How The Spice Trade Changed World History

When you open your kitchen cabinet, the innocent containers of spice looking back at you don’t show much of their amazing past.  You may not have known that at one time nutmeg was more valuable in weight than gold. Or that there was a time in the 1500s where English dockhands asked for their bonuses in cloves.  Spices were an extremely important part of history, at one point being one of the centers of business and trade.  The spice trade both created and devastated territories, pioneered the age of exploration leading to new land discoveries, and even caused tragedy and war.

Spices have a rich history that we now take for granted: cheap prices and easily accessible.  They were once an extremely pricey commodity used only by the wealthy and were very difficult to acquire.  Originally traced back around 4,000 years ago, the Arabs began the spice trade.  Spices were known to come from the “Spice Islands” now called the Moluccas, where the Arabs would not reveal the location.  For centuries they would control the price of spices, with merchants not disclosing the locations of these rich Spice Islands in order to guarantee high yields from trading. 

Thousands of years later, the spice trade was completely altered due to Europe’s Age of Exploration.  Europe still had control over the waters with better technology and navigational equipment than the other nations.  Fed up with the high prices, European merchants and discoverers set off to find these Spice Islands themselves.  Due to the Treaty of Torsedillas, Spanish Christopher Columbus set out to the west, while Portuguese Vasco De Gamma set out to the east.  Columbus found himself in America.  While he did not find India, Columbus brought back other spices such as vanilla and chilies (that Columbus call “peppers” to satisfy his letdown of not discovering peppercorns).  It is interesting because we still call them Chile peppers today!

Portuguese merchant Vasco de Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa leading to his discovery of India, where he found actual peppercorns and subsequently found cinnamon in Sri Lanka and later cloves in the Moluccas.  This success was the start of Portugal’s Spice Empire.  These pricey commodities began to fall as Spain and Portugal cultivated and took over the spice trade.  Later the Dutch would take over the clove trade from the Portuguese with the triumph of their powerful Dutch East India Company, massacring native tribes for control of the Spice Islands.  Shortly after the English East India Company took over a majority of the Spice Trade as well, generating wealth and power for Britain.  Humongous profit was generated from the Spice Trade, even though prices gradually started to go down as more spices were bought and more companies formed.  Trade routes began to form and grow, and later different nations starting to develop growing processes of the plants alone, adding to the devaluation of the spice.

Spices were fundamental in European exploration, leading to new establishments and discoveries that changed the world forever.  Though tremendous bloodshed and brutality are sometimes overlooked, the search for spices greatly developed and expanded European countries and their wealth, and connected new nations in the beginnings of globalization.  The price of spices is not as expensive as it used to be, but they are still a vital part in everyday meals where people shouldn’t overlook their importance.

Fun Facts: 

1) Nutmeg is a psychotropic and in high enough doses causes hallucinations, delusions and an impending sense of doom.

2) Despite being synonymous with blandness, vanilla is one of the most complex spices in the world and the second most expensive, next to Saffron.

3) Red peppers are unusually rich in vitamin C, and that paprika made from them retains more vitamin C by weight than even lemon juice. Paprika is also high in other antioxidants

4) Pepper is the number one selling spice in America

5) Cinnamon bark is one of the few spices that can be consumed directly

http://honestcooking.com/10-cinnamon-facts-you-should-know/

http://blog.americanspice.com/index.php/fun-facts-on-pepper/

http://kickassfacts.com/35-kickass-interesting-facts-about-herbs-and-spices/

Images: http://www.sabato.co.nz/images/default/products/SPIBLAPEPWHO120_Web.jpg

http://spiceislandsblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/mollucanspicediscovery_map3.jpg

http://keithlorren.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/spices-for-health.jpg

http://orlandochilicookoff.com/bkgr.jpeg

Interesting Site: http://www.livescience.com/7495-spice-trade-changed-world.html