Seems like for thousands of years everyone was desperate to obtain them, from Alexander to the British Empire. But today we don’t think much of the East as a source of wealth. So what happened? Did we plunder them all? Or did those kinds of “riches” become less important in the world economy?
Up until the 1700s eastern goods were superior to western goods, Europe was relatively poor, and the vast majority of silver and gold brought over by the Spanish treasure galleons ended up in India and China in exchange for eastern goods. Then along came the industrial revolution. European militaries conquered most of the rest of the world, and european manufacturing turned raw materials into abundant inexpensive finished goods.
Many of the “riches” were things that were difficult or impossible to obtain in the West except through lengthy and dangerous (and hence expensive) trade routes that passed through many different political powers, each levying their taxes. Spices, silk, china plates, and those statues with the three, four or more monkeys covering their body parts.
The world economy has certainly changed from Alexander’s day. Can you imagine paying soldiers in salt, or giving somebody frankincense or myrrh after the first guy shows up with a chest of gold? A tin of Danish Butter Cookies would probably go over better.
Eh? Clearly you haven’t been reading the balance of trade reports. However, the trade goods have changed. Instead of spices and silks, we now get semiconductors and sneakers.
I’ll need three ships and fifty stout men. We’ll sail 'round the Horn and return with Nikes and cell phones, the likes of which ye have never seen!
Trying to answer my own question, I found the article Spice Trade in the Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Here’s a quote:
WTF??? He loses four out of five ships but returns triumphantly with a ship full of… cloves?
Musta been a different world back then…
People just don’t get so excited over cinnamon anymore.
Actually, Magellan himself DIDN’T return. He was killed by native tribesmen in the Philippines months before his last ship made it back to Spain.
And cars.
The first European expedition to reach India was that of Vasco de Gama in 1498, which limped into the port of Calicut with only two ships out of an original fleet of four that had set out from Portugal. To quote Stanley Wolpert:
…Admiral de Gama ordered his men to pay whatever they were asked for whatever they were asked for anything the natives had to sell - even ginger loaded with red clay and cinnamon of the poorest quality. Despite the fact that the Portuguese were thus “tricked” into paying almost twice the price charged to more experienced merchant visitors like the Arabs for the cargo loaded at Calicut, Vasco returned home to sell his spices for SIXTY times the total cost of his entire two-year expedition.
Emphasis added. Distances were huge and luxury commodities from the east were difficult to acquire and accordingly priced in Europe.
- Tamerlane
Yep. From what I have read, for most of human history the region which is now China has held the worlds wealthiest and most advanced societies, followed by Inida. Europe has been mostly filled with barbarians and North America was pretty much empty. During the middle ages the Governor of a large province in China probably controlled more cash than all the kings in Europe combined. Even during the period of Chinese decline in the 18th/19th centuries the empire posessed unimagineable amounts of money by European standards. The situation in India was similar, although it obviously was a little more fragmente and less developed.
Rapid economic development in the west combined with decline/stagnation in the east switched the positions around over the last couple of centuries.
As others have said, spices were worth a lot more at the time, due to their paucity. The fact the ships also made it entirely around the world was quite a feet, and that somebody actually returned from such a trip was quite impressive. As others have mentioned, De Gama lost two ships out of four and Columbus lost one out of three. Niether went nearly as far, and magellan did this a mere thirty years after Columbus made his first voyage. Not to mention these voyages were all into previously unknown territory.
Actually, he was eaten.
Magellan Adobo
Ingredients:
6 Magellan loin chops or leg chops, about 1 kg (2 lbs)
8-10 cloves garlic
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
1-1/2 tsp salt
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
lard or oil for frying
Preparation:
Cut skin from Magellan and discard.
If chops are large, cut into serving pieces.
Put Magellan and all other ingredients except oil or lard into a heavy saucepan, and marinade for one hour.
Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 40 mins. or until Magellan is tender.
Revome Magellan from pan.
Boil liquid over high heat until reduced and thickened.
Strain into small bowl and spoon fat from top into frying pan.
Add lard or oil so that base of pan is covered with 5 mm fat and fry the Magellan pieces until evenly brown and crisp all over.
Serve very hot accompanied by white rice.
Can I substitute Hufu instead?
Isolated societies will tend to produce some goods efficiently, others less so, relative to other societies. Technology will tend to magnify these effects.
Spices were scarce and therefore valuable in the West. Similarly European-quality linens were scarce and therefore valuable in the Far East. (Concept: absolute advantage).
