SPICE TRADE

The trade with Arabia and India in incense and spices became increasingly important, and Greeks for the first time began to trade directly with India. The discovery, or rediscovery, of the sea-route to India is attributed to a certain Eudoxos, who was sent out for this purpose towards the end of the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes II (died 116 BC). Eudoxos made two voyages to India, and subsequently, having quarrelled with his Ptolemaic employers, perished in an unsuccessful attempt to open up an alternative sea route to India, free of Ptolemaic control, by sailing around Africa. The establishment of direct contacts between Egypt and India was probably made possible by a weakening of Arab power at this period, for the Sabaean kingdom of South-western Arabia collapsed and was replaced by Himyarite Kingdom around 115 BC. Imports into Egypt of cinnamon and other eastern spices, such as pepper, increased substantially, though the Indian Ocean trade remained for the moment on quite a small scale, no more than twenty Egyptian ships venturing outside the Red Sea each year.

Spice trade during the middle ages

In Java and Borneo, the introduction of Indian culture created a demand for aromatics. These trading outposts later served the Chinese and Arab markets as well.Donkin 2003: 59

Image of Calicut, India from Georg Braun and Franz Hogenber's atlas ''Civitates orbis terrarum'', 1572.

The Indian commercial connection with South East Asia proved vital to the merchants of Arabia and Persia during the seventh century and the eighth century. The Greek document Periplus Maris Erythraei names three Indian ports from where large ships sailed towards east to ''Khruse''.^[6]
The earliest illustrations of Indian merchant ships, two masted and square rigged, are found on the second century Indian coinage.Donkin 2003: 65 These belong to about the same era as Ptolemy. Hsuan Tsang mentions the town of Puri where "merchants depart for distant countries."
The Abbasids used Alexandria, Damietta, Aden and Siraf as entry ports to India and China.Donkin 2003: 91-92 Merchants arriving from India in the port city of Aden payed tribute in form of musk, camphor, ambergris and sandalwood to Ibn Ziyad, the sultan of Yemen.

Islands of Northern Indonesia and Southern Philippines, commonly called the Spice Islands.

Moluccan products shipped across the ports of Arabia to the Near East passed through the ports of India and Sri Lanka.Donkin 2003: 92 Indian exports of spices find mention in the works of Ibn Khurdadhbeh (850), al-Ghafiqi (1150), Ishak bin Imaran (907) and Al Kalkashandi (fourteenth century). After reaching either the Indian or the Sri Lankan ports were sometimes shipped to East Africa, where they would be used for many purposes, including burial rites.

This figure illustrates the path of Vasco da Gama heading for the first time to India (black) as well as the trips of Pero da Covilha (orange) and Afonso de Paiva (blue). The path common to both is the green line.

The islands of Molucca find mention in several records; ''Meluza'' or ''Melucha'' is mentioned by a member of the Brazil-India expedition under Cabral;Donkin 2003: 87 Amerigo Vespucci mentions ''Maluche'' in a letter to Lorenzo de Medici (1501); a Javanese chronicles (1365) mentions the Moluccas and ''Maloko'';Donkin 2003: 88 and navigational works of the fourteenth century and the fifteenth century contain contain the first unequivocal Arab reference to Moluccas. Sulaima al-Mahr writes: "East of Timor [where sandalwood is found] are the islands of ''Bandam'' and they are the islands where nutmeg and mace are found. The islands of cloves are called ''Maluku'' ....."
On the orders of Manuel I of Portugal, four vessels under the command of navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, continuing to the eastern coast of Africa to Malindi to sail across the Indian Ocean to Calicut.Gama, Vasco da. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press. The wealth of the Indies was now open for the Europeans to explore; the Portuguese Empire was one of the early European empires to grow from spice trade.

Spice trade during the modern times

Early modern period

The first Dutch expedition left from Amsterdam (April 1595) for South East Asia.Donkin 2003: 169 Another Dutch convoy sailed in 1598 and returned one year later with 600, 000 pounds of spices and other East Indian products. The United East India Company forged alliance with the principal producers of cloves and nutmeg. The British East India Company shipped substantial quantities of spices during the early seventeenth century.

Dutch colonial possessions, with the Dutch East India Company possessions marked in a paler green, surrounding the Indian Ocean plus Saint Helena in the mid-Atlantic.

