Comparative Early Modern Trade Networks and Mercantile Communities: Julfan Armenians, Multani Indians, and Sephardic Jews

Most scholarship on long-distance mercantile communities and their networks has tended to be insular and narrowly focused on a single community of merchants. Little work has been done to conceptualize mercantile communities in a comparative context. This paper offers a comparative excursus into Julfan Armenian, Multani Indian, and Sephardic Jewish trade networks and trading practices. Following a broad introduction to the Julfan network that emphasizes the importance of the “circulation of men and things” between the network center at Julfa/Isfahan and the network settlements, the paper will compare and contrast this network with those of the Multanis and Sephardim. The comparative dimension will focus on 1) the structural properties of each network in terms of circulation, 2) the organizational basis of each network with particular attention to the use of different types of long distance partnership contracts, and most importantly to 3) how long-distance “relations of trust” were policed and monitored in each network. On the basis of this comparison, the paper will argue that a relative insularity of trading habits was one of the structural weaknesses of the Julfan network and that this organizational flaw stemmed from the Julfans' privileging of one type of partnership contract (the commenda) over others.