When a factory is not a factory
The trading posts of mercantile companies like East India Company were also referred to as factories. The factory of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries should not be confused with the factory system that came out of the nineteenth century industrial revolution; both are as different as chalk and cheese. The Portuguese feitorias, the Dutch factorij and the British factory- all performed similar functions. Unlike the nineteenth century factory system, these factories did not manufacture goods. These were instead places where the merchants stored their merchandise after its procurement from neighbouring regions. Apart from storage and safekeeping of the merchandise, the factory also ensured that goods are weighed and packaged appropriately for the ‘home’ journey- to Netherlands, Portugal and Britain, wherever that may be. In short, these factories were pure mercantile enterprises- literally where factors (traders) assembled.
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