TRADE ROUTES

IN GENERAL

• Currency

• Chinese produced first paper money ("flying money") - Tang standardized the currency

• What was traded:

• From China

• Silk, paper-making, printing, compass, gunpowder, Bubonic plague

• From India

• Cotton, sugar, Buddhism, number system (zero)

• From Vietnam

• Champa Rice

• From Rome

• Glass

INDIAN OCEAN

• Linked China, India, Southeast Asia, Arabia, East Africa

• Trade made easier with Dhow ships

• Favored by Indian, Persian and Arab sailors

• Could carry 400 tons in 1500

• Allowed traders to go further out to sea and take advantage of monsoons.

• Use of emporia and warehouses

• Because monsoons required traders to stay and wait for currents.

• Trade periods

• Hellenic period (after Alexander the Great)

• Roman period - looking for spices

• Buddhist period - "Cinnamon Route"

• Muslim Period after 600 (spices, silk)

• Islam valued merchants (Prophet Muhammad was a caravan leader)

• And Muslim cities created demand for luxury goods.

• Umayyad (661-750)

• Abbasid (750-1258)

• Chinese

• Chinese dynasties emphasized trade and industry along Silk Road & maritime routes

• Tang (618-907)

• Song (960-1279)

• Song rulers created a powerful imperial navy to control piracy on east end of Indian Ocean route.

• Ming (1405-1433)

• Yongle Emperor sent Admiral Zheng He on seven expeditions into the Indian Ocean to establish diplomatic relations (not really a commercial venture)

• Chinese emperors left Indian Ocean merchants alone to manage their own affairs.

• India (300s BCE - 1279 CE)

• Chola Empire (Southern India)

• Great wealth and luxuries (ex. elephants covered with gold cloth and jewels)

• Southeast Asia

• Srivijaya Empire (650-1377) (Indonesia)

• Boomed by taxing trading vessels that moved through the narrow Malacca Straits.

• Khmer Empire Cambodia (802-1431)

• Used Mekong River as a highway tying capital Angkor to the Indian Ocean

• Europeans

• Portuguese

• Vasco da Gama 1497 went from Portugal to Calicut, India

• Portuguese were eager to join Indian Ocean trade because of European demand for Asian luxury goods - but there was no demand for European goods (wool, fur, iron pots)

• So Portuguese entered as pirates using cannons and seizing port cities., extorting other traders.

• Dutch

• 1602 the Dutch East India Company (VOC) entered Indian Ocean and sought a total monopoly on spice trade (nutmeg, mace)

• British

• 1680 the British East India Company challenged the VOC for control of trade routes.

• Europeans turned Indonesia, India, Malaya and rest of SEA into colonies.

• no more reciprocal trade.

• Asian empires got poor and collapsed while Europeans thrived.

• Indian Ocean trade network was crippled.

• Trade on Indian Ocean was self-governing - merchants made rules, established prices etc. until the Europeans arrived.

SILK ROAD (2nd c. BCE to end of 14th c. CE)

• Name given by German geographer in 1877 because of Chinese silk

• Route: From Chang'an (Xi'an) in China to Mediterranean in west

• Linked China with Roman Empire

• Began during Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE)

• Route expanded from 139 BCE to 129 BCE because of Zhang Qian

• Imperial envoy to world outside China 2nd c. BCE

• 1st official diplomat to bring info about world to China under Emperor Wu (Han)

• Accounts of his travels recorded in "Records of Grand Historian" by Sima Qian in 1st c. BCE

• Rome-Han trade

• Relations indirect -- cam through intermediaries (Parthians and Kushans)

• From Rome: High quality glass, manufactured goods from Alexandria and Syria

• From China: Porcelain, Silk

• Silk was so popular in Rome that prohibited - too many sesterces coins lost to China to buy silk.

• Fall of Han Dynasty (221)

• Trade along Silk Roads and Indian Ocean declined because of political unrest and instability - travel was riskier.

• Buddhism

• Kushan Empire (India) under Kanishka (127-150) Buddhism from India to China

• ​Fa Xian (399-414), Chinese monk

• To India via Central Asia to find Buddhist books

• Visited Buddhist sites (stupas etc.)

• Inspired other Buddhist monks (like Xuanzang)

• Tang Dynasty (618-904)

• Great prosperity

• Silk Road rose to most flourishing period in history

• Capital at Chang'an (Xi'an)

• Buddhism again

• Xuanzang (602-644), Chinese Buddhist monk, inspired by Fa Xian's visit to India, studied Buddhist sutras

• An Shi Rebellion (755-762)

• Caused weakening of Tang dynasty and loss of western regions

• Resulted in decline of Silk Road traffic

• Song (960-1279)

• Mongols

• 1206-1227 Genghis Khan built Mongol Empire - Silk Road becomes prosperous again

• Pax Mongolica

• No more toll-gates, corruption, violence, travel is safer than ever before

• Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)

• Capital in Dadu (Beiing) reinstated Silk Road's vigor

• Welcomed foreigners like Marco Polo (see below)

• Tamerlane (1368-1404)

• Descendent of Genghis Khan

• Established empire in Samarkand

• After his empire collapse the road gradually fell into disuse

• Ming Dynasty

• Yongle sent Zheng He on voyages 1405-1433

• Items traded

• From East

• Silk, Porcelain

• Compass (invented in China 221-206 BCE, became common 850-1050)

• Horses, tea

• From West

• Glass, gold, olive oil

• From Central Asia (to east and west)

• Dates, almonds, fruit, camels

• From South Asia (India) (to east and west)

• Cotton

• Religion

• Buddhism from India, esp. under Kushan Empire 30-375

• Bubonic Plague

• Began in China

• To Crimea 1346

• Then to Europe by Genoese traders from Caffa

• Killed 30-60% of the population.