The growing competition led to rival nations resorting to military means for control of the spice trade. In 1641, Portuguese Molucca was captured by the Dutch. The capture saw concentrated plantation on cloves and nutmegs and then - using the Treaty of Batavia (1652) - an attempt to destroy trees on all other islands. This was done to keep the supply in check in order to control the important markets of spices.
This attempt disrupted the ancient patterns of trade and even led to depopulation of entire islands, notably Banda. British traveler John Fryer (1672-1681) observed that "the Dutch will leave nothing unattempted, to engross; for none has escaped them but this pepper [of Malabar]: cinnamon, cloves, mace and nutmegs being wholly theirs...."
Furthermore, a report by the British East India Company (London, 1614) mentions of the Dutch as "worse enemies than the ''Portingals'' in matters of trade."
The Moluccas became the principal entry ports for the spice trade, and according to Robin A. Donkin (2003):^[7]

Trade by Europeans between different parts of South and East Asia was often more profitable than supplying the home countries. In the 1530s, the Portuguese shipped substantially more cloves, nutmegs, and mace to India and Hormuz than to Portugal. The buyers in Hormuz were "Moorish merchants who pass[ed] it on, over Persia, Arabia and all Asia as far as Turkey." From at least the seventeenth century, the same products were taken to Bengal by the Portuguese and the Dutch. English merchants found that they sold "Exceedingly well in Surratt" and other Indian and Persian stations. The Dutch between 1620 and 1740 marketed one-third or more of their spices, notably cloves, in Asia: Persia, Arabia, and India. Japan was served by the Portuguese from Macao and later by the Dutch, but the demand for cloves and spices generally was said in the early seventeenth century to be relatively small and prices were consequently low.

Penang, a British colony, was established as a pepper port in 1786.Corn 1999: 217

Later modern times

By 1815, the first shipment of nutmegs from Sumatra had arrived in Europe. Furthermore, islands of the West Indies, like Grenada, also became involved in spice trade.
Sandalwood from Timor was prized as "a commodity in China" during the early eighteenth century; Tibetan incense was also valued and appreciated in China.Donkin 2003: 162-163 In fact, East Asia displayed a general interest in sandalwood products, which were used to make images of the historic Buddha and other valuable artifacts.
Despite the late entry of America in the spice trade merchants from Salem, Massachusetts traded profitably with Sumatra during the early half of the nineteenth century.^[8] The kingdom of Aceh became a powerful entity in the South Eastern spice trade, the Acehnese resisted Dutch invasions and forged trading relationships with the traders from Salem.^[9]

Recent Trends

As of the early 2000s, saffron is the world's most expensive spice. Spain, India, and Iran are the chief producers of saffron. One pound of saffron may require upto 35,000–100,000 flowers.
The table below shows total global spice production in 2004 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations statistics):

World Spice Production in tons, 2003–2004, data from FAOSTAT
India	1 600 000	86 %
China	66 000	4 %
Bangladesh	48 000	3 %
Pakistan	45 300	2 %
Turkey	33 000	2 %
Nepal	15 500	1 %
Other countries	60 900	3 %
'Total'	'1 868 700'	100 %

See also

★ Salt Trade

Notes

1. Rawlinson 2001: 11-12
2. Fage 1975: 164
3. At any rate, when Gallus was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos to India, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise. - Strabo (II.5.12.); ★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html Source.
4. Ball 2000: 131
5. Ball 2000: 137
6. Donkin 2003: 64
7. Donkin 2003: 170
8. Corn 1999: 265
9. Corn 1999: 252

References

★ Intercourse Between India and the Western World: From the Earliest Times of the Fall of Rome, , Hugh George, Rawlinson, Asian Educational Services, ,

★ The Cambridge History of Africa, , John Donnelly, Fage, Cambridge University Press, ,

★ The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia, , Himanshu Prabha, Ray, Cambridge University Press, ,

★ Meccan Trade And The Rise Of Islam, , Patricia, Crone, Gorgias Press LLC, ,

★ Between East and West: The Moluccas and the Traffic in Spices Up to the Arrival of Europeans, , Robin A., Donkin, Diane Publishing Company, ,

★ The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade, , Charles, Corn, Kodansha America, ,

★ The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, , Ian, Shaw, Oxford University Press, ,

★ Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire, , Warwick, Ball, Routledge, ,

External links

★ Spice: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (Date: 2007)

★ Pepper: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (Date: 2007)