Week 9 - Engines of trade: spices, silver and enslavement Flashcards
what generates encounters?
Borderlands
Political and cultural one-upmanship
Conflict
Diplomacy
Trade! Trade is an intersection between exchange and encounter
exchange across distance and difference
Varied scale - sequence of overlapping circuits (most were local and small-distance)
Larger, regional circuits
Trans-oceanic systems
Each involved different degrees of cultural displacement and encounter
Commodities often travelled much further than individual traders
Exotic items tend to travel/generate longer distance networks
Desirability = profits
Increased motive to take risk
factors that shaped trade
Commodities and markets - supply, demand, value
Legal and regulatory environment
Technologies - travel, communication, preservation
Political involvement
Militarisation
Language and cultural barriers
Relationships on the ground
Environment and climate - ease and timing of travel
Topography and seascapes
three commodities, from and to
Positivistic explanation of progress - let’s not make cultural assumptions
Silver:
Value directly affected by political and technological change in Asia in 13-15 c
Shift in silver markets key to new global economy and rise of European colonial powers
Spices:
Critical since ancient times
Medical and luxury items
Limited access drives exploration and changes in trade organisation
Enslaved people:
Shift in colonial power and production drives changes in slavery
From:
Small volumes and distributed risk
Periodic periods of sustainable kind
Regional circuits
Family and friendship based
Culturally embedded
Collaborative practice
Slavery in small numbers
To:
Large volumes, centralised control
High profits and aggressive growth
Long distance
Company based and nationally sponsored
Culturally seperate
Militarised, competitive and confrontational
Slavery/indenture on massive scale
spices
Knowledge that there were spices in Asia from way back
Indonesian commodities in medieval Denmark by 13th century
Long tradition of medicinal and culinary use - these two aspects were in fact one and the same
trade and geopolitical change
Collapse of the Mongol khanates
Abandonment of paper money in the east
Huge shift in silver values - very high value in china, low value but productive mines in Europe and S America, reversal of import flows (out of to into china)
Rise of the Ottoman and other Islamic empires
Dominance of N African and Indian trade
Confrontational politics at the European border
age of exploration
Europeans seeking unmediated access to Asian markets
Avoiding Ottoman middleman
Vasco de Gama: the route around the horn of Africa
Christopher Columbus: Atlantic route
New Atlantic routes:
Atlantic islands attested in Afro-Eurasia as early as Al-Idrisi
New routes to India entailed Atlantic travel
Environment and discovery
South Atlantic Gyre
Westward current in S Atlantic
Leads to European encounter with Americas
mercantilism
Regulated companies - cartels of autonomous private firms and operating with licence in a region
Joint stock/chartered companies - capitalisation via traceable shares, separation of ownership and management, shared liability, official military, establish fortified and permanent bases
Push regulated companies out
Expansion of colonial control
silver and enslavement
New world: a new source of silver
Silver race - European competition for S American profits, amplification of slavery to meet mining workforce needs
Emergence of global trade system
slaves
Same link, page 115 about slaves:
* What are the main points of this contract?
Part of the conditions of the sale was that the seller promised to protect her for the buyer.
Identification of the ethnicity of the person being sold
* How does the trader identify himself? Why might this be significant?
Giunta son of Bonaccorso - identifying himself in his familial network, and the notation that his father has died might also suggest that the enslaved person was inherited.
* What anxieties are revealed in this contract?
Level of protection of young person (even if nominally). There are witnesses, and testimony of the enslaved person (they might be real, they might be made up) - perhaps reveals that there are legal mechanisms for the sale of enslaved people. Mention the race of the enslaved person (white, from Malta) so this is obviously important for them. There is a notation of the price of the sale, and the cost for if the enslaved person is not delivered to the new ‘owner’ (a cost which is 4X the original price - a kind of early insurance policy!)
* How does this source relate to the themes of exchange and encounter?
Showing where the enslaved person comes from ie Malta might give us an indication of where slaves were coming from into Italy at this time (potential movement from within italy too!)
Paul Freedman The medieval spice trade
What were some of the broader impacts of the European demand for spices in the medieval period?
* They become likened to precious metals in terms of their value
* Growing development of trade networks and routes
* Impact on the development of maritime and other technologies that allowed for the movement of a lot of goods over long distances - this also meant that as they travelled over these long distances, they became subject to different customs-esque charges, as they moved through different areas
According to Freedman, what were the reasons for the demand for spices? (Hint: They had broader uses outside cooking!)
* Medicine (idea of balancing the 4 humours could be achieved by the ingesting/usage of particular spices)
* Perfumes/aromatic uses
How did Europeans in the medieval period define spices? Does it differ from our current understanding?
* Sugar was considered a spice
* Spices were considered to bring balance to the body’s humours (used as a ‘drug’ to form balance)
* Pretty much any ‘aromatic products imported from far off’ were considered a ‘spice’
What made spices ‘exotic’ in the European imagination?
* Many were previously not available/not widely available
* These spices also mainly came from the East which was associated with higher learning and had biblical ties and a sense of luxury
* Spices were also primarily available for the rich and thus they were a show of status and something to be treasured and showed off
What were some of the impacts of Marco Polo’s journey on the European understanding of ‘the East’?
* While his description is somewhat ‘vague’ MP gives Europeans a better understanding of where exactly places like India are (and we can see this development noted in later maps!) and eventually we see that Europeans identify exactly which islands produce which specific spices
* For a long time where a spice ‘comes from’ does not necessarily mean its place of growing/origin - could mean the main port it’s imported from to wherever ‘you’ were
Matthew Trade and the global economy
How does Romaniello connect trade in the late medieval period to the development of a global economy?
* between 16-18th c ‘improved transportation enabled the quest for new trades and goods, ultimately increasing the vol of trade’, which ‘ultimately inspired the organization of a ‘global’ economy.’ (p307)
* R. suggests it is a story of varying individual fortunes rather than teleology or who ‘won’ or became superior in global trade. Despite that, the chapter does not talk much about individuals’ experiences, it’s macro level, but noting a variety of patterns and practices. Egs of historical ‘methodologies’
* Romaniello also notes that ‘no country failed to regulate its new economy’ ie there was state regulation for profit as this ‘global economy’ emerges
* While he notes the growth of Euro economies, he highlights that much of the goods being produced and traded were predominantly from Asia, and that the Asian markets also demonstrated a strong and growing economy
How does Romaniello account for the expansion of trade in the late medieval/early modern periods?
* Different trade routes were used to bypass the Islamic empires, this caused an increase in sea travel but also created different land routes
* Colonization of the ‘new world’ (tobacco)
* Improvements in shipping technologies and navigation
What impact did the regulation of commerce have on trade and the global economy?
* One thing that was exported widely was the way trade was practiced - joint stock company structure, lots of opportunities to profit by being the middleman at borders (total customs passed on to the end customer, so high prices and value) eg Muscovy Company
What are some of the valuable ‘commodities’ in this period, described by Romaniello?
* Silver jewellery
* Fur
* Amber
* Tobacco
* Silver
* Rhubarb
* Yerba mate
* Sugar
* Porcelain
* Tea
* Silk
