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Secular Trends in Burmese Economic History, c. 1350–1830, and their Implications for State Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Victor Lieberman
Affiliation:
University of Michigan

Extract

Scholars of Burma cannot, in good conscience, invoke the usual justification — lack of adequate primary materials — for failing to construct an economic history of the precolonial era. By comparison with Siam, Cambodia, the Malay principalities, or indeed any Indianized Southeast Asian society with the possible exception of Java, Burma offers a uniquely continuous and voluminous array of documents bearing on patterns of cultivation, monetization, taxation, and domestic and foreign trade from at least the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

Research for this paper was assisted by a grant from the Social Science Research Council and by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers.

1 On indigenous and foreign records, see Lieberman, Victor B., Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c. 1580–1760 (Princeton, 1984), app. II;CrossRefGoogle ScholarToe, U. Hla, Konbaung hkit let-ya thet-kayit-pa lu-hmu-si-bwa-yei thamaing (Institute of Education, Rangoon, 1981), esp. chap. I;Google ScholarTrager, Frank N. and Koenig, William J., Burmese Sittans, 1764–1826 (Tucson, 1979).Google Scholar

2 See Lieberman, Administrative Cycles p. 20, nn 16–19.Google Scholar

3 Harvey, G. E., History of Burma (London, 1925), 333;Google ScholarAung-Thwin, Michael, Pagan: The Origins of Modern Burma (Honolulu, 1985), 95–6.Google Scholar

4 Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy, The Peasants of Languedoc (Urbana, Ill., 1974), 55–6, 81–3;Google ScholarBraudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Reynolds, Sian, tr. (New York, 1972), I, 403–18, 584–5.Google Scholar

5 These four, between 1738 and 1754, were part of a single period of turmoil attending the fall of the Restored Toungoo Dynasty, whereas between 1350 and 1555 hardly a decade did not see significant disturbances in Upper Burma.

6 Ricklefs, M. C., ‘Some Statistical Evidence on Javanese Social, Economic and Demographic History in the Later Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Modern Asian Studies 20, 1 (1986): 132;Google ScholarReid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450–1680 (New Haven, 1988), 1218;Google ScholarOwen, Norman G., ‘The Paradox of Nineteenth Century Population Growth in Southeast Asia: Evidence from Java and the Philippines’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 18, 1 (1987): 4557;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCipolla, Carlo M., Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000–1700, 2nd edn (New York, 1980), chap. 5.Google Scholar

7 See Kala, U, Maha-ya-zawin-gyi (henceforth UK), Saya, Pwa (ed.), vol. 1 (Rangoon, 1926), pts 6, 7; vol. 2 (Rangoon, 1932), pts 8–11;Google ScholarTun, Than, ‘History of Burma: A.D. 1300–1400’, Journal of the Burma Research Society (henceforth JBRS) 42, 2 (1959): 119–34.Google Scholar

8 Trager, and Koenig, , Sit-tans, 64, 7786, 101–2, 144–5, 165–8;Google ScholarZam-bu-dipa ok-hsaung kyan (henceforth ZOK), Furnivall, J. S. and Maung, Pe Tin (eds.) (Rangoon, 1960), 11, 14, 58, 101;Google ScholarShei-hkit myan-ma naing-ngan myo-ywa ne-pe-thamaing (Rangoon, n.d.), 46;Google ScholarThe Royal Orders of Burma A.D. 1598–1885 (henceforth ROB), Than, Tun (ed.), 8 vols (Kyoto, 19831988), I, 416, 446–67, 465 (Burmese text);Google ScholarWilkie, R. S., Burma Gazetteer: Yamethin District (Rangoon, 1934), 26, 30–3, 45.Google Scholar

