Between Boston and Bombay Cultural and Commercial Encounters of Yank
A few years after the American declaration of independence, the first American ships set sail to India. The commercial links that American merchant mariners established with the Parsis of Bombay shaped the material and intellectual culture of the early Re
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Jenny Rose
Between Boston and Bombay
Jenny Rose
Between Boston and Bombay Cultural and Commercial Encounters of Yankees and Parsis, 1771–1865
Jenny Rose Claremont Graduate University Claremont, CA, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-25204-5 ISBN 978-3-030-25205-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25205-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Cameron, who carries the story forward.
Preface
The seed of this book took root during a visit to Massachusetts some years ago. In the kitchen of one of the houses in the English Village of the Plimoth Plantation, the reenactors were cooking lunch. I asked them what they were preparing. “Chicken” came the answer, “flavored with Indian spices.” “Native American spices?” I asked “No,” came the reply, “spices from the East Indies!” A curry? In Massachusetts by 1627? I was intrigued. I asked a colleague who is an authority on the colonial settlements about the possibility, and she expressed surprise that “such a thing ever got said or thought” in this context. Curiosity piqued, I wondered whether any information existed to support the reenactors’ claim that goods from so far east were arriving in America during that formative period. Cursory research led to the realization that this was a relatively uncharted area of American social history. The same trip to Massachusetts included a tour of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. There, prominently on display in the East India Marine Hall, was a small oil portrait of a Bombay Parsi m erchant identified as “Nasservangee Manackje
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