Dean Durkin

10.27.21

The Evolution of Long Distance Trade

The evolution of long distance trade correlates human adaptability within

geographical frameworks, negotiation of social effectiveness within exchange, and

maximizing efficient capital production to be distributed through routes of trade.

Government affiliation within trade held the power to grant extensive authority through

trade distribution within the boundaries of their territories, and could reciprocate political

and opportunistic action. The emporiums of Tyre, Rome, Venice, Calicut, and Antwerp

were densely populated cities in which people from vastly different areas could

exchange and manage long distance transportation of goods while exchanging cultures.

The transformation of the city into a zone of commerce spiked the birth of empires and

advanced the technological capabilities for navigating across the vast distances of the

seas. The demand for goods could be sold at high prices between each end of a

network which brought much economic prosperity, but also a fear of exploitation. The

difficulty of communication in this period created innovative systems like laws and

contracts to maintain level in financial security for cases of thievery, shipwreck, or

worse. The most elementary aspect of trade was between a merchant and their

supplied resource, and the means by which it could be transported to the profitable side

in an effective manner. Navigating the waters of various provinces meant adapting to

the rules, regulations, and habits of these areas. If loopholes through trade meant

higher profit, then risk was taken. However territorial wars and political conflict could

greatly alter the flow of trade. Despite these altercations trade could find its way through

very hazardous conditions: areas blocked by sandbars, pirate infested waters, bordered

seaports, and more. The features of early trade initiated by the Phoenicians can be

traced to the resources and merchants whom formed a centralized zone of barter and

exchange with links extending to the 16th century Antwerp mart.

From the collapse of the Bronze Age rose the Phoenicians whose expertise in

navigational skills laid a strong foundation of long distance trading between the bordersof the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians instigated a trade link that was to mark the

beginning of commercial prosperity and resourceful expansion for the Phoenicians for

centuries. Its trade routes were highly dependent on commerce through the birthplace

of Europa: Tyre. This system laid ground for the rise of the Ancient Roman Empire into a

world power. Tyre was driven through barter rather than politically distinguishing itself.

Tyre maintained relatively open allegiances by changing loyalties “depending on how

they assessed the outcome of a confrontation between two great powers.” for the

prioritization of trade. (Brugge and Kleber, Tyre) The geographical positioning of Tyre on

the Phoenician coast, modern day Lebanon, centered it at close proximity to the

Egyptians and Mediterranean Sea, making it a grand target for empirical attack. When

conflict was forced onto their doorstep such as the sieges by Alexander in 332 B.C and

Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 B.C, sieges could last for months or years due to its

positioning on an island. Even with the disadvantage of accessing wells, Tyre secured

comparative advantages through exchanging its imported resources for the trade of

fresh water to be transported to the city. This exchange marked the survival and local

dependency that characterized the Phoenicians of Tyre. The cultural expansion of

Middle Eastern knowledge and natural resources like the murex sea snails allowed the

Phoenicians to establish dyeing houses along the North African and Spanish coasts and

reaching as the Iberian peninsula. The royal purple of Tyre is a marker of the

Phoenician merchants adaptability and efficiency of propelling trade in the use of natural

resources throughout the Mediterranean. A purple dye could be extracted in crushing

the flesh of a live murex snail while mixing it with lemon. This technique became highly

profitable in the Mediterranean market for the unique processing of its purple color, and

its knowledge was expanded for the trade of additional resources like metals. While this

could be done with other species of sea snails, murex dyeing produced a purple color to

be associated with royalty, which the Romans adopted. What distinguished Tyre from its

successors was a strict emphasis on focusing on commerce over colonization. In 64 BC

the city came under control by the Romans whose dominance had branched together a

larger network of trade.

