Quazi Aktar Ali, Md Abu Nasim
Volume-XII, Issue-IV, July 2024
Volume-XII, Issue-IV, July 2024 | ||
Published Online: 31.07.2024 | Page No: 261-270 | |||
The Agent of The European Merchants: Bengali Trading Community in Eighteenth Century South-West Bengal Quazi Aktar Ali, Ph. D Research Scholar, Department of History, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India. Md Abu Nasim, Assistant Professor, Maharaja Nandakumar College, Vidyasgar University, West Bengal, India | |
In the eighteenth century, the Bengali trading community took a vital role in the trade of South West Bengal as well as the entire Bengal. They were known as ‘gomotah’, ‘baniyan’, ‘dadni bonik’, ‘paikar’, ‘dalal’ etc. They acted as the agents of foreign traders mainly the Europeans. They were merely middlemen when the foreign traders came to Bengal but their trading flourished when the European traders operated their trading in Bengal. The foreign traders were not familiar with the local languages, customs system, trading centres, measurement of goods etc. Moreover, local communication and local markets were quite unknown to them. In that cases, the foreign traders needed local representatives who became their helpers and solve all the problems. Historically it is seen that in the second half of the eighteenth century the foreign company’s merchants and the indigenous traders had a special control over the economy of Bengal. The people of this country accepted the participation of Europeans in the administration and economy of Bengal. The native traders became the subsidiary of the Europeans in the business. The Indigenous merchants also develop their own business. It is said the indigenous merchants created a favourable situation for the trade and business of the Europeans. | |
Keywords: Dadni bonik, Paikar, Dalal, Gomostah, Baniyan, chakla. |