Lascars and Indian Ocean Seafaring, 1780–1860: Shipboard Life, Unrest and Mutiny by Aaron Jaffer (review)

Lascars were south Asian sailors who could be hired for a single voyage or for longer service, aboard country trade ships (commerce between Indian ports and other ports in Southeast Asia and China) as well as East India Company vessels sailing from England to India and China. They constituted a source of shipboard laborers for British and Asian ship owners to fill the ranks of seamen handling the lowliest jobs on these commercial vessels. This study is largely confined to vessels commanded by British masters.

Jaffer’s book stays close to the topic of his doctoral dissertation, emphasizing the mutinous aspect of lascars’ shipboard experiences more than other social and economic aspects of their lives.¹ In that respect, it deals with the most dramatic element of their “wooden world.” A useful appendix provides summary accounts of thirty-eight shipboard uprisings involving lascar crews.

The greatest virtue of this monograph is the extent of its research. Jaffer has made good use of records and papers at the India Office Library in London, as well as personal accounts held at the National Marine Museum in Greenwich and archival resources in India, Australia, and the Netherlands. Records of judicial proceedings in England and India, in combination with personal testimonies and newspaper accounts, have helped him to reconstruct numerous mutinous events. The book is scrupulously documented, and Jaffer is careful to avoid unwarranted generalizations from evidence that might come from a single episode.

By the yardstick of interdisciplinary history, Lascars and Indian Ocean Seafaring conveys a good deal of sociological history about shipboard life, as well as studies of revolts and threatened revolts that will be useful to criminologists. Not all mutinous unrest led to violent seizures of ships; negotiating a resolution was possible in numerous instances. In that respect, Jaffer has opened a window on labor history in the maritime context.

Jaffer devotes considerable attention to the shipboard hierarchy among lascars. The highest rank of lascar was the “serang,” which was something like an elevated type of boatswain. Below the serang would be one or more “tindals,” who held a status approximating boatswain’s mate. These leaders often functioned as intermediaries between the ship’s senior officers and the lascar members of the crew. Communication was a problem aboard many vessels, since many of the lascars had little or no facility with spoken English. The serangs and tindals were often the only people on board capable of bridging the language gulf between English officers and lascars. Serangs had enough influence to quiet mutinous unrest, but they could also choose to encourage agitation.

Jaffer’s decision to plunge almost immediately into the historiography of his subject is a questionable strategy. Much of the introduction explores what various authors have written about lascars and their work. Not a lively beginning to the text, it might discourage a general readership. Some editorial advice about placing this material in an appendix would have been a kindness to the author. That said, this monograph will be valuable to scholars in the field of South Asian maritime commerce in the age of sail. Jaffer is careful in his judgments and trustworthy in the use of his sources, and he has been industrious in seeking out widely dispersed primary materials.