Roman conquer extended its trade into an intercontinental network that

encompassed beyond the borders of the Mediterranean from West Africa, to the IndianOcean, and East Asia. By expanding the Mediterranean into a single flowing market of

trade, the Romans were able to supply the high demand of resources like grain and silk

for their densely populated capital through the foundation of tight contract laws. This

trade economy differed from the Phoenician system by relying on small merchants who

“operated in relatively free markets with occasional government intervention”(Temin,

Grain Trade). As traders were navigating through different lands and waters, a relatively

open flow of trade had to be maintained if this system was to prosper. The Roman

contract laws bridged foreign common interests through the innovation of economic

policies reflecting those of a banking system: a few laws include depositing, transferring,

and establishing financial safekeepings to secure the transportation of goods. Since this

was a time in history in which communication was highly limited, the contract laws

formed an efficient safekeeping for the Romans to be financially dependent upon trade

as a major source for profit across these vast distances of travel. The dominion over

Roman territories benefited its governing through the collection of tariffs and taxes

rather than the physical control over the maritime networks. Demand for gold as well as

slaves was a high priority for Rome as there was persistent shortage to fund territorial

expansion, which is in part a great reason for its collapse. The importation of slaves and

gold through the Trans-Saharan African trade networks were supplied via camel

caravans which while slow were capable crossing vast distances. These animals

allowed for a mass bulk of resources to be carried across the Sahara desert, with each

of them holding up to 1200 pounds each of goods. These gold networks lasted through

the collapse of the Ancient Romans and played a crucial role in “the medieval world

economy” acting as a currency, pigment for artworks, and an architectural coating.

(Austen, African Economies) The supply of gold was fundamental to the Roman

Empire’s currency, and for exchanges between East Asia in which it was highly valued

and traded in for silk.

The exchange of “raw silk” was “the most important product of China” in long

distance trade across Eurasia.(Hudson, Medieval Trade) The Romans insatiable

demand for silk and spices became a primary factor for the innovation of the Silk

Routes. These system of links were responsible for significant cultural expansions such

as the principles of Catholicism and Buddhism that have long been integrated withinEast Asian cultures for centuries. While ideological differences could spread much

easier than resourceful products from Rome, the latter was nowhere near easy nor safe

to transport. Merchants traversing across the silk routes avoided crossing the long

narrow strait between Malaya and Sumatra due to its exposure to “pirates and subject

to polls by a power holding both sides of the strait.”(Hudson, Medieval Trade). This

forced traders to move further north than the Isthmus of Kra bringing a significantly

longer travel than could be compromised. The dangers of sabotage from pirates or

enemy territories was a major concern of early of trade that could either be worked

around like the land navigations in the Silk Routes, or confronted such as the Venetians

did with their galleys.

The Italian city states of Genoa and Venice differed in which vessels of trade they

prioritized for transporting their goods. While the Genoese leaned more towards the use

of carracks to transport large bulks of products, the Venetians simply dominated as the

“pioneers of long distance trade” for transporting mostly luxury goods through convoys

of galleys.(Ramsay, Antwerp) The advanced production of these ships was sustained in

its speed under sail, small proportion, and armament supplied from the Venice Arsenal

in the District of Castello. The Arsenal was a model of the common interests between

royal elite merchants to invoke a secured function for transporting goods. The effects of

diverting financial and technical resources towards supplying traders with efficient

combating needs acquired “indispensable support from social groups” whose economy

was tied to the “city’s maritime activity.”(Doumerc, Venice) In realizing that trade could

only serve to prosper through the support of merchants was a feature that was seized

by the Venetian government. The Venetian system wielded a commercial power “out of

all proportion to their political significance” (Ramsay, Antwerp) as a result of this bond

between the merchants and elites. A large convoys or merchant galleys could resemble

an army more secure than large ship carracks, whose grand size could be effectively

swarmed and taken advantage of. Both states fostered and encouraged trade

enterprise and initiative through allowing the light control of the state to be incorporated

within routes of trade. In fact the presence of the Italian city states as a whole allowed

them control a “share of the Trade with Spain, France, and England.”(Ramsay, Antwerp)

which especially benefited them in centers like the Antwerp mart. Silks, satins, spices,drugs, porcelain were products in close proximity to Italy compared other European

states, and the fortitude of their trade networks made for a powerful trading partner

between foreign territories. While the Venetians system of trade was highly efficient, it

wasn’t built to last. Merchants would eventually turn to strike against fighting in territorial

conflicts and wars that demanded to take up arms against capital opponents. Frederic