The gains from trading were thus substantial. China’s relative technological prowess was not strictly necessary for these potential benefits to exist.
That would be overstating things by far. China was certainly rich, but not particularly more so than other places in the world. It probably had the title of world’s most advanced society once or twice, but then, so did Rome.
I wouldn’t bet on that, actually. The kings of Europe produced grotesque quantities of cash at times, even in the midst of the “Dark Ages.”
Actually, they had more money then than earlier. China’s government policies had led to increasing money use among the middle and lower classes (much like what had happened in Europe 200 years before). The government was actually starved for cash and was slowly going bankrupt.
“Developed” and “Advanced” are very vague terms. The Chinese, for example, never produced something quite like the Taj Mahal or public works as good as the Roman aqueducts or roads. China tended to do things very big, like the Grand Canal or the Great Wall. It’s not to say they didn’t produce some nice buildings or public works, but it just wasn’t as good. It’s basically even all the way around.
In short, every culture had its great moments.
Well, it depends how you define rich. Certainly from at least the Sung ( who underwent a real technological/economic explosion ) and probably the T’ang ( who underwent an earlier major expansion in agricultural productivity ), China far outpulled other areas ( let alone individual states ) in terms of overall production.
For example China was the ultimate silver sink in the 14th-18th centuries ( gold varied, sometimes it was re-exported ) and China had a balance of trade surplus with everybody. A simple result of it being much larger than most other states in terms of productive populace in the pre-industrial period, plus a near-monopoly on a few high-quality goods and self-sufficiency in most everything else. About the only time Europe’s combined population came near China’s after 1200 was during the chaotic ( in China ) mid-17th century and even then it was 10% smaller.
As late as 1800 China had a higher GNP and probably ( it’s argued ) a higher average standard of personal consumption than European nations like France or England and with many times their population. Indeed one thing China was most defintely not self-sufficient in was sugar, but per capita consumption was probably higher in 18th century China than in the European nations that produced it with slave labor. Of course all that had changed by 1850.
Now of course you could point to roughly similar average incomes in China and western Europe, in, say, 1400 ( per capita production between the two was in fact similar at that point ) and say it was not really wealthier, but given its vastly larger productive capacity, as a unit China had a far more massive economy.
So again, depends what you mean by rich.
I also think you might be selling short pre-modern Chinese infrastructure. The differing nature of the landscape made canals ( a vast system of which the Grand Canal was only a hub ) more important than aqueducts for water or roads for transport.
Not to undersell the Romans of course. Your point that other societies ( and Rome was certainly among them ) could be taken as comparable in terms of overall sophistication is well-taken.
- Tamerlane
It appears I have been comprehensively misinformed. My understanding was that early european traders attempting to sell cloths in the Indian ocean trading area were greeted with derisory laughter due to the poor quality of their product relative to Indian/Chinese manufactures, and until quite late in the industrial revolution had to rely on cannon to build brand advantage.
history of Bristol
Generally, if producers feel the need to lobby for protectionist legislation, it seems reasonable to assume their advantage is not absolute. I am also making the (perhaps unfounded) assumption that China was capable of matching Indian cloth production in terms of quality and price.
Tamerlane, Smiling Bandit
I’d appreciate your insights into the relative status of East and West through history. A skim of the wiki page on the Ming dynasty, while not authorative, supports my impression that China was a highly centralised and functional state capable of deploying enormous resources to anything the emperor regarded as a priority, whether that was construction, paying off barbarians or supressing rebellions. How do the European kingdoms compare in relative terms, and what was the standard of living for a European Vs Chinese subject at the time? I have never been able to get the timelines straight in my head for these periods because the Chinese dating systems confuse me and European polities seem evanescent compared to the Chinese states/empires.
Similarly, the Roman empire has always seemed to me to be a much more fragile entity than its chinese equivalent because it relied to large extent on the low level of development in its subject territories and more primitive tribute/conquest systems of revenue generation rather than taxation. Is this just due to me getting my time periods mixed up again or was Rome equal to China in terms of fiscal administration?
We just can’t imagine how valuable a shipload of a much-wanted and locally unavailable product was in those days.
Here’s a quote from John Steele’s Gordon’s The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street as a Wold Power 1653-2000 that gives it some perspective:
One successful shipload more than doubles your money. Then think of all the shiploads after that. I doubt if cloves were any different. Sure, you might lose most of your ships, but if just one made it back you were rich.
Not all that different from starting an Internet company, if you think about it…