9 In 1783 the population of the basin north of 19 degrees latitude numbered about 1,700,000, of whom 39% were hereditary servicemen. Koenig, William, ‘The Early Konbaung Polity, 1752–1819’ (Univ. of London, Ph.D., 1978), app. II, III. Of these I estimate from si-tans and edicts that 35–50% were either themselves deported to the basin, or descended from people so deported after 1350.Google Scholar Between 1783 and 1824 transfers from Arakan, Manipur, and Assam further increased the number of lowland deportees. See ROB, I, 416–17, 447, 466, and II, 202–14; Trager, , Sit-tans, 384–5;Google ScholarZOK, 32; Lieberman, , Administrative Cycles, 96105, 250–4; Koenig, ‘Konbaung Polity’, 122–3; Harvey, History, 166–280 passim, 347–9.Google Scholar

10 Ito, Toshikatsu, ‘Customary Irrigation Techniques and the Development of Rice Producing Agriculture in Burma’, unpublished trans. by Mariko Foulk of Japanese text in Kagoshima Daigaku shiroku 11 (1979): 3980;Google ScholarStuart, J. M. B., Old Burmese Irrigation Works (Rangoon, 1913), 514;Google Scholar Toyo Bunko Microfilm 100, pt 4 (‘Meiktila kan-daw thamaing’); Toyo Bunko Microfilm 69, pt 3 (untitled history of Sagu); Toyo Bunko Microfilm 35, pt 2 (‘Taungdwingyi thamaing’). All Toyo Bunko microfilms of Burmese documents are numbered according to List of Microfilms Deposited in the Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, Part 8. Burma (Tokyo, 1976).Google Scholar

11 On 17–19th century irrigation and early Konbaung resettlement projects, see ROB, IV, xii, xxvii–xxviii, 569, 599, 607, and VI, 471; Toyo Bunko Microfilm 79, pt 1 (‘Hsin-byu-shin min-taya-gyi amein-daw’); Koenig, ‘Konbaung Polity’, 67, 84–7; Stuart, Irrigation Works, 5–14; Lieberman, Administrative Cycles, 50, 98, 109, 177, 252.Google Scholar

12 The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires… and the Book of Francisco Rodrigues, Armando, Cortesao (ed. and tr.), 2 vols (London, 1944), I, 98;Google Scholar‘Extracts of Master Caesar Frederike…’, in Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, Samuel, Purchas (ed.), vol. X (rpt, Glasgow, 1905), 133;Google ScholarMacgregor, Ian A., ‘Notes on the Portuguese in Malaya’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 28, 2 (1955): 78, n. 18;Google Scholar India Office Records, London, Records of Fort St. George, Diary and Consultation Book of 1721 (Madras, 19101931), 52ff.; ROB, IV, 650; ROB, VI, 488.Google Scholar

13 Toyo Bunko Microfilm 24 (Mon-ywei Hsaya-daw's Maha-ya-zawin-gyaw), 201; Furnivall, J. S., Report on the First Regular Settlement Operations in the Myingyan District, Season 1909–1913 (Rangoon, 1917), 6470;Google ScholarReport on the Settlement Operations in the Meiktila District, Season 1896–98 (Rangoon, 1900), 51–2: Koenig, ‘Konbaung Polity’, 83, 283–4, 316; and infra nn. 57, 74.Google Scholar

14 More precisely, 56,991 to 69,364 pe. One pe normally equals 1.75 acres. These figures, which will be broken down by period, region, and land classification in a forthcoming study, I have derived from lithic inscriptions 545 to 1070 listed in Charles, Duroiselle (comp. and ed), A List of Inscriptions Found in Burma. Part I (Rangoon, 1921),Google Scholar and reproduced in the six elephant volumes of inscriptions described in the preface to Duroiselle; plus Myan-ma kyauk-sa (Rangoon, n.d.), 8697. Henceforth inscriptions will be identified according to Duroiselle as I 545, I 546, etc.Google Scholar

15 See, e.g., I 921 (1437); I 934 (1442); I 775 (1395); I 789 (1397); I 698 (1377); I 820 (1404); I 813 (1402); I 842 (1396); I 889 (1400); I 906 (1435); I 1027 (1495); I 819 (c. 1405); Toe Hla, ‘In-wa hkit si-pwa-yei’, Tega-tho pannya padei-tha sa-zaung 13, 2 (1979?): 61–71; Than Tun, ‘Mahakassapa and His Tradition’, JBRS 42, 2 (1959): 99–118; idem, ‘History 1300–1400’, 119–34.