TRANS-SAHARAN

• Salt (from Mediterranean) traded for gold (Sub-Sahara)

• West African Empires

• Ghana (800-1000)

• Mali (1200-1450)

• Mansa Musa

• Went on pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324

• Brought hundreds of camels and caravans bringing gold.

• Built capital at Timbuktu, Islamic scholars came to teach and study at the university

• Songhai (1450s -1600)

• Sonni Ali

• Trans-Saharan slave trade

• Smaller than Atlantic slave trade

• Supplied slaves for personal save army of Moroccan rulers

• And slaves for sugar plantation labor, servants and artisans

• Most were women who became concubines

ATLANTIC

• West Indies

• Spanish settlers introduced sugar-cane cultivation after 1500

• After 1600 French and English colonies based on tobacco cultivation

• Chartered companies

• And indentured servants for labor

• Sugar

• But mid 1600s competition from Virginia tobacco

• And expulsion of Dutch sugar producers from Brazil

• Turned production from tobacco to sugar

• Slaves

• Shift from indentured servants to slaves

• Fewer Europeans willing to come

• Profits from sugar made it easier to buy more expensive slaves.

• Environment

• Sugar caused soil exhaustion and deforestation

• New European and African plants and animals crowded out indigenous species

• Brazil

• Portuguese introduce sugar-cane production

• Dutch West India Co. took control of Brazilian sugar-producing region

• Improved efficiency

• Brought slaves from Elmina and Luanda

• Portuguese reconquered Brazil 1654

• Dutch brought Brazilian system to French and British Caribbean

MIGRATIONS

MUSLIMS/ARABS (see post)

• Came from Arabia

• Spread to Africa, Europe and the Middle East (see map below)

• Dar al-Islam = Islamic world

• Spread by conquest, conversions, trade, missionaries

• Conquest

• Strong military, in part used slaves

• Conversion

• Poor were attracted to Islam because of focus on charity and equality of the umma (Islamic community)

• Christians and Jews ("People of the Book") were allowed to practice their religions as long as they paid "jizya"

• Trade

• Islam's Prophet Muhammad was a trader

• Arabs traded on the Indian Ocean because Arabia was largely desert.

• Converts in Africa and Southeast Asia among traders.

• Missionaries

• Sufis

• Brought

• Language (Arabic) to northern Africa, Middle East (not Persia/Iran)

VIKINGS (800-1100 CE)

• From northern Europe (Scandinavia: Norway, Denmark, Sweden)

• Cause of Migration

• Population growth because of increased agricultural production

• Search for weaalth through trading an raiding.

• Good shipbuilding techniques and seafaring skills.

• Technology

• Boats - rugged, shallow-draft with sails which allowed them to travel in the ocean and with oars up rivers.

• Migrants

• Some were Norse merchants looking for commercial opportunities

• Some were looking for land to settle and cultivate

• Some were raiders and plunderers.

• Most accepted Christianity (Comparison, Mongols adopted local religions like Islam)

• Consequences

• Caused feudalism (serfs needing protection worked on land of lords who protected them with knights)

• Settlements

• Daneland (Britain)

• Normandy (Western France)

MAGYARS (800-970 CE)

• Came to Europe from the east

• Descendants of nomadic people who had settle in Hungary

• Expert horsemen

• Raided settlements in Germany, Italy and southern France

BANTU (1500 BCE to 1000 CE)

• From Central Africa to south and southeast Africa

• Brought technology, iron, knowledge of agriculture, animal herding.

• Brought language

• Swahili is a Bantu-Arabic language

• Comparison: Spread of Indo-European languages (Aryan), Latin (Romans), Arabic (Muslims)

PACIFIC

• People migrated from Southeast Asia to Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii) and east Africa (Madagascar)

• Brought plants (coconuts, bananas)

• Language (Malay-Polynesian)

TRAVELERS

• Marco Polo (1260-1295)

• Traveled along Silk Route with father and uncle (1271-1275)

• Appointed to high court of Kublai Khan (Yuan Dynasty) from 1275-1292

• Given a "golden tablet" (VIP passport) allowing him to travel anywhere with free lodging, horses etc.

• Wrote "The Travels of Marco Polo" in 1298 inspiring Western travelers (like Columbus)

• Ibn Battuta

• Muslim traveler from North Africa

• 1300s began journey to "Dar-al Islam" (Islamic areas) across Afro-Eurasia

• Journals discussed regions

• Traveled 75,000 miles