In the nineteenth century Straits of Malacca, one of the globe’s most significant trading crossroads, merchants were integral to imperial stability and growth. Indeed, historians of the British empire have long sought to understand how colonial governments turned to merchants, both British and Asian, to extend commercial networks, establish local hierarchies and extend processes of state-building. Yet, merchants’ conceptions of their relationship to, and place within, colonial governance are less well understood. This article examines the emergence of colonial merchant politics in the British controlled Straits Settlements in the early nineteenth century. It concentrates on petitions produced by Asian merchants who demanded greater intervention by East India Company authorities in matters of maritime security and diplomacy. Petitions enabled the merchants of Singapore and Penang to inject their political and commercial visions into processes of colonial state-building. Moreover, these cases demonstrate that imperial margins — geographic, bureaucratic, linguistic and political — were productive spaces in which colonial power dynamics between state and society were contested and took on new meanings.

中文翻译：

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十九世纪初海峡殖民地的“海盗”、当权者和商人请愿


十九世纪的马六甲海峡是全球最重要的贸易十字路口之一，商人是帝国稳定和发展不可或缺的一部分。事实上，大英帝国的历史学家长期以来一直试图了解殖民政府如何求助于英国和亚洲商人来扩展商业网络、建立地方等级制度和扩展国家建设进程。然而，商人对于他们与殖民统治的关系以及在殖民统治中的地位的看法却不太为人所知。本文考察了 19 世纪初英国控制的海峡殖民地中殖民商人政治的出现。它主要关注亚洲商人提出的请愿书，他们要求东印度公司当局在海事安全和外交事务上加大干预力度。请愿书使新加坡和槟城的商人能够将他们的政治和商业愿景注入到殖民国家建设的进程中。此外，这些案例表明，帝国边缘——地理、官僚、语言和政治——是富有成效的空间，国家和社会之间的殖民权力动态在其中展开竞争并呈现出新的含义。