16 See previous note, esp. I 921 (1437), indicating that religious wastelands converted to cultivation were but one-sixth of the total so cleared; and I 934 (1442), showing that secular lands east of Yaw were cleared as part of an ongoing process.

17 This assumes very conservatively that 16,666 servicemen were deported to Upper Burma between 1350 and 1550, each of whom received a median allocation of nine acres from the crown. In fact the number of highland deportees may have been far greater, but records from this early period have a poor survival rate. On pre-1550 servicemen, see supra n. 9, plus Lieberman, , Administrative Cycles, 98, n. 108.Google Scholar

18 See Aung-Thwin, Pagan, chap. 9;Google ScholarLuce, G. H., ‘Economic Life of the Early Burmans’, JBRS 30, 1 (1940): 287–8.Google Scholar

19 See supra n. 9 on service groups and land grants after 1550. Although there was some attrition of original service units, my figure of 60,000 reflects essentially those deportees whose units were still in existence for the censuses of 1783 and 1803, near the end of the period under study.

20 See, e.g., Shei-hkit myan-ma, 28, 38–9, 41–2, 50, 60;Google ScholarZOK, 32, 66, 74, 75, 78, 81–5, 88, 98; ROB, II, 208; ROB, III, ix–x; ROB; V, 489, 674, 779, 885, 981; ROB, VI, 471; Toyo Bunko Microfilm 69, pt 3 (Sagu history); Toyo Bunko Microfilm 55, pt II; film 53, pt 7; film 52, pt 5; film 62, pt 14 (commercial and land records from Shwebo); Trager, , Sit-tans, 343, 371–4, 378;Google ScholarKon-baung hkit let-ya thet-kayit-pa lu-hmu si-pwa-yei thamaing thu-tei-thana si-man-kein-atwe asi-yin-hkan-sa, Toe, U. Hla (ed.), 2 vols (Rangoon, 19771979), thet-kayits of 5 09. 1776, Oct. 23, 1791, 9 May 1800.Google Scholar

21 In 1888–89, after 60 years of sustained expansion, c. 1,500,000 acres of rice and a similar amount of dry crops were under cultivation in lowland Upper Burma. Report on the Administration of Burma During 1888–89 (Rangoon, 1889), Table III E-1.Google Scholar

22 That is, c. 300–400,000 acres between 1350 and 1550, and at least 480,000 between 1600 and 1830. Dry zone acreages for 1550–1600 are omitted because during this period—the only era in Burmese history when the imperial capital lay in Lower rather than Upper Burma — dry zone records are uncharacteristically exiguous.

23 On the extension of delta cultivation, see Trager, , Sit-tans, 68, 7294, 152, 157, 183; ZOK, 41, 58; ROB, V, 660; Koenig, ‘Konbaung Polity’, 84–93;Google ScholarAdas, Michael, The Burma Delta (Madison, Wisc., 1974), 1722;Google ScholarSymes, Michael, An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava (London, 1800), 183;Google ScholarCrawfurd, John, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor General of India to the Court of Ava, 2 vols (London, 1834), II, 211–12.Google Scholar

24 Adas, Burma Delta, 22 claims ‘at least 700,000 to 800,000 acres’ for 1856–57. On 16th century censuses, see infra n. 35.

