History Of Spice

If we can believe a favourite myth of the Assyrians, whose chiselled stone tablets represent the earliest written records yet discovered, at least one spice was known before our world was created! These early peoples, who lived thousands of years before Christ, claimed that their gods were drinking sesame seed wine at a gathering held just before they made the Earth.

From the hieroglyphics on the walls of the pyramids, to the scriptures of the Bible, we find constant mention of the important part spices played in the lives of the ancients. Some of the spices, herbs and seeds we know today, were cultivated by the early peoples of the western world, our word, "aroma" was the ancient Greek word for "spice".

Golden Road To Samarkand

Along the trade routes of antiquity went caravans with as many as 4,000 camels bearing spices and the rich merchandise of the East, plodding along from Goa, Calicut and the Orient to spice markets in Nineveh and Babylon; Carthage, Alexandria and Rome. Joseph, of the coat of many colours, was sold to spice traders by his envious older brothers: "And behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt."

The route from Gilead to Egypt was part of the "golden road to Samarkand" travelled for hundreds, almost thousands of years, bringing pepper and cloves from India, cinnamon and nutmeg from the Spice Islands (or Moluccas), ginger from China

Spice by Sea

For hundreds of years frail ships clawed their way along the Indian coast, past the pirate-infested Persian Gulf, along the coast of South Arabia and through the Red Sea to Egypt. Those were typical ways of bringing spices from the Orient to the Western world in ancient tunes. As early as the days of Tiberius Caesar they discovered that ships scudding before the blast of the monsoon - the seasonal wind from the Indian Ocean, blowing east in summer, west in winter - could bring their spice cargoes to market in record time. Shipwrecks and storms brought large losses and there were constant robberies, but the risks were outweighed by the eventual profits for, as might be expected during the highly developed Greek and Roman eras, spices were in great demand.

So costly that only the wealthy could afford them, spices nevertheless were used in every conceivable way. Many and varied were the aromatics, which seasoned the delicacies served at Roman banquets, including dormice stuffed with pepper and nuts!!! Medicines required great quantities of spices and herbs, as witness the writings of Hippocrates, Theophrastcs, Dioscorides and Pliny. Bay leaves (or laurel) were woven into crowns for Olympic heroes; spice-scented balms were used after baths; spice-flavoured wines were popular; incense made of spice was burned in temples and even along the roads

In the Middle Ages (roughly 700-1000 AD), the spice trade was largely controlled by Muslim or Gujarati merchants, with European merchants confined to trading mostly within Europe

Venice came to monopolize the spice trade in Europe between 1200 and 1500, through its dominance over Mediterranean seaways to ports such as Alexandria, after traditional land connections were disrupted by Mongols and Turks. The financial incentive to discover an alternative to Venice's monopoly of this lucrative business was perhaps the single most important factor precipitating Europe's Age of Exploration.

Portugal took an early lead charting the route around the southern tip of Africa, securing various bases en route, even accidentally discovering the coast of Brazil in the search for favourable Southerly currents. Portugal's eventual success and the establishment of its own absolutist monopoly provoked the other maritime powers of Europe, Spain and France, England and the Netherlands, to challenge and overcome the Portuguese position.

The ideal of the Spice Islands, eventually to be enveloped by the Netherlands' Dutch East Indies empire, had led to the accidental discovery of the West Indies, and lit the fuse of centuries of rivalry between European maritime powers for control of lucrative global markets and resources. The tattered mystique of the Spice Islands finally died when France and Britain successfully smuggled seeds and plants to their own dominions on Mauritius, Grenada and elsewhere, making spices a more commonplace and much less expensive commodity.

Sir Walter Raleigh

"Men have travelled, as they have lived, for religion, for wealth, for knowledge, for pleasure, for power and the overthrow of rivals. Yet no very profound acquaintance with Haklut's book is needed to discern, as he clearly discerned, the single thread of interest running through all these pilgrimages. The discovery of the new Western World followed, as an incidental consequence, from the long struggle of the nations of Europe for commercial supremacy and control of the traffic with the East. In all these dreams of the politicians and merchants, sailors and geographers, who pushed back the limits of the unknown world, there is the same glitter of gold and precious stones, the same odour of far-fetched spice." (Sir Walter Raleigh 1605)

The British East India Company

The British East India Company, sometimes referred to as "John Company", was a joint-stock company string of investors, which was granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1599, with the intent to favour trade privileges in India. The Royal Charter effectively gave the newly created Honourable East India Company (HEIC) a 21 year monopoly on all trade in the East Indies. The Company transformed from a commercial trading venture to one which virtually ruled India as it acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions, until the Company's dissolution in 1858.