Lane points to the low morale of traders in this era to originate from the exposure of the

harsh conditions of war, and territorial conflicts involving states and merchants that

broke out as zones of trade saw increased conflict of control. However territorial

conflicts for dominance didn’t only bring devastation, but brought about great cultural

shifts between new trading partners and financial and technological innovations and

opportunity.

In the early 16th century trade in the Indian Ocean experienced a territorial

intervention by the Portuguese through their establishment of trade factories across

India. This incursion came with the intention of establishing the Indian Ocean and its

trade market under the total control of Portuguese authority. The European interaction of

the spice trade was a highly profitable market since the times of Ancient Rome that

could bring immense fortune for the Portuguese. Before their arrival, trade parties within

the Indian Ocean had long maintained a “freedom to navigate and land” (Mathew,

Calicut) anywhere for the opportunity and pursuit of commerce. This rhythm of this trade

was controlled by the seasonal wind patterns which handled the direction sail ships

would be available to navigate. Portuguese authority was intent on establishing an

influential power over the Indian ocean by “preventing no other from having trade on the

Malabar coast.”(Mathew, Calicut) This brought much conflict and violence to the area as

well as a new form of exporting spices through Europe from tariffs and borders.

However the prosperity of Calicut could not go unnoticed. It attracted a widespread

market effectively becoming a monopole within south-east Asia while increasing a great

trade in spices through its factories. The only accessibility of trade for Europe into the

Indian Ocean was through the passage of the Red Sea, a zone which the Portuguese

had loosened their horizons upon, as it would eventually fall under the dominance of the

Ottoman Empire.The Red Sea became a target for conquest due to its accessibility across three

continents and its ‘sea highway’ into the Indian Ocean. Although spices grew on its

coasts the Red Sea carried no metropolitan cities. The established sea ports were

highly sensitive to “political, economic, and technological changes” due to the desolate

nature of its setting, high sea temperatures, pirate infested waters, and complete desert

surrounding.(Ilbert, Port Cities) This area was the most important interlocker for

European and Asian merchants to reach the ends of the Indian Ocean and out towards

the Western Shores of Portugal. When the Ottoman Empire established an order within

the Red Sea in the mid 16th century it broke Portugals connections between the Indian

Ocean, eventually leading to the Dutch’s East Indian company to fulfill an open gap just

years later. The Ottoman influence over the Red Sea rendered its coastal regions

“subject to a single authority” for the first time in its history.(Ilbert, Port Cities) Trade

under the Ottoman rule flourished through a “restructuring of the old networks” that

revived the spice trade and promoting merchant interests.(Ilbert, Port Cities) Although

this reign was short lived as it eventually fell under power by Gujarati Influence, it can

provide an impression for the vitality of this concentrated ocean, and of the sheer

significance it was for empires abroad and near. No matter the size and power of an

empire those with the geographical means to seize would do so if it meant bringing

financial opportunity to themselves. Such was the case of Spanish influence in the

Americas which sparked the silver trade.

The discovery of the Americas was of much interest to Europe, but it was terribly

difficult to build trade settlements as it was in the opposite direction of the world trading

centers. Spain exported 80% of the worlds silver from their direct conquests in Peru and

Mexico which funded their rise to a political and military power. The Spanish Trade was

a system tightly controlled by the Spanish crown. The inland port of Seville was the

center of Spanish trade and exemplified the level of administrative trade structure that

was enforced under the crown. The passage through the Guadalquivir River leading to