25 Tun, Than, ‘Social Life in Burma in the 16th Century’, Tonan Ajia Kenkyu 21, 3 (1983): 272;Google ScholarZam-bu Kun-cha (Rangoon, n.d.), 4950; I 835 (1408); Toe Hla, ‘In-wa hkit’, 66.Google Scholar

26 Hla, Toe, ‘In-wa hkit’, 66;Google ScholarTun, Than, Hkit-haung myan-ma ya-zawin (Rangoon, 1964), 176–9; I 545 (1350); I 934 (1442); Luce, ‘Economic Life’, 293;Google ScholarCrawfurd, , Journal, II, 191–6.Google Scholar

27 Tun, Than, Hkit-haung, 178–9;Google Scholar Toe Hla, ‘In-wa hkit’, 65.

28 On Pagan-period and 14th-century references to than (summer rice) and mayin (winter rice), see Tun, Than, Hkit-haung, 180–1, and Luce, ‘Economic Life’, 289.Google Scholar For early references to kauk-gyi, see Luce, ‘Economic Life’, 289; I 549 (1350); I 592 (1359); I 666 (1372); I 709 (1381); I 814 (1384–1385); I 1007 (1451); I 989 (1476). On the post-Pagan expansion of irrigated rice, see Ito, ‘Customary Irrigation Techniques’, 40–1, 67–9. Cf. Watabe, Tadayo, ‘The Development of Rice Cultivation’, in Thailand: A Rice-Growing Society, Yoneo, Ishii (ed.) Honolulu, 1978), 314.Google Scholar On classifications, see Cheng, Siok-Hwa, The Rice Industry of Burma 1852–1940 (Singapore, 1968), 36–9.Google Scholar

29 See 1262 reference to yields of 10 tin on what the inscription identifies as ‘excellent rice land’ in Shei-haung myan-ma kyauk-sa-mya, vol. 3: thet-kayit 622–699, Chein, U. Maung (ed.) (Rangoon, 1983), 7; 1299 reference to mayin yields of 3.2 tin, I 409; 1501 reference to yields of 1 pe during Shan disturbances, in Than Tun, ‘Social Life in Burma’, 270.Google Scholar

30 On later yields, see, for example, ZOK, 32, 79, 81, 86 (citing tax figures); Trager, , Sit-tans, 338.Google Scholar On local seeds, see Cheng Siok-Hwa, Rice Industry, 32–45. I am indebted to Profs Than Tun, Carl E. Pray, and R. D. Hill for their informative communications on South/Southeast Asian rice patterns.

31 Tokugawa Japan shows, in well documented form, the possibilities inherent in preindustrial agrarian technology: between c. 1620 and 1820 in the Kinai region of Honshu improved seeds combined with stronger irrigation systems, wider use of fertilizer, and better soil preparation and farm management to facilitate increases in rice productivity of over 260%. On some fields output rose by as much as 112% in fifty years. Hanley, Susan B. and Yamamura, Kozo, Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial Japan, 1600–1868 (Princeton, 1977), 6, 99103, citing studies by Thomas C. Smith and Arai Eiji.Google Scholar

32 Cf. military lists at UK, I, 277–84, which Bennett, Paul J.Conference Under the Tamarind Tree(New Haven,1971) 25–6, 33–5 reliably dates to 1391–1445; and references to early Konbaung levies from Upper BurmaGoogle Scholar in Kon-baung-zet maha-ya-zawin-daw-gyi, Tin, U (comp.), vol. I (Rangoon, 1967), 117, 152–63;Google ScholarReprint from Dalrymple's Oriental Repertory, 1791–7 of Portions Relating to Burma (Rangoon, 1926), I, 166;Google ScholarROB, VI, 602–5; Snodgrass, Major, Narrative of the Burmese War (London, 1827), 94–5.Google Scholar

33 Symes, Embassy, 233, 259, 325; Harvey, History, 350–1; Adas, Burma Delta, 23; Dalrymple's Repertory, I, 130–1, 174–5; Gouger, Henry, Personal Narrative of Two Years' Imprisonment in Burma (London, 1860), 1920.Google Scholar

34 See supra, n. 23, plus Koenig, ‘Konbaung Polity’, 88–93.

35 That is to say, the population below the 19th parallel may have doubled from its 1783 level of c. 500,000. For the 1581 and 1783 censuses, see ZOK, 41; Koenig, ‘Konbaung Polity’, app. II; and Lieberman, , Administrative Cycles, 21–2, esp. nn. 21, 22.Google Scholar On the 1850s, see Adas, Burma Delta, 20–1.

