Trade History

The history of international trade chronicles notable events that have affected the trade between various countries.
In the era before the rise of the nation state, the term 'international' trade cannot be literally applied, but simply means trade over long distances; the sort of movement in goods which would represent international trade in the modern world.

The market place
Trade provides mankind's most significant meeting place, the market. In primitive societies only religious events - cult rituals, or rites of passage such as marriage - bring people together in a comparable way. But in these cases the participants are already linked, by custom or kinship.
The process of barter brings a crowd together in a more random fashion. New ideas, along with precious artefacts, have always travelled along trade routes. And the natural week, the shared rhythm of a community, has frequently been the space between market days.
Agricultural produce and everyday household goods tend to make short journeys to and from a local market. Trade in a grander sense, between distant places, is a different matter. It involves entrepreneurs and middlemen, people willing to accept delay and risk in the hope of a large profit. The archive found at Ebla gives a glimpse of an early trading city, from the middle of the third millennium BC.
When travel is slow and dangerous, the trader's commodities must be as nearly as possible imperishable; and they must be valuable in relation to their size. Spices fit the bill. So do rich textiles. And, above all, precious ornaments of silver and gold, or useful items in copper, bronze or iron.
As the most valuable of commodities (in addition to being compact and easily portable), metals are a great incentive to trade. The extensive deposits of copper on Cyprus bring the island much wealth from about 3000 BC (Cyprus, in Latin, gives copper its name - cyprium corrupted to cuprum).
Later, when the much scarcer commodity of tin is required to make bronze, even distant Cornwall becomes - by the first millennium BC - a major supplier of the needs of Bronze Age Europe.

Waterborne traffic: 3000-1000 BC
By far the easiest method of transporting goods is by water, particularly in an era when towns and villages are linked by footpaths rather than roads. The first extensive trade routes are up and down the great rivers which become the backbones of early civilizations - the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus and the Yellow River.
As boats become sturdier, coastal trade extends human contact and promotes wealth. The eastern Mediterranean is the first region to develop extensive maritime trade, first between Egypt and Minoan Crete and then - in the ships of the intrepid Phoenicians - westwards through the chain of Mediterranean islands and along the north African coast.

>The caravan: from 1000 BC

In the parched regions of north Africa and Asia two different species of camel become the most important beasts of burden - the single-humped Arabian camel (in north Africa, the Middle East, India) and the double-humped Bactrian camel (central Asia, Mongolia). Both are well adapted to desert conditions. They can derive water, when none is available elsewhere, from the fat stored in their humps.
It is probable that they are first domesticated in Arabia. By about 1000 BC caravans of camels are bringing precious goods up the west coast of Arabia, linking India with Egypt, Phoenicia and Mesopotamia.

New routes to the west: from 300 BC
The presence of Greeks in Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean encourages a new trade route. To ease the transport of goods to Greece and beyond, Seleucus founds in 300 BC a city at the northeast tip of the Mediterranean. He calls it Antioch, in honour of his own father, Antiochus. Its port, at the mouth of the river, is named after himself - Seleucia.
Here goods are put on board ship after arriving in caravans from Mesopotamia. The journey has begun in another new city, also called Seleucia, founded in 312 BC by Seleucus as the capital of his empire. It is perfectly placed for trade, at the point where a canal from the Euphrates links with the Tigris.

Doura-Europus, a frontier town: from the 3rd century BC
The first major stopping point for the caravans on the route from Mesopotamia to Syria is the old Babylonian town of Doura, on the west bank of the Euphrates. Rebuilt by Seleucus in about 300 BC, it is given the new name of Europus.
This settlement later becomes of great importance as a frontier post, when the Euphrates is the boundary between successive empires.

Palmyra: from 300 BC
The other great staging post on the route to Antioch is also an important site, and today a much more visible one. It is Palmyra, famous as one of the great ruined classical cities.
From Doura-Europus, on the Euphrates, the caravans strike west through the desert to the Mediterranean coast. Palmyra is an oasis half way across this difficult terrain. Its wealth derives from its position on the east-west axis from Persia to the coast, in addition to being on the older routes up from Mesopotamia. In the 1st century BC, when Palmyra is on the verge of its greatest prosperity, a rich new supply of goods begins to arrive from the east along the Silk Road. But by now neither Persia nor Mesopotamia are Greek.

