When coupled with the
tendency of males to migrate outside areas of English jurisdiction, the result
was a serious disproportion of young females to males. By the early nine-
teenth century throughout all the Bengkulen districts there was a large
number of unmarried women of all ages64).

62) Ball 1984, p. 96.

63) Ball 1984, p. 93, 196-197, 213; Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, p. 111, Marsden 1811,
pp. 220, 235; Moyer pp. 70, 74.
64) Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, p. 118; Bastin 1957, p. 86.
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 183

Married women were also vulnerable because they were often regarded
as convenient pawns in the attempt to compel their menfolk to grow pepper
Even though they were not listed as cultivators, females could be punished
for perceived wrongdoings or debts of their male relatives. Some English
officials were convinced that taking a man's wife and children as slaves
would compel him to greater industry, and there were numerous cases in
which families were divided, never to be united again. In 1774 three girls
were enslaved by an English resident because of their father's debts, and
another resident admitted confining a woman in the stocks as a hostage for
her husband's return so that he could be punished for failing to maintain
his gardens. Such methods proved to be extremely effective because of the
cultural importance attached to the protection of a woman's honour, but
they also aroused considerable hostility As one English official put it,
"There is nothing [the Malays] are so jealous about as interference in their
family affairs." While the Directors strictly forbade any continuation of
such practices, women still commonly carried the burden of putting their
gardens "in order" while their husbands or fathers, considered lax in plan-
ting, were placed in the stocks65).
Underlying all these developments was a growing sense of social unease
because of what modern researchers term "food insecurity", indeed, some
scholars have argued that declining nutrition is an almost inevitable con-
comitant of extensive cash cropping66). Certainly food deprivation became
ever more prevalent in west Sumatra as the forced cultivation policy com-
pelled many women to neglect subsistence food production. The extent to
which female work hours were being directed away from the tending of
traditional food gardens is evident in the periodic shortages not merely of
rice but of vegetables and market produce. When local harvests failed and
imports were unavailable or expensive, women's skills as food suppliers
were severely tested. In 1741, for example, officials in the Bengkulen area
reported that some pepper growers had been living for several months on
''no other sustenance than roots and the leaves of trees''"67). For women the
burden of maintaining household well-being was accentuated by the con-
traction of the economic opportunities that had previously allowed them to
augment the domestic economy In those areas where pepper was grown
outside the forced cultivation system, a woman's independent economic

65) Bastin 1957, p. 85; Bastin 1965, p. 83; Ball 1984, pp. 109, 123; Kathirithamby-Wells
1977, pp. 84, 87, 90.
66) von Benda-Beckman 1990, p. 158.
67) Bastin 1965, p. 61.
184 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

contribution to the household was still much valued by her menfolk. An

eighteenth-century biographical work, for instance, describes how a
Minangkabau pepper trader in Lampung, finding himself in straitened cir-
cumstances, sends a message back to his wife to request funds so that he can
purchase a perahu and cargo to continue his voyage68). Prior to the
establishment of English posts along the west coast females had been able
to draw a small but steady income from the sale of surplus rice and food
items, but now the English personnel requisitioned extra supplies at much
reduced prices and then resold them for inflated sums69). In 1766, for
instance, women would have been hit hard by the Company efforts to
increase poultry stock by imposing a fine of five dollars on any person found
selling eggs, and requiring each family in the Bengkulen districts to rear a
minimum of sixty fowls. In an effort to reduce the consumption of rice, the
English even tried to extend their influence into the kitchen, and in 1775
ritual feasts were forbidden70). Such edicts, of course, further reduced the
occasions when women could excel, since normally they could acquire
prestige in communal celebrations by organizing the provision of food and
by displaying their knowledge of the specific dishes appropriate for each
occasion.
On the east coast of Sumatra, the Dutch East India Company was never
in a position to compel people to grow pepper, despite the monopoly con-
tracts made with successive rules of Jambi and Palembang. By the end of
the eighteenth century the growing of pepper had been largely abandoned
in favour of rice and cotton, and new garden crops such as tobacco and cof-
fee. A similar retreat from pepper is evident on the west coast. Even though
the English adopted much more coercive methods, their attempts to force
cultivation were a signal failure. Company officials never tired of debating
the reasons, which were attributed to a combination of economic disincen-
tives, indolence, and lack of cooperation from indigenous leaders and chiefs.
Certainly a prime factor was the low prices which the English were willing
to pay. As one scholar has observed, "Even had the highest degree of
industriousness prevailed, payments from pepper could not have supported
a comfortable livelihood" 7I). But it is noteworthy that an increase in prices
in the late eighteenth century and the consequent removal of forced cultiva-
tion did not encourage pepper growers to return to their gardens. Thus,

68) Drewes 1961, p. 121.

69) Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, pp. 53, 58, 118, 213
70) Kathirithamby-Wells 1977, pp. 132-133.
71) Kathuirthamby-Wells1977, p. 62.
 WOMEN AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 185

although economic factors were obviously a major element in resistance to

pepper cultivation, there may also be other reasons. Pepper had brought
about considerable dislocation in west coast society, particularly for women,
who had been reduced to a position of secondary importance in the agri-
cultural economy. One sociologist has observed that when African farmers
are discussed by modern researchers, "the personal pronoun used is he.
That women are the main producers of African food crops.. is almost never
mentioned" 72). The same blindness prevailed among English East India
Company representatives, who demonstrated a consistent failure to
appreciate the economic and cultural roles played by women in the trading
and horticultural communities that typified the west coast. The proto-
plantation economy they introduced did not easily adapt to a society where
cultivation was based on the family unit. It is indicative that by European
standards the most successful pepper plantations in most of Sumatra and the
Malay world came to be worked by Chinese men. Indeed, in 1806 local
officials of the English East India Company stationed in West Sumatra saw
the importation of Chinese laborers as the only means of reviving the pep-
per trade73). In less than a generation indigenous cultivation of pepper in
most of southern Sumatra had reverted to the pattern prevailing before the
seventeenth-century boom, with women tending a few pepper vines, their
"money trees" (pohon wang), to supplement the household income 74).

Conclusion
The early modern period saw far-reaching economic shifts in Southeast
Asia, the extent of which has been explored in relatively few areas. Because
of the deficiency in source material, many questions that historians are now
posing will probably never be answered. In view of long established claims
that females in Southeast Asia maintained a prominent economic and ritual
role, it is frustrating to realize that in all likelihood we will remain per-
manently ignorant of many areas in which women's lives have undoubtedly
changed. Yet though the material may be generally unrevealing, it is still
possible to catch glimpses of how economic developments during the pre-
modern period affected women in certain parts of the region. The introduc-
tion of pepper is of especial interest because it was the first imported crop

72) Blumberg 1991, p. 120.

73) Bastin 1965, p. 131, for Borneo, see Tarling 1971, for Penang and Singapore, see
Jackson 1968; for Bangka, see Heidheus 1992.
74) Forbes 1885, p. 135.
186 BARBARA WATSON ANDAYA

in the Indonesian archipelago to move from family gardens to widespread

commercial planting. This essay has provided a case study of certain pepper
growing areas of Sumatra, where local resistance grew as Europeans
attempted to enforce cultivation, becoming particularly pronounced along
the west coast. Traditional agricultural patterns were based on the family
as the essential economic unit, and customs associated with Inheritance and
marriage all implicitly acknowledged the female contribution. The vision of
a class of agricultural labourers that was largely male was thus a cultural
contradiction. It was this cultural discordance as much as low prices and
unfair exactions that helped bring about the demise of indigenous pepper
cultivation in southern Sumatra. This is not to imply, of course, that such
a pattern was necessarily typical. It would be interesting to explore
similarities and differences in regard to other pepper-producing regions,
especially those where matrilineal Minangkabau influence was absent. It is
worth noting, for example, that the pepper boom of the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth century in the more patriarchal Acehnese society was made
possible not by the labour of families but by that of lone men who migrated
to pepper-producing districts 5).
The history of gender relations in early modern Southeast Asia cannot be
written until more detailed studies of specific areas are available. Only then
will we be able to test the extent to which long accepted generalizations
regarding the position of Southeast Asian women are applicable across areas
and across time. In the process historians will undoubtedly seek to qualify
comments regarding the "autonomy" and "freedom" often attributed to
Southeast Asian females, so that future studies will undoubtedly lead to a
greater sophistication in discussions of their "high status." As yet there
seems no sound reason to dispute the view that most women in the region
did enjoy more economic and social independence than their sisters in east
Asia and India. What is still needed, however, is a far greater consideration
of theoretical and comparative work on other pre-industrial societies in
order to determine why this should be so. Only by this means can we really
determine whether the "high status" of women is part of a unique
Southeast Asian identity.

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