36 On 14–15th century trade, see Zam-bukun-cha, 46–51, which though dated to 1605 contains records from the earlier era; I 970 (1458); I 995 (1479); I 808 (1386); Toe Hla, ‘In-wa hkit’, 62, 67–70.

37 Skinner, G. William, ‘Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China’, The Journal of Asian Studies 24, 1 (1964): 343; 24, 2 (1965): 195–228;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMark, Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford, 1973), chap. 16.Google Scholar

38 On Southeast Asian and Burmese trade c. 1350–1600, see Reid, Anthony, ‘Trade Goods and Trade Routes in Southeast Asia, c. 1300–1700’, in Final Report: Consultative Workshop on Research in Maritime Shipping and Trade Networks in Southeast Asia, SEAMEO Project in Archaeology and Fine Arts (Cisarua, Indonesia, 1984), 249–72;Google ScholarChaudhuri, K. N., Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean (Cambridge, 1985);CrossRefGoogle ScholarLieberman, Victor, ‘Europeans, Trade, and the Unification of Burma, c. 1540–1620, Oriens Extremus 27, 2 (1980): 203–26.Google Scholar

39 The only trade figures from the early 16th century I have found are in Tome Pires, I, 97–101, referring to 15–16 junks and 20–30 shallow Malay-type craft travelling each year from Lower Burma to Melaka and north Sumatra; in addition, one large Gujarati ship visited Lower Burma each year, but no figures on trade with Bengal or Coromandel are given. In 1709 Hamilton, Alexander, A New Account of the East Indies, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1727), II, 41,Google Scholar claimed ‘about twenty Sail of Ships’ visited Lower Burma's ports each year. This agrees substantially with English East India Company statistics presented in Lieberman, Administrative Cycles, 156–7. Between 1811 and 1822, the number of square-rigged vessels visiting Rangoon (Bassein and peninsular ports are omitted from this reckoning, as are smaller craft) varied between 35 and 56. India Office, London, Bengal Secret Consultations, 06 20, 1805; Crawfurd, , Journal, II, 197–8.Google Scholar

40 On the structure of early Konbaung maritime trade, see Crawfurd, , Journal, II, 195ff.;Google ScholarSymes, Embassy, 457; ROB, V, 947;Google ScholarChaudhuri, K. N., The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1660–1760 (Cambridge, 1978), 202;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPearn, B. R., A History of Rangoon (rpt, Westmead, England, 1971), 6572.Google Scholar

41 See Crawfurd, , Journal, II, 191–5;Google ScholarSymes, Embassy, 263, 325;Google ScholarChen, Sun Lai, ‘Sino-Burmese Economic Trade Relations and its Characteristics in Ming and Qing Dynasties’ (typescript, Peking University, 1989);Google ScholarWai, U Tun, Economic Development of Burma from 1800 till 1940 (Rangoon, 1961), 22;Google ScholarHla, Toe, ‘Moneylending and Contractual Thet-kayits’, (PhD dissertation, Northern Illinois Univ., 1987), 99.Google Scholar

42 Yule, Henry, A Narrative of the Mission to the Court of Ava in 1855 (rpt., Kuala Lumpur, 1968), 144.Google Scholar

43 See, e.g., UK, vol. 3, Hkin, U. So (ed.) (Rangoon 1961), 111. Cf. Pearn, Rangoon, 67.Google Scholar

44 Note that some silver was also imported from Yunnan. On the production and evolution of lump-coinage in Upper and Lower Burma, see Lieberman, , Administrative Cycles, 32–3, 121–5, 130, 161–3, 191, 213.Google Scholar In my forthcoming book, I shall present tables itemizing the distribution among in-kind, silver, and copper taxes from 1350–1804. For the period prior to 1550, the principal sources are Zam-bu-kun-cha and lithic inscriptions collated in Duroiselle, , List, I 5451071. The chief sources from 1550–1804 are ZOK; Zam-bu-kun-cha, Shei-hkit myan-ma; Trager, Sit-tans; private MSS. of sit-tans in the collection of U Toe Hla, Arts and Sciences University, Mandalay; and ROB, II–VIII.Google Scholar

45 See, e.g., Lieberman, , Administrative Cycles, 59–60;Google ScholarROB, V, 802, 816, 1031; ROB, VI, 473; Symes, Embassy, 160, 459; Pearn, Rangoon, 78–9; Toyo Bunko Microfilm 79, pt I (royal edicts).