A trade route from China: 2nd century BC
A tentative trade route is becoming established along a string of oases north of the Himalayas. They are very exposed to the broad expanse of steppes - from which marauding bands of nomadic tribesmen are liable to descend at any moment - but protection by the Han dynasty in China is now making it reasonably safe for merchants to send caravans into this region. The goods are usually unloaded in each oasis and traded or bartered before continuing the journey westwards - where rich customers around the Mediterranean are eager for the luxury products of the east.
In 106 BC, for the first time, a caravan leaves China and travels through to Persia without the goods changing hands on the way. The Silk Road is open.
In the 1st century BC the Romans gain control of Syria and Palestine - the natural terminus of the Silk Road, for goods can move west more easily from here by sea. Soon a special silk market is established in Rome.

World trade: from the 1st century AD
The Silk Road links east Asia and western Europe at a time when each has, in its own region, a more sophisticated commercial network than ever before.
The caravan routes of the Middle East and the shipping lanes of the Mediterranean have provided the world's oldest trading system, ferrying goods to and fro between civilizations from India to Phoenicia. Now the Roman dominance of the entire Mediterranean, and of Europe as far north as Britain, gives the merchants vast new scope to the west. At the same time a maritime link, of enormous commercial potential, opens up between India and China.
The map of the world offers no route so promising to a merchant vessel as the coastal journey from India to China. Down through the Straits of Malacca and then up through the South China Sea, there are at all times inhabited coasts not far off to either side. It is no accident that Calcutta is now at one end of the journey, Hong Kong at the other, and Singapore in the middle.
Indian merchants are trading along this route by the 1st century AD, bringing with them the two religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, which profoundly influence this entire region.

The trading kingdoms of West Africa: 5th - 15th c. AD
A succession of powerful kingdoms in West Africa, spanning a millennium, are unusual in that their great wealth is based on trade rather than conquest. Admittedly much warfare goes on between them, enabling the ruler of the most powerful state to demand the submission of the others. But this is only the background to the main business of controlling the caravans of merchants and camels.
These routes run north and south through the Sahara. And the most precious of the commodities moving north is African gold.

Vikings in Russia: from the 9th century AD
Unusually for the Vikings, trade rather than plunder is the main reason for their penetration deep into Russia during the 9th century AD. The rivers of eastern Europe, flowing north and south, make it surprisingly easy for goods to travel between the Baltic and the Black Sea.
One spot is particularly well-favoured as a trading centre. Near Lake Ilmen the headwaters of the Dvina, Dnieper and Volga rivers are close to each other. Respectively they flow into the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Caspian. Goods ferried by water between these important trading regions converge on this area. By the early 9th century Viking tribes known as the Rus have a base on the site of Novgorod.
Although they are not Slavs, there is justice in the Rus giving Russia her name. Their development of trade, particularly down the Dnieper (a route which becomes known as Austrvegr, or the 'Great Waterway'), lays the foundation of the Russian nation.
In 882 a Viking leader, Oleg, moves his headquarters down the Dnieper, seizing the town of Kiev. Here, in 911, he negotiates a commercial treaty with the Byzantine empire.
A Viking successor of Oleg's in Kiev, two generations later, describes how this first Russian city is the centre of a triangular trade between civilized Byzantium in the south, the steppe lands in the middle, and the wild forests of the north.
In this place 'all goods gather from all parts: gold, clothes, wine, fruits from the Greeks; silver and horses from the Czechs and Hungarians; furs, wax, honey and slaves from the Rus'.

The Pax Mongolica and the Silk Road: 13th - 14th c. AD
By the middle of the 13th century the family of Genghis Khan controls Asia from the coast of China to the Black Sea. Not since the days of the Han and Roman empires, when the Silk Road is first opened, has there been such an opportunity for trade. In the intervening centuries the eastern end of the Silk Road has been unsafe because of the Chinese inability to control the fierce nomads of the steppes (nomads such as the Mongols), and the western end has been unsettled by the clash between Islam and Christianity.
Now, with the Mongols policing the whole route, there is stability. In an echo of the Pax Romana, the period is often described as the Pax Mongolica.
Trade with the Mongol east is best known through the adventures of three Italian merchants - Marco Polo, with his father and uncle.

