From Anatolia to Indonesia: Opium Trade and the Dutch Community of Izmir, 1820-1940.

• Author: Floor, Willem
• Position: Review

From Anatolia to Indonesia: Opium Trade and the Dutch Community of Izmir, 1820-1940. By JAN SCHMIDT. Istanbul: NEDERLANDS HISTORISCH-ARCHAEOLOGISCH INSTITUUT, 1998. Pp. 222. HFl 72.

This book is about a neglected aspect of the opium problem, i.e., its production and trade and, in particular, the Dutch opium trade and the role of Dutch Levantine traders in it. After a summary presentation of the growth of opium consumption in the West and the East, a second short chapter analyzes the development of the international opium trade. From this we learn that Dutch participation in it was marginal (restricted to the East Indies market), and that the participation of Dutch Levantine traders was itself marginal in Dutch trade. On the Dutch side the new NHM (Nederlandsche Handels Maatschappij or Dutch Trading Company, a government-created enterprise aimed at developing Dutch trade) was the buyer of the opium. In Indonesia, the Dutch government had established an opium monopoly to rake in the fiscal revenues. This led to smuggling activities, some of which were rather inventive and for which the author provides the details.

Having established both his international-export, and his Indonesian-import contexts, the author analyzes the production and trade of Anatolian opium, although the chapter title here suggests the Levant. He discusses its production zones, cultivation and processing methods, and its transportation, as well as factors affecting its volume and quality. In particular, this third chapter provides an analysis of the opium trade of Izmir, which was the most important port for the export of Anatolian opium, and of the factors that influenced its development, both nationally and internationally. A significant national policy measure was the creation of the short-lived Opium Monopoly (1830- 38); important international ones included wars (the Crimean war) and economic ups and downs. A separate section deals with these economic trends and the financing of the Izmir opium trade. A rather lengthy and very detailed segment covers the Dutch share in the Izmir opium trade-the Dutch were the third-ranking exporter of opium f rom Izmir-as well as Dutch navigation. It also discusses the role of piracy, the advent of steam and the disappearance of sailing ships, and the impact of the Suez Canal (after 1856). Opium represented half of Izmir's export to the Netherlands, but Dutch trade with Izmir, and the number of Dutch ships involved, was relatively...