46 See Lieberman, Administrative Cycles, chap. 1; and supra, n. 33.Google Scholar

47 Cf. ZOK, 8–21, dated perhaps about 1610, listing c. 145 myo, ne, and large Shan states; I 1093, from 1606, claiming dominion over 150 myo-ywa; ZOK, 64, dated 1635, referring to 157 myo, apparently including some Shan units;Google Scholar and Burney, H., ‘On the Population of the Burman Empire’, rpt JBRS 31, 1 (1941): 26–7, using the 1783 census to identify 188 ‘cities and district towns’ in the lowlands, excluding the Shan states.Google Scholar

48 For the growth of town populations and intramural areas, see UK I, 277; Dalrymple's Repertory, I, 173–4; Symes, Embassy, 241; Shei-haung myan-ma, 35, 63; Toyo Bunko Microfilm 91, pt II (Toungoo history); ZOK, 41;Google ScholarTrager, , Sit-tans, 417–18Google Scholar.

49 Ava was enlarged in 1597, 1740, 1766, and 1823. See previous note, plus ROB, V, 639–40; Yi, Yi, Myan-ma naing-ngan achei-anei, 1714–52 (Rangoon, 1973), 41–3;Google ScholarCrawfurd, , Journal, II, 45.Google Scholar

50 Boat figure is from Symes, Embassy, 325. On riverine traffic and tonnages, see also supra, n. 33.

51 For overviews of early Kon-baung interregional trade and specialized production, see Crawfurd, , Journal, II, 187–91;Google Scholar Toe Hla, Lu-hmu si-bwa-yei, chap. 5; Koenig, ‘Konbaung Polity’, 133–40; Symes, Embassy, 230–77. Compare these to 17th century. accounts of interregional trade and handicrafts at ZOK, 50–1.

52 On changing road use, see ROB, IV, 182–3, 621; Burma Gazetteer: Toungoo District, vol. A (Rangoon, 1914), 56; Toyo Bunko Microfilm 32, pt 2, pp. 69–71; India Office, London, Henry Burney Collection of Parabaiks, no. 30.Google Scholar

53 See supra, n. 33.

54 Land sales appear in these inscriptions (many inscriptions refer to multiple sales): I 559, 570, 574, 608, 656, 671, 684, 706, 714, 716, 718, 721, 723, 725, 726, 732, 745, 750, 752, 754, 78, 768, 769, 770, 780, 783, 793, 802, 813, 817, 820, 842, 858, 872, 881, 895, 922–5. 939, 943, 946, 947, 961, 971, 984, 985, 988, 994, 998, 1004, 1006, 1018, 1021, 1043, 1045, 1053; plus Myan-ma kyauk-sa, 95, 98.

55 These pre-1831 thet-kayits appear in Kon-baung-hkit let-ya thet-kayit-pa, I, documents through 25 May, 1827 passim and II, documents through April 13, 1829 passim; untitled collection of thet-kayits in possession of U Toe Hla, Arts and Sciences University, Mandalay, pp. 1–34; Trager, Sit-tans, 371–2; Toyo Bunko Microfilm 64, pt 4 (untitled parabaiks); ROB, Vs, 981; ROB, VI, 330; U Toe Hla, Lu-hmu si-bwa-yei, 26–7.Google Scholar

56 In many instances the purchase price included gifts of textiles, trays, beer, and animals to local athi headmen and notables, who apparently had to be indemnified for surrendering titular or supervisory rights over the land, although other individuals owned the land in a more direct sense and received what was usually the bulk of the purchase price. These arrangements suggest that concepts of shared ownership impeded a relatively free market in land such as was found during the Konbaung era. See, e.g., I 776 (1389), I 858 (1407–1408), I 726 (1386). Cf. Than Tun, ‘Mahakassapa’, 101–7.

