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Spice trade, usually done along one of many historic spice routes, was one of the most important commercial activities from the period of classical antiquity up to the Modern Times. The importance placed on spices is reflected by economic developments that began early in many Civilization#Development of early civilizations, where spices found applications in food preservation, cooking and traditional medicine.

Ancient spice trade The Ancient Egypt had traded in the Red Sea, importing spices from the "Land of Punt" and from Arabia.Rawlinson 2001: 11-12 Luxury goods traded along the Incense Route included Indian spices, ebony, silk and fine textiles., and subsequently the Roman empire.

The Ptolemaic dynasty had developed trade with India using the Red Sea ports.Shaw 2003: 426 With the establishment of Roman Egypt, the Ancient Rome Roman trade with India the already existing trade.

According to the The Cambridge History of Africa (1975):Fage 1975: 164

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 Eudoxus of Cyzicus, who was sent out for this purpose towards the end of the reign of Ptolemy VIII 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.

The trade between India and the Greco-Roman world kept on increasing;At any rate, when Cornelius Gallus was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Aswan and the frontiers of Kingdom of Aksum, and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos to India, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemaic Egypt, only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise. - Strabo (II.5.12.); Source. within this trade spices were the main import from India to the Western world,Ball 2000: 131 bypassing silk and other commodities.Ball 2000: 137

Pre-Islamic Meccans continued to use the old Incense Route to benefit from the heavy Roman demand for luxury goods.Crone 2004: 10 The Meccan involvement saw the export of the same goods: Arabian frankincense, East African ivory and gold, Indian spices, Chinese silk etc.

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 China and Arab markets as well.Donkin 2003: 59, 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.Donkin 2003: 64

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." and Southern Philippines, commonly called the Spice Islands.

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 paid tribute in form of musk, camphor, ambergris and sandalwood to Ibn Ziyad, the sultan of Yemen.

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 AD), 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. 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 the first unequivocal Arab reference to Moluccas. Sulaima al-Mahr writes: "East of Timor 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 Netherlands 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., 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 Jakarta (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 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):Donkin 2003: 170

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 "Moors merchants who pass 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 Surat" 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 Macau 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 United States in the spice trade merchants from Salem, Massachusetts traded profitably with Sumatra during the early half of the nineteenth century.Corn 1999: 265 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.Corn 1999: 252

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 up to 35,000–100,000 flowers.

The table below shows total global spice production in 2004 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations statistics):

{]STAT|-| bgcolor="orange"| [India|align="right" bgcolor="#ffde80" |66 000||align="right" bgcolor="#ffde80"|4%|-| bgcolor="orange" | [Bangladesh|align="right" bgcolor="#ffde80"|45 300||align="right" bgcolor="#ffde80"|2%|-| bgcolor="orange" | [Turkey|align="right" bgcolor="#ffde80" | 15 500||align="right" bgcolor="#ffde80"|1%|-| bgcolor="orange" | Other countries|align="right" bgcolor="#ffde80" | 60 900||align="right" bgcolor="#ffde80"|3%|-| bgcolor="chocolate" | Total|align="right" bgcolor="chocolate" | 1 868 700||align="right" bgcolor="chocolate"|101%|-|}

See also

Salt Trade

Notes References

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

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