Hanseatic League: 12th - 17th century AD
In 1159 Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, builds a new German town on a site which he has captured the previous year. It is Lübeck, perfectly placed to benefit from developing trade in the Baltic. Goods from the Netherlands and the Rhineland have their easiest access to the Baltic through Lübeck. For trade in the opposite direction, a short land journey from Lübeck across the base of the Danish peninsula brings goods easily to Hamburg and the North Sea.
Over the next two centuries Lübeck and Hamburg, in alliance, become the twin centres of a network of trading alliances known later as the Hanseatic League.

Ups and downs in the economy: 12th - 14th century AD
Throughout Europe the period from about 1150 to 1300 sees a steady increase in prosperity, linked with a rise in population. There are several reasons. More land is brought into cultivation - a process in which the Cistercians play an important part. Rich monasteries, controlled by powerful abbots, become a significant feature of feudal Europe.
In tandem with the improvement in rural wealth is the development of cities thriving on trade, in luxury goods as well as staple products such as wool.
Prominent among the trading centres of the 13th century are the coastal Italian cities, whose merchants ply the Mediterranean; Venice is particularly prosperous after the opportunities presented by the fourth crusade. In a similar way the cities of the Netherlands are well placed to profit from commerce between their three larger neighbours - England, France and the German states. And the Hanseatic towns handle the trade from the Baltic.
Together with this increase in trade goes the development of banking. Christian families, particularly in the towns of northern Italy, begin to amass fortunes by offering the financial services which have previously been the preserve of the Jews.
In the 14th century this economic prosperity falters. Land goes out of cultivation, the volume of trade drops. There are various possible reasons. There is an unusual run of disastrously bad harvests in many areas in the early part of the century. And social structures are painfully adjusting, as the old feudal system of obligations crumbles.
The final straw is the Black Death, which not only kills a third of Europe's population in 1348-9; it also ushers in an era when plague is a recurrent hazard. The 14th century is not the best in which to live. But in the 15th century - the time of the Renaissance in Europe, and the age of exploration - economic conditions improve again.

The Portuguese slave trade: 15th - 17th century AD
The Portuguese expeditions of the 15th century bring European ships for the first time into regular contact with sub-Saharan Africa. This region has long been the source of slaves for the route through the Sahara to the Mediterranean. The arrival of the Portuguese opens up another channel.
Nature even provides a new collection point for this human cargo. The volcanic Cape Verde Islands, with their rocky and forbidding coastlines, are uninhabited. But they contain lush tropical valleys. And they are well placed on the sea routes between West Africa, Europe and America.

Jacques Coeur, merchant: AD 1432-1451
The career of Jacques Coeur vividly suggests the opportunities open to an enterprising merchant in the 15th century. The greatest source of trading wealth is the Mediterranean, linking Christian markets in the west with Muslim ones in the east - known at this time as the Levant, the land of the rising sun.
Jacques Coeur enters this trade in 1432. He soon has seven galleys taking European cloth to the Levant and bringing back oriental spices. At Montpellier he builds a great warehouse to form the centre of his trading operation.

Chinese sea trade: 15th century
The greatest extent of Chinese trade is achieved in the early 15th century when Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch, sails far and wide with a fleet of large junks. At various times between 1405 and 1433 he reaches the Persian Gulf, the coast of Africa (returning with a giraffe on board) and possibly even Australia.
Typical Chinese exports are now porcelain, lacquer, silks, items of gold and silver, and medicinal preparations. The junks return with herbs, spices, ivory, rhinoceros horn, rare varieties of wood, jewels, cotton and ingredients for making dyes.

Europe's inland waterways: 15th-17th century AD
Trade up and down great rivers and in coastal waters is as old as civilization. Trade across seas develops as soon as adequate boats are built, most notably by the Phoenicians. The natural next stage is to join river systems and even seas by man-made canals. Pioneered in Egypt and China in very ancient times, this development does not occur in Europe until the 15th century AD.
With prosperity beginning to pick up after the depression following the Black Death, merchants have need of cheap and reliable transport. Europe's roads are rutted tracks, the use of which is slow and dangerous. There is good commercial reason to connect the rivers, the arteries of trade. The merchants of Lübeck take the first step.