57 The 243 commercial transactions appear in the sources identified in n. 55 supra, plus Toyo Bunko Microfilms 11, pt 10; 16, pt 9; 39, pt 4; 52, pts 5, 12; 53, pts 7, 9, 13, 21; 54, pt 10; 57, pt 8; 60, pts 7, 8, 13–15; 62, pt 14; 63, pt 2; 84, pt 7, most of which are parabaik records of loans and mortgages.

58 See supra, n. 56.

59 See Lieberman, Administrative Cycles, chaps 1, 2, 5; Idem, ‘Reinterpreting Burmese History’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 29 1 (1987): 162–94.

60 On royal trade income and overseas voyages, see Lieberman, Administrative Cycles, 23–32 passim, 59–60, 73, 117–30, 158–9, 211–12, 261, 276–8; Koenig, ‘Konbaung Polity’, 240–1; ROB, V, 805; ROB, VI, 670, 681; Pearn, Rangoon, 70, 74–5; Trager, Sit-tans, 73–5.

61 Lieberman, , Administrative Cycles, 113–30.Google Scholar

62 On post-1852 dislocations and royal efforts to compensate for the loss of the south, see Adas, Burma Delta, pts 1, 2; Oliver, Pollak, Empires in Collision: Anglo—Burmese Relations in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Westport, Conn., 1979), esp. chaps 6, 8;Google ScholarMyint, Myo, ‘The Politics of Survival in Burma: Diplomacy and Statecraft in the Reign of King Mindon, 1853–1878’ (PhD dissertation, Cornell Univ., 1987), esp. chap. 5.Google Scholar This emphasis on dislocation, however, does not imply that no major economic trends in Upper Burma prior to 1852 continued after that date. On the contrary, one suspects that rural production continued to become ever more commercialized, that money continued to replace barter, and that the market encouraged a further expansion of tenantry in the most developed economic zones. See, for example, Saito, Teruko, ‘Agricultural Laborers in Burma’, Burma and Japan: Basic Studies in Their Cultural and Social Structure, Burma Research Group, ed. (Tokyo, 1987), 267–80.Google Scholar

63 See supra, n. 9.

64 I, 630.

65 Taxation tables will appear in my forthcoming study. For examples of in-kind to cash conversion, see ZOK, 50 (referring to Myaung-mya); ZOK, 50–1; Toyo Bunko Microfilm 35, pt 1; Trager, Sit-tans, 134–9 (referring to tolls at Shwedaung and Prome); Trager, Sit-tans, 146–7, 181, 188 n. 34 (referring to Karens and Bassein salt-boilers.)

66 See, e.g., ROB, VI, 577, 644, 682, 689, 814, 849.

67 See, e.g., UK, III, 162; ROB, VI, 168; Trager, Sit-tans, 351, 400.

68 Lieberman, Victor, ‘The Political Significance of Religious Wealth in Burmese History: Some Further Thoughts’, Journal of Asian Studies 39, 4 (1980): 753–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 For example, sects of forest-dwellers and other monks who propagated Sinhalese-style Theravada Buddhism among the Tais after c. 1400 moved back and forth along the trade routes that led from Ava, as well as from the ports of Martaban and Pegu, to the Shan hills. Mangrai, Sao Saimong, The Padaeng Chronicle and the Jengtung State Chronicle Translated (Ann Arbor, 1981), xiv, 102ff., 107ff.; UK, II, 307, 312.Google Scholar On cultural diffusion, see, too, Aung, Maung Htin, Epistles Written on the Eve of the Anglo-Burmese War (The Hague, 1968), 118; Lieberman, ‘Reinterpreting’, 181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70 For further discussion, see Lieberman, , Administrative Cycles, 133–4.Google Scholar

