Indian High Sea

The high sea west of Lanka belongs to an Indian Ocean network joining the island with ports across Asia and Africa. The broader ocean had supported commerce and cultural exchange for centuries before European companies established armed trading systems. Portuguese expansion after the voyage around Africa brought new forts, coastal attacks and the Estado da Índia during the sixteenth century.

Dutch corporate power followed in the seventeenth, with its settlements linked through shipping and the coerced movement of labour. In Dutch Ceylon, thousands of enslaved Africans were employed in constructing the fortress at Colombo, giving western Lanka a direct connection to this violent intercontinental economy. English merchants also participated: a company ship carried captives from the Coromandel coast to the Dutch East Indies in 1622.

These movements joined commerce with slavery across different colonial jurisdictions. The sea was therefore traversed not only by merchants and valuable cargoes but also by people moved against their will. Within the wider basin, Lankan coastal establishments stood between South Asian suppliers, African origins of enslaved labour and the commercial centres of Southeast Asia.