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The Trade in Spices

chapter one

The Trade in Spices

What are the

An 1 1th Century ce Chinese Spice Routes?

pottery incense burner.

Y The busy Spice Route pon of

Antioch in the 1 5th Century CE.

The Spice Routes is the name given to the network of sea routes that

link the East with the West. They stretch from the west coast of Japan,

through the islands of Indonesia, around India to the lands of the

Middle East - and from there, across the Mediterranean to Europe. It is

a distance over 15,000 kilometres and, even today, is no easy journey.

From our very earliest history, people have travelled the Spice

i i Routes. At first, they probably ventured only short distances from

their home ports but over the centuries their ships sailed further

and further across the oceans. They braved treacherous seas and

a possibly hostile reception on arrival in an unknown land. These

journeys were not undertaken purely in the spirit of adventure -

the driving force behind them was trade. The Spice Routes were, and

still are, first and foremost trade routes.

Trade is a central part of our lives. When we buy something we are

trading, exchanging one item (usually money) for

another. However, our purchase is the final link in a

long chain of buyers and sellers: from the supplier of

raw materials, to the manufacturer, to the wholesaler,

to the shop - and if the goods we buy come from

abroad there may be several other stages in between.

The journey of the goods

between all these links

in the chain is called a

trade route (in fact,

the word 'trade'

derives from a term

meaning a track or

course). In the case

\ of the Spice
Routes the links

were formed

by traders

buying and
 The Trade in Spices

selling goods from port to port. The principal and

most profitable goods they traded in were spices -

giving the routes their name. As early as 2000 bce,

spices such as cinnamon from Sri Lanka and cassia

from China found their way along the Spice Routes to

the Middle East. Other goods exchanged hands too -

cargoes of ivory, silk, porcelain, metals and dazzling

gemstones brought great profits to the traders who

were prepared to risk the dangerous sea journeys.

But precious goods were not the only thing to be

exchanged by the traders. Perhaps more important

was the exchange of knowledge: knowledge of new

peoples and their religions, languages, artistic and

scientific skills. The ports along the Spice Routes

acted as melting pots for ideas and information.

With every ship that swept out with a cargo of

valuables on board, fresh knowledge was carried

over the seas to the ship's next port of call.

A Carving marble Buddhas in Burma. Ideas on

religion spread along the Spice Routes.

Colourful spices are still sold in the East today,

just as they were thousands of years ago.
The Trade in Spices

The

Demand for Spices

Today, it seems strange

that the demand for

spices should be one of

the central causes for such large

across such massive distances.

We probably think of them simply as a

flavouring for food. Yet, the word 'spice'

comes from the Latin species, which means an item of

special value, as compared to ordinary articles of trade.

The great distances are easy to explain: many of the

-important spices grew only in the tropical East, from

China south to Indonesia, southern India and Sri Lanka. In particular,

The two creatures shown
they grew in the Moluccas or, as they are better known, the Spice
on these pages are phoenixes

from a Chinese silk tapestry of Islands. These are a chain of mountainous islands strung out like
the 16th Century ce. The jewels in the Pacific Ocean between Sulawesi (Celebes) and New
phoenix was a fantastic bird of
Guinea. From here came the fragrant spices of cloves and nutmeg
ancient legend closely

associated with the burning of which grew nowhere else in the world. To reach the spice markets
incense. People believed that it
found across Asia and Europe, the spices had to be transported
burned itself in a fire and that
thousands of kilometres over the seas.
another phoenix rose from its

ashes.

Spices have been used in the

preparation and flavouring of

food for thousands of years.

Many of the great cuisines of

the world have developed

through the use of spices.

8
 The Trade in Spices

How people came to know and value these spices which grew so far

away is an impossible question to answer exactly. As trading links from

Indonesia fanned out through south and central Asia, so they met with

links that spread from the Middle East and the north. Goods were

exchanged and traders would return to their homeland carrying the

beautifully scented, exotic spices. Perhaps it was their strangeness

and rarity that led great medicinal and spiritual values to be

attributed to them.

From the dawn of civilization, spices were burned as incense in

religious ceremonies, purifying the air and carrying the prayers of the

people heavenward to their gods. They were also added to healing

ointments and to potions drunk as antidotes to poisons. To hide the

many household smells, people burned spices daily in their homes.

