spice trade, the cultivation, preparation, transport, and merchandising of spices and herbs, an enterprise of ancient origins and great cultural and economic significance.
Seasonings such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, and turmeric were important items of commerce in the earliest evolution of trade. Cinnamon and cassia found their way to the Middle East at least 4,000 years ago. From time immemorial, southern Arabia (Arabia Felix of antiquity) had been a trading centre for frankincense, myrrh, and other fragrant resins and gums. Arab traders artfully withheld the true sources of the spices they sold. To satisfy the curious, to protect their market, and to discourage competitors, they spread fantastic tales to the effect that cassia grew in shallow lakes guarded by winged animals and that cinnamon grew in deep glens infested with poisonous snakes. Pliny the Elder (ad 23–79) ridiculed the stories and boldly declared, “All these tales…have been evidently invented for the purpose of enhancing the price of these commodities.”
Whatever part the overland trade routes across Asia played, it was mainly by sea that the spice trade grew. Arab traders were sailing directly to spice-producing lands before the Christian era. In East Asia the Chinese crossed the waters of the Malay Archipelago to trade in the Spice Islands (the Moluccas or the East Indies). Sri Lanka (Ceylon) was another important trading point.
In the city of Alexandria, Egypt, revenues from port dues were already enormous when Ptolemy XI bequeathed the city to the Romans in 80 bc. The Romans themselves soon initiated voyages from Egypt to India, and under their rule Alexandria became the greatest commercial centre of the world. It was also the leading emporium for the aromatic and pungent spices of India, all of which found their way to the markets of Greece and the Roman Empire. Roman trade with India was extensive for more than three centuries and then began to decline, reviving somewhat in the 5th century ad but declining again in the 6th. It had weakened, but not broken, the Arabian hold on the spice trade, which endured through the Middle Ages.
In the 10th century both Venice and Genoa began to prosper through trade in the Levant. Over the centuries a bitter rivalry developed between the two that culminated in the naval war of Chioggia (1378–81), in which Venice defeated Genoa and secured a monopoly of trade in the Middle East for the next century. Venice made exorbitant profits by trading spices with buyer-distributors from northern and western Europe.
Although the origins of spices were known throughout Europe by the Middle Ages, no ruler proved capable of breaking the Venetian hold on the trade routes. Near the end of the 15th century, however, explorers began to build ships and venture abroad in search of new ways to reach the spice-producing regions. So began the famed voyages of discovery. In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed under the flag of Spain, and in 1497 John Cabot sailed on behalf of England, but both failed to find the storied spice lands (though Columbus returned from his journey with many new fruits and vegetables, including chile peppers). Under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral, a Portuguese expedition was the first to bring spices from India to Europe by way of the Cape of Good Hope in 1501. Portugal went on to dominate the naval trading routes through much of the 16th century.
The search for alternative trade routes persisted. Ferdinand Magellan took up the quest again for Spain in 1519 but was killed on Mactan Island in the Philippines in 1521. Of the five vessels under his command, only one, the Victoria, returned to Spain—but triumphantly so, with a cargo of spices.
In 1577 the English admiral Francis Drake began his voyage around the world by way of the Strait of Magellan and the Spice Islands, ultimately sailing the Golden Hind, heavily laden with cloves from Ternate Island, into its home port of Plymouth in 1580.
For Holland, a fleet under the command of Cornelis de Houtman sailed for the Spice Islands in 1595, and another, commanded by Jacob van Neck, put to sea in 1598. Both returned home with rich cargoes of cloves, mace, nutmeg, and black pepper. Their success laid the foundation for the prosperous Dutch East India Company, formed in 1602.
Similarly, the French East India Company was organized in 1664 by state authorization under Louis XIV. Other East India companies chartered by European countries met with varying success. In subsequent struggles to gain control of the trade, Portugal was eventually eclipsed, after more than a century as the dominant power. By the 19th century, British interests were firmly rooted in India and Ceylon, while the Dutch were in control of the greater part of the East Indies.