71 Elvin, Chinese Past, 150. See UK, III, 113–15. On local disruptions and Burmese sentiment see UK, III, 113–15; Lieberman, , 49, 230–43.Google Scholar

72 See Tun, Than, ‘History 1300–1400’, 119–34;Google ScholarThaw, Tin Hla, ‘History of Burma: A.D. 1400–1500’, JBRS 42, 2 (1959): 135–51; and supra n. 56.Google Scholar

73 See supra n. 59.

74 See supra nn. 13, 57; Trager, Sit-tans, 368–9, 371–4; Crawfurd, , Journal, II, app. 49–50.Google Scholar We can trace in great detail the financial history of some local families, as for example, the early 19th century Shwebo myo-thu-gyi Min-zei-ya-maha-bo and his wife, whose activities are recorded in Toyo Bunko Microfilm 52, pt 5; 53, pts 13, 21; 54, pt 10. On commercial-cum-landlord elites in late Konbaung Upper Burma, see Saito, Teruko, ‘Agricultural Laborers’ in Burma and Japan, 267–80.Google Scholar

75 Harvey, History, 249; Aung Thwin, Pagan, 199–207, and Idem, ‘Jambudipa: Classical Burma's Camelot’, Contributions to Asian Studies 16 (1981), 39–40.

76 Maung Htin Aung, A History of Burma (New York, 1967), 144–6; D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th edn (London, 1981), 401; idem, Early English Intercourse with Burma 1587–1743 (rpt, London, 1968), 11–12. Harvey, History, 193, 248–9 sounds the same note less boldly.

77 See Anthony Reid, ‘The Islamization of Southeast Asia’, in Historia: Essays in Commemoration of the 25th Anniversary of the Department of History University of Malaya, Muhammad Abu Bakar et al. (eds) (Kuala Lumpur, 1984), 30; Idem, ‘The Origins of Southeast Asian Poverty’, in Scholarship and Society in Southeast Asia, W. E. Wilmott (ed.) (Christchurch, New Zealand, 1979), 41–5; Idem, ‘The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Southeast Asia’, Paper presented to the Association for Asian Studies Conference, Wash., DC, March 18, 1989; George V. Smith, The Dutch in Seventeenth-Century Thailand (De Kalb, Ill., 1977), 73, focusing on the 1680s; Sarasin Viraphol, Tribute and Profit: Sino-Siamese Trade, 1652–1853 (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 46.

78 I shall explore patterns of mainland and island history in greater detail in my forthcoming book The Structure of Early Modern Southeast Asian History: A Theoretical and Comparative Schema.

79 See Viraphol, Sarasin, Tribute and Profit;Google ScholarLysa, Hong, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century (Singapore, 1984);Google ScholarWyatt, David, Thailand: A Short History (New Haven, 1984), esp, chaps 4–6;Google ScholarNha, Nguyen Thanh, Tableau économique du Vietnam aux XVII et XVIII siècles (Paris, 1970);Google ScholarWhitmore, John K., ‘Vietnam and the Monetary Flows of Eastern Asia, Thirteenth to Eighteenth Centuries’, in Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, Richards, J. F. (ed.) (Durham, N.C., 1983), 363–93;Google ScholarKhoi, Le Thanh, Le Viet-Nam (Paris, 1955), esp. chaps 5–7;Google ScholarWoodside, Alexander, Vietnam and the Chinese Model (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), esp. chaps 3, 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80 For example, Filippe de Brito's intervention at Syriam 1600–1613 facilitated the Restored Toungoo reunification of the Irrawaddy basin, while Portuguese and Dutch assistance to the Nguyen and Trinh regimes in Vietnam in the mid-seventeenth century strengthened each state's military capacity.

81 See sources in nn. 77, 79, plus Hall, D. G. E., History of South-East Asia, pts 2, 3;Google ScholarRicklefs, M. C., A History of Modern Indonesia (London, 1981), chaps. 1–10;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPhelan, John L., The Hispanization of the Philippines (Madison, Wisc., 1959), esp. pts 1, 2.Google Scholar