They were used as cooking ingredients very early on - not only to add

flavour but also to make the food, which was often far from fresh,

palatable, particularly in hot climates.

Myths and legends were woven around these exotic substances.

They were linked to strange bea.sts like the phoenix, giant eagles, A Early 19th Century ce

English spice boxes. Spices

serpents and dragons. In the Fifth Century bce, the Greek historian
were extremely expensive and
Herodotus wrote how the spice cassia grew in a lake 'infested by carefully stored in special

winged creatures like bats, which screech alarmingly and are very boxes and cupboards.

pugnacious'. Some of these stories were probably created by the

traders who, wishing to protect their profits, tried to hide the sources

of the spices.

For the profits to be made from spices were huge. Because they

were so small and dried, they were easy to transport, but they were

literally worth their weight in gold. The wealth of the spice trade

brought great power and influence and, over the centuries, bloody

battles were fought to win control of it and the routes along which it

took place.
 The Trade in Spices

The

Different Spices

A spice is the strongly flavoured dried flower, fruit, seed, bark or stem

of a plant. For example, cloves are the unopened flower buds of the

clove tree; nutmeg is a seed; cinnamon and cassia are bark; ginger and

turmeric are both underground stems. In the past, as well as being

used in food, spices were included in the ingredients of oils,

ointments, perfume-powders, cosmetics, incense and medicine.

Fragrant woods, such as sandalwood and aloe-wood, were also much

in demand. Some of the most precious and sought-after spices carried

along the Spice Routes are listed here.

Cloves (Eugenia aromtica) A

The clove tree is indigenous to the

Moluccas of Indonesia. Today, they
also grown successfully elsewhere
such as Madagascar and Grenada.
Cloves are the dried flower-buds of
tree. They are used in curing meats,
cooking and medicine.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) A Nutmeg and Mace (Myristica fragrans) Frankincense (Boswellia sacra) A
This spice is the rhizome (an under The evergreen nutmeg tree is native to This is the resin of the frankincense tree.
ground stem) of the ginger plant. It is the tiny volcanic Banda Islands at the It was considered the highest quality
used in food and medicines. The ginger southern tip of the Moluccas. Now it incense. It was gathered from trees
plant originally grew in Java, India and is also grown in the West Indies, Sri grown in the Zufar (Dhofar) region in
China but is now farmed elsewhere as Lanka and Malaysia. Inside the fruit, the south of the Arabian Peninsula
well. Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a the heavy seed, the nutmeg, is covered and in Somalia in Africa. Myrrh
plant of the ginger family, native to by a scarlet lace-like mesh, the mace. (Commiphora myrrha) is a fragrant
India and Indonesia. Oil from its Both were used in medicines and as an resin from a shrub mostly grown in
rhizomes was used in food and as a incense and, as is still the case today. Somalia. Valued as highly as
bright yellow dye. in cooking. frankincense, myrrh was used as
incense and as an ointment.

10
 The Trade in Spices

Black pepper (Piper nigrum) v

One of the earliest spices known. It was

once so valuable that it was often used

as a substitute for money, ransoms,

tributes and rents. The pepper plant is a

climbing vine, with berries called

peppercorns. It grows wild in the
equatorial forests of India and Asia but
is now cultivated. For many centuries,
Camphor (Dryobalanops aromtica
the best quality pepper has been grown
& Cinnamomum camphora) A
on the western Malabar coast of India.
Camphor is sometimes called gum

arabic. It is a strong-smelling crystalline

substance obtained from the sap of

two types of tree found in parts of the

Far East. It was used mainly in incense
and medicine.

Cinnamon and Cassia (Cinnamomum

macrophyllum & Cinnamomum cassia

These spices are two of the

earliest known. Both were used to

flavour food and in embalming

ointments. They are the dried

bark of the cinnamon and

cassia trees - the first being

native to Sri Lanka, the
second to China and

Burma, but now

both are grown

successfully
elsewhere.

Saffron (Crocus sativus) A

Saffron is now the most expensive

spice in the world. It is made from the

stigmas (the pollen stalks) inside the

saffron crocus flowers. Thousands of

stigmas are needed for just a few grams.

It can be used in foods, wines,

perfumes and as a dye or a drug. It was

grown mainly in Iran and India, but

also now in Spain.