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THE Spice trade


A Study on the spice trade. Sorry References on another disk. These are just some of the notes.

In the 1400's, Columbus had written:

Gold constitutes treasures, and he who possesses it has all he needs in this world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise.

I propose to explore the theory that although Columbus was looking for new trade routes to the West Indies, he, like the men of the East India company, had an underlying spirit of humility, through Christianizing and improving the lives of people in every nation through trade and colonialization. In stating this, I hope to compare and contrast the treatment of the people of India under the Muslim, Portugese-Spanish, and British East India company concerning the various religious attitudes conveyed by these dominant companies, and their various humanitarian, or brutal, treatment of Indias people. Through the use of my first primary text, The Rise and Fall of the East India Company, by Ramkrishna Mukherjee, I hope to show that the pepper trade caused gradual improvements in humanitarian, education, economic, and government of the Indian people through the removal of barbaric practices such as the burning of women, and sacrificing of children at Saugor Island. While researching!

the subject of the pepper trade, I discovered the moral progress of India was directly linked, in Europes eyes, to India's material progress. A new creed evolved through the preaching of men such as Calvin and Bucer. Both Calvin and Bucer were taunted with being the first theologians to defend extortion. This was intriguing to me since I often heard it said that most of the world today is controlled economically by a few rich and powerful men. The idea of moral and material progress, still has validity in todays world economy, so when I came across the proverb, usury was the brat of heresy, I could not help but think of a question, in the Biblical context, asked to Jesus about taxes and Caesar.


These questions brought me to the root of my paper concerning moral and material progress of the pepper trade. How, while progressing economically, do you keep a moral balance between different races and countries, and still make a profit. There is a movie called Anna and the King, which in one scene depicts a woman saving the Kings family by some quick thinking. She blows the British horn, a symbol often used when the British armies were to charge their

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