Seville was an extremely hazardous route vulnerable to flooding and dangerous

sandbars for large ship vessels to cross. Its absence of legitimate shipyards and

improvisational docks along the river left the largest of merchant ships to “rarely sail the

length of the river; and remain halfway up.” as there was no reason to damage a vesselwithout proper docking vessels surrounding the city.(Pérez-Mallaína, Land Environment)

The determination of the state to foster commerce through this choice of port did prove

advantageous in repelling any enemy forces “tempted by the gleaming precious metals”

sourced from Spanish conquests.(Pérez-Mallaína, Land Environment) Seville became a

commercial center most notable for the hiring of mariners to crew ships on the stop

before setting out to sea. The difficulties of reaching Seville weren’t the main factor that

contributed it from being the largest free market of trade. The Antwerp mart’s proximity

to the ocean attracted a prosperous trade market due to its freedom from Catholic and

Protestant persecution. Spain would be shaped into a royal protector of the Roman

Catholic Church on the eve of the Protestant Reformation and would come to conclude

an end to the Antwerp market in the sacking of the city to terminate the elements of

Protestantism that were present.

The success of the Antwerp mart and its gradual development into an entrepôt

was in part possible to its free nature of autonomous religious devotion. The Protestant

Reformation was gradually splitting kingdoms in two within Europe. Antwerp was

geographically positioned in an area for merchants from great kingdoms to engage in

local trade and participate in an assemblage of collective resources from across the

world. The efficiency of the Antwerp market was in part due to the precise attention to

detail for which the Dutch merchants took in organizing trade distribution without error.

Tudor England took a great involvement in this trade network being in close proximity

just across the north sea, and beyond the dangerous borders of the Spanish. The

London Merchant Adventurers monopolized high qualities of English wool to be dyed

and distributed in Antwerp, creating a significant presence of English living and working

in Antwerp. They became so involved with Antwerp that by the 1560’s “a body of

permanent or semi permanent English were residents at Antwerp.” in choice to live or

on behalf of London merchants.(Ramsay, Antwerp) While Spain and Portugal brought

great exports of sugar into the market it was the Italian merchants who contributed “The

essential inspiration of the international entrepôt” with more than ten city states involved

in the market.(Ramsay, Antwerp) Dutch painters took great inspiration from Italian art,

and for a time Genoa took over Antwerps banking. The Italian’s reliability by this time in

history was so dependable, that it was “possible to predict the delivery of goods fromAntwerp to Milan, Verona or Ancona to within a day or two” through the safe

“transcontinental route across Germany and the Alps”(Ramsay, Antwerp). The reliability

of this market for Europe was vastly successful until it would experience a zone of

religious turmoil that would end the days of its prosperity. The Spanish Netherlands

became sight of vicious bloodbath from the Catholic Spanish soldiers against the

citizens of Antwerp. The sacking of the city in 1576 put an end to the ‘free market’ that

merchants once traded freely within, while paving the way for Amsterdam to take up its

mantle.

Antwerp closes out this partial history of trade by collaging the aforementioned

characteristics of long distance trade. In a way, Antwerp is a light combination from

these earlier forms of world trade like adopting systems of banking, forging alternative

trade routes, selling intercontinental resources within a designated city, and becoming a

hotbed for territorial suppression and control. The collapse of Antwerp under the

Spanish in 1576, and the Portuguese legitimization of concurring the Indian Ocean in

the name of the papacy were both reaches of political power enforcing themselves

through the means of Catholicism. The Romans, being the adaptors they were, took the

Phoenician networks of commerce while centering their economy on conquest and

importing resources from abroad far from their domain. While their empire gradually

faded away, the trade networks linked from China would be picked up by the Venetians,

who’d innovate the forms of banking with Roman roots. These system of exchanges

have noticeable traits picked upon one another with financial and opportunistic elements

linking one to the other. The adaptability from merchants to pirates impacted the means

of accessibility for systems of trade and the collective governing of its routes. Kingdoms

and empires come and go, but the cultural foundations and transmission of knowledge

that trade brought could never vanish.