Sunday, May 31, 2009

Manic Monday - spice



Mo has given us the word SPICE for Manic Monday. I've chosen to tell you a little bit about the
SPICE TRADE
.

Spice trade is a commercial activity of ancient origin which involves the merchandising of spices and herbs.

Via Live Science:

Pepper, along with other spices such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, was such a hot commodity five centuries ago that it drove nations to sail across vast oceans searching for new routes to the spice-rich Orient.

Spices didn't just make merchants rich across the globe — it established vast empires, revealed entire continents to Europeans and tipped the balance of world power. If the modern age has a definitive beginning, it was sparked by the spice trade, some historians have argued.

Spices were an important component of ancient commerce well before the 15th-century, but were monopolized for centuries by Middle Eastern and North African middlemen who guarded the Asian provenance of their valuable sources closely and became fabulously wealthy for it. Back then, the colorful grains were used for flavoring food, but also for such tasks as making perfume, embalming the dead, preserving meat and sprucing up salve recipes in traditional medicine.


1425-50—Spices
Spice trade driven by European need for food preservation. Thrived in Venice
because of the sea trading power that they gained during and after the Black Plague.


TIMELINE for SPICE TRADE
  1. 2000 BC
    2000 BC - The spice trade developed throughout the Middle East in around 2000 BC starting with cinnamon, Indonesian cinnamon and pepper. Trade in spices stimulated the Age of Exploration with the constant search for new trading partners and new spices. A common belief is ...

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    From Spice up your life - Related web pages
    www.euroweeklynews.com/comments/238.html
  2. 1453
    1453 - The global spice trade underwent an upheaval in 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Turks, and the time-honored overland spice routes between Asia and Europe were severed. The prospect of establishing a spice trade via an ocean route opened up new economic ...

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    From Over the Edge of the World - Related web pages
    books.google.com/books?id=uK9d2EFrMJIC&pg=PA13 ...
  3. 1498
    1498 - Vasco da Gama started the Spice trade in 1498. The spice trade was of major economic importance and helped spur the Age of Exploration. Spices brought to Europe from distant lands were some of the most valuable commodities for their weight, sometimes rivaling gold ...

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    From Trading - Related web pages
    www.pressarchive.net/libpa/Trading
  4. 1510
    1510 - Portuguese arrived in India that changed the fate of Goa. They came with the intention of trade but ended up setting a colony here. They gradually succeeded and seized total control of spice trade from the European powers. Later, in 1510, Yusuf Adil Shah, the ...

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    From History Of Goa, Goa History, Goan History, History Tour To Goa, Goa History Tour … - Related web pages
    www.tajmahaltourism.com/history-of-goa.html
  5. 1511
    1511 - Under the impetus of the spice trade, Portugal expanded territorially and commercially. By the year 1511, the Portuguese were in control of the spice trade of the Malabar coast of India and Ceylon. Until the end of the 16th century, their monopoly on the spice trade to India ...
    From Doyle.html - Related web pages
    www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Spice_Trade.html
  6. 1600
    1600 - From the spice trade 'The Company of Merchants of London Trading in to the East Indies', known as the East India Company, was set up by a charter from Elizabeth I in 1600. It was formed to compete with the Portuguese and Dutch for the spice trade with Asia.

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    From Digital Stroud : The East India Company - Related web pages
    www.digitalstroud.co.uk/working.php?pageid=693 ...
  7. 1602
    1602 - This gave the Dutch an opportunity to seize control over the spice trade. In 1602, a group of Dutch merchants formed the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC), a trade association dedicated to the conquest of the spice trade. Such ...

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    From Molecules That Changed the World - Related web pages
    books.google.com/books?id=mOcNUTFpOXgC&pg=RA5 ...
  8. 1619
    1619 - Amboyna is an island in the East-Indies, and is the principal place where nutmegs, mace, cinnamon, cloves and spice grow. In the year 1619, a treaty was concluded between James and the JAMES I. 199 their share of the spice trade, cause him to, attempt the ...

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    From Full text of "An historical and critical account of the lives and writings of … - Related web pages
    www.archive.org/stream ...
  9. 1641
    1641 - The Dutch captured Malacca in 1641, but Malacca no longer had complete control of the spice trade to Europe. To gain a trade monopoly, the company allowed cloves to be grown only on the island of Ambon and nutmeg and mace to be grown only in the Banda Islands. The company ...
    From Republic of Indonesia - Printer-friendly - MSN Encarta - Related web pages
    encarta.msn.com/text_761573214___0 ...
  10. 2001
    Sep 4, 2001 - Americans consumed more than 1 billion pounds of spices last year, according to the American Spice Trade Association, which compiles statistics from the ... The spice trade was an empire builder for some, involving colonial conquests for the English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese; ...
    From Journeys past and present bring the intriguing flavors of the plant kingdom to … - Related web pages
    www.accessmylibrary.com/premium/0286/0286 ...

3 comments:

anthonynorth said...

Some great information there, even though I'm a spicelss, plain eater myself.

Desert Songbird said...

Being Dutch Indonesian, you KNOW spices have an important role in my life!

Travis Cody said...

Wow. That's a lot of spice detail. I'm just basically a salt & pepper guy, with a bit of garlic thrown in.