Monopolies spice trade

From about 1815, fast vessels gave Salem, Massachusetts a virtual monopoly of the pepper trade with Sumatra. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the spice trade began to play a secondary role ia economic and pohtical influence. The demand for spices ia the United States directed the shift of the occidental spice center to New York while the oriental center was at Siagapore. 

Figure 2.5. When the Dutch gained a near monopoly on the spice trade into northern Europe, the resulting wealth made Amsterdam one of the richest cities in the world, with a consequential blossoming of the arts, education, medicine and science.

India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and northern Africa centuries before it was used by ancient Greeks and Romans. In ancient times, it was used as a spice, preservative, and medicine. Pepper was such a valuable commodity that it was often used as a medium of exchange and as a form of money. Centers of commerce such as Alexandria, Constantinople (Istanbul), Calicut, and Venice arose from the trade of pepper. Arab monopolies for pepper (and other spices) kept prices high, making pepper a spice for the wealthy. To break the Arab monopolies, European powers explored for direct trade routes to India. Portugal built on Vasco da Gama s (1469-1524) trade route completed in 1488 to India to establish its own pepper monopoly in the 16th century. This in turn prompted Spain to search for western routes to India. 

Small cardamom, known as the queen of spices , which belongs to the family of Zingiberaceae, is a rich spice obtained from the seeds of a perennial plant, Elettaria car-damomum Maton. It is one of the highly prized spices of the world and is the third most expensive spice after saffron and vanilla. Cardamom is one of those spices that cross the sweet/savoury boundary between desserts and main dishes. The original home of this precious spice is the mountains of the south-western parts of the Indian Peninsula. As early as the 4th century bc, cardamom was used in India as a medicinal herb and was an article of Greek and Roman trade. India had a virtual monopoly of cardamom until recently. Cardamom cultivation in India is confined to three states Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (Korikanthimath et al., 2002) However, now it is cultivated in Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Nepal, Vietnam, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico and Tanzania (Mehra, 2001). 

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