Gender at sea: women and the East India Company in seventeenth-century London

Abstract

Journalistic comment on the recent anti-globalization protests make the assumption that multinational trade, where companies take on some of the functions of nations, is a modern phenomenon. Yet the East India Companies of the various states of the seventeenth century present some similar circumstances, and the English East India Company has recently celebrated its 400th anniversary. As the major historian of the English East India Company, Chaudhuri, put it: 'In many ways, the East India Company was the direct ancestor of the modern giant. 'business firm, handling a multitude of trading products and operating in an international setting.'! The East India Company traded on the seas -the pre-eminent commercial realm of the early modern period -but also their operations included quasi-banking functions, property management and a role in the relief of . poverty.