Portugal's eastern trade: AD 1508-1595
The profitable trade in eastern spices is cornered by the Portuguese in the 16th century to the detriment of Venice, which has previously had a virtual monopoly of these valuable commodities - until now brought overland through India and Arabia, and then across the Mediterranean by the Venetians for distribution in western Europe.
By establishing the sea route round the Cape, Portugal can undercut the Venetian trade with its profusion of middlemen. The new route is firmly secured for Portugal by the activities of Afonso de Albuquerque, who takes up his duties as the Portuguese viceroy of India in 1508.

Trade winds: from the 16th century AD
The development of ocean travel in the 16th century brings with it an increasing knowledge of wind patterns. The phrase 'trade wind' is ancient. Deriving from an old use of 'trade' to mean a fixed track, it is applied to any wind which follows a predictable course. Since such winds can be of great value to merchant ships making long ocean voyages, the term becomes understood in the 18th century to mean winds which favour trade.
The best known trade winds are those in the Atlantic which blow from the northeast in the northern hemisphere and from the southeast south of the equator. This predictable pattern explains why ships sailing between Europe and the Cape take a wide curving course through the Atlantic.

Spanish silver: 16th century AD
The wealth of Spain's new colonies in Latin America derives mainly from silver. In 1545 a prodigious source of the metal is discovered at Potosí, in modern Bolivia. This region, high in the Andes, is so rich in both silver and tin that it eventually has as many as 5000 working mines.
In 1546, a year after the discovery at Potosí, silver is found at Zacatecas in Mexico. Other major new sources of the metal are found in Mexico in the next few years. At the same time sources of gold are being tapped, though in much less quantity.

The Atlantic cod trade: AD 1497-1583
The voyage of John Cabot in 1497 directs European attention to the rich stocks of fish in the waters around Newfoundland. Soon fishing fleets from the Atlantic nations of Europe are making annual visits to catch cod. They bring with them large supplies of salt. Summer settlements are established, on the coasts of Newfoundland, to process the fish before it is transported back to European markets in the autumn.
England plays a leading role in the trade, and in 1583 Humphrey Gilbert formally annexes Newfoundland on behalf of the English queen. It is a claim which does not go undisputed - particularly by France, whose fleets are the main rivals of the English in these waters.

Dutch trade in the east: AD 1595-1651
The first Dutch expedition round the Cape to the far east, in 1595, is captained by Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, a Netherlands merchant whose only knowledge of the orient comes from trading in Lisbon. The survivors of this journey get back to Holland two years later. They bring valuable cargo. And they have established a trading treaty with the sultan of Bantam, in Java.
Their return prompts great excitement. Soon about ten private vessels are setting off each year from the Netherlands to find their fortune in the east. The States General of the newly independent Dutch republic decide that this unlicensed trading activity, in distant and dangerous waters, needs both control and protection.

English trade in the east: 17th century AD
On the last day of the year 1600 Elizabeth I grants a charter to a 'Company of Merchants trading into the East Indies'. Early voyages prove successful; by 1614 the East India Company owns twenty-four ships. But competition with the Dutch in the spice islands leads to violence, culminating in a massacre of English merchants at Amboina by their Dutch rivals in 1623.
This disaster causes the company to concentrate on its interests in India. In 1613 a factory (meaning a secure warehouse for the accumulation of Indian textiles, spices and indigo) has been formally established on the west coast, at Surat. The first English vessel with a cargo of these Indian goods sails from Surat in 1615.

Triangular trade: 18th century AD
The triangular trade has an economic elegance most attractive to the owners of the slave ships. Each of the three separate journeys making up an expedition is profitable in its own right, with only the 'middle voyage' across the Atlantic involving slaves as cargo.
Ships depart from Liverpool or Bristol with items in demand in west Africa - these include firearms, alcohol (particularly rum), cotton goods, metal trinkets and beads. The goods are eagerly awaited by traders in ports around the Gulf of Guinea. These traders have slaves on offer, captured in the African interior